Episode 362: Understanding the Operations With Dona Costa, CPO at Gordon Ramsay North America

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Episode 362: Understanding the Operations With Dona Costa, CPO at Gordon Ramsay North America

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Table of Contents

As HR professionals, as recruiters, we are in direct control of the diversity of our company. I truly believe we all always want the best person for the role. My, my challenge is to always ask, are there not more females that are the best possible fit for the role? Are there not more minority candidates that are the best possible fit for the role?

Episode 362: Understanding the Operations With Dona Costa, CPO at Gordon Ramsay North America

 

Welcome to the Workology Podcast, a podcast for the disruptive workplace leader. Join host Jessica Miller-Merrell, founder of Workology.com as she sits down and gets to the bottom of trends, tools, and case studies for the business leader, HR, and recruiting professional who is tired of the status quo. Now here’s Jessica with this episode of Workology.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:00:48.85] Welcome to the Workology Podcast sponsored by Ace The HR Exam and Upskill HR. You can learn more about HR certification prep and recertification courses by Workology at Learn.Workology.com. This podcast you’re listening to is part of a series on the Workology Podcast that is focused on the roles and responsibilities of the Chief Human Resources Officer or the CHRO. The CHRO is sometimes called the SVP of HR or the Chief People Officer. This is an executive or C-level role that deals with managing human resources as well as with organizational development and implementing policies of change that are designed to improve the overall efficiency of the company. The CHRO podcast series on Workology, which is what I call the series, is powered by HR Benchmark Survey. You can visit HRBenchmarkSurvey.com to take our CHRO survey. One of the reasons why I continue to do this podcast, this series is because not only is there a lot of mystery around that Chief Human Resource Officer role, but things have drastically evolved very quickly. They’ve just evolved for Chief Human Resources Officers over the last 24 months. So whether you’re a current CHRO or an aspiring CHRO, this podcast is for you. This is a great opportunity for you to learn about the types of skills and experiences that you need if you’re promoting into or want to promote into a CHRO role in the future. It’s also a great way to hear from senior HR leaders about what we’re working on and how we’re partnering and collaborating with our executive peers. So today we are talking with Dona Costa. She’s the Chief People Officer at Gordon Ramsay North America. Gordon Ramsay North America comprises the rapidly growing North American restaurant business of acclaimed chef, restaurateur, TV personality and author Gordon Ramsay. Dona has been in HR leadership roles for more than 20 years in the restaurant, hospitality and food service industries, and began her career in the restaurant business. In April of 2021, Dona was named one of the top 100 diversity officers by the National Diversity Council. Dona, welcome to the Workology Podcast.

Dona Costa: [00:03:04.81] Thanks for having me.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:03:05.86] Let’s get started. You have worked in HR leadership in a variety of industries for more than 20 years, and you mentioned you started as a dishwasher. And I wondered how did your early experience in the restaurant industry lead you into HR and recruiting?

Dona Costa: [00:03:22.21] Oh, well, number one, hearing the more than 20 years makes me feel really old, but that’s okay. I did start as a dishwasher and I, I really believe that those experiences early on have made me successful in my role today. How I got here, it’s just been through relationships with other people. I mean, it truly is being in the right place at the right time. And I recently read a quote where it spoke about you have to be the right person in the right place at the right time. So I really believe it’s been just that. I never intended, one, to go into restaurant management. I never looked at my parents and said, Hey, I want to be a restaurant manager when I grow up. It’s just something that I started doing at a very young age with the hourly roles as dishwasher and cook, went on to start serving and hosting, and then got into management. And the way I got into HR and recruiting was, I was invited to work a career fair where they were interviewing management applicants. The existing HR director at the time said, Why don’t you come and work this with me? Because it was being hosted next door to the Bennigan’s that I worked at in downtown Austin, and I thought, Oh, that would be a great experience. And I went and listened and learned and got to share some of my real-life experiences with candidates and just really fell in love in that moment with the recruiting side of HR. And that turned into, months later, that same HR professional asking me if I would have an interest in going into HR and joining the HR team there at Bennigan’s. I mean, it really was right place, right time and being the right person.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:05:08.95] I love that. My background story is, is similar in that way. It just, it just kind of fit and sometimes you just have to roll with it. I think that being willing to roll with it, even if it’s a nontraditional path into HR, I think is, is really important or really just anywhere, but especially in HR. As you think about your progression from dishwasher into human resources and now into the Chief People Officer role, what skills and experiences do you believe are absolute requirements for a Chief People Officer? Especially maybe thinking about people who are just starting out in the industry.

Dona Costa: [00:05:51.16] So much comes to mind. For me what I feel is important it’s understanding the operations. In order to partner with operations. I think it’s really important that you understand what it is that the operations team is going through, and that starts from the hourly team members up to management and even now partnering with the SVP of operations or the Chief Operating Officer, it’s knowing what their role entails. I think, I think that, for me, is the foundation, is understanding operations, speaking the language, knowing what they’re going through and knowing what their challenges are so that I can be the best partner possible. I also think it requires flexibility and openness. I know that one thing that I preach to my team is we will be seen as supportive. We will be seen as, while we have to keep everything in compliance, we’ll be seen as Yes, tell me what you need and how I can support you. I think coming from a, I think, I think that servant leadership is used an awful lot. But I do think it’s like that. It’s you have to have that servant mentality of, I’m here to serve you, whether it’s the hourly team members in the restaurant or the senior leadership. And how can I best serve you? What is it that you need? So just an openness, flexibility, and then understanding operations. I think those have been the top things that have been most important in my role.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:07:21.94] I love that you said operations. I feel like in the restaurant industry, especially HR leaders are heavy into like the business operations, retail also, and hospitality. And it’s not something in my experience that a lot of HR leaders outside of those industries often have the experience with reviewing panels and, and being involved in the day-to-day of the business. I wanted to ask you about the size of the company and the team and then maybe touch on the organizational structure. I’d love to know where HR sits and who do you report to.

Dona Costa: [00:07:59.02] Okay, so we’re a fairly new company, Gordon Ramsay North America. We just opened our third company owned and run location in Boston. So very young in our growth model. We do have licensed partners. Caesars is a huge partner to us and they have multiple locations open and we support them as well. But for company-owned locations, which is where my team would be responsible, fully responsible for the HR pieces. And we are very small. The home office based here in Dallas, it’s, we run pretty, pretty slim here as well. As far as our structure goes, the people team, which is comprised of the employer relations and HR compliance, peace, benefits and payroll, recruiting, and then learning and development as well as operation services falls under, I report directly to the CEO. So it’s the structure is CEO, then my role, and then I have a team of one vice president of operations, services, and learning and development, and then she has three directors under her. And then we have a director of HR who focuses on the recruiting aspect right now and assist with employer relations. And we have a benefits and payroll manager who oversees all the payroll and benefit functions for the company.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:09:32.20] How many employees, what’s your employee count right now?

Dona Costa: [00:09:35.61] We were sitting right at probably, for the company-owned locations and the home office, I want to say 600?

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:09:46.58] 600 employees and then when we were having our prep call, you mentioned that you all have some, some big growth plans. So you’re going to be growing, maybe doubling or even tripling in size?

Dona Costa: [00:09:58.55] Yes, absolutely. We’ve got more locations that will open up at the end of this year, and we’ll definitely at least double, possibly triple in size by the end of the year.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:10:08.24] Awesome. And I love how the team is structured, and, and the plans put in place to, to be able to handle that growth, to be able to support operations leaders, employees as well as the, the franchise locations, too. You’ve received multiple awards for your work in diversity and inclusion from the Diversity First Award, which was issued by the Texas Diversity Council. And this has happened twice to most recently being named, and I love this, one of the top 100 diversity officers by the National Diversity Council. Can you talk a little bit more about your approach to diversity?

Dona Costa: [00:10:49.43] Sure. Diversity is something I mean, diversity, equity, and inclusion are something I have a strong passion for. Something that one of my top five mentors in life, Rodney Morris, actually ignited in me years ago. He tasked myself and another director in the company with finding things that we could become involved with that would affect diversity. At that time, I want to say this is the mid-2000, maybe 2004, 2005. Really, diversity was just something that we were beginning to talk about. I mean, diversity has always been here, but companies began to really talk about it, at least it felt that way in the restaurant industry. And I said, okay, what can I get involved in? And what exactly will this do for us? So me being fairly new in the HR world and really new to diversity, which makes me smile today to think about I was, I set out, set about it going, okay, what can I do? And back then this is when there were still newspapers, right? And the Houston Chronicle, full-page ad from the Texas Diversity Council. They were doing an annual event. It was, I think, I think we made it with them for their second or third one. And I thought, well, it says diversity. What could this be? And I called and said, we’re interested in being involved. Tell me about what it is that you do. And we, we got set up to attend this event. And it was pretty incredible. Colin Powell was a speaker at it.

Dona Costa: [00:12:27.11] And I thought, oh, this, this is really incredible that we get to participate in this. But that began the journey, my personal journey, as well as professional one learning about diversity. I was introduced to so many other companies in many different industries and we would have monthly luncheons and talk about what, what is diversity, what are the challenges in our workplace, what do we see as best practices. And I was really just listening and learning and it was incredible and just soaking it all in like a sponge. And I was able to take that back to Rodney. And at the time I was with Fired Up Inc., which had Johnny Carinos, which turned into Carino’s Italian restaurants, and we were able to become more involved and actually take some of those best practices. And how did we view diversity within our company? And it’s not something that happened overnight. I think I really had to absorb it all and see how could I influence it in my role. At the time I was a Director of Recruiting. Well, even today, I, I speak to recruiting and it’s interesting every time I’m currently interviewing for a recruiter and the candidates, that’s one of the questions I ask. How do you affect change with your recruiting when it comes to diversity? And it’s something I enjoy speaking about. We’re, as HR professionals, as recruiters, we are in direct control of the diversity of our company. I truly believe we all always want the best person for the role. My, my challenge is to always ask, are there not more females that are the best possible fit for the role? Are there not more minority candidates that are the best possible fit for the role?

Dona Costa: [00:14:18.14] It’s never going to be hire them simply because they’re female or simply because they’re a minority. But it is always going to be the challenge that I put out there of what does our diversity look like within our company. So diversity is something that was really introduced to me as an initiative in the early 2000, and it’s grown into now what we know is diversity, equity and inclusion. I mean, the inclusion piece happened next for me where it’s how can we create an inclusive environment? Again, something else I feel passionate about that everyone should feel welcome. It should be, there should be an openness in the environment to include everyone. And then the equity piece is recognizing that people learn differently. People come from different backgrounds. There can’t be a one size fits all for assessments. There can’t be a one size fits all for the way we do our interviews and look at the responses that we received. That could probably be a podcast on its own, but the whole DEI piece is just something that is huge. And I think it starts here with the People Department because I believe we have the ability to have the greatest effect with change when it comes to DEI.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:15:39.99] I love that and it’s so true and I am so grateful and excited that the people are thinking more about diversity, equity, inclusion. And you’re absolutely right. I love that you’re saying like recruiters have the biggest influence on that. And it’s not just like you were saying, hiring more people. It’s about finding more people to come to you that are from diverse backgrounds so that you can have the best-qualified candidate, and they also happen to be a minority candidate.

Dona Costa: [00:16:13.73] Absolutely. I recently read, and this is where I want to say geek out a little bit, but I read and I got so excited. This next generation coming up is our first generation that is not predominantly white. And so if companies. Don’t figure out a way to have the makeup of their workforce reflect the community they’re really going to be behind. And again, I always be mindful of how, how this is stated. But when we say not predominantly white, not majority white, it’s not that there’s something wrong with the white male. It’s that we have absolutely more choices now. And so I think that companies will find that creating that diverse workforce, which reflects the community, will be really helpful with recruiting and retention. And it needs to be at all levels. It’s not, this has been a challenge since the beginning. Right? We can have a really diverse hourly workforce and we can really impact the management and the diversity of the management makeup. And then as you get higher and higher, you see less of that diversity. And I’m a big supporter of every opportunity. When there’s an opening, that’s another opportunity to create some diversity, some inclusion. It’s another opportunity to say, does our, does the makeup of our executive team reflects what our hourly team looks like? Because people need to see people like themselves so they know that they have the ability to reach other positions.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:17:52.95] That’s so true and so important.

Break: [00:17:55.23] Let’s take a reset. This is Jess Miller-Merrell, and you were listening to the Workology Podcast. We are sponsored by Ace The HR Exam and Upskill HR. You can learn more about Workology’s courses at Learn.Workology.com. We have all the things for you there. Today we are talking about the role of the CHRO with Doan Acosta. She’s the Chief People Officer for Gordon Ramsay North America. Now this series is called the CHRO series on the Workology Podcast and that is powered by HR Benchmark Survey. Take a look at our survey. Join in the survey if you’re a head of HR or a senior HR leader by completing that survey at HRBenchmarkSurvey.com.

Break: [00:18:36.67] Benchmarking and data is crucial to HR leaders. Workology’s HR Benchmark Survey is an always-on survey and just by taking the survey at HRBenchmarkSurvey.com, you’re signing up to get comprehensive quarterly results, white papers, and other research from the survey right to your inbox. It takes 10 minutes or less to complete. Visit HRBenchmarkSurvey.com.

Listening, Learning, and Being Effective

 

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:19:03.01] So moving on to our next question. And I, and I don’t, I feel like we, you and I have worked in HR for a while and we have been in this industry and now in a Chief People Officer Role. This is a relatively new role for you. And so I wanted to ask, with all this experience that you have stepping into this new role as the CPO, what has been your primary area of focus for this year that we’re in now?

Dona Costa: [00:19:32.61] It’s for this year. It’s also for this company. This is a, this is a new role for me. And as excited as I am to be in it, I realize I have so much to still learn. While I feel like I’ve had some experience in all areas that fall under this org, there’s still so much to learn. How to partner with the executive team, how to communicate with the CEO, how to how to utilize my seat at the table to be effective. A lot of the focus has been on, for me personally, has been on listen, learn, be effective in your role, and how can you do that. You’ve got to communicate effectively with these other leaders at the table. So it’s been, it’s been a bit of a learning curve, some growth. It’s reaching out to mentors. I’m actually interviewing different people for some executive coaching for not just myself but others that it’s learning how to, the best way I can describe it as it’s a whole new sandbox to play in and I’ve got to figure out how to play with these people that are in the sandbox. And it’s been great, challenging and great.

Dona Costa: [00:20:46.80] The focus for the company in my role has been how can we be an employer of choice? And you have so many different areas to look at and narrowing those down to say, what are the ones where we can have the biggest impact? So we’re looking at our benefits program. We’re a small company. How can I compete with much larger companies with the benefits that we offer and realizing that requires a company to pick up a larger portion of the premium in order to be competitive and being able to present that to the executive team and say, here’s what we can do and why we would want to do it. It’s about looking at salaries going across the board. How can we make salary a non-issue and how can we afford that and still, still make money because we are in a for-profit business. So really focusing on how to be employer of choice and how my team impacts all of those, all the different areas that can make us an employer of choice. That’s been the primary focus of the role. And then just learning the new role and how to communicate.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:21:51.12] While at the same time planning for double or triple the growth.

Dona Costa: [00:21:54.66] Absolutely. And that’s the fun part. I mean, that’s the, we’re all hands-on doers. And that’s going back to the original question. What’s important to be successful in this role to me, it’s you’ve got to be hands-on. You’ve got to get in the trenches. So we will all, it’s all hands on deck when we open a location. It’s all hands on deck. If a location needs assistance or we see that they could use some development in certain areas. We’re all in the trenches. No one’s managing from the office here in Dallas, for sure.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:22:25.41] I want to go back to and dive in a little bit deeper when you talked about mentorships. So talk to me about the significance of relationships and mentorships that you have had in your career and then maybe what you might recommend to HR professionals who are looking for a mentor.

Dona Costa: [00:22:42.51] Yeah, I, I get emotional when I think about I am where I am today because of the mentors, because of the people that took the time to grow me. I mean, and because I allowed myself to be open to it. It has been all about relationships. I’m the CEO that’s here, I have followed to multiple companies because I believe in his leadership and because he takes an interest in my professional growth and he takes an interest in me personally as well. Norman would be someone that I would consider a friend as well as a professional colleague. Without those relationships, I wouldn’t be where I am. And Norman, it’s funny, I walked into his office a few weeks ago and said, you are, you’re a top three mentor. And he was like, not number one. And I’m like, Well, you really compete with Rodney Morris. Rodney Morris is number one mentor in my life, professionally and personally. He is the reason I am who I am, both as a human being with a lot of my views and as a professional, as an HR professional. He is someone, a patient, kind, a great listener, open to new ideas. Gives that constructive feedback in a way that no defences go up. And that’s how I would describe Norman as well. You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to make the same mistake twice.

Dona Costa: [00:24:15.71] You’re going to make it a third time possibly. But as long as you’re learning and you’re improving each time, ok, it’s okay to make mistakes. I mean, and that’s just huge to hear from a CEO and Rodney, who was my Chief Human Resource Officer at the time. I mean, I owe everything to them being great mentors and it’s, so I think it’s them being willing to spend the time. I think a mentor as someone who is open to spending the time, developing someone else, open to spending the time listening to someone else, open to observing and seeing where someone is at in their career and then saying what their goals are. And sometimes it’s their goal is just to be really good where they are today, it encouraging them and that and then realizing when they can be pushed a little and can take on more and helping them, helping to push them along. I think those make great mentors and I think someone seeking a mentor, I think you’ve got to be bold. Sometimes you have to ask someone out to lunch. You have to say, I’m interested in learning more about you and your role and would love to buy you lunch and just spend the time listening and figuring out, is this someone that could mentor? Is someone that I feel is open to being a mentor? Do they seem too busy? I mean, because it’s finding someone that will have the time to spend with you.

Dona Costa: [00:25:37.76] And sometimes you have to go outside of where you work, because maybe when Rodney left. Oh, I, you know, dream crusher. When he left, Carino’s and I caught up with him again a couple of different places throughout my career. But then you’re looking for someone new. And sometimes I had to go outside, and the diversity council was one place I could go and reach out to even people outside of the industry and just say, I’d like to spend some time with you, I’d like to learn from you. So I think you have to be bold and you have to ask for the time if you’re not getting it from people with, where you work. Don’t be afraid to go outside. I’ve certainly made connections on LinkedIn. Someone posts something clever. I’ll send them a message behind the scenes and just say I thank you for, for posting what you post. And I would love to learn more about how you got to where you are and create the conversation. And maybe a mentor is, will only be there for a short time. Sometimes they’re lifelong, like a Norman or Rodney for me, but look everywhere for them and be open to it, I guess would be my greatest feedback.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:26:43.84] I agree. They come in the, in the most unusual or maybe unconventional places. It doesn’t have to be like you’re saying, cookie cutter. It’s my boss at where I work right now.

Dona Costa: [00:26:54.88] Right.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:26:56.82] So in your role as Chief People Officer right now, I mentioned a couple of times that the organization is growing. So how is your team supporting the growth and expansion, whether it is the restaurant locations that you currently have as well as the franchise locations?

Dona Costa: [00:27:18.24] Mm hmm. So my team is involved across the board. We’ll start with recruiting. So as we’re looking for that external talent, we’re asking for referrals. We’re saying, who do you know? And just doing that traditional route. Then also, as we do restaurant visits and, and we’re interacting with the hourly team members, we’re learning who has an interest in growing. For some people, this is a stepping stone. They’re going to be a server, they’re going to be a dishwasher, they’re going to be a cook for a limited time. And then they move on, right? For some people, they’re looking for someone to take an interest in them. I just did an environment check in one of our, we call it an environment check. You go in and speak to as many team members as you can. You get feedback on how things are going and you learn an awful lot. I mean, I spend morning to night just listening, asking some questions that will get them to talk. And I learned, you know, my last two visits to two different locations, I’ve learned which ones have an interest in going to management, one we recently learned of, and she’s receiving an offer this week. So my team is involved by doing the initial recruiting the traditional way, listening to existing team members, taking an interest in the hourly team. When we’re in the restaurants, doing a visit, seeing who are our future stars, we’re even looking at how we can grow them into training roles when we go to open new restaurants, who can we pull from which, which restaurants to assist with opening the new ones? Who has an interest in doing that travel?

Dona Costa: [00:28:48.81] I mean, it’s creating all kinds of opportunities for our existing team as we grow and open new restaurants. It’s, people are going to be able to travel and they wouldn’t have been able to do that on their own in the past. And so it’s very exciting when you think of it that way. Also, with our learning and development team, they’re creating different training models to grow and develop those hourly team members. They also go out and support. We have one person from our learning and development team now that has been assisting in one of our license locations with getting them open. And we received a call on could we have her go back out and support one of our other licensed partners because some recent turnover. So we’re constantly out there involved in the operations helping not just company-owned properties but the licensed properties because their success is our success. And as we grow, we can pull people from our licensed partners. We may have people in our, in our company-owned locations that want to go and help licensed partners grow and be a part of their management teams or their hourly training teams. So it’s unlimited, really.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:30:03.13] Thank you for sharing. I was particularly interested in, on the prep call when we were talking about this, about trainers going to the licensed locations and helping, supporting or training new people there or bringing their people with them back in, back and forth. So just because you’re, it’s those employees aren’t employees doesn’t mean that their success isn’t your success. They do represent the organization as a licensee or as a franchise company.

Dona Costa: [00:30:35.88] Absolutely. Yes.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:30:38.01] So my last question for you is, what would you like HR leaders to know about maybe, what? Something that we haven’t talked about.

Dona Costa: [00:30:45.30] We’ve covered so much that I, that I love about my role. And I think, I think sometimes so I have this thing, my license plate actually says HR is fun. And I think that’s something that we can sometimes forget. And I got that license plate, I want to say about five years ago, I walked into another company that I worked for, and it was my first time meeting with the GM, so it was a, it was a GM meeting that they would host monthly. And I was joining them as their VP of HR. And I walked up to the front and it was kind of after knowing that HR was seen as the compliance police. And so I walked to the front and I said, HR is fun, right? And you just heard this audible, like, groan. Like, I’m like, Oh, no, no, no. HR is fun because we’re all about people. And my role is to protect the brand. Absolutely. But the way I protect the brand is by protecting our team members. And the way I protect our team members is being proactive with what can I do to support you? And it just that that started the relationship with operations and then them knowing HR can be fun. It can be fun because we’re training and we’re teaching. Are there hard times and hard moments? Absolutely. Are there the not-so-fun direct conversations or where you have to go in and terminate someone for a policy? Sure. But don’t forget, HR is also fun.

Dona Costa: [00:32:14.78] And I think sometimes as professionals we get so bogged down in strategy and where maybe new policy or policies aren’t being followed. And it can, it can be overwhelming. At the end of the day, we have to remember, we’re in a really fun industry. I mean, for me, restaurants is so much fun and we’re in a terrific role of where we can create that environment to keep it fun, keep it light. Yes, we still have policies to follow, but it can still be just tremendous fun. And it’s people. I mean, we’re affecting lives every day, providing opportunities. We’re affecting lives every day where, I mean, here in restaurants, we say it’s lunch and dinner. It’s not life and death. It’s, it’s don’t forget that we’re dealing with human beings and it can be so much fun.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:33:04.34] I think that HR is just kind of, we see HR on the news and then the media, television shows, things like that where they really misunderstand what we do and who we are. But at the end of the day, we’re people too, and we like to have fun. It’s just human nature. So HR can be that way if we choose for it to be fun.

Dona Costa: [00:33:30.65] I agree.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:33:31.43] Well, Dona, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. I know I’ll link to your LinkedIn profile if they want to connect with you there, but you said you’re hiring a recruiter. Maybe we’ll put up your career site too. So if somebody is like, Oh, this is, Dona sounds awesome, Gordon Ramsay North America sounds like a great place. If they want to apply for an open role, well, I would love for them to head over to your career site as well.

Dona Costa: [00:33:57.35] That would be great.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:33:58.46] Yeah. Again, thank you so much for, for your time. Any, any parting thoughts?

Dona Costa: [00:34:04.79] Yeah. I really appreciate the opportunity to be on your podcast with you. I’ve admired you for many years in the work that you do, so it’s been great to connect with you.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:34:14.48] I love it too. Thank you so much. I, it’s been a blast and I look forward to continuing the conversation.

Closing: [00:34:21.29] The CHRO podcast series here on Workology is powered by HR Benchmark Survey. I’d love for you to take our survey at HRBenchmarkSurvey.com. We are sharing results with you to help you better understand how the HR organization and the HR department is evolving and how we continue to grow and support our businesses.

Closing: [00:34:42.32] I love interviews like this with Dona. Honestly, I could do this CHRO series forever because every CHRO that I talk to has a different story, has new experiences, and I love to hear how these connect to the strategy and operations of the overall business. And we’ve seen that in Dona’s experience and with the Gordon Ramsay North American Company. The CHRO truly doesn’t just lead HR within the company. The company really depends on this leadership role to set the standards and benchmarks for everything from culture to employee engagement and more. And you’re going to have to do that doubling or even tripling within 12 to 24 months. I appreciate Dona taking the time to share with us her own experiences today, and thank you for joining us today on the Workology Podcast. I appreciate you taking time out of your busy day.

Closing: [00:35:34.04] This podcast is sponsored by Upskill HR and Ace The HR Exam. These are certification and recertification courses that Workology offers and you can learn more about it at Learn.Workology.com. This podcast is for the disruptive workplace leader who is tired of the status quo. My name is Jess Miller-Merrell. Until next time you can visit Workology.com to listen to all our previous Workology Podcast episodes.

Connect with Dona Costa.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

 

– Dona Costa on LinkedIn

– Careers at Gordon Ramsay North America

– CHRO Job Description

– Episode 299: The Role of the CHRO in the Restaurant Industry

– Episode 359: Being the Supplement to Communication With John Reeves Whitaker, CHRO at NPH

– Episode 361: CHRO Series – What Skills and Experience Do You Believe Are Absolute Requirements for a CHRO Role?

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