Change can’t happen overnight — and as more employers look to improve
Sue Petersen, executive vice president of inclusion, diversity and people at Noodles & Company, has spent nearly seven years at the organization, and has seen it make great progress in efforts to build an inclusive culture. But she knows there’s still plenty of work to do, and she advises other business leaders to think about how to build a strong foundation when it comes to DEI efforts.
Noodles & Company is seeing the impact of their efforts and continuing to push forward: In the past year, the company introduced its first-ever Inclusion & Diversity Advisory Council, joined the CEO Action Pledge to commit to building more inclusive and supportive companies, and recently released its inaugural Impact Report on its various ESG efforts. The company has also made headlines for its expanded benefits and initiatives, from financial support for surrogacy to gender-neutral bathrooms.
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Petersen recently spoke with EBN about how to create effective DEI initiatives, having (and hearing) tough conversations with team members, and creating a company that treats each employee like an individual.
Noodles & Company is a large operation, made even more complicated by a system of franchisees managing their own teams. How do you keep a pulse on what’s going on across that network when it comes to employee happiness?
The listening process is ongoing. We do periodic listening forums where we invite team members to join virtually with myself and our CEO, and usually one or two other members of leadership. And we just hear: what they’re seeing and experiencing, either in the restaurant or the area they work in. We also do periodic pulse surveys so that we can hear from folks more broadly; that goes to everyone in the organization including our franchise partners, so they can share it with their teams.
How do those processes inform how you think about your job and goals?
We really are based on four core values: we care, we show pride, we are passionate, and we love. And those naturally translate to inclusivity because in order to do any of those, you’ve got to make sure everybody is comfortable bringing their authentic self into what they do. But there are certainly bumps along the way.
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What are some of those bumps?
It hurts our heart when we hear some stories, experiences where maybe we weren’t being as inclusive as we could be, whether that’s unconscious biasesor microaggressions. But hearing these vulnerable stories help us understand what we can be doing differently. We can sit here and think we’re knocking it out of the park, but we’ve got to listen and know there’s always going to be room for improvement.
You recently hit a milestone, with half of the exec team and more than half of the operations team being women. How long does that kind of progress take?
It doesn’t happen overnight. When you’re looking at the executive leadership level, you can’t just create new positions and opportunities. So when there’s an opening you have to be very intentional about the net you’re casting — and make sure you’ve built that internal pipeline before. That’s how you bring in diversity of thought, whether it’s about gender, the color of your skin, or just background and upbringing.
When you think about recruiting and hiring a more diverse workforce, do you set specific benchmarks?
We have intentionally stayed away from trying to set targets or goals. Instead, we’re committed to making sure we have a diverse, qualified candidate pool presented to fill any open position.
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Since COVID hit, the company has invested nearly $8 million in new employee benefits. What do some of those expansions look like?
We really invested in supporting our team members with childcare needs, and we’ve doubled down on our efforts around mental health, and we are continuing to bring that to the forefront. We also offered some basic perks around thank-yous — a lot of our population within our restaurants are 16-24 years old, and they like the instant gratification of thank-you bonuses. And we also have a retention bonus in place for the fourth quarter of this year, which is helping with the labor shortage. It’s tough to compete with companies like Amazon and Target that can pay $25 an hour. So we’re trying to find new efficiencies and processes in the restaurants in order to manage the number of hours required and be able to offer a higher wage.
As the workforce gets increasingly diverse, how do you offer benefits that support all team members?
Flexibility is key. Instead of telling our shift manager, here are the benefits you get, we can provide her with a pool that says, go spend this money however you’d like on this whole cafeteria of offerings. Maybe it’s childcare, maybe it’s pet insurance, maybe it’s just a bonus for someone who wants to have cash in their pocket and go on vacation. But we have to empower people to pick and choose what’s most meaningful.
