We really embrace the millennial culture. We have a beautiful headquarters here in Marquette. It doesn’t quite look like Google, but the Google of the weed industry, if you will. We have a personal gym here, flexible schedules so that [team members] can come and go, at least for the members that work on the administration team. Flexible benefits—on top of that, dental, health, vision, 401(k) options—those are all things that are important, [as is] the autonomy or the freedom [employees have] to do their work.
SW: I feel that [employees] would say that it is a fun and exciting and a new way of looking at workplace culture versus what we see in a lot of other industries. I believe that a lot of our employees feel empowered to be able to make decisions without the direct micromanagement of the leadership in the organization, but [we’re] making sure that they feel that they have the support that they need to be able to do their jobs appropriately.
LS: I think integrity is one of the biggest traits that we look for. I know that at least for me, when looking at people, there’s three things to look for in a person, and it’s the old saying: energy, intelligence and integrity. And you might as well forget the first two if you don’t have the third.
SW: I guess maybe a small story, a snippet, of what things used to look like when we first started—back in 2020, we operated in an 864-square-foot building. But that store was extremely busy, and Logan and I—during that time we were actually running cash registers, checking out customers. We were doing it all. We were boots on the ground. It was very much so a lead-by-example work environment. It was never us telling people what to do or delegating tasks that were less desirable to do. We were the first [people] to pick up the proverbial shovel and get to work.
LS: I know Stosh and I, personally, even outside of work, have helped employees [in] making vehicle choices, finding their homes, looking for good areas to live in and just ensuring that they have a good quality of life. And we always give at least a second chance in our organization. We put people on performance improvement programs. We always want to give people at least every tool and every opportunity to succeed before it doesn’t work out.
SW: I always say that we don’t give good customer service; we don’t give great customer service; but we go above and beyond for every customer that comes in the store. And our entire customer service policy is built around that. And what we mean by that is we want to make sure that every single person that comes through the door—[there’s an] opportunity that you have to create an experience or make an impact on that person’s day.
[People] can go on vacations and go and experience stuff, but the day-to-day of what people experience—you go to the grocery store, you go to the gas station, you go to the dispensary. We want to make sure that that experience that you have every day is something different and something unique. And that’s why we go above and beyond. And that fits into our culture too. And we really try to make sure that our employees feel that and make sure that they deliver that to the customers, but also to their co-workers.
SW: Everything has changed. Nothing has been constant. I think every SOP, every single operating procedure, everything that we’ve done has been flipped upside down, shaken, three to four times. We've grown on everything. So, it’s really cool to see.
