Mark This! Podcast, Episode 3, Community at Work
Host: Heather Dotchel, Corporate Communications
Guests: Margaret Fitzgerald, Vice President Operations, Lifeworks Restaurant Group; Katherine Jones, Human Resources Director, CHRP; Amy Rose, Director, Indigenous Relations

Heather Dotchel (00:04):

It's time to Mark This! A podcast in which we peel back the curtain to reveal the cool and innovative people, programs and projects that are happening all over Aramark's varied lines of business.

(00:16):

I'm Heather Dotchel. As a member of Aramark's Communications Team, I see and hear about all of the amazing things that are happening across our company. These remarkable initiatives happen because we have remarkable people behind them building opportunity, building innovation, and building community.

(00:34):

Mark This! provides a space in which we can explore these initiatives with our audience. Today, we are speaking with three guests who represent Amplify and RISING SUN: ERGs that embrace pan-Asian culture in communities, and are dedicated to building an inclusive workplace for Indigenous peoples respectively. Let's introduce our guests.

(00:55):

Today we welcome Margaret Fitzgerald, vice president for operations and chair of Amplify. Amy Rose is director of Indigenous Relations with Aramark Canada, and is co-chair of RISING SUN. Our fellow co-chair, Katherine Jones, is a human resources director with Aramark Canada as well.

(01:14):

Margaret, let's begin with your background and involvement with Amplify. Can you tell us a bit about yourself, as well as how and why you joined?

Margaret Fitzgerald (01:23):

Absolutely. Thank you for this opportunity. In 20 years, I've been fortunate in my career, having worked in multiple aspects of our organization, both domestically and internationally. And I really wanted to be a part of Amplify.

(01:40):

For me, it was being part of an organization, starting it from ground up. I was very fortunate to have two co-chairs who are very passionate, and really wanted to bring the Pan-Asian culture to the organization.

(01:57):

For me personally, my parents are from China. I'm a first-generation American. They instilled in me just being proud of my culture and heritage. And being able to bring that to work was very compelling for me.

Heather Dotchel (02:15):

Katherine, what's your story? Please share with us your history with Aramark and with RISING SUN.

Katherine Jones (02:21):

Hi, Heather. I'd be happy to. I joined Aramark back in 1996 in HR in Edmonton, Alberta. At that time, my role was very much focused on health and safety and disability management. I expanded over the years into more of a generalist role, and I'm now the HR director for the West region, as well as Remote Services in Canada.

(02:45):

In those roles, I didn't have any direct involvement with Indigenous relations, but I did have a keen interest in that subject: having grown up in proximity to Indigenous communities, as well as some exposure to a lot of history in a local museum. It just always had me inspired.

(03:03):

Around 2014, I was asked to consider how we could leverage our PAR certification, Progressive Aboriginal Relations, that exists within our Remote Division, and see how we could apply that to our other lines of business.

(03:17):

And it was not long after that I discovered this opportunity for an Employee Resource Group, and thought this might work really well for our other operations within Canada. So we spent some time researching. I gathered together a number of people who could help us with that, and we proposed to the organization having the first ERG formed outside of the US. And in 2015 that was approved, and it's been a great experience ever since. So I continue as a co-chair of RISING SUN, along with Amy.

Heather Dotchel (03:51):

Oh, perfect. Amy, as a fellow co-chair, we'd love to learn more about you, too. Can you also let us know who you are and why RISING SUN is important to you?

Amy Rose (04:01):

Good morning, everybody. Thanks for having me. I'm going to start in my Saulteaux Ojibwe language. [Saulteaux 00:04:07] Which means in my Saulteaux language, "Hello, I hope everybody is doing well today."

(04:15):

Before I get started, I do want to acknowledge that here in Edmonton, where I work and play, I reside in the Treaty 6 Territory, along with the Métis Homeland of Alberta Region 4.

(04:27):

As I mentioned, I am Saulteaux Ojibwe. I'm a proud member of Cote First Nation. Our traditional territory is in the Treaty 4 area of Canada, located in Kamsack, Saskatchewan.

(04:39):

I've been with Aramark now for just over a year, but I've been in Indigenous Relations for 13. Based out of Edmonton as I mentioned, I just moved here from British Columbia not too long ago, and I'm the director of Indigenous Relations.

(04:54):

Internally, I lead Indigenous strategic development and implementation. And then externally, I spend a great deal of my time in Indigenous communities, building relationships with Indigenous peoples, and I also ensure that we're adhering to our contractual obligations.

(05:09):

When I heard about RISING SUN being so established, that was certainly exciting for me. Because that meant that there was already a readiness within the company around seeking further support around the education of Indigenous history, and what makes Indigenous peoples unique. So far, it's been really fruitful of being a co-chair along with Katherine Jones.

Heather Dotchel (05:28):

Thank you very much, all three of you, for sharing your involvement with Amplify and RISING SUN. And thank you, Amy, for starting off with your language and the land acknowledgement. We really appreciate that.

(05:43):

Margaret, what would you say are the benefits of joining Amplify or another ERG?

Margaret Fitzgerald (05:50):

The benefits of joining Amplify or any other ERG, I think starts with just the networking opportunity: the ability to connect with peers and colleagues who have a shared interest or a common bond.

(06:06):

I think the other benefit is just exposure. I think exposure to other aspects of the organization that you may not otherwise have access to, and other ways of thinking and thought leadership, and just different insights. So I think there's not only that professional opportunity, but also a personal growth opportunity as well.

Heather Dotchel (06:32):

Katherine, do you think the same holds true for RISING SUN membership?

Katherine Jones (06:37):

Yeah, absolutely. I would echo all that Margaret shared. But I think I come at it from a slightly different angle, in that I'm not technically a member of the Indigenous community. I'm an ally, and being involved as an ally is quite different.

(06:55):

It's a great opportunity to be able to take all of the feelings that I've had about this community. And put them into action to be able to find meaningful ways where we're able to impact the organization, making sure that we're addressing the types of barriers that exist to ensuring Indigenous peoples.

(07:19):

And of course this would apply, I expect, to any of our Employee Resource Groups, where allies can have that type of an influence on making sure that this organization is one where people feel that they can be their authentic selves.

Margaret Fitzgerald (07:36):

Heather, I also just wanted to add a point in terms of an additional organizational benefit.

(07:43):

Katherine mentioned that she's coming from a perspective of allyship. And it just made me think about a couple of our members who had reached out. When they shared why they wanted to join Amplify, it was because their spouse or their children were of Pan-Asian descent, and really wanting to be able to connect and understand and just learn more about their culture.

(08:10):

So I think there are organizational benefits outside of professional growth and development, but that there's a personal piece as well.

Heather Dotchel (08:21):

Amy, how do you feel that ERGs impact the culture at Aramark? Do you feel our voices create change within the company? Do the ERGs work together to do so?

Amy Rose (08:31):

Absolutely, and I do want to acknowledge Katherine as the architect of RISING SUN. Her values certainly align with mine, and it's been a pleasure working alongside her.

(08:46):

Through my time with Aramark, I've created Indigenous Relations policies, land acknowledgement policies in Indigenous Relations strategy; and it's through RISING SUN that I have the support, greater support than I ever imagined, to be able to implement all of those different things.

(09:06):

In terms of shifting the culture, 100%: RISING SUN is basically the core in dispersing all information regarding IR, or Indigenous Relations. For example, we have a newsletter; it's called Morningstar. And for events such as National Indigenous History Month, which we dedicated this year, the entire month of June for, as well as National Day for Truth Reconciliation, which we dedicated for the entire month of September for, we used the Morningstar newsletter as a guide for all of the events.

(09:41):

That included articles and facts and videos, but it also included training opportunities. And the number of people that took time out of their busy days to attend and participate in those training opportunities was a huge indicator of success, for sure. And I just want to use another example here.

(10:02):

We partnered with EMPOWER, which is our women ERG, and it was a global session. I think the attendance was about 1100 people. I brought one of our Indigenous partners to tell her story about how she became an entrepreneur. And I followed up with telling a story about my grandmother's journey through residential school.

(10:27):

For those of you who are familiar, that part of history is quite dark. But the topic was around resilience and perseverance. And the messages that I received after; emails, Teams messages; were through the roof, super heartfelt.

(10:45):

I even received a card in the mail about how my story impacted her, and then what she did thereafter where she sat her daughters down. She told them a little bit about my grandmother's story, but also focusing on resilience and perseverance. So 100%, RISING SUN is definitely impacting the culture within Aramark.

Heather Dotchel (11:05):

Margaret, how about you with Amplify? I had the pleasure of sitting in on an Amplify panel earlier this year, in which a group of our colleagues who are Pan-Asian in descent talked about their experiences. Can you share a little bit about that, and how that also creates change within the company?

Margaret Fitzgerald (11:30):

Being part of that panel and assembling the speakers was really an eye-opening experience on multiple levels.

(11:40):

One, I didn't realize that we had so many Pan-Asian leaders within our organization, so very much a learning opportunity. Each of them had an inspiring personal and professional story from growing up in a different culture, and then bringing their experience and education to Aramark.

(12:07):

And then the feedback that we received after the panel, I heard from people I've not talked to or in many years, or just people I didn't know before, who were really equally inspired by the panel.

(12:23):

So I think just the benefit and the impact from that one experience, but just expanding it to what ERGs can bring to our organization, are really around engagement, retention, as we realize what a rich organization Aramark is from a culture perspective.

(12:47):

I think I mentioned it earlier, is just that the networking opportunity and the ability to have exposure to different ways of thinking and just different perspectives.

Amy Rose (13:03):

Margaret, I had the pleasure of one of your colleagues getting in touch with me after he went to an Indigenous-led conference. He shared his beautiful story about how he met this Indigenous elder at the conference. He felt that it was serendipitous.

(13:22):

The two of them ended up talking about shared lived experiences: a Pan-Asian, Indigenous elder. They shared commonalities between the two of them. They then brought me in. I ended up getting into several conversations with the three of them, and it really just stemmed from shared lived experiences.

(13:44):

So that's another example of the networking that comes with being a part of the ERGs, and the connectivity that comes with being a part of the ERGs. It was awesome.

Heather Dotchel (13:56):

That's incredible, and actually makes my next question almost a moot point. Because I wanted to ask if any of us thought that ERG affinity isolates groups within the enterprise; but what I'm hearing here is intersectionality. Are there any other examples of that that you'd like to share?

Katherine Jones (14:17):

Actually, I would really like to, Heather.

(14:19):

There's a great story I'd like to share that came out of RISING SUN. As I mentioned, it was about 2015 when we formed the ERG. We had gathered together a number of people, just based on their skill sets and their reach within the organization, to participate in developing further the RISING SUN platform, and determining what we would all work on together.

(14:46):

We spent about a year with this group of people. And it was shortly after that year, two of them came forward to me, individually, without being aware of each other's story. They both shared with me that they came from Indigenous heritage. And at no time in their careers had they ever felt safe sharing their background with their organization.

(15:14):

They had seen our commitment to Indigenous peoples at Aramark, and recognized that this was a safe place for them to disclose that they had an Indigenous background. That was incredibly moving to me: to know that there had been this barrier suddenly broken, that was now providing people with this safe place.

(15:42):

I think it's quite the contrary. I don't think that an affinity with an ERG, at least within Aramark, hinders individuals or groups at all within the organization.

Heather Dotchel (15:52):

Good point, Katherine.

(15:54):

Let's shift focus a little bit onto the operational sense of ERGs. I'd like to talk about the process of forming and growing an ERG, and how Aramark as an enterprise supports them.

(16:09):

I'm going to turn back to you, Katherine, and ask you basically to walk us through how that works in terms of RISING SUN, since you were very much part of the architecture of the group.

Katherine Jones (16:25):

Yeah, absolutely. I think that in all cases, it's really starting with an organizational need. In RISING SUN's situation, we recognized that even outside of our Remote Services Division, we had a couple of drivers that caused us to want to consider forming an ERG: one of them being our client experience.

(16:52):

Many of our clients were doing something similar, had a true interest in Indigenous relations. They were creating their own groups, and expecting that of some of their vendors as well. So we certainly saw alignment there.

(17:07):

Also, the opportunities for recruitment were quite vast, and continue to be. The Indigenous population is one of the fastest-growing in Canada; so very young demographic, and one that we'd want to target for recruitment purposes. Again, there were some very good business reasons for why we would want to consider forming an ERG.

(17:29):

At that point, it meant making the case for it. It was fairly quickly approved, which was really satisfying. Then it was about, "Well, what do we do next? How do we make sure we've got the right people in the right place, that are able to support the many areas that an ERG needs to focus on?"

Heather Dotchel (17:51):

Does Aramark as an enterprise provide resources to support the ERGs?

Katherine Jones (17:58):

Yeah, absolutely. We do have the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Team that have been tremendous supporters, and give us a lot of guidance along the way. As well as ensuring that there's some consistency across Employee Resource Groups, as well as opportunities to collaborate together, to all come together on a fairly regular basis to understand what we can learn from each other, as well as leveraging some external resources for us that have been fantastic.

(18:29):

The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Team has helped to form a platform that we are all able as ERGs to post information, different types of events that we have coming up, all sorts of ways to be able to promote our various Employee Resource Groups internally.

(18:47):

What I will say is about the budgetary supports. Each one of the Employee Resource Groups is provided with an annual budget that they can apply; with some guidelines, which have been very helpful.

(19:01):

We also have some access to other funds that are related to our Aramark Building Communities initiatives. That permits us to be able to partner with members of the community, different types of organizations to which an Employee Resource Group really aligns. And then, of course, be able to provide some support to them.

Heather Dotchel (19:22):

Thanks for explaining that.

(19:24):

Margaret, can you talk a bit about Amplify's growth? It's my understanding that our current Amplify hub is in the US, but we are planning on adding a Canadian hub. How will the hubs work together?

Margaret Fitzgerald (19:39):

That is a great question. We are, frankly, figuring it out as we go. We're fortunate that we have a very dynamic and passionate; I know Katherine spoke to you about passion; but we have a very passionate chair and executive sponsor in Canada.

(19:57):

We are working together, and the starting point is just having a common vision, which is to grow Amplify and be able to provide impact to our members. It's all about having open communication, open dialogue, I think even within our own company culture and within the ERG culture at their differences. So just really being open and sharing them and working through and talking about them.

(20:30):

We're also working to have shared events, making sure that leadership from both the US and Canada's side are joining and supporting the different events so that we're not creating our own divide, if you will, within the ERG itself. But really, as I started, we're figuring it out as we go.

Heather Dotchel (20:52):

That makes sense. I mean, I know there's been tremendous growth in ERGs over the past few years, which is really great to see.

(21:00):

As we begin to think about wrapping up, I do want to give you each just a brief time to do a commercial, basically, for your ERGs, for our listeners who are coming internally from Aramark.

(21:11):

So for our internal community listeners, how does your particular ERG interact with the greater Aramark community? Then on the flip side, I'll ask: what kind of external relationships are you hoping to cultivate for your ERG?

(21:26):

Amy, let's start with RISING SUN.

Amy Rose (21:28):

The support of the ERGs has been integral to the implementation of a number of our different Indigenous Relations policies and procedures.

(21:38):

Externally, we focus a lot of our attention on building partnerships. One partnership in particular that we're really proud about is an Indigenous Chef organization, national organization, where we partner on the creation of Indigenous cuisine.

(21:57):

We utilize our Culinary Innovation Centre to create traditional Indigenous cuisine that we can bring to the rest of our company. That's a very exciting partnership that we currently have, and we're looking to build upon that.

(22:14):

One of the chefs in particular who does in-depth training programs within some of our universities, and we're looking to use that model to some of the other locations that we have. So, very exciting.

Heather Dotchel (22:28):

Margaret, would you detail the same for Amplify, please?

Margaret Fitzgerald (22:32):

Sure. From an internal perspective, I think we interact on a couple of levels. I think we've talked previously or had some conversation about just cross ERGs and supporting events, supporting each other: in whether it's a leadership panel, a community event. Again, just an opportunity to network and have exposure to peers and colleagues that you might otherwise not have that opportunity.

(23:03):

We also support, just from menus and cuisine and just education, about the culinary aspects of the culture. Within our own group, we do monthly menu promotions. We seek out menu and recipe ingredient authenticity, making sure that as we represent those across our brand, that we have the expertise of our own teams.

(23:36):

Then externally, this is also new territory for us. We've cultivated a few relationships across the country. But just knowing that the Pan-Asian group or population is quite fast, it's just helping to educate us. Also, again, making sure that we're representing those cultures with authenticity. So just trying to develop and really curate more external relationships.

Heather Dotchel (24:10):

Would you like to learn more about Aramark's ERGs? If so, I'd encourage you to visit Aramark's newsroom on aramark.com to access more information.

(24:19):

I'd like to offer a very special thank you to Margaret Fitzgerald, chair for Amplify; and Katherine Jones and Amy Rose, co-chairs for RISING SUN, for joining us today and answering our questions. I'd also like to thank our listeners for tuning in to Mark This!