Jamie Gonzalez, people and culture at Taco Bell, invests in her people. Specifically, she and her team give Taco Bell's U.S. team members at participating locations free access to education via its Tacos & Tuition benefit.
Since its inception, the program has expanded beyond corporate and company-owned stores to employees at participating franchise locations, giving employees at participating franchise locations access to more than 3,000 online programs ranging from GED and ESL courses to bachelor's and master's degrees.
Done in partnership with an education and skilling solutions provider, the program has no upfront cost and offers enrollment eligibility on day one.
"I am very proud to say that over the past year, I partnered with our internal training team and our education partners at InStride to help bring to life an opportunity for restaurant training hours to translate into college credits toward a university degree," Gonzalez said. "This work gives our general managers, who lead our restaurants every day, a meaningful head start toward earning a degree — an opportunity they may not have thought was possible before. I'm excited to share that we should have our first college graduate by the end of this year thanks to this credit for prior learning opportunity."
Taco Bell has also had more employees stick around thanks to the program, measuring a 17% team member retention rate at company-owned restaurants, year over year. The company also reports that locations with access to Tacos & Tuition see 73% retention on the frontline and a retention of managers enrolled in the program at 1.5x the rate of nonparticipants.
Of course, this program is one among many Gonzalez juggles in her role at the company, but they fit the same formula of success she strives for.
"My specific goal this year is to continue to elevate every project that I manage for the field," she said. "Finding new ways of taking each project from good to great and making sure that this is the best job for our team members. To achieve this, I will make sure that I am bringing key partners in along the way and continue to look for ways to simplify things and remove barriers."
Jamie will be honored at EBN's Benefits at Work conference in September, which you can
