Taco Bell’s solution to retain workers amid staffing shortage: Create 260,000 T-shirts

High turnover and a stubborn talent shortage have forced the restaurant industry to get creative in recruiting and retaining staff, especially in fast food. Taco Bell—the California-based Yum Brand subsidiary and go-to late-night eatery for college students everywhere—has employed quirky strategies to engage restaurant and corporate employees alike. Most recently, it partnered with an artist to design a trendy T-shirt for its store uniforms, which Taco Bell says was a hit among its 260,000 restaurant workforce, many of whom skew younger and belong to the TikTok generation. 

“It might sound silly or like it’s just a T-shirt, but it’s not. Team members have to wear that thing and represent the brand, and it has to be something they’re proud to wear,” says Taco Bell’s chief people and transformation officer, Kelly McCulloch.

She spoke with Fortune about why she’s teamed up with the company’s chief branding officer to increase workforce engagement and how she’s battling high industry turnover through creative employee marketing.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Fortune: How are you engaging employees across restaurants?

Kelly McCulloch: Our tactics change depending on our audience because we have a wide range of people we’re trying to engage with from a talent perspective. The one thing that will remain constant no matter which stakeholder group or employee group we’re trying to work with is that they want to be seen and heard, and we need to listen. That doesn’t mean that we do everything they ask us to do, but historically, employees were treated as if they just needed to do what we told them to do. That’s not how we operate, especially in these last three years.

Another constant is how we develop people and create programs, experiences, and relationships so that people can grow their careers, whether in our corporate office, restaurants, or as a franchisee.

What makes Taco Bell unique, and how are you thinking about that in your employee value proposition?

We tend to hire young people globally who are driven and passionate about people, service, and inclusion. The Taco Bell lens, on top of all of that, is the innovative kind of spirit that we look for and creativity.

What levers are you pulling to address the industry’s high turnover?

We expect our people leaders to be able to grow their talent. So it comes down to an employee’s experience in their restaurant with their particular restaurant general manager. That’s why we put so much into developing and growing our restaurant general managers to be high-performing leaders; the same goes for our corporate office.

Are you still feeling the strain of the tight talent market? 

Our application flow is up pretty significantly in our restaurants, and I think that’s an indicator of what’s happening in the environment and some of the efforts we’ve put behind our employment marketing. Of course, it doesn’t mean anything if you can’t retain those folks.

Amber Burton
amber.burton@fortune.com
@amberbburton

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