Mark This! is a podcast in which we peel back the corporate curtain to reveal the cool and innovative people, programs, and projects that are happening all over Aramark’s varied lines of business. These remarkable initiatives happen because we have remarkable people behind them--building opportunity, building innovation, and building community.
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Mark This: Episode 39, Safety First
Host: Heather Dotchel, Corporate Communications:
It's time to Mark This!, a podcast in which we peel back the corporate curtain to reveal the cool and innovative people, programs, and projects that are happening all over Aramark's varied lines of business. I'm Heather Dotchel. As a member of Aramark's Communications team, I see and hear amazing things that are happening across our company every day. These remarkable initiatives happen because we have remarkable people behind them, building opportunity, building innovation, and building community. Our very first episode, more than three years ago, was with members of our safety team. Safety is such a core element of Aramark's culture it seemed a good time to revisit the work that the team does.
Additionally, the Global Safety Crew got together in November for an annual meeting themed lead, grow, inspire to advance professional development, and look to the future. Allan Fernandes, our Chief Global Safety and Risk Officer, and Danielle Callaghan, Director for Safety and Risk Solutions Operations Support and conference co-developer, are joining us to talk about not only the conference but the connection between centering safety in our enterprise and enhancing hospitality throughout all lines of business globally. Allan and Danny, welcome to Mark this. Allan, I'm going to start with you. Could you give our listeners a brief introduction?
Oh, thank you, Heather, and I'm glad to be here with all of you today. As you know, Heather, Aramark is a people company, and I have the privilege of leading a group of talented professionals across the globe that are responsible for one thing: making sure that everyone goes home safe to their families, to their friends, and to their life outside work. And then more importantly, too, I'm also responsible for protecting our brand and making sure that we serve safe food to all our customers and our guests. And lastly, making sure that our activities do not impact the environment. So in a nutshell, in my sandbox, I'm responsible for workplace safety, food safety, and environmental safety across the globe.
All right. Thanks. Danny, I'm going to turn to you. I won't share with our listeners how many times I had to read your title and then edited it out. What do you do as director for SNRS operations support?
Yeah, so I fell in love with this role coming from an OPEX position, been with Aramark about eight years, and safety has always just been... It feels like home for me where I have fell in love with it. I have a passion for it, and my roles have always kind of navigated me towards that space where I was able to interact with people on safety and risk solutions team, to where I was able to gain more comfortability and understand what that role looked like. And I've navigated, I would say, seamlessly to this role. I came from, again, the OPEX role, where I was able to be integrated in lines of business to then supporting them from a higher functionality to really get that commitment to safety, and that's everything that we do. It provides morale, it provides a lot of different things that we'll get into later in this discussion, but really fell in love with the role.
So Allan, why is safety such a central pillar in Aramark's approach to hospitality and operations?
Aramark is a people company, and our people are most valuable assets. And the foundation to being a hospitality company, in my opinion, is caring for our guests. As you know, in this organization, we embark in what we call is a culture of care, and you really can't deliver hospitality and a guest experience if people don't feel safe. So in our operations, we rely solely on our people to deliver great experiences, and people who feel safe perform at their best. So when our staff know that their health, safety, physical, psychological well-being are a focus area, then to be honest with you, I think morale improves, customer satisfaction improves, our retention improves. And ultimately, if you have a safer workplace, it means that more people are going home safe. We have fewer injuries, there's less absenteeism. There's a great experience provided to our guests. And to be honest, I think safety is the foundation of just earning the trust and the loyalty and which is critical to give a really, really good guest experience. It's a foundation to being a hospitality company is just caring for each other and caring for our guests.
Yes, and that's certainly reflected. We talk about the culture at Aramark a lot on the podcast, and one of the things our listeners should know is that for years and years, my whole tenure here at Aramark, we begin meetings with safety moments. And those safety moments can range from anything from an operational safety moment that's top of the mind to something that somebody personally wants to share, something that happened to them or a loved one that they want to make sure that their teammates are aware of. And so this constant reinforcement of care for each other really sticks with everybody through everything that we do.
Heather, I think a lot of people have asked me, and I've seen this happen across the globe. There's some really good insights, some good tips, some good safety moments that have been shared. And at the end of the day, someone may have experienced something very similar. It's just about sharing that learning, right? And it's just about making sure it's part of a mindset so that even though it may not be relevant when you talk about and do a safety moment, people automatically in their mind think safety, which is part of the battle of just operating in a safe work environment. So thank you for sharing that, though.
Yeah, always top of mind. Danny, let's talk a little bit about the Safe Leadership Conference. What was the inspiration behind this particular conference, and what makes it unique within our industry?
Yeah, thanks, Heather. Really, the inspiration behind the Safety Leadership Conference came from a shared recognition that safety isn't just about compliance. It's really a commitment. It's about culture, leadership, and people. Our theme this year was lead, grow, inspire, like you mentioned. We saw the need to create a space for leaders, safety professionals, and strategic partners all come together and talk about what it truly means to lead with safety. What makes the Safe Leadership Conference unique is its focus and connection on the actionable insight, not just about listening to presenters. It's really about engaging in meaningful discussions, sharing our challenges that we face every day, and walking away with tools and strategies that can be implied immediately into our accounts. It all comes back to equipping our people, which we made a commitment to our safety leaders to go back into the field and take immediate action.
Yeah, can I add to that too, Heather?
I absolutely agree with everything Danny says. And I think what makes us unique in this industry is the participants are not all safety professionals, which are very different. These are actually high-performing operational leaders that we have in our business that we've actually tasked with some safety responsibilities. And so being together and sharing ideas and practices and insights, as you know, we have so many people in our organization, over 270,000, and it's a shared responsibility that everyone has to make sure that everyone goes home safe. So bringing our high potential operational leaders just working together towards a shared vision and a common purpose is really unique in this industry, where we've not seen it replicated in other industries, to be honest with you, where we have operational leaders taking ownership of safety in their operation or their districts.
So, Danny, actually, can you talk a little bit about that, just more who are safety champions, these people, these operational members of our team in the field? How does one become a safety champion?
We call them our safety leaders. They're our field resources. They're the heartbeat of our safety leadership. They make a real impact because they're practical, they're in the field, they're what drives continuous improvement across the organization. So when we look at who should be a good safety leader, it is somebody that wants to continue to grow in their current role and do other things with in Aramark. That's what makes this special, is that this gives them the opportunity to both network horizontally and vertically and get different exposure than they would if they were not a part of this program.
That's what we call it, a leadership program. It really gives them the ability to grow skill set, maybe getting comfortable in the uncomfortable spaces that they might need to operate in as they progress through their career. I think that's what makes Aramark really special from the safety realm, is that we look to identify potential future leaders. We look to inspire, grow these individuals, and provide them with a great base in order to do that outside of their current job role. And again, this is all a networking opportunity, getting in the spaces with people that they might not normally interact with, which makes it very exciting opportunity for them.
Currently, we have about 45 regional safety leaders in the US and close to 350 district leaders. So think about the missionaries we have out in the field, other than the safety and risk resolutions team. We've got actually operational people who can influence on a day-to-day basis to ultimately drive our performance. And we've seen now this program being replicated in Canada, in China, in the UK, and other countries that are also falling lead in trying to implement similar programs.
That's great. And Allan, because safety is central to the enterprise. Let's take a slightly different angle on this idea of safety and leadership. How does a safety mindset influence leadership across different sectors, from stadiums to hospitals? So, not those tasked with being the safety representative, but leaders across the operations.
Yeah, like I said, like you said earlier, we start off every meeting with a safety moment. That's all about creating a mindset that it's not just about the rules, it's about leadership that really cares about people, that protects, that empowers, that inspires someone to take action. And I think Danny touched on this a little bit earlier. It's not about the checklist or compliance issues, but making what I would say is safety as a core value and not a priority. And it's a principle that they use in their day-to-day leadership. What I've seen, especially in this organization, that leaders that we have that have a safety mindset make safety a strategic imperative, similar to growth, performance, employee retention. And I've always said, you've got to lead by example. Do your actions actually follow your words? And when leaders who empower teams to speak up where they view mistakes as opportunities to learn, that actually creates an environment where everyone can report issues, where there's no repercussions if you've made a mistake.
And that, at the end of the day, what it creates is a culture of trust where people really trust each other, they're looking out for each other, and ultimately that really results in performance excellence. So from my perspective, this program that we have with our safety leaders, it's just empowering our field operators to lead to create this culture where, at the end of the day, it's not about numbers, but it's about a human being that also has a family, that someone is out there. And so when you create that circle of trust in that environment, and as people feel psychologically safe, it just creates a good mindset where, at the end of the day, we all can go home to our life outside work.
Allan, I like what you are saying about safety issues becoming moments of learning, and that you're here, our teams are here to help. What role does accountability play in building a culture of care and continuous improvement?
Heather, that's a great question. I've always talked about accountability in this organization, and I firmly, firmly believe that accountability plays a really key role in building both trust and continuous improvement. It's not about blame. To be honest with you, I've seen accountability taken to the far extreme, but it's about taking what I would say is ownership for your mistakes, just learning from them, and ultimately creating that environment where our people feel safe to take responsibilities. Just share ideas. I mean, some of the best ideas that I've seen have come from our frontline associates because day in and day out are at what I call is a moment of truth, and they share some ideas. But when it's not about blaming each other, and it's more about creating that learning environment, that's when you get some of the best ideas. And one of the best ways I've seen that you build trust in an organization is when your actions actually follow your words.
I've spoken to a lot of people across the globe, and everybody says they want their people safe. It's the right thing to do. But I've always asked the question, so what have you done to make sure that your actions, that your people are actually safe as a leader in this organization? And when I've seen leaders and the teams hold themselves accountable when they own the results, I've always asked to all the leaders lead by example. When you go to an account, make sure you wash your hands, make sure you're wearing the right personal protective equipment, because there should not be a different standard regardless of your title in this organization, whether you're an executive going to an account or you're frontline this. The standard applies the same when it comes to safety in our locations. When our leaders follow through on their commitments, it just demonstrates that what I call is authenticity and integrity, and organizations that have really, really good safety conscience learn from their mistakes.
And on the topic of culture of care and accountability, I will have to say in my role in communications, I work obviously with many members of your team, Allan. And one of the things that impressed me from day one of starting here at Aramark is the absolute calm, compassionate, caring responses the safety team has to our field when there's an issue. And I think it is such a lovely thing to behold that when we have accounts who are trying to deal with situations that can be upsetting, that our safety and risk team is there to guide, to comfort, to be empathetic, and to eventually teach and move on and prevent, and go, but the whole process is truly remarkable to see.
Heather, thank you for those kind words, and I'll definitely share it with the team. To be honest with you, everyone on my team is a leader, and to be part of this team, it's about really showing that you care about people. At the end of the day, you could be the best safety professional, or half my team are not safety professionals, to be honest with you. They're actually field operators that were the safety leaders in the past, and they've been hand selected to be part of this team because they have that, what I would call is the EQ to really show that we care, regardless of the situation people are dealing with a lot every day. And so that's the makeup of this team. And to be honest with you, I'm just humbled by this opportunity to lead such a great team across the globe.
Danny, what is the ultimate goal of the meeting that you want the annual safety conference attendees to take away with them?
The Safety Leadership Conference is designed to bring people together, so executives, strategic partners, our frontline leaders to really share ideas, best practices, and inspiration for building stronger, more center safety-focused culture. So we focus on the development of leadership skills that go beyond compliance, emphasizing communication, trust, engagement as the real drivers of our world-class safety performance. You're going to hear recurring themes here with our team because this is what's important
In terms of the technology piece. The world is moving very fast, and there are a lot of innovations happening when it comes to artificial intelligence, data analytics. And so I've always taken the position that we want to be at the leading edge of a lot of this. So we've got a lot of pilot programs happening in artificial intelligence, and so we want to share some of the insights and work that's been happening across the globe, so people can understand from each other. The other thing is we want to make it easy for the frontline to get access to the data to understand what the data is actually telling them, and so that they can actually take some action. In the past, we've done everything on paper and the computer.
We want to make everything mobile enabled and give them the insights when they want it and how they want it. So we're creating what we call is a headless architecture. There are so many different systems that we use, and we want to make it very easy for our frontline operators because they're very, very busy providing the great guest experiences being in a hospitality company, we want to embed safety into all our processes and in all our tools. And ultimately, I would say is make their life a little bit easier.
Allan, I would just say coming from the field, leveraging technology and reporting our KPIs and everything that we manage against, and that visibility is truly important. So our scorecards, yeah, they might be lagging, but they give us insight to make change within the organization. And that visibility and real-time knowledge really just helps our field leaders interact with their counterparts. And again, that managing horizontally and vertically, being able to have those discussions, being able to get that seat at the table with valuable knowledge that they can share with our leaders, share with the frontline, that top down, bottom up mentality and being able to give everybody that platform and bring them all together in the understanding that technology, that aspect that Allan was talking about, gives us that advantage.
The other thing that we are doing, Heather, is some innovation in the trainings that we use. As you know, we have so many different languages that are spoken in the country, and so we're going to be using some of these large language models to really innovate our trainings and make it relevant to our front lines regardless of where you are and who you are and what language you speak, we'll make it easy for you to understand what we are developing at the global level in our organization. So there's a lot of innovation happening in data analytics, in training, in our metrics, as well as some of the analysis we're doing from a data perspective, so that it's relevant to you at the frontline level.
Well, and I know you certainly were all very early adapters of AI and using every tool at our disposal technologically to provide such insights.
Like I said, it's changing every day. So we have to be at the leading edge of what's happening across the globe from a technology standpoint. In fact, in one of our countries, we're doing a pilot on smart intelligence using AI in our kitchens to understand critical violations and food safety challenges. So I'm really looking forward to some of these innovations because, from my perspective, I want Aramark to take a leadership position when it comes to using technology in the world of safety.
That makes a lot of sense. All right, well then, let's turn back to people, though, because this is where we always end up in Aramark. Allan, what does Target Zero mean to you personally, and how is Aramark working towards that vision across its global operations?
To me, Target Zero is very simple. It's creating this, what I call, is a zero harm culture across the globe where there is no harm to people or the environment. And ultimately, as I said, it's not about the numbers. We are a people company, and our people are our most valuable assets. And it's our responsibility to make sure that everyone, whether you are at the dishwasher level or the CEO, goes home safe to their family and to their friends and to their lives basically outside work. There is someone waiting for you when you go home, and so for me, Target Zero is about protecting our most valuable assets, our people, protecting our brand. And I mean, if you have a single food safety issue, it could really ruin your brand. And so we want to make sure, even though we serve millions of meals across the globe every day, you want to make sure that each meal that we serve is safe to eat.
And ultimately, I think it's our responsibility to make sure that our day-to-day activities do not impact the environment. And so that is, like I said, protecting our assets, the most valuable assets, protecting our brand, and protecting the environment. And that's what Target Zero means to me. And we measure how many injuries that we have every day on a global basis. And ultimately, it's been actually 15 years where we've seen a year-over-year improvement in what I would call is our safety metrics, which we call our frequency rate. But like I said, that could be a foreign language sometimes to people. And I look at it as how many more people have gone home safe year after year, and we will not rest as a globe till we all get down to what we call is our vision of Target Zero.
Heather, if I can just add one thing to that, I just... Allan, just appreciate because I think you live and breathe what you're talking about each and every day, and I really wanted to bring this back. When our team feels safe, supported, confident in their environments, they're able to focus fully on creating those memorable experiences, not only for ourselves internally, but for our customers, and our strong safety culture builds trust, again, not just among our employees but our clients.
So if you'd like to know more about Aramark's commitment to global safety, visit our newsroom on aramark.com to access more information. Allan and Danny, we greatly appreciate your participation and thank you to our listeners of Mark This! for joining us.
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