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Culture shock: Chipotle, Orange Leaf, Chili's execs get real about creating healthy work environments

Think workplace culture doesn't show through to your customers? Think again. In fact, poor feedback about your brand through venues like social media and even restaurant reviews may be signs that your workers are not content and your culture needs a tune-up.

June 6, 2019

The idea that well-treated and trained employees build the best guest experience is not a new one, with businesses as big as Disney and Google building well-known cultures around that very idea. But just because the idea has been around awhile doesn't mean it no longer has merit, according to three restaurant brands' executives, who took part in a panel discussion on workplace culture and the guest experience at this year's National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago.

Kendall Ware, COO of Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt; Nicole DaCosta, learning and development leader at Brinker International; and Chipotle Mexican Grill Director of Field Training Michele Lange spoke candidly about some of their brands' toughest moments on the path toward creating a safe, harassment-free culture at their restaurants, despite problems relating to sexual harassment in some of their stores. NRA product managers, Elizabeth O'Brien and Maggie Fiorentino, moderated the panel.

"Overall awareness (of workplace harassment policies) is the biggest thing for me. It has to be open and talked about ... and leaders have to set that example. That's the No. 1 thing anyone can do as a leader is make sure it's talked about."

-Kendall Ware, Orange Leaf

DaCosta said one of Chili's locations had an incident that became widely publicized involving alleged harassment at one of its stores, while Orange Leaf had something similar though less publicized. In both cases, the brands stressed that the difficult situations ultimately helped leadership grow better workplace cultures.

"For us, it has been an opportunity to make things right and really lean into our training systems and processes ... at all levels of our organization. That was huge opportunity for us," DaCosta said.

Ware said he felt similarly about the negative occurrences that occurred at Orange Leaf in that they informed a much healthier path forward for the QSR.

"We've gone through a lot of changes in the last couple of years," Ware told the audience. "When I first joined the brand ... in the beginning, no one felt they had an open line of communication."

The company has learned to create an environment where everyone feels comfortable and not threatened should they need to come forward about the behavior and actions of anyone else. And that idea — of a restaurant environment that not only makes all employees feel safe to come forward with such problems and even allegations — has created a better company culture.

Leadership at Chili's and Orange Leaf have taken active steps to teach all employees what is and is not okay as far as the words and actions of their co-workers is concerned.

"A lot of the people working for us, it's their first job and they may not even know what harassment really is and what it looks like," Lange said. "So we have to create that kind of open environment where they feel they can come to their managers (with concerns) and where they feel safe in their working environment."

Teaching company culture: Awareness is Job No. 1

Part of creating that kind of safe and open company atmosphere is making sure there is a system in place to promote awareness and discussion of such issues on a daily basis, the panelists said.

"Overall awareness is the biggest thing for me," Ware said, regarding something like the threat and definition of workplace sexual harassment. "It has to be open and talked about ... and leaders have to set that example. That's the No. 1 thing anyone can do as a leader is make sure it's talked about."

And moving even beyond building a safe and harassment-free workplace, restaurant brands — regardless of their size — must be conscious to think about building safe, supportive cultures into every aspect of the organization, these executives said. They stressed that making the companies views and openness on such issues evident must extend beyond employee training into all parts of a restaurant brand's operation.

"So when we had that incident, it wasn't just like a one-item solution," DaCosta told the group. "When you have processes you create, then you also have to have the systems in place to support them. ...

"So yes, create new policies, but that also has to be translated into a variety of different kinds of training that happen across the organization. ... And it really has to be an ongoing conversation that happens in your business."

Lange said that is why soft-skills training is such an important part of the answer to improving workplace culture, particularly in these tech-heavy times. In fact, she said that should even almost "rub off" on the outside parties and people a brand does business with daily, like third-party delivery drivers.

"Especially since most (employees) coming up now really talk through their phones," she said. "So, for instance, how can we train that DoorDash driver to give (delivery customers) the same type experience as when (customers) come into our Chipotle restaurant. ... We need to figure out what we can do to train those people to provide better service, too."

Taking pains to mirror to the community at large

DaCosta said part of providing better service through company culture is making sure any store's workplace culture and team is also reflective of the community it serves. In that way, brands can create familiarity with guests, just based on an almost shared community identity.

"Like I said, a video can go viral in seconds and then, all of a sudden you have years' worth of damage repair in front of you." -Nicole DaCosta

"So how are we reflecting the communities we serve," DaCosta said. "We say we want to have a diverse workforce, but that's not just about hiring everybody that looks the same as the community. ... As a restaurant industry, how good are we at understanding our communities ... and how are we at looking at the people who work for us to reflect and embrace those communities as well?"

The panelists agreed that the process of working hard to reflect the community also heightens workers' awareness of their own unconscious biases, in themselves, among their fellow workers and with customers. Similarly, awareness of workers' individual judgments relative to groups of people raises an overall awareness about the baggage each brings to the restaurant workplace that might affect how workers treat each other and customers.

"I think first and foremost is building an awareness," DaCosta said. "An awareness of ourselves and how we show up and embrace other people. So at the end of training around unconscious bias ... we know the differences that get in the way for people."

Finally, it's important that any brand's efforts relative to the aforementioned issues have maximum impact, according to the panel. Collectively, Lange, DaCosta and Ware provided some points to get the most bang for your cultural and training buck, including:

• Make training/awareness efforts visual: Lange stressed that using video or image-based formats and attention-getting visuals will deliver the message with the force it deserves. As an example, she said Chipotle has used "teaser videos" for upcoming training to capture employee attention and anticipation
• Make it relateable to all employees: Work to create content that truly connects with all employees where they are and then make the content very understandable and actionable on the job, Ware said, referring to some of the initiatives at Orange Leaf.
• Make it inclusive and interactive: Make sure the training and initiatives put forward to further a great company culture actively work to include all types of employees and people. In fact, it's wise to also undertake self-monitoring of the effectiveness of such efforts across all employees at all levels through a system of regular employee feedback.

Creating a great customer-conducive company culture is a lot of work, but the good news is that there are some pretty phenomenal payoffs including better workplaces, job retention and brand culture. The alternative, as DaCosta reminded the group, is to take the chance that your culture has veered so far off the tracks that a negative incident or worker complaint goes viral. And as she put it, the damage from that can go on for years.

"Like I said, a video can go viral in seconds and then, all of a sudden you have years' worth of damage repair in front of you."

Photo: iStock