Beverly Stallings-Johnson has been with Wendy’s as its chief diversity officer since early 2021 . . . .

Wendy’s Chief Diversity Officer Reflects on Inclusion Initiatives It’s been nearly two years since Beverly Stallings-Johnson took on the role of chief diversity officer at Wendy’s, and so far, staff and franchisees have shown positive reception to her work.

Based on a company-wide survey, more than 94 percent of Wendy’s employees agree that Wendy’s values diversity, Stallings-Johnson said. In the same survey, employees most often used the word “inclusive” to describe company culture.

“We know we’re doing something right,” Stallings-Johnson said. “We know what we have to do as an organization to be inclusive and to drive that type of culture, where people want to be engaged and want to be a part of Wendy’s today, as well as Wendy’s in the future.”

Wendy’s brought on Stallings-Johnson to lead its diversity and inclusivity initiatives in March 2021. She previously served as the chief diversity officer for the city of Columbus, Ohio, and worked in a similar role at Xerox for 25 years.

When Stallings-Johnson was first settling into her new post, she wanted to take a broad look at Wendy’s before tackling issues in equity, inclusivity, and diversity.

“We wanted to evaluate, understand and look at our diversity at all levels of the organization,” Stallings-Johnson said about her goals when she was starting out. “We aligned with a multi-year strategy focused on the education, training, recruitment, hiring, talent, development, and, most importantly, retention.”

The company established goals to increase the number of women and people with diverse backgrounds in leadership, management and franchise ownership roles, promote more women from entry-level positions and increase diversity in the Wendy’s board of directors. “Since then, everything has been about executing on those goals,” Stallings-Johnson said.

Of Wendy’s 14,500 companywide employees in 2021, nearly all identified as white, Black, Hispanic or Latinx, according to the 2021 company corporate responsibility report. About 57 percent identified as women, a decrease of 1 percent over 2020. Of Wendy’s approximately 150 employees in company leadership roles, more than three-quarters identified as white. Black and Asian employees made up 6 percent each, a 1 percent increase in both categories, and Hispanic or Latinx employees made up 8 percent—a 2 percent increase over 2020.

The majority of Wendy’s restaurant crew and management positions are held by women, but two-thirds of the company leadership roles are held by men. That’s still a 4 percent decrease over 2020.

Wendy’s has implemented several employee resource groups, or ERGs, for different communities, such as women, Black employees, young professionals, LGBTQ+ employees, and caregivers, to name a few.

“We’re unique in the sense that we recognize that we want to make sure that our people are seen and heard,” Stallings-Johnson said.

A lot of companies don’t focus on caregivers—whether it be for children, parents, spouses or others—when thinking about the different communities within its staff, Stallings-Johnson said. “We heard from our people, and they’re saying this is what matters,” she said. “Diversity also includes our people that have care issues, and that’s one of the things that we focused on.”

Stallings-Johnson wanted to ensure Wendy’s employees felt like their voices are heard, and to her, actions speak a lot louder than words. The company issues two or three surveys a year to hear from employees about their concerns.

“We actually take that feedback and we try to adapt and recognize where we need to go with this, specifically from an inclusive perspective,” Stallings-Johnson said.

To create more franchise opportunities for women and people of color, Wendy’s created competitive liquidity and net worth requirements, because “access to money and understanding net worth is a big deal in terms of barrier to entry to any franchise,” she said.

“Had we not done that, imagine the folks that would never have had the opportunity to try to own, or at least to come together to be a part of this franchise community,” Stallings-Johnson said. – Source: Franchise Times.