CHIPOTLE + QUALTRICS

Instead of an annual engagement survey that would be out of date before the results had been collated, they worked with Qualtrics to move to an always-on listening program where their Chipeeps could share their experiences – good or bad – in real-time. And, if they do choose to share, can give valuable insight into why.

The team at Chipotle created a roadmap for their Voice of the Employee Program with listening opportunities at every stage of an employees’ lifecycle, from the onboarding experience, to one-month anniversary, promotion, transfer and exit interviews.

Employees could leave feedback on anything from “I’m having a great day today” to “This training really did not meet the mark for me”. Chipotle welcomed all feedback to help them design and improve a better experience for their people every day.

Another important consideration was making it as easy as possible for all employees to share their feedback.

Whether it is someone on the frontline serving customers or a chef behind-the-scenes, they’re all now able to share feedback easily at any point in their journey with Chipotle.

“When an employee clocks in for their shift, their manager will manager will say, ‘Hey, I would love your feedback. Will you take two to three minutes and complete this survey?’,” explains Eric DiCenzo-Crotallo, Director of Talent Learning, and Development at Chipotle. “They hand them the iPad, they complete this survey and then they go on about their day. It’s quick, easy and effective.”

The team were getting a wealth of insights from their people, but insights are redundant without action. They needed to empower their leaders to move the needle on their employee experience.

One of the ways they did this was by giving field managers their own self-service dashboards. These dashboards contain sentiment from their own team members so they can see exactly what challenges their teams are facing.

“They love having access to the most relevant employee insights at their fingertips,” says Eric.

And since managers now have actionable insights in real time – they have the power to identify employee experience gaps themselves and close them themselves, rather than having to escalate these issues or have prescriptive actions come from top-down. “This has really helped us democratize employee experience by empowering managers with the tools and training to make a difference,” says Eric.

Chipotle’s exponential growth is placing even more emphasis on its need to attract and retain great people. Currently, the fast-casual chain has 3,200 restaurants and is planning to more than double the size of this organization to 7,000.

“We know that one of the enablers to that is growing our talent and ensuring that we have enough people to staff those restaurants,” says Eric. “The only way we’re going to do that is by improving continuously improving that employee experience.”

The way to do this, Eric explains, is not through guesswork but through leaning into the insights they’re gathering from Qualtrics.

“It’s an investment in our people. It’s an investment in ensuring that our employees come to work every day and have an incredible experience, which each and every one of them deserve,” he says.

Working with Qualtrics has equipped Chipotle with real-time, actionable data to make the right decisions to help its people thrive. They can be targeted and laser-focused on their action items and how they can impact the overall sentiment of their unique team – leading to better employee and guest experiences.

“It’s been a game changer,” says Eric. “We’re now able to pull leading indicators out of the data that we’re getting. We’re much more proactive. We are able to use data to inform decisions on everything from promotions to how we roll out benefits, and perks programs. It’s just been absolutely unbelievable. The impact that it’s had on so many aspects of our business.”