Promoting disability inclusion in the workplace

I first joined Sodexo as a supervisor in the Starbucks outlet on campus at Embry Riddle University following a number of retail and coffee roles in my early career. I immediately loved the Sodexo team and was interested in the training opportunities available.

I have been able to move around different roles and departments with Sodexo. We have a huge range of branded restaurants on campus, as well as in-house branded outlets, residential dining halls and catering. In 2012 I was able to move to my first management position and, 4 years later, after gaining lots of experience, I progressed to operations manager. More recently, I was promoted to general manager in 2020. With each change in role I’ve gained additional responsibility but, at the same time, trading volumes on campus have also grown. The student union building, and the residential dining building are both quite new so our whole operation on campus has grown hugely since I joined the team 11 years ago.

If it’s not a challenge, I would be bored

I love the daily challenge to meet and exceed student expectations. We are always on the lookout for new and fresh ideas to enhance our services here. Most recently we’ve introduced food delivery robots. The students love them, and we are proud to be the first university in Florida to have introduced them.

I believe you should never take a client relationship for granted and always remain humble, putting the work in to exceed the expectations of your client and consumers every day. To me it’s fun; if it’s not a challenge, I would be bored. 

Promoting disability inclusion in the workplace

As a manager, I noticed that I rarely received job applications from candidates with disabilities. I discovered that this was because many people with disabilities feel that organizations wouldn’t want to make adaptations, which would enable them to perform a job role.

I worked together with our local County representative to see how we could change this and decided to introduce a Community Based Instruction program based on campus. 

The program is now in its 5th year. Each year we work with local high schools to bring students with disabilities onsite to teach them job skills. Each student usually stays with us for 1 or 2 years, coming to campus each day for 2-3 hours, instead of their usual classes. They work alongside our team, as well as interacting with students on campus, which improves their social skills to prepare them for a job.

My favorite part of hosting this program is seeing these interactions, which are so valuable for both parties. Both employees and students learn how to work with all different types of people.

We have hired more than 10 students following completion of the program. Some have already been able to progress to a new role and I hope to see some move into management roles in the future.

Listen and ask questions more than you speak

The best piece of career advice is to listen and ask questions more than you speak. I have learned a lot from other people throughout my career by listening, asking questions and remaining open to learning. When you really listen to your employees and truly understand their problems, it makes you a better manager.

Early in my career I felt that my age was noticed by my colleagues. I was a young manager compared to the other managers on campus and at conferences and networking events. I didn’t automatically feel that I fitted in and I sometimes felt that other people had a hard time seeing me as a manager. Over the years I have overcome this, and every wrong decision has taught me a great deal more than every correct one. Demographics of management have also evolved over the years and I now have a much more generationally diverse management team and a very different approach to key issues like technology.

The sky is the limit, you just have to want it

I didn’t know that I wanted to follow this specific career path from a young age. Looking back, I have always been interested in human resources and diversity and inclusion so thought I might follow a career path in those fields. However, I’ve been lucky to have managers throughout my career who have pointed out my strengths, suggested progression next steps and given me the confidence I needed to apply for positions. 

With Sodexo, I’ve been able to incorporate all my interests and gain the additional skills I needed over time. Sodexo is great at supporting internal talent, but you have to want to take advantage of the opportunities available. If you do, the sky is the limit.