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Izola (Logo - Default)

IZOLA uses Rippling to teach employees how to make San Diego’s best pastries

According to its co-founder, the San Diego-based croissant and sourdough bakery “hires for values, not resumes.” Rippling allows IZOLA to upskill employees, open supportive feedback loops, and help the business run better.

Izola
IndustryRestaurants
Number of employees50
HeadquartersUnited States

In this story

  1. 01.Pain Points
  2. 02.The Challenge
  3. 03.The Solution
  4. 04.The Impact

Pain Points

  • Inefficient training systems: When the bakery trained employees through oral pop quizzes, pen-and-paper tests, and YouTube videos, it couldn’t check whether trainees absorbed and understood all the new material.

  • Limited HR features: IZOLA managed time-tracking, onboarding, and employee documentation through QuickBooks, but found its features barebones and lackluster. 

  • Cumbersome payroll: IZOLA’s administrators had to manually enter tip amounts into payroll, which risked errors. 

The Challenge

IZOLA slings artisanal, hot-from-the-oven pastries in San Diego, California. What started as an experiment during COVID—where co-founders Jenny Chen and Jeffrey Brown lowered baskets of croissants to customers from a third-story window—topped Yelp rankings of the best bakeries in the US and Canada in 2022. Now, the duo employs 50 people. Since Jenny and Jeffrey welcome team members from all walks of life, high touch training and development is baked into the company’s mission. 

“Some members of our team are overcoming addiction. Two were unhoused and found housing after working with us for a few months,” Jenny said. “We hire for values, not resumes. We can teach people how to make croissants and sourdough and how to be hospitable—so long as they come to the table with compassion, kindness, and hard work.”

But IZOLA’s training efforts got bogged down by clunky processes that made it tricky to teach new skills to employees and check for understanding. Jenny and Jeffrey administered handwritten tests and shared long YouTube playlists of videos, but worried the content wasn’t always digestible for new hires. “They had to sit and watch hours of videos, which is not very fun,” Jenny said. 

What’s more, IZOLA’s HR vendor, QuickBooks, struggled to keep pace with the bakery’s quick growth. The system could only store basic employee information, so Jenny had to use Google Drive to build out more robust personnel files, which got cluttered. She also had to manually enter tipped wages into payroll, which risked errors. And employees couldn’t bid for open shifts with QuickBooks’ time-tracking software, which Jenny found barebones and clunky. 

“We’re scaling every year, and we needed partners that could help us tame the paperwork, ensure a really great onboarding experience for our employees, and manage the entire employee lifecycle more seamlessly,” Jenny said.

The Solution

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IZOLA joined Rippling in October 2023, which it now uses to onboard, train, manage, and pay its growing workforce. “With Rippling, all the different areas of our business are much more integrated,” Jenny said. 

  1. 01
    Better training resources

    With Rippling’s Learning Management System (LMS), IZOLA can create customizable training resources, check for comprehension with tests, and help every employee master the skills they need on the job. 

    For instance, IZOLA launches a new pastry flavor every month. For the most recent installment, fig and fennel sourdough, Jenny and Jeffrey used Rippling’s LMS to design a tutorial that teaches employees the ingredients and story behind the product, complete with a post-lesson test. With Rippling, the management team can quickly see who’s clocked in for the day and whether they’ve passed the test—to ensure employees can speak knowledgeably about the new pastry before interacting with customers.

    “The LMS has been very easy to use. I’m really thankful that Rippling built out something so intuitive,” Jenny said. 

    Jenny and Jeffrey also use LMS quizzes to teach new pastry chefs and front-of-house staff how long croissants take to make (4 days), how many layers of butter they have (96), and where that butter comes from (Normandy, France). They plan to build more courses with Rippling, using a combination of photos, short-form videos, and written text to uplevel staff, communicate updates during all-hands meetings, and teach security protocols. “Rippling helps employees absorb our content,” Jenny said.

  2. 02
    Fewer hassles across the employee lifecycle

    IZOLA temporarily closed last fall to relocate its space. Once it was ready to re-open its doors, Rippling automations helped the bakery quickly onboard 40 employees—including 25 front-of-house team members who all had the same start date. 

    Rippling’s HCM also helped Jenny build out comprehensive personnel files for every employee. Instead of storing some information in QuickBooks and other details in Google Drive, IZOLA can put every sliver of employee data—including tax forms, start dates, meeting notes from feedback sessions, meal break waiver forms, contracts, and conversation records in case of disciplinary proceedings—into Rippling. The bakery also set up Rippling to trigger workflows that ping managers when it’s time to do 30, 60, and 90-day check-ins with employees. And the platform’s custom fields help IZOLA track whether team members received company equipment like headsets and uniforms.

  3. 03
    Breezier payroll

    Rippling Payroll helps IZOLA pay tipped workers faster and more accurately than its past system. “With QuickBooks I had to manually enter in everybody’s tip information, which was ripe for error,” Jenny said. “I was always afraid I was going to mistype something. With Rippling, I love that I can upload a CSV with the tip information.”

    “With Rippling, all the different areas of our business are much more integrated.

    Jenny Chen

    Co-founder at Izola

The Impact

  • Faster onboarding: Rippling keeps pace with IZOLA’s quick growth, helping onboard dozens of new team members in short timeframes—including 25 employees with the same start date.

  • Upskilled employees: Rippling’s LMS lets IZOLA train new hires, check for understanding, and make sure everyone’s prepared for their job.

  • Better documentation: IZOLA can easily store every important piece of employee data into Rippling’s HCM, saving time and making it easier to manage a growing workforce.

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