S02 EP10. Built While Flying: How One HR Leader Built Culture and Credibility for 30,000 Franchise Employees

What if the career you were meant to build started with a task you never asked for?

In this episode of Elevate, host Joy Fajardo sits down with Laura McLand, VP of Human Resources at Sun Holdings, to explore what it really means to build HR and a genuine culture of care inside one of the largest franchise organizations in the United States.

Laura didn't start in HR. She was an executive assistant when her CEO handed her a payroll task and told her he believed she could handle it. That one yes set off a 25-year career she built intentionally, one certification and one hard conversation at a time.

Today, she leads a team of 20+ HR professionals overseeing employee experience for 30,000 workers across 13 brands, 1,250 locations, and 32 states.

She inherited a department of one and built it into a fully structured function, while the company was actively growing around her. Laura shares how she earns credibility at the executive level by shifting the conversation from ROI to VOI — value on investment.

She walks through the earned wage access program that put over $106 million directly into employees' hands when they needed it most, explains how she builds mobile-first experiences for a workforce that's never behind a laptop, and talks about what she's actually looking for when she decides someone is worth investing in.

If you lead a people function in a distributed, frontline, or fast-growing organization and you've ever had to fight for your seat at the table, this one is for you. 

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Music: Ramaramaray by Aiyo | Get Up on That Horse by spring gang 
Via Epidemic Sound

©  2026 LineZero

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Elevate, a podcast where we sit down with the women shaping workplace culture at some of the biggest names in the business. These are the leaders navigating change, putting people first, and keeping teams connected and engaged every single day. Elevate is brought to you by Line Zero, a global employee experienced consultancy firm that partners with organizations to create connected workplaces. Tune in to learn how today's leaders are breaking barriers and building cultures where employees truly thrive.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

I am your host, Joy Picardo. Welcome back to Elevate. In November 2025, a universal women's network named Laura McLann, it's women of inspiration authentic leader of the year. And this isn't one of those titles that you just collect. It's the kind that you earn by showing up, doing the work, and actually making a difference for people. Laura is the VP of Human Resources at Sun Holdings, one of the largest franchise organizations in the United States. We're talking 30,000 employees, 13 brands, 1,250 locations across 32 states. She leads a team of more than 20 HR professionals and oversees everything from benefits in recruiting to talent development in peril. But what I love most about her story is how she started. She didn't begin an HR. She was an executive assistant at an investment firm when her CEO handed her a peril task and said, I think you can do this. And something clicked. She went back to school, a bachelor's focus on HR and organizational leadership, an MBA from Texas Tech University, a certificate from Cornell University, plus her PhR and SHRNCP. Step by step, she built herself into the leader she is today. And the result speaks for themselves: a 20% improvement in retention, over 106 million in earned wages accessed by employees when they actually needed it. Real impact in real moments that matter. Laura, welcome to Elevate. I'm so glad you said yes to our invitation.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Thank you, Joy. It's wonderful to speak with you today, and I'm looking forward to the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

I know that our audience are just excited to hear from you. So let's dive right in. I wanted to start at the very beginning. You were an executive assistant, as I mentioned in the intro, not HR, but your CEO handed you apparel task one day and said, he believed you could do it. Can you walk me through that moment? What was actually going through your head, and how do you trace the line from that day to where you are at right now?

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Thank you very much, Joy. And in that particular moment, I was thinking, what is he thinking? You know, I had never done anything like that before. I'd never mentioned anything like that before. But he saw something in me I didn't see in myself. And, you know, he may have looked at it from a perspective of, oh, I'm going to save money. I'm going to bring this internally, and she's going to be able to handle payroll. I had never done anything like that before. And I could have easily said, that's not my job. Um, and I know that many people do go uh that response. And I would challenge people not to have that response initially, to be open-minded. If somebody has given you that opportunity, grasp it. See what they're seeing that maybe you didn't see in yourself. And so that night, once I got that communication from him that he said Laura's gonna take over payroll for the entire company, it shows that he had confidence in me and that I need to show it in myself. So I immediately went home that night and started researching. And I also had a family. So I also had to balance what a lot of people do at that and younger ages and starting younger families. I'm gonna be taking on something totally new and different, including going back to school. What does that entail? And so I looked for programs that I could take at home in the evenings after the kids went to bed, but yet would still give me the information that I needed, the training that I needed, the education to do what this new task entail of me to do. And I was very fortunate that Cornell University is one of wonderful high impact universities that offered a program that I could do in three months that would give me the information that I needed quickly, and I wanted it at a resource that I know was very knowledgeable. And so that's what I did is I started embarking on those courses at night, but then starting learning payroll during the day. And uh it my career has gone forward in a steady trajectory, and I'm very excited that I was able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

That is just so awesome. And as you said, that's the same thing that hits me, you know, he didn't hire you for that, but he saw something in yourself before you even see it. And most people would have said, no, that's not my job. But you said yes, and that one yes changed everything. It's almost poetic, right? The career didn't follow a plan, it followed a moment of trust, of confidence. And what makes that origin story even more powerful is the scale of what you walked into at Sun Holdings, because this is not a small organization where you can ease in. So when you stepped into this role at Sun Holdings, what did the HR function actually look like? What did you inherit? What did you have to build from scratch?

SPEAKER_02 5:32

That's a great question, Joy. And when I came on board, there was a very minimal HR department. So they had one HR professional, one recruiting professional, and then they had a payroll team that was going uh under another department. And so fortunately, I work with the president and CEO, and he was open-minded of saying, you know what, if you trust me to build an HR department that not only can support our current company, but also take us to the next level and be able to be prepared as we grow the company going forward. And I was very fortunate that he was allowed me to do that. And so we went from having 11 people to creating a recruiting team and creating a benefits team and creating an HR team and then further into uh learning and development. So those were very important pieces to not only since they were so fragmented, but not only create those teams, but also have those teams sit next to each other physically, and so that they can actually interact. So they don't feel so compartmentalized, but they're able to engage with each other. And we actually have events in our department, and it's across internal departments, right? So that they can interact with each other, not just via email or behind a screen or computer, but get up, walk across the room and have that dialogue, whether it's about an employee or question about a payroll issue or a benefits inquiry from an employee, they're able to talk with each other and see what we can do to make it seamless for our for our employees.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Do you mind if I ask back then? Can do you remember like a ballpark number of how many employees does Sun Holdings have at that point? Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

Um I know it was around 22 to 23,000. So we've grown to 30,000. And so we've definitely done some acquisitions since then. And that's what makes my job so exciting is that I never know from day to day what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

I thought that it was a lot lesser than 22k, but 22k is still a big number back then, right? So you were essentially building the infrastructure while the plane was already in the air with those 22,000 people on it, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:58

You're exactly right. I definitely quite use that analogy. That's a perfect analogy. It feels like I I am building the plane and creating the plane while I'm flying the plane, you know? So we we have to constantly just evolve, but also put some systems and processes in place as we're flying our plane. And so it makes it definitely easier in systems and processes and programs, so that as we're flying, we're we're we're building, but it's also constantly evolving as well.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Yeah, that is fundamentally different challenge just in general, than you know, walking into a company where HR already has a seat and a strategy already in place. For you, you have to build on both, both the seat and the strategy. Am I right? There are 13 brands. Correct. 13 brands, and then there's 1250 locations thereabouts, and you are standing there figuring out how to make HR feel coherent across all of it. And right, and when you are building for that scale, the whole definition of what employee experience even means is a bit different because your employees are not sitting at a laptop in an all like office space, right? So your workforce is largely hourly employees across fast food and casual dining. The employee experience conversation in our industry usually defaults pretty quickly to, you know, engagement surveys or wellness platforms, culture programs, all of those. But that world was mostly built for office workers. What does employee experience actually mean when your people are on their feet all day working a shift?

SPEAKER_02 9:41

That's a great question. And what we really do is empower our teams to treat each brand individually. Each brand has their own personality, their own culture. And so we want to develop that. We don't want to lose that. We don't want to be cookie-cutter where we treat everybody the same because everybody is unique. And that's what we also do whenever an employee calls into the HR department or payroll or benefits. We want them to feel that they're the only employee that we're working with. We don't want them to feel like they're part of a big, large organization because what their question is is extremely important to them. So what we do is personalize that communication with our employees. And so we use several different tools to get that information to them, but also give them that platform to reach out to us as well and to let them know that, hey, they are important to us and what their questions or comments or concerns are. We want to make sure they're addressed in a timely manner. So what we do at all the restaurants is that we we post posters that say, this is your HR department. We actually brand them for that particular brand. So whether it's Applebee's or whether it's Arby's, they know that they're part of Arby's. They're not part of this big large Sun Holdings group and they they feel like they may be getting lost in the shuffle. And so we do brand things communication-wise from the HR benefits bureau departments, and then we give them that platform to reach out to us. So we don't just have a blanket email or a ticketing system that they have to then feel like, oh, they're never going to hear from us again. So they're able to email HR at some holdings. And so they know that somebody, there's a person on the other side that they will be able to communicate with and have that dialogue. We also put things in apps. So we know that our workforce is 90% on their phones. Almost everybody uses their phones for communication. And so that's where our audience is, our customers, which is our employees. And so we make sure that we have a platform that they can also engage with us through that as well. And so they are able to download their payroll on their phone. They're able to, everything is digital, and we make sure that that is easy for them as they go through our hiring and also our employee engagement processes as well.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Love that because it seems like you have to start with the fundamentals, being treated like a person, not a headcount, personalization and phone 100%. If everyone is on their feet all the time, you cannot expect them to open a laptop and do the things that you know office workers typically do in their laptops. I feel like that reframe is simple but huge because it changes what you build, you know, what you measure, what actually moves the needle. And you didn't just talk about that reframe, you actually build something that directly addressed that, right? And the numbers that came out of it is just hard to ignore. I would love to hear from you more about the earned wage access program. So I read there's over 106 million accessed by employees, there's over 81 million in digital tips, 14,000 active users, 20% improvement in retention over a couple of years. Those are not soft metrics. But I want to understand what it looked like from the inside. What problem were you actually trying to solve? How did you make the case for it internally?

SPEAKER_02 13:23

That was a great question. And it was surprising that they didn't have it when I came on board. And I know that's a very important benefit that employees need, especially right now, especially our hourly workforce, because so many work paycheck to paycheck. And so it's very difficult when life's emergencies happen, is how do they get access to money that they've already earned, maybe they haven't paid it out yet. We give them that benefit so they're able to utilize and handle those life's bumps in the road, and so that they can have those financial resources readily available. And what we do with earning wage access is of course we roll that out over the last year and a half, two years. And it's been hugely successful with our employees. You know, I do get some metrics on the users and the usability of what that platform entails for our employees. And not only that, not only giving them that access to their wages, but also it does have a financial component. So it does show them that sometimes it's better to maybe do some savings proactively, even if it's $10 a month. You want to try to build some of those resources yourself so that when those lives changes happen, you are better prepared. So it does have that in the app, and that was really important to me too. It's not just making that available to them, but also giving them the tools that they can use, especially our younger workforce. Maybe they haven't learned that in school, or maybe they haven't learned it from family and friends. And so we want to make sure that they have a wide knowledge of financial tools that they have available for them. So not only having that money available, but also that they can move forward, but a savings program as well.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

This might be picking it a bit, and I'm not sure how open are you to sharing, but how does this whole thing work? Can you walk us through maybe our audience might get some idea how they can replicate the same for their organization?

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Absolutely. So we use a uh software, it's called RAIN. And what RAIN does is it pulls um the hours that they've worked every day. And so it'll download every day and calculate how many hours that they've worked. RAIN already knows what their pay rate is. So it gives them the availability of up to 50% of those that they can borrow during that pay period, and it will be deducted off their paycheck. But then they're able to pull, you know, what it's $20 or $50, whatever's necessary. And it is immediately available. It does charge a fee for that to be immediately available, but then many are willing to pay that because they need to handle something's a situation today. They can choose to have not pay that fee and have it deposited in 24 to 48 hours, fee-free. And then it actually also goes into their bank account as well. So they have both. If they're willing to wait a day or two, then they don't have to pay that fee. But we want to make sure that they have whatever they need when they need it, you know, and some of the times, especially with the gasoline prices, and I know that's a challenge right now. And so having that instantly available to put that money in the gas tick when they need it, that's what's really important. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Thanks for sharing that, Laura. You already talked a bit about the tools, so let's talk more about it. What other tools are you actually using at Sun Holdings to keep that workforce connected and informed? And when you think about evaluating any kind of technology for your employee experience, what are you really looking for? Any tips for our listeners?

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Yes, my gosh. Well, you want to make sure that you work with a company that has, you know, the tools or tips that you can put on your phones. So many people are on their phone. So we use our payroll system as ADP. We use RAIN for earned wage access. We also have instant pay cards so that they can actually, if they don't have a bank account, I also find um maybe younger employees don't have it, or maybe even regular employees want a second account as kind of emergency expenditures monies. Either way, you can use an instant pay card and then you can actually either pull that money from instant, where whether a lot of them are using her tips, their their tips are paid on their instant card, and then get transferred over to the bank account, or they can use it straight on their instant card. And so a lot of companies, that's what they need to look at is that instant availability of even tips. So we have a lot of tipped employees, and so we want to make sure that they have access to those tips whenever they those are are paid from the guests. The other thing is that so many people are using credit cards. Not very many use cash, you know, they don't leave cash on the table as much anymore. And so that's also what's really important is having those credit card tips available for them too in a in a timeline.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

How about in terms of like communication? How do you disseminate, for example, like working schedules or announcements? How does uh uh with the different brands, do you go every brand has different strategy, or how does that work?

SPEAKER_02 18:42

Great question. Each brand does have their own. So each one has their own app. Some have a little bit more evolved apps than others. Some brands that do not have it, we use a software it's called WisTale. And we're able to put everything in there. So whether it's their training, whether it's their serve safe, whether it's uh happy birthday, happy anniversary, great job, kudos. All of those kind of things are in that app. And so they're able to just go into one place and get all that dialogue. They're also able to say kudos to each other, high fives, things like that. We want to make sure that they have that platform so that they can engage with each other in a positive manner. That's what's really important, building that culture and so that they have that platform to do so. We're also rolling that out with all of our brands. We we started with several brands initially, and then we're adding it the other brands as we go throughout the year.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Very cool. Thanks for sharing that, Laura. Super helpful. So I hope our listeners are making notes on the specific tools and some tips that we are getting from Laura here. Now, all of this, you know, the programs, the technology, the strategy, I'm guessing you have had to earn that credibility to lead it, right? To be heard that these platforms are what we need. Now, the franchise and restaurant world is not known for elevating HR as a strategic function. Sometimes it's even framed as, you know, sometimes it's cost center. Now you have changed that narrative at Sun Holdings. You've published in HR.com. Cornell is using your story to inspire emerging HR leaders. You're a board member to not for profits. How do you build that kind of authority? And what did you actually have to push against to get there? Oh, that's a great question.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

You know, a part of it is being passionate in HR. So they know when we have a conversation that I'm very knowledgeable, but also cognizant of their situation, of each brand being unique, but also what brings HR to the table. And you're right, many think of it as a cost center. So we have to bring value, not just ROI, return on investment, but also VOI, value on investment. And so that's what's important is we bring value and in retention, what does that look like in dollars? And so we're able to say, you know what, if you return, we if you use some of the things that we're we're we're talking about, the tools or the programs or the processes, you're actually going to show a 20% improvement in retention. But what does that actually look like in the executive leadership team? Well, the less turnover that you have, then the less cost. I don't have additional recruiting costs. I don't have the situation where you have a new hire and or a position that's vacant. And so other employees are having to fill those roles. Well, that actually increases cost because it increases your overtime. Or you have a manager who now has to work extra shifts because maybe they don't have enough people. And so what I can show is that if we are able to retain managers or retain hourly employees, find out why they're Leaving, do some exit strategy or exit surveys and see what's the top three reasons. What can we do to curtail those? And so bringing those information and that those hot dollar savings of if we implement this particular program, this is what we're expecting to see, and then also continue monitoring that metrics. What does that look like three months, six months, a year down the road? And are we able to see what we've actually said we would accomplish? And fortunately, being in bringing that credibility to the executive team and saying, look, this is what we propose, this is what we implemented, and then this is what we're able to see. The outcome is what we're projecting. And so bringing that to the table is what also brings respect as well.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Guys, make you know VOI, value on investment. I love that. Now, it all sounds like a lot of that credibility really came from results, right? Not lobbying for a bigger title. Now, you let the numbers make the case for you. That's great. But there's also something very specific to being a woman in the client. You know, the bar is not the same, security is not the same, margin of error is also not the same. And you have been deliberate about not keeping that hardworn access to yourself. You've turned around and invested in the people coming up behind you, which I think is so inspiring. The coronel feature in your story specifically around guiding emerging HR leaders, you've been intentional about mentorship in the way that goes beyond just, you know, having coffee chat with someone. What does that actually look like in practice for you? What do you say to a young woman who is early in her HR career, for example, trying to figure out how to get to the table and be taken seriously once she gets there?

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Thank you very much. It it you definitely need to embrace opportunity. And so you're right. I want to promote what happened to me in my experience and be able to give that to others on my team. And so one of the things that I ask every single applicant when I interview them, what do you want to be when you grow up? And it's really important. It doesn't matter where you are, cycle, whether you're a younger employee or whether you have 20 or 30 years of experience. I want you to be able to see yourself in the future. And so I don't want you to think of it as a job. I want you to think of it as a career. But I want you to also have something to look forward to. I want you to be able to think, okay, this is where I want to be because it's going to get me where I want to grow career-wise. And so when I have those communications, what I do, and it's specifically on my team, I have two people, two recruiters who were general managers in our restaurants. And now they're recruiters in the corporate office. And so don't always think, okay, I'm always going to be in restaurants, but that's not really where I want to end up. These didn't think that they would ever be in a corporate role either. But because we opened it up to our brands and said, hey, we happen to have these positions available. Are you interested? And yes, these two stepped up and said, you know what? I've ran restaurants. Now I'd like to come to the corporate office and be recruiters. Not only does it help them and their career, but it also helps us as well. Because who better to have as recruiter than someone who's been in the field, who's been in the restaurants, who's worked in that field, boots on the ground is what we like to say. And because they have that experience that we know that we're recruiting for, and that helps our brands all across our company fill the right people in the right places. And so being able to promote people and give them other opportunities is what we want to do. And especially in payroll and HR, we also do that as well. They don't always want to run a payroll for the rest of their life. Where do they want to go from there? Do they want to be a supervisor in payroll? What if they don't want to stay in payroll? My current payroll HRES person was a payroll processor. Now she is HR Information Systems. Several of my team have gone back to college and I encourage that. I want them to finish because you know what? Just because you finish college or you start college and maybe you got derailed a little bit doesn't mean you can't finish later on in life, which is exactly what I do, I did too, is that, oh my gosh, I didn't know what I wanted to be. And sometimes you don't when you're in your 20s. And you think, you know what, I'm gonna pause for a minute because I'm not really one sure what I want to do. HR was definitely not one of the considerations that I have when I was started college. I actually was going to go either to be an airline student or an attorney. I know that's two crazy, dirtly different things. But you know what? Now that I was given that exposure, okay, now I have direction. Now I have insight. And sometimes as I give that to my employees, I want them to have that insight too. Now they're in a corporate office. They can see, oh, maybe I want to go into accounting or finance. I want to facilitate that for them. I want them to be able to think, oh, this is where I can go in the future. I don't have to stay where I'm at. Oh my gosh, Laura.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

I wanted to work for you with you. Your team is just so lucky to have you. And I hope more and more organizations embrace that kind of thinking, supporting one another, pushing one another up. And yeah, I I just really love what you have shared. The path does not have to look a certain way. And as you mentioned, when you're 20s, you might feel like you want to pause, look for what you wanted to do, and then come back later in life. And those who really work for Sun Holdings really are super lucky to have someone like you. That's just what I'm gonna say. It's super inspiring. I'm curious, Laura, what do you look for in someone when you decide they are worth investing in? Is there something specific you're watching for?

SPEAKER_02 28:00

Yes, I look for passion. That's what's really important to me. Is if I'm going to put some time and effort into you, I want to make sure that you have the passion in yourself to be able to continue. And sometimes you may not be where you, you know, once you may try a role. I did have that situation where, you know what, they tried it and they were honest and transparent with me. And they said, you know, Laura, I thought I was gonna love this. I really want to go back to the previous role I was doing. I'm like, that's totally fine. I totally understand. But now you know that maybe that wasn't the right something for you. And luckily, I keep that door open to always come back to maybe in a previous role or something that you want to do. And so that's what's we as long as they have the passion that they're willing to learn something new or go to the next level, or don't mind taking on additional responsibilities because that's what's really important is hey, if you will trust in me, I'm gonna trust in you. And just we'll work together to make sure that we make sure you're the you're successful.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

Passion, and I guess passion also leads you to won the Women of Inspiration Authentic Leader Award last year. Now, I want to ask you something personal about that. So, in your career, coming in as an EA, building through average certification, climbing to the VP uh role at one of the biggest franchise companies in the country, were there any moments that you had to actually fight for your seat? So the moments where you were in the ruring but not quite treated like you belong there, is there any incidents like that?

SPEAKER_02 29:41

That's a great question. And honestly, because I'm confident, and maybe sometimes overconfident, of my abilities and my ideas, I'm just as passionate. So if I see something that I think needs to be changed, I'm very fortunate that I have an executive team that gives me the platform to be able to bring ideas. And sometimes there's they'll say, maybe not right now, Laura. But if uh if I can show the view or if I show something that I think is going to be really valuable to our employees, I'm very fortunate that they're able to listen to those proposals and be able to facilitate some of that uh implementation when I need to do that. But it's also very important to put in the extra hours. And so for me personally, they also see that I am willing to not just work eight to five or nine to six, but actually put in the extra hours that it takes to support the company, to support our employees, and to support my team. I'm willing to go that extra mile. And so that because I have that, it does build credibility. If you are willing to to step out a little bit um and then show that hey, I'm willing to take on some extra things. I think I said that in the beginning, then people are going to listen to, okay, she's put in the extra work, the extra homework to bring these ideas to us. Let's listen to what she has to say.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Okay. So the next question is a personal question from me. So you mentioned about putting extra hours. And, you know, as say, for example, for me, I'm a 30s, I'm on my mid 30s. I am lump, but I also am passionate about what I do. Do you have any tips on how we can balance? How do we know when we've got enough? How do we know when we need to stop? Because you know, that time that time is so precious. So, how do we balance that out? Do you have any uh advice?

SPEAKER_02 31:43

Absolutely. And I can speak from my own personal experience, exactly where I sat was where you're sitting now. And so raising three children, um, and I had one in elementary, one in middle, one in high school. So it was a good variety. And they were very busy. I'm like, how am I gonna learn and progress in my career, but still be a supportive uh wife and a supportive mom? And so what I did was, yes, if I had to leave work, of course, on time to get soccer practice, football practice, cheerleading practice, make sure I'm at all the games. You want to be present as a parent because that's what they're gonna remember forever. But then after the kids go to bed, then that's when I said, okay, it's my time. What am I gonna do with this? That's when I went to school. That's when I took those classes, that's when I maybe jumped online and answered emails or things like that. And that's what I did as my kids were growing up and still still being a supportive spouse and and mother. But now that my kids are older, I'm able to spend a little bit more time on my career because I did do some of the things that my career, it took a while. I'm I've been doing this about 25 years. And so another thing that I do want to remind your audience is that we're so ingrained on I want immediate gratification. And it's important to take the time. There's a reason that we need that experience, and you're not gonna get it in a year, you're not gonna get it in two years, especially in HR. Even today, there's new and creative employees, and I get to learn new stories all the time. And so give yourself the time to learn your career, whatever that is. You know, you don't need to progress to be a supervisor and a manager in the first 90 days. You know, you need to learn your role, learn how your role impacts other people in the organization, and then how to make yourself maybe the best at that particular position. And then they'll be able to see, I want to be able to promote this person in the future. But do take the time for yourself to invest in yourself, in your career, and learn what your particular role and where you are uh in the organization.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Thank you so much, Flora. I appreciate that. Now I'm gonna shift gears a bit. As we think about what is ahead for you, for your workforce, for HR as a function. There is one more thing that I have to ask about because it's just changing the conversation, whether we invited it to or not. I'm talking about AI. So AI is showing up everywhere in HR right now. Recruiting, performance management, employee communications, workforce planning, every single, like wherever you look, there's AI. For you, leading HR for 30,000, mostly frontline employees. What does that actually mean in practice? What are you genuinely excited about? What are you watching carefully?

SPEAKER_02 34:38

That's a great question, too. We use AI already. And so I am using it in recruiting. I'm using it in AHR, we're using it in benefits, and I'll tell you how. And in recruiting, we're able to use AI to automatically let employees or candidates schedule their own time for their own interviews. Instead of having that dialogue back and forth with the GM, this is when I'm available, those kind of things. So we use AI for GMs to be able to post these are the days and times that I'm doing interviews, and then let the candidate book their own time. And then we also have AI in HR. So in our payroll systems. And so it's able to automatically generate whenever they go into the app, schedule PTO. Instead of clicking a bunch of menus, they're able to just type in, I want to take PTO, and it'll ask them, what days do you want? Um, and then able to book that accordingly. Benefits, we how we use AI on helping people. So we use a little an AI or uh a little person that walks them through what the benefits look like, how it pertains to them individually. So we're using it incrementally, but we also in HR, we do have to use guardrails on AI because we don't want to get too much uh information or off into other directions that we don't want the AI to go. And then we also, I'm very focused on AI, on our systems and processes. So we do use different AI generated uh programs, maybe. Um, and also where is it going in the future? So, Claude, you know, some of the other big ones, we are using that on the on the processing side, maybe behind the scenes. Maybe some of our employees won't see that, but it helps our internally function, maybe on the HR side of things, of making things work seamlessly with each other. And so that makes it more of a seamless experience from the employee side. They just may not realize that that's what we're doing on the back end.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

So I think the filter there is the question of does this make the experience better for our people? All right, folks, Laura came in through a side door, not the one that says future beauty of HR audit. She came in as an EA who said yes to apparel tasks and never stopped saying yes to the harder thing. What this conversation kept coming back to me for is that she did not wait for the invitation. She built the skill, she earned the credential, she showed the results. She's created her own authority in an industry that was not exactly handing it out. And then she turned around, held the door open for the next person behind her. That is what authentic leadership actually looks like. Now, before we close out, is there anything that you'd want to live our listeners with that we haven't covered yet, Laura? Anything to promote?

SPEAKER_02 37:32

Yes, yes. You know, I talk about our brands a lot. And, you know, it seems like to me, they're like, you know, I just absolutely love every single one of them. And everyone is unique. You know, I would encourage people to go and visit, you know, some of our restaurants Arby's, Popeye's, Papa John's, Burger King, you know, McAllister's, Applebee's, IHOP, Uncle Julio's, Harlouie. You know, we have so many. And so those employees are there for you. And so we want to make sure that, hey, stop by and visit our restaurants, say hi, and know that um they're being supported on the back end, but that we love for everybody to come visit our restaurants. We also have GNC. We'd love for anybody to come visit those as well. It's important that we support each other, right? And so as we go out and dialogue with other people out as we follow our day, then also please come by and visit some of our restaurants as well.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

Highly recommended Applebee's. I'm a big fan.

SPEAKER_02 38:34

Well, I don't have it hidden, but I have my Applebee's shirt on today. So I don't like to promote just one brand, but I have to say, yeah, love my Applebee's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Perfect. Laura, thank you for this. You have one of those stories that a lot of women in our audience needed to hear, not because it's it's inspiring in a quote on a poster kind of way, but because it is super real. You came up through the work, not through a perfectly curated path, and that matters more than you know. To our listeners, if today's conversation got you thinking about how your organization connects with its people, how you communicate, how you build culture, and how you help employees do their best work, Line Zero can help you figure out what's next. We offer a personalized employee experience assessment where our consultants will spend real time with you to understand your employee experience ecosystem and the specific challenges you're navigating. If you want to learn more, visit us at linezero.com. The link is in the description. Give Laura a follow on her LinkedIn. She's worth adding to your faith by profits. And of course, follow us on our Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and LinkedIn at LineZero for more conversations from the women who are transforming employee experience. Until then, keep elevating, keep inspiring, and let's keep building workplaces where people truly thrive.