Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging
A Seat at the Table
As a company with hospitality in our name, we’ve long strived to make people feel valued and heard. Our country is grappling with systemic racism and social injustice and we know that our definition of hospitality must continually evolve. Hospitality exists when people feel you are on their side, but it can only fully exist when all people feel like they belong. It takes an engaged culture of diversity and inclusion to ensure that all stakeholders feel like they have a seat at our table.
We have a lot of work to do and much more to learn, but we’re filled with hope and optimism that with our collective commitment to make progress, we will more fully express and live our family values.
We commit to being actively anti-racist.
We commit to increasing racial and gender representation in our leadership and ensuring pay equity across levels.
We commit to being a welcoming and inclusive workplace for our colleagues without bias towards gender, race, sexuality, religion, political beliefs, age, abilities and disabilities, and socioeconomic status.
This work is a journey and below is our starting point for actions we are taking at the outset. We invite your thoughts and ideas to help create an ongoing dialogue.
Danny Meyer
Founder & CEO
Equity and Opportunity within our Company
Reflecting the diversity of our communities within our organization, particularly throughout our leadership ranks, is a critically important step to building an inclusive organization. We know that representation matters, and we have set goals for each part of our organization below. These goals reflect the diversity in our country as of the last census and we will revisit these goals when the 2020 Census results are released. Each quarter we will update you on our progress.
Gender | All USHG Goal: 50% Female | Sr. Leadership Team Goal: 50% Female | Operations Mgmt
| Operations Hourly Goal: 50% Female | Home Office Goal: 50% Female |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Racial | All USHG Goal: 60% POC | Sr. Leadership Team Goal: 60% POC | Operations Mgmt Goal: 60% POC | Operations Hourly Goal: 60% POC | Home Office Goal: 60% POC |
Continuous Learning and Development
We are consistently working to further understand systemic racism and bias in our country and within our own organization. We have engaged a DIBS expert, Dr. James Pogue, to conduct a comprehensive, and honest assessment of our organizational needs. So far, Dr. Pogue has surveyed 2300+ current and former employees, conducted focus groups, and ran a 6-part learning and coaching series with all current employees.
As a company we have taken several actions:
- We are in the process of developing a DIBS training for all new employees which will highlight unconscious bias training and the tenets of an anti-racism organization. This training will be ongoing and reviewed by all employees annually, along with quarterly town hall meetings, and an annual DIBS employee survey.
- As a part of our commitment to becoming an anti-racist organization, we are evaluating our internal policies and practices through a lens of diversity, inclusion, and belonging. Part of this effort included adding Juneteenth permanently to our holiday calendar.
- We donated our first week of revenue when we re-opened in 2020 to five organizations: Equal Justice initiative, Marsha P Johnson Institute, Bronx Defenders, Brownsville Community Culinary Center, Girls Leadership. We also raised funds for these organizations through an online auction, donating over $100,000.
- We completed a companywide compensation analysis, by role, to ensure equity by gender, race, and ethnicity in our restaurants. When our team returns to its normal size and we have sufficient data points to share by group, we will publish our pay equity analysis.
- We are implementing I-sight, an anonymous platform to report issues or provide feedback, in all our restaurants. I-sight provides us significant improvements to previous feedback loops as it provides enhanced reporting and accountability.
- We have removed all gender pronouns from job descriptions, and we will continue to list preferred pronouns in our email signatures.
- We believe voting is essential to assure that our diverse voices are heard and have gone above and beyond local and state mandates for granting and encouraging time-off. In the 2020 election, all employees were given three hours paid time off to vote, and if an employee volunteered at a polling location the day of the presidential election, we provided them with eight hours paid time off.
- We are actively increasing diversity on our websites, social media sites, and in events we participate in.
- We have committed to further diversifying our Board of Directors, prioritizing adding another woman to our board in 2021.
Community Building
To truly make progress as a community, as we choose to do business with a variety of stakeholders, we ask each of them to uphold our values on diversity, inclusion, and belonging. We welcome and respect all guests, and expect them to reciprocate by showing this same respect to all when they dine with us. We are implementing new processes for measuring racial and gender diversity in our suppliers so we can develop goals for improvement. We are currently partnering with three organizations that develop opportunities for underserved communities and hope to support more organizations:
- Drive Change: an organization that provides formerly incarcerated youth with social and professional development, with whom we are developing an onboarding program.
- Emma’s Torch: an organization that empowers refugees with culinary education, with our Senior Director of Operations, Dino Lavorini, on the board.
- Fortune Society: an organization that supports successful re-entry from incarceration with housing, education, health, and employment services, with our Union Square Events President, Tony Mastellone, on the board.
The steps above are our first on a lifelong journey to building a more equitable society.