21 Mar Career Coach: Keon Hall of Alaska Dinner Factory

For this manager, it’s all about setting employees up for success

Keon Hall, general manager at the Alaska Dinner Factory, is no pushover—but he will look the other way if an employee is a little late to work.

“You get a ten-minute grace period. Twenty minutes, that’s when I’m like, ‘All right, what’s going on?’ Plenty of places, coming in 20 minutes late—that’s it,” Keon observed. “You get beaten down by that.”

Keon recognizes that for a lot of his employees, just getting to work on time is a big undertaking. He sees himself not just as a boss, but as a counselor and a coach. “I play a lot of roles—whatever that needs to look like to make sure that we get the production we need from our team.”

A Win-Win

As someone who values both quality work and genuine employee development, Keon is the ideal manager to work with CITC’s Youth Employment Program (YEP). The Alaska Dinner Factory has partnered with YEP for about five years, working with young people aged 14 – 24 who are often gaining their first on-the-job experience.

YEP is a mutually beneficial program for employer and employee: While youth receive valuable work experience and a salary, YEP employers get an employee who has been intentionally placed with them and whose salary is reimbursed by CITC. It’s a win-win opportunity that aims to boost Anchorage’s workforce while equipping young people with good work habits.

Planning for What’s Next

Another benefit of YEP? Sometimes what starts as a temporary work experience turns into a long-term career.

Each year, the Alaska Dinner Factory takes between six and nine youth interns from YEP. Based on each youth’s interest, Keon involves interns in the daily, hands-on operations of producing grab-and-go dinners, meals that are delivered to customers’ doorsteps, and single-serving meals for Anchorage’s senior and vulnerable populations.

While Keon sees the internship as a transitional opportunity for most young people, when he finds someone who fits, he’s always ready to have a conversation about “what’s next.”

“If they’re really good and they seem to enjoy [the work], as the internship is coming to an end, we’ll have that conversation. What’s next? Where are you going? Are you doing another internship cohort?” he said. “If their goals align with our goals, we try to make it happen and have them stay on.”

Four years ago, he had the conversation with Austin Lind. Just 18 at the time, Austin soon become a kitchen lead after his YEP internship. Today, he leads a $1.5 million division of the Dinner Factory—all thanks to the growth Keon helped foster and Austin’s own willingness to learn on the job. (You can read more of Austin’s story here.)

New Partnerships, New Possibilities

This year, the Dinner Factory embarked on a new partnership with CITC’s Supported Work Experience (SWE). While YEP opens the door to early work experience for young people, SWE provides active job-seekers workers with additional skills through placing them in subsidized roles that eventually transition to long-term careers. Like YEP, SWE reimburses employees’ salaries while they’re with the program.

Crim Alexie is the Dinner Factory’s first SWE employee. Just two weeks on the job at the time of this interview, Crim already had an eye on his future with the factory. (Read more about his plans here.)

One advantage SWE provides managers is that while employees come to them looking for new skills, they often have a wealth of experience already on their resumes.

“Crim came to us already having real world experience,” Keon said. “With the youth, it’s their first job, so you’re really guiding and supporting them. With Crim, it’s less of a support. He comes in and he’s able to just complete tasks; he’s blended right in with the team.”

Humans in the Workplace

Growing up, Keon benefitted from “great chef mentors.”

“This is an opportunity for me to be that mentor for others,” he said of YEP and SWE.

For him, it’s not just about training people to become good workers. It’s about treating them like people, understanding where they’re coming from, and empowering them to find balance in their lives.

“For the youth workers—you’re a student first,” he explained. “In the workplace, they have a fit and a function, but that comes secondary to who they’re trying to become as adults. So we try to keep that in perspective.”

With adults like Crim, he added, “We try to understand what their goals are and work with that. You get a better employee when you do that because they’re happier, like, Hey, these folks actually support my growth as a human as opposed to they just want me to clock in and don’t care about what I need.”

As he talks, a young employee enters the office. Keon points out that she used to consistently get to work late—but then he worked with her to understand her needs and moved her schedule to a later shift. Now she comes to work on time. The change wasn’t a burden on him as an employer, and it’s helped to provide the young woman with what she needs: a chance to grow and learn what it means to be an employee.

“It’s their journey,” Keon said of his employees from CITC programs. “I’m just part of that—the little hand that they may need that nobody else is giving them.”

The CITC Youth Employment Program’s Summer Internship is now open for applications! Learn about the internship, then apply before April 4: Visit myCITC.com and search for “youth paid internships.” Questions about YEP: Email youthemployment@citci.org.

The Supported Work Experience is offered year-round through CITC’s Career Development department. Connect with Career Development today to start the journey to your next job: cd@citci.org or (907) 793-3467.