Meet the Supplier | Harri | Keegan Conrey

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ABOUT HARRI

Harri is an employee experience platform created by hospitality professionals for hospitality professionals. Harri now serves over 55,000 restaurant and hotel locations with an innovative, person-first approach, focusing on employee engagement, compliance, scheduling and coaching.

  • About Harri
  • Why Harri, Why Now?
  • What Sets Harri Apart?
  • Why You?
  • Why Clients Love the Brand
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Harri is an employee experience platform created by hospitality professionals for hospitality professionals. After 20-plus years of firsthand quick-service restaurant experience, Luke Fryer, Harri’s founder and CEO, knew the challenges of hiring and retaining staff all too well. He knew that the solutions available to him weren’t made for the hospitality world, so he made something that was.

“An entire industry has been built on taking a hiring and retention model designed for a desk worker and trying to retrofit it to support the frontline workforce and say, ‘That works,’” said Jennifer Ravalli, chief marketing officer at Harri. “That’s the antithesis of what Harri is. Harri is a product built specifically for the needs of frontline hospitality and restaurant teams. The hiring process is streamlined, managers don’t have to worry about compliance or the prospect of making a mistake that could have deep impacts on the margin of the business, and business outcomes are improved.”

Staying laser-focused on the hospitality-specific solution, Harri has built an incredible resource that helps some of the world’s biggest hospitality brands strengthen the experience of their frontline teams, creating more engaged, satisfied staff that deliver an even better end-user experience. 

Harri now serves over 55,000 restaurant and hotel locations with an innovative, person-first approach, focusing on employee engagement, compliance, scheduling and coaching.

Restaurant operators are struggling to recruit and retain top talent. According to Toast, a restaurant-focused point-of-sale platform, the industry’s turnover rate is still over 70%, which is much higher than the standard turnover rate in private sectors. About one-third of team members are “at risk of leaving the industry in the next two years,” and their chief complaints are poor management, low pay, lack of recognition and incompatible schedules.

Still, the industry is growing, having added hundreds of thousands of jobs in recent years with little signs of slowing down. So, now more than ever, restaurant operators need resources that help them fill those roles with talent that aligns with their goals and will stay on board for the long term. 

By offering solutions to the primary concerns of restaurant employees, Harri helps operators identify and recruit team members while executing scheduling, communications and employee engagement tasks that keep these team members satisfied.

Harri is far more than just a recruiting tool; it is a full-circle human capital management resource. While Harri started as “the Match.com for restaurants and talent,” it has successfully evolved into a holistic solution that helps restaurant operators deliver a better customer experience by strengthening the employee experience.

As the restaurant industry continues to evolve, Harri continues to grow alongside it, leveraging smart use of artificial intelligence and local customizations to support operators in line with their unique needs and market demands. 

You are an operator or franchisor dedicated to scaling successfully while maintaining a positive workplace culture and great customer experience, and you’re ready for a solution that is truly made to work with and for you. Harri will allow you to recruit the top talent you need and maintain a strong, reliable relationship with team members — regardless of the instability of the hospitality labor market.

Harri has helped global brands create schedules more efficiently, confidently follow local legislation and identify employees who may need more support during the onboarding process. Saving operators hours of work and thousands of dollars, Harri is supporting the efficient operation of some of the biggest restaurant names in the industry.

“Harri Engage is helping us spot opportunities to ensure new starters feel adequately trained in their first few weeks and months with us, giving managers the insight they need to know when to intervene and help drive employees towards success in those critical first 90 days,” Cafua Management Company, the largest Dunkin’ franchisee in the U.S., said.

“With very few exceptions … do we use third-party software,” Scott Scherer, chief information officer of Jersey Mike’s franchise system, said in a case study. “We stay away from developing our own labor management tools just because of the legal ramifications and the complexity of each state’s regulations. We’re in 50 states now which means 50 different sets of labor laws to keep track of.”

Executive Q&A
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Harri: Executive Q&A, Keegan Conrey, Senior Vice President

1851 Franchise: How do you fall into this industry that we’re in? Give a little bit of background on your story.

Keegan Conrey: I've always had an affinity toward working with service industries. I got into software and continued to work with the service industry and with field service companies on how they go out and optimize their staff. Now this is my second restaurant and technology company that I've been at, and I will not be going anywhere else. I love getting to work with hospitality, especially with franchise operators, more than anything else that I've had the chance to do. 

1851: How quickly did you see the problem that Harri could solve?

Conrey: I could see it before I came here. I was in another company and lots of things kept coming up, especially for franchisees who get into this business because they want a roadmap to success. I saw that Harri was doing something so important, and that’s what drew me to a conversation with our founder and CEO. I knew, before I ever had a conversation with him, that Harri was doing something really special. What I didn’t know was the entire approach it takes from when you first attract someone, hire them, onboarding, expectation-setting and engagement.

1851: In the most simplistic terms, what is Harri?

Conrey: Harri is an employee experience platform, and we help operators build their teams, manage their teams and, ultimately, engage and retain them. What does that all mean? A lot of times, people say “workforce management” and they mean “labor scheduling.” This is everything from communicating with a team to providing a place for employees to review their schedules and communicate with managers. It includes time and attendance and automated check-ins that are done at the time clock in the flow of work for employees.

At the end of the day, we believe that the employee experience should never never exceed the customer experience, and we know that your employees drive everything you’re trying to do. We look at everything through that lens. 

We’re also solving for short-cycle turnover. Why are people leaving? How can you, as a franchise operator, get in front of that and realize that there are some pretty easy things you can do to listen and implement changes that will get people over that 90-day hump?

When you can get people more productive, staying longer and more engaged — now we're talking about the real magic that happens. And this is where your profits go up.

1851: What is the first thing about Harri that connects with a brand? 

Conrey: The top two things are compliance and short cycle turnover. 

Why are all of the McDonald’s restaurants in California choosing Harri? It’s what we’re solving for with automated compliance to reduce the risk and make it as easy as possible to answer a PAGA [Private Attorneys General Act] claim.

Number two is that there is just such a drain on the margins to have people come on board and never get productive. People think it’s just something they have to live with in the industry, but there are competitors with half the turnover. What are they doing differently? That’s where we start the conversation.

1851: How can these support systems impact the business over time?

Conrey: In terms of doing business, you have to be able to solve for compliance and turnover. 

So many times, it’s all about the leadership. This isn’t just about buying software that people are going to use day in and day out. People need to understand which problems you’re trying to help solve for them. As an executive, I love to jump on anything — “We need to do this,” “This is what we need to do.” But the frontline folks need to be included so they feel like they’ve got more stake in the game. They know the big picture. And more satisfied, engaged employees with less turnover can better contribute to that big picture.

The goal is to remove friction for those most important people in your organization. No one wants to sit down and do paper onboarding. No one wants to do paperwork for sending out schedules or making timecard adjustments. As a manager, I don’t want to be a paperwork manager. I want to train people and interact with customers. My job is to drive the customer experience by removing all of this other stuff.

Harri has all the delightful little things that remove that friction. We’re here to figure out what your priorities are and show you how we can help. We’re here to solve some of the biggest business challenges with you.

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