#MoneyImHome focuses on finance to fitness. During “Stay Home, Stay Safe,” we will speak with leaders and community voices to help us all reduce stress. Today, CEO of Anna’s House, Josh Beckett, joins us. He is focusing on employee safety and wellness during this unique time. Josh shares their day to day decisions for Anna’s House, encouraging us all to step up and lead and the importance of communication for all.

[transcript]

00:07 Lynne Jarman-Johnson: Money, I’m Home. From finance to fitness. I’m Lynne Jarman-Johnson. Thanks so much for being with us today. I’ll tell you what, what a week it has been here in Michigan, across the country with COVID-19. The Governor just announced, “Stay home, Stay Safe,” and that’s what we’re all trying to do. Joining us today is CEO Josh Beckett. Josh is with the Anna’s House, one of our fabulous business partners. Josh, I’ll tell you, you must really be shaking your head. Whoever thought that we’d be talking about this type of pandemic today?

00:39 Josh Beckett: It’s just a crazy. About 10 days ago, we were looking at having the best year ever, and now we’re trying to figure out where to go from here. It’s just absolutely incredible what’s happened in the last 10 days or two weeks.

00:56 LJJ: So, as you pivot into this “new normal,” I’m speaking to you today on the day that Governor Whitmer actually did say, “Hey, stay home, stay safe.” What does that mean for Anna’s House?

01:08 JB: Well, last Monday when the governor ordered the inside dining rooms to be closed, me and my corporate team, we thought that through, and based off the COVID-19, the coronavirus, we actually decided, we shut everything down last week. We just didn’t feel it was safe for our staff and really worth it.

01:31 LJJ: When you do that, how does that impact you as a small business? You just mentioned, “Wow, we had the best year going.” And then, you look at all of the people that you employ. It has to be sleepless nights.

01:45 JB: Well, it is stressful, I’m not going to pretend it’s not. And, we have about 360 people that work at Anna’s House. They’re great people, people that I love, people that I’m committed to. Originally, we were going only be closed … The governor’s order was March 31st, so we got together, and I really wanted to commit to the team, and I didn’t want to lay anybody off. And as of this point, we have not laid anybody off, and I don’t have any plans to lay anybody off yet. We’re trying to survive this. We as a company, we committed to paying everybody another two weeks of pay to keep everybody on board, keep everybody on the team. We have a lot of single parents, we have a lot of people that need the help, so we decided to do that as a company. Right now, we’re looking at now with the date extended to April 13th, we’re going to have a couple of meetings this week and try to figure out what’s moving forward. Hopefully, with some of these government plans, we can keep everybody hired. That’s the goal right now. The goal is to not lay anybody off. I really personally want to be able to do that for our team through this period of time, if we financially can do it.

03:06 LJJ: When you took the notice back just a week and a half or two weeks ago and said, “Look, our decision is to shut down for the safety of our employees and the people that we know are loyal customers of ours every single day,” that really was a forward thinking move on your part.

03:30 JB: Well, I kind of saw that. I didn’t think it would be wise for our team to be exposed. The last thing we would want any of our team members to get sick or a customer to get sick, so we immediately decided that. We did do a couple of days of cleaning in there, but we decided to send everybody home and safety first and live to take care of guests another day.

03:56 LJJ: So, right now as you look toward the future and you’ve just stated, “Look at, we are going to really try to get through this and not lay anyone off.” What’s been then the biggest source of quality communication for you and your over 300 staff?

04:12 JB: Well, we’ve been communicating regularly every day. We have an internal company Facebook that I post updates, let everybody know what’s going on. There’s so much fear, so much tension, there’s so much anxiety, so many people not knowing what to do. And as a company, and as a leader of a company, I think this is the time where leaders of companies, and I would ask all leaders of companies and industry, this is the time where we need to step up and be true patriots and take care of our companies, take care of our people as much as we possibly can. I know a lot of companies can’t, but I really believe this is the time where our team members have done so much for us over these past 17 years in business, everything that they’ve done for us, this is the time where true leadership from your organization can really step up.

05:06 JB: I know it’s going be a financial hit. It is for us. It’s been a huge financial hit, and we hope we can continue this for a couple of weeks. But, if I can communicate anything to the team, is I’m here for them, we’re here for them as Anna’s House, and I want to try to do my best to get everybody through this as best I can. And, I think if we can all do that in any area that we can as companies, we can all play a vital role in keeping people’s anxiety, keeping people’s fears and really just helping out so many people.

05:41 JB: And, a lot of our team members are people that don’t have means to go three or four days without a check or without money because they get paid every day. So, that’s another thing we did is, we offered to everyone of our employees, whoever needed an immediate cash assistance today, that they could email us and we would get them up to $250 this week to buy groceries, to buy medicine, whatever it would be. But, this is the time where companies can step up and take care of their awesome people. And, I feel that’s what we need to do, and that’s what we’re doing at Anna’s House.

06:21 LJJ: So Josh, one of the things that I hear are you underscoring, I don’t think that could be underscored enough, clear, concise and consistent communication. Making sure that people know where to go and how to get that information if they have questions.

06:36 JB: Absolutely. Chris, our director in operations, she has all the detail information with unemployment, if that would happen. But yes, communication. We’re probably doing two communications a day, ’cause everybody’s sitting at home with nothing to do, and we keep updating them with positive things and even for some fun, Bill Hogan at our East Beltline store, he posted a 30-minute fun inspiring video, every single day on our inter-company Facebook, and it really lifts your spirit, and just brings a little humor to the situation, and he just says a few words of encouragement, which he’s just awesome at doing. So, communication and what you can do to keep your family safe, keep your family healthy, but also communication on keeping ourselves on a pot outlook. And, I think that’s another thing that we have to do as we get through this crazy crisis time is to keep the communication that things are going be okay, and we’re going get back to normal eventually. And that’s been my big message I’ve really wanted to get to our people. Things will get back to normal, we’re going survive this, and we’ll get through this and we’re communicating that daily. I think that’s definitely been a benefit to the team.

07:56 LJJ: That communication, I think also works externally. Anna’s House is known for healthy foods, healthy alternatives. And, are you planning on sharing any of the awesome recipes that you guys have while we’re all stranded?

08:14 JB: Well, we can’t share too much ’cause we want everybody come join us at the restaurants.

08:20 LJJ: I love it.

08:23 JB: Food-related, we are sharing our food. We send all of our team members home with probably 100,000 or more worth of food on Tuesday. A lot of the food you can save, maybe a lot of people would try to save …  But, number one, we’re fresh, we don’t sell frozen food and yes, we do have toilet paper in the storehouse, so whatever that’s worth.

[laughter]

08:53 LJJ: Well, we keep telling people to quit buying so much at once, that it’ll all even out in the long run. We’re here anyway.

09:02 JB: I know.

09:04 LJJ: Oh, great. Well Josh, I’ll tell you what, what you are doing, thank you so much for our communities, thank you for what you’re doing for your team members, but also for the community at large in your leadership. It truly is a time for us to be positive and be a leader. And, you are definitely stepping up.

09:22 JB: Well, I thank you, and I want to just thank my amazing team,’cause they have been so incredible through this thing and everybody staying so positive. I look back at so many things in my life and my career, and we look back at some of the worst things that ever happened or some of the hardest periods of time, and every single time that happened in life, my career, when you look back at six months, a year later, and say what transpired in that period of time is what built us and some of those times, I would never exchange ever for anything. And I think we’re going to all of look back this period of time, to say the same thing. We came together as a nation, we’re coming together as a community, we’re coming together as a team, we’re taking care of people, and we’re all going to see that after we get through this.

10:13 LJJ: I’ll tell you what, we’re learning new technologies every day, and I appreciate you jumping on this as a WebEx versus in-person which we were hoping to do in person because we are staying home and staying safe. Josh, thank you so much for being with us.

10:27 JB: Thanks for everything at the credit union too, you guys are awesome.

10:30 LJJ: Thank you Josh, and thank you for listening in. This is Money, I’m Home from finance to fitness, and we’re all in this together. We’re learning, and we are here for you, so make sure you log on to consumercu.org. We have constant updates online to help you bank mobile if you need to, and also just give you updates on COVID-19. Thanks again for joining us, and thank you for the production of Jake and Aaron, we sure appreciate it. We’ll talk to you next week.

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