That’s amore: Pizza Expo showcases bakers, pie tossers, dough stretchers

You can’t say that organizers of the 31st annual International Pizza Expo didn’t dive right into an employment issue confronting employers the world over.

How do old-school pizzeria owners deal with the millennial workforce — and do they even want to?

More than 10,000 pizza makers, ingredient providers, pizzeria workers and their fans gathered at the Las Vegas Convention Center on Tuesday for the opening of one of the tastiest trade shows on the city’s convention calendar.

Pizza Expo attendees are spending three days perusing sauce recipes, high-tech point-of-sale systems and a food bazaar of pizza toppings.

They’re washing it all down with a series of competitions to find the fastest pizza box assemblers, bakers, pie tossers and dough stretchers in what has grown to be a bid for international bragging rights.

The expo is also a learning experience. Dozens of seminars, panel discussions and guest speakers are addressing employee training techniques, digital marketing strategies and the future of the pizza industry.

Pizza is one of those rare industries led by independent store operators. Industry researchers expect 2015 sales to increase by 4 percent from 2014’s $37.4 billion. Last year, independents held 40.3 percent of the market share ahead of chains such as Pizza Hut (15.3 percent), Domino’s (9.4 percent), Papa John’s (6.5 percent) and Little Caesars (4.5 percent).

Right out of the blocks, expo attendees took up the deep-dish discussion about millennial workers with a millennial keynoter — best-selling author Jason Dorsey, who is also chief strategy officer at the Center for Generational Kinetics.

Most pizza business owners are baby boomers who face the challenge of hiring Generation Y employees, also known as millennials.

Dorsey said millennials are the largest portion of the workforce. But with $1.3 trillion in buying power, they’re also the greatest consumers, outspending even their baby boomer bosses because of the size of the group.

Dorsey recommended a strategy of working with and learning from millennials instead of criticizing their lack of work ethic.

He said many millennials lack skills because they’re entering the workforce at an older age than most boomers did.

Because millennials eagerly use technology to communicate with friends and for entertainment, it’s often misconstrued that they are tech-savvy, Dorsey said.

“In reality, they’re tech-dependent, Dorsey said. “There’s a difference. For them, they don’t know how it works, they just know that they can’t live without it.”

He said millennials’ predecessors, Generation X, are tech-savvy because they were around “when hardware and software came together.”

Dorsey suggested that boomer bosses use technology to explain employment aspects that may seem foreign to millennials.

“Tell your story with an iPhone video,” he said. “When you explain what ‘business casual’ dress is, take a picture or make a video of what someone in business casual dress looks like. Provide specific examples of what you expect, then compare it to someone wearing khakis and flip-flops. They’ll get the message visually.”

Dorsey said that to many baby boomers, being on time means arriving at the workplace 10 minutes before starting time.

“If being on time means to be there 10 minutes early, explain that to them,” he said. “And if they don’t do it, fire them.”

Dorsey also suggested embracing social media — but not to market the store.

“Sign up for Twitter and engage yourself in the community,” he said. “But you don’t have to talk about your place. Participate in the general discussion about issues.”

Contact reporter Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.