Sodexo is the leading provider of food and facilities management in the US and Canada. Sodexo offers innovative outsourcing solutions in food service, housekeeping, grounds keeping, plant operations and maintenance, asset and materials management, and laundry services to more than 6,000 clients. These clients include corporations, health care, long term care and retirement centers, schools, college campuses, military and remote sites in North America. With employees in 85 countries world-wide, Vice President and Global Chief Diversity Officer Dr. Rohini Anand tells LatPro what makes the Sodexo workplace an environment of diversity and inclusion.

Dr. Rohini Anand Vice President and Global Chief Diversity Officer, Sodexo

First, can you tell us a little about your own background and history with Sodexo?
I am Senior Vice President and Global Chief Diversity Officer for Sodexo. I joined the company 6.5 years ago as Vice President and was promoted to Senior Vice President a year later. My responsibilities include overseeing EEOS compliance, affirmative action, and also inclusion and culture change initiatives. This encompasses programs such as mentoring, learning strategy, diversity councils, network groups, and work life effectiveness.

Community relations is another area for which I am responsible. Part of our external relations strategy includes relationships with the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, National Council of La Raza, MANA- A National Latina Organization, and several other Hispanic organizations. I am also responsible for global diversity over 350,000 employees in over 85 countries. I recently accepted the responsibility of corporate citizenship and sustainability which includes all of our energy conservation, waste management, stop hunger program, and health and wellness initiatives.

What challenges have you encountered recruiting Hispanic employees?
Our biggest challenge recruiting multicultural employees is that not everyone knows who Sodexo is, and they don’t know that a food service company has so many tremendous careers including positions in HR, marketing, finance, IT, Strategy, and many others. We have to educate communities about who Sodexo is, and the various career opportunities we can offer at Sodexo.

The second approach to recruiting multicultural candidates is starting earlier in a student’s lifecycle and exposing them earlier to careers in the food service business and Sodexo so they know the kinds of professional careers that they can have with us.

The final course in recruiting multicultural candidates is understanding that many communities are very relationship oriented. For us, it is important to be visible in the community, branding ourselves and building relationships within the community.

How do you define and meet your diversity goals and objectives? How does your department measure success?
We include metrics around hiring women as well as minorities. Our recruiting staff are tasked with presenting very diverse candidates to our hiring managers. At the end of the day the hiring manager hires the best qualified candidate, but we always make sure that they have a diverse pool from which to choose.

We also have a diversity scorecard which we use to measure our hiring benchmarks against the external availability, promotions benchmarks against the pipeline, and retention because we want to retain women and minorities at the same rate as our other employees. We also have several qualitative metrics that look at our commitment and behaviors that serve our commitment to diversity. This includes programs involving training, mentoring, community outreach, and development of high potential employees.

What do you say to those who feel that diversity programs are more about complying with EEO requirements and public image, rather than a real dedication to finding diverse candidates?
We know the world around us is getting increasingly diverse, and there is an impending shortage of skilled labor. In order to hire the best candidates, we must have a commitment to diversity and inclusion, because potential employees have choices.

As a woman of color I will join an organization where I see others like me; women succeeding at the top of the organization. People who are good employees will have choices and if organizations are to recruit the best talent, they must be truly committed to diversity and inclusion.

Over the next 10 years, Sodexo will have to hire over two million employees and the only way we can do that is through our commitment to diversity and inclusion because we want to hire the best regardless of who they are. We are a people business and the only way we can grow our business is if we hire the best talent.

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We know the world around us is getting increasingly diverse, and there is an impending shortage of skilled labor. In order to hire the best candidates, we must have a commitment to diversity and inclusion, because potential employees have choices.

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What initiatives exist to help your current workforce value diversity?
There are three key initiatives currently in place to foster a work environment which values diversity. First, we have an extremely thorough diversity learning strategy that starts with basic compliance training. It then moves on to a one day mandatory “Spirit of Diversity” training for management where they are encouraged to examine their personal background and culture to determine how it impacts their hiring and promotion decisions. We also have several skill-base learning labs on topics such as cross-cultural communication, micro inequities, and gender in the workplace. We strive to integrate diversity modules into every single offering at Sodexo University.

Secondly, we also have an acclaimed mentoring program. We sponsor a formal mentoring program of about 220 mentors and mentees, 70% of which are cross cultural, or cross gender pairs. This has helped to enhance retention, productivity, and development of diversity in the pipeline. We have two other mentoring programs which are more informal. One is through our affinity groups and the second is for our front line managers.

Finally, we have six employee affinity and network groups which are very active. The six groups focus on women, African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, GLBT, and people with disabilities. We have hundreds of members and dozens of chapters. The groups are active in strategic business imperatives such as helping us with recruiting, onboarding, mentoring, professional development, and business development. Each affinity or network group has an executive sponsor and they get a lot of visibility within our company as well as in the community. The groups are funded by Sodexo and meet on company time.

Many companies struggle to bring diversity to all areas. Has Sodexo been successful in achieving diversity in upper management? How were you able to achieve this?
I think we have been extremely successful in achieving diversity in upper management. Our executive team is extremely committed to diversity and inclusion. It has been their commitment that has helped to achieve such a high level of inclusion. The scorecard also looks at the elements of recruiting such as retention and promotion which insures diversity at all levels of our business. The most significant element of the scorecard is that it is linked to incentive compensation. 10-15% of our manager’s bonuses are tied to diversity objectives. 25% of our executive team’s bonus is tied to diversity objectives. We’ve committed to pay that out regardless of the financial performance of the company.

What is your company’s leadership commitment and involvement in diversity? How has the CEO or other top officer of the company embraced or championed diversity?
There has been a lot written about our CEO, George Chavel’s commitment to diversity. He chairs and is a visible supporter of our diversity leadership council; he mentors people who are different from himself, and encourages our whole executive team to do the same. Every member of the executive team is an executive sponsor of an employee affinity group. We also engage in a quarterly education session with the executive team and the CEO.

Mr. Chavel’s dedication is evident in the commitment he has made to the scorecard, the bonus, and to the fact that the bonus is paid regardless of the financial performance of the company.

What role does diversity play in the overall success of your organization? How are you able to correlate bottom-line results to workforce diversity?
We have done some analysis of our mentoring initiatives and we found that for every dollar spent in the mentoring initiative we get a return of $20 based on productivity and retention of employees. We do analyses like that and we know that our leadership, diversity, and inclusion are clear differentiators for Sodexo, and help us get and retain business.

What would you say to Latino candidates applying to Sodexo today? What can they do to use their language and cultural skills to their best advantage?
For us, language and cultural skills are absolutely critical. We have 120,000 employees in the United States. Almost 100,000 are our frontline employees. We have a high percentage of Hispanic employees and it is extremely important for us to hire individuals at the management level that reflect the employees on our front-line. It is an asset to have managers who speak multiple languages including Spanish.

What do you want prospective diverse employees to know about Sodexo and its commitment to diversity?
I would say to Hispanic candidates applying to Sodexo that it is a terrific company, with great career opportunities. It is a very inclusive environment where your skills and your cultural background are valued, and I think there are tremendous opportunities for you to shine at Sodexo.

Learn more about careers with Sodexo

About the Author: LatPro Inc

An innovator in the online employment industry, LatPro was launched in 1997 to become the very first job board connecting Hispanic bilingual candidates with employers. Our staff authors share targeted advice gained during our 10 years serving Hispanic jobseekers and diversity-conscious companies.

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