Domino’s delivers a culture and communications rockstar

[00:00:00.490] – Stacie Barrett
One of the things that I learned early on at my career at Domino’s, because this is an incredibly fast paced business with lots of information and lots of constant change, we frustrated our end users by providing them with all of that information and constant change. It was our job to filter that and using those tools to not share everything, but share the important things on the right tools and push the important things in the right tools. And I think that’s going to be important. Part of the strategy for every communicator always is figuring out the best way to do that for their organization.

[00:00:50.010] – Nancy Goebel
In this episode of digital Workplace Impact, you’ll have a chance to meet Stacie Barrett, Director of Internal Communications at Domino’s. On paper, she is responsible for digital and in person communications to franchisees and corporate team members around the world.

[00:01:05.780] – Nancy Goebel
She specializes in integrating messages from all areas of the company into simple, coherent and digestible communications across digital channels and events. To chat with her, you’ll immediately know that she is an exceptional digital workplace practitioner. This ballerina turned corporate performer is a passionate storyteller and an inspiring leader. In conversation with us, you will see why OFC named Stacie a culture and communications rock star, she is both passionate and confident. She’s a lifelong learner and has a proven recipe for success that’s grounded in purpose, empathy, active listening, humor and impact. Oh, and she’s not afraid to throw in a free pizza to bring you along for the ride.

[00:01:54.870] – Nancy Goebel
This is your host, Nancy Goebel in conversation with Stacie Barrett. Digital Workplace Impact is brought to you by Digital Workplace Group and as always, happy listening.

[00:02:06.870] – Nancy Goebel
So Stacey, I am just thrilled to have a chance to catch up with you over the next 35 or 40 minutes after having had the pleasure of seeing you in action at a conference late last year. Thank you for taking the time to come into the Digital Workplace Impact podcast studio today.

[00:02:29.390] – Stacie Barrett
It’s my pleasure.

[00:02:31.070] – Nancy Goebel
And so I know that it’s always important for us to set a little bit of context when we start a conversation. So we’ve already talked about the fact that we met not long ago, but I have to tell you, in hearing your story, I was very intrigued to learn more and to share that story with others in and around DWG circles. And so I thought maybe we could start with a little bit of history around your career and your current role at Domino’s. Can you tell us how you got your start as an internal communications professional?

[00:03:13.790] – Stacie Barrett
Well, I got my start actually on accident, as often happens with careers. I have a business degree and was following that track and I had an opportunity to work on a cross functional team and a leader noticed my ability to communicate as a part of that project and as a result, I ended up moving over to the communications team. I grew in my role there and grabbed investor relations and public relations and internal and eventually I ended up following that leader over to Domino. So I have had a long time now we’re getting close to saying two decades of experience in the communications world and I’ve enjoyed the ride.

[00:04:14.850] – Nancy Goebel
Well, I feel like we’re kindred spirits already because I know my career came about because of lots of serendipitous moments and we’ll have a chance to catch up about that another time. But if you weren’t doing this, is there sort of an alternate career that you think you would have pursued?

[00:04:38.090] – Stacie Barrett
I think that if I wasn’t doing this I’d be taking my business skills during the daytime but continuing my creative skills in the evening and doing things with the performing arts, which is something that I did throughout high school and growing up I’m actually a trained ballerina, that’s my fun fact. And so I’d probably be taking some of that skill and using that to tell stories in a creative platform. Luckily I get to use that storytelling and that creative art background in my job today and so I get to use that muscle as we tell stories on all these different platforms.

[00:05:25.230] – Nancy Goebel
Art, imitating, work life then.

[00:05:27.420] – Stacie Barrett
That’s right.

[00:05:29.530] – Nancy Goebel
And I know from just our early interactions that you are quite the passionate communicator who believes that great communication connects people to not only the mission of an organization but also creates leaders who will drive the business forward. And I’m curious to know how you landed on such an ambitious purpose statement.

[00:05:57.810] – Stacie Barrett
Well, it works. I’ve watched powerful communication make really great things happen. I’ve been on multiple projects where we started and thought we were going to be doing the impossible or pushing a rock up a mountain and by charging people up, showing people what’s possible, we were able to achieve great things.

[00:06:24.810] – Nancy Goebel
And I have to say that’s one of the many reasons I was drawn into having this conversation with you. We just announced our 2023 research program to our members and it’ll be rippling out very shortly. And one of the focus areas for this year is around impact and telling the impact story and that’s something that you do very naturally in your day to day and know that that will come to life very much as part of this discussion. And in fact, you’re someone who was named among OFC’s rock stars of culture and communication so that’s quite an impact story in and of itself. So what does it take to be a rock star practitioner?

[00:07:16.570] – Stacie Barrett
I think it takes a mindset of growth where you are constantly learning, constantly trying new things and then sharing what worked and also what didn’t work to help others grow. That is one of my constant goals, continuous growth and also taking the time to share those lessons learned with others.

[00:07:45.110] – Nancy Goebel
And I have to say when you think about the industry that we’re in, I think about things in the broader digital workplace landscape. And a big piece of internal communications is through different forms of digital communications today. So that’s our glue here. And whether it’s the technology, the factors all around us, change is constant. And so in order to approach things much like you would as an athlete or a performer, you have to survey the landscape around you and think about your audience and then be a student of your craft, an eternal student of your craft, because without that, your muscles atrophy and you can’t perform. You don’t have the stamina and the vision to carry forward. So I can see now the whole connection between your worlds, your passion, passion in life as well as passion in the work world, shall we say. Let’s talk a little bit about what you’re up to day to day, just as a framing point. Internal communications play such an important role in the digital headquarters of organizations like Domino’s, and you talk about the importance of digital communications channels in shaping both the culture and the employee experience as a whole.

[00:09:17.380] – Nancy Goebel
So let’s start there.

[00:09:19.440] – Stacie Barrett
Well, Domino’s is a large global organization. We’re also franchised, which means that we are, as a part of our internal communications efforts, really doing a little bit of marketing and sales to our franchisees as well, so that they can buy into new things that are happening at Domino’s. So one of the things that is pivotal to reaching all of these different people all around the globe is technology. We couldn’t connect without it. And particularly, of course, over the last few years through the pandemic, technology made everything possible, as is true for most organizations. But before and today, we are still using technology for the day to day connections, for hybrid meetings, to push technology, push that storytelling out to everyone, to make sure that everyone across the brand is connected to what the brand’s purpose is. You can use your technology to communicate your culture, to connect people even to things that you’re doing in purpose, to things that you’re doing in person, so that you’re connecting people to your purpose and pushing out messages, whether you’re pushing out updates via emails or Teams, or you’re having two way conversations on your platforms, providing news or information, recognizing rewarding people.

[00:11:02.920] – Stacie Barrett
All of that is done through the technology that we are so grateful to have so that we can make this gigantic brand feel smaller and closer and more connected.

[00:11:16.250] – Nancy Goebel
And when we met last year, one of the things you did so eloquently was share some insights about the how how to connect team members to the brand no matter where they work. Can you share a few highlights around this?

[00:11:34.430] – Stacie Barrett
It’s really important for you to understand who your audience is. So for us at Domino’s, we’ve got lots of different audiences. As I mentioned, we’ve got our franchisees. These are fantastic men and women across the globe who 95% of which started their jobs in an entry level position in the store, who’ve come up in the system and are really passionate about the brand and connecting to them to busy, busy people using some of this technology when they’re spending 15 minutes to an hour a week or so just sitting and processing information at a computer. It’s not a desk job per se for many people until they get into become a larger franchisee. Then we’ve got our supply chain center team members who are delivering dough to the stores, who are packaging up boxes at our warehouse and making sure each store gets the correct information. We’ve got a large percentage of people at our supply chain centers that are destroyed and we’ve got store team members in our corporate stores who are obviously on their feet making and delivering pizza and all of them need to be connected to the brand. So obviously, when I’m talking to that audience, I’m having a very different experience and approach with our technology solutions than I am with our office team members.

[00:13:04.700] – Stacie Barrett
We’ve got our office team members who are coming into the building, we’ve got a collection of folks who are more virtual and each audience has different experiences and we’ve got to take different approaches to that. But for all of them, we start with the why. And the why is where we begin all of our storytelling. So it’s about having the right message. It’s also recognizing when we’re going to be using technology to speak directly with an individual or we’re going to be using the technology to speak with someone who is then going to then be responsible for sharing that message with others. So for us, it’s finding the right vehicle for each audience and then also being really conscious and thoughtful about the information that we’re giving to our franchisees or managers who are leading people who don’t have the same level of access to some of the technology so that they can tell the story in a real and purposeful way.

[00:14:07.740] – Nancy Goebel
Well, that’s a lot to take in, but we’re going to add another layer and the layer is coming back to the idea of the impact story. And so share with us the impact of the work that you and your team have achieved, especially with the hybrid context in mind. Can you share a few big ticket impact statements or accomplishments from the last 12 18 months?

[00:14:37.530] – Stacie Barrett
Sure, yes. It’s been a wild ride for a lot of us as we are trying to get back into the office, especially for our corporate team members. And we have taken a very thoughtful, slow approach to how we transition back into this new normal that we’re all living in. And I think what we sometimes forget just as internal communicators across the globe as we’re making this transition back and as I’m watching news stories, as people are asking and large brands are asking people to come back to the office, that this is change management. Just as it was incredibly difficult to get people comfortable working from home 100% of the time, it’s a big change to come back into the Office and I think we forgot how hard it was to make that switch and expected it to be much easier to come back. And it’s still that same change management. And for us, we had a couple of runs and starts with coming back to the office due to the different variants as we all saw. But we in the last year have really built back some of our culture. For us, it is for the majority of our office based team members, it’s three days a week in the office.

[00:16:11.620] – Stacie Barrett
We started with an approach where we were looking at the moments that matter and what we found and had really an open approach to that. And what we found was that you would come into the office and no one was there. It didn’t feel good. So by having us all coming in on the same days, that’s made a really meaningful difference. And then we can make the time in the office account. That said, we still have a large population that is either not based here or has a role that allows them to spend even more time at home. So that technology is still super important. We have used town halls over the last three years to really bring everyone together and connect. And they’ll start it off 100% virtual. And then we brought them back in hybrid so that we can get the whole system together, talking, listening, learning together and having that cultural moment, no matter where you sit in the organization, that’s been super important. And making meaningful events and sharing those events back out through all of our technology tools so that people can feel culture. So a little thing before we begin our town halls, we’ve got the camera showing a really wide shot of people walking around and they can see the CEO chatting to someone, they can see people walking back and forth and they can see the pre-show slideshow that everyone sees with cultural moments that are happening in person.

[00:17:53.190] – Stacie Barrett
And I’ve heard from a number of people that just that shot helps them feel more connected. So that my colleague who sits in Amsterdam has felt like they’ve been in the building. And just this week we had in some of our fantastic field team members and some of whom I hadn’t seen in person yet. But we felt connected because we’ve been able to use this technology to communicate and share stories and have that cultural moments no matter where people sat.

[00:18:29.930] – Nancy Goebel
And I have to say, if there’s one key thing we’ve seen coming out of the pandemic, is that there’s a level of authenticity that’s become part of the new normal in so many organizations, including yours. And that vignette that you described is truly unscripted. And a moment of authenticity because you’re just feeling that pre session swirl of energy and conversations and allowing people to have a mindset shift and a transition in space all at the same time. Because especially when you think of staff, corporate staff in particular, often these are individuals who are running from meeting to meeting, sometimes double booked. And so that transition and headspaces is as equally important as the moment lights on during the town hall as well, right?

[00:19:32.630] – Stacie Barrett
Very true. It’s the little things that help people feel like they’re there that have more meaning than you think.

[00:19:41.930] – Nancy Goebel
Have we covered what you think are some of the most salient impact stories? Have we missed anything?

[00:19:50.510] – Stacie Barrett
I think it’s really important if you’re making the business decision to bring people back into the office to make sure that you’re making those moments count, that you are easing people in. The other thing that I would recommend is free food. I might recommend you having pizza, it’s highly popular. But that’s been important because you want to make sure that you don’t bring people into the office to sit at their computer and have virtual meetings. And you’ve also got to understand that people are very used to sitting at their computer and having virtual meetings. So even building back the muscle of booking a room, it’s a transition and how do you get people back into the habit of doing that thing? And then also, depending on how you are building back your culture in your office, what are you doing so that one or two team member in the meeting who are virtual don’t feel like they are left out. And that can be anything from how you’re actually designing the physical space to the rules and guidelines that you have as an organization and the norms that you have in your organization about joining meetings digitally.

[00:21:29.310] – Stacie Barrett
We like to promote having that Team’s invitation on the meeting. And if you’ve got a virtual person, everyone has their laptops open so that they can see everyone’s faces, it does make a difference. And making sure that that person or people, group of people who are virtual, someone’s paying attention to make sure that the chat isn’t going unnoticed, that hands raised are addressed so that you can still continue to innovate together as a group.

[00:22:00.580] – Nancy Goebel
Well said. And of course the free swag and the free food are always added incentives.

[00:22:09.450] – Stacie Barrett
It is so true and we just happen to see more people in the office and it makes it fun and you need some fun. There’s a fine balance of forced fun and meaningful experiences and so free food always makes people feel good. But also the other thing that makes people feel good and feel value in coming into the office and some of the things that may be lost from a cultural standpoint when you’re not in the office is this idea of connection, mentoring, building relationships with people and education. So one of the things that we’re really focusing on is how do we create development experiences, how do we make our leaders into better and stronger leaders and how do we use some of the expertise that we have within our own building. We’ve got a fantastic executive leadership team that has all volunteered to lead different sessions, teaching us more about the thing that got them into that seat that’s open to everyone. We have our leadership team having connects and smaller groups with our team members in person, listening and asking questions. All of those things provide opportunities for people and particularly thinking about how you’re onboarding the newest members of your organization.

[00:23:39.270] – Stacie Barrett
Particularly if those team members are new to the work world, what kind of support are you providing to bring them along and create that engagement and connection?

[00:23:50.010] – Nancy Goebel
And even at a mid career hire level, helping people find the fastest path to building their social capital. Because when you have your new hires coming in through training program, from early on in their careers, they’re taught how to build those connections at a peer level. And then with leadership and mentoring opportunities, it can be really tricky if you have to figure out how to do that on your own. When you’re a seasoned vet coming in to a new and strange culture, if you will, 100%. We’re seeing the notion of inboarding alongside onboarding, really taking a hold such that the onboarding side is everything that the enterprise is laying in terms of foundation for both the new career hires as well as mid career. But then the inboarding side is taking the business slice of those activities and creating a framework for that to happen in a hybrid world. Because very often you hear stories of people who are left at their desks and don’t have lunch partners or don’t know how to navigate the organization unless they just figure out how to muscle through it on their own.

[00:25:19.350] – Stacie Barrett
Right? And you’ve got to think about what it would be like if you joined an organization and the only thing that you saw was the meetings for the work that you had to get done and your computer screen and you didn’t have any additional ways to connect and find your way throughout the organization. It would be frustrating and it probably leads to people not staying within your organization for very long because there’s nothing to your organization in terms of culture and connection for that individual.

[00:25:57.250] – Nancy Goebel
As you and your team are operating day to day. Of course, there are lots of different external factors coming into play and you talked about technology as one example. And certainly when we take a wider lens, we hear about all of the new technologies that are starting to challenge us at a next stage level, whether it’s how things like ChatGPT have impacted the essay and writing, or how artificial intelligence is impacting how recruiting and learning are happening. So if we just take a step back for a moment. What do you think are some of the biggest opportunities and challenges ahead, particularly for communicators at large and for Domino’s in particular?

[00:26:50.130] – Stacie Barrett
It’s a great question and it’s interesting that you’re talking about all of this interesting new tech. I played around with that ChatGPT just curious to see and it is amazing of what the power of some of these tools can do. But I think that for all of these things, all of these things are opportunities to compete, to make it easy for more information, to get out and fill up the brain space of all the people that we’re trying to connect with. They can be used for good, to help us get our jobs done and get things done faster. But I think the business of an internal communicator in particular isn’t so much about cranking out a whole bunch of information. It is about knowing and understanding the new technology so that you can make best use of it to help you get your job done easier in an easier way. But it’s really about filtering. It’s about filtering out the right messages at the right time to the right people. So you probably don’t want to let your bot go crazy, fill up everyone’s box. What you want to do is make sure that you understand the technology so that you can use it for good, to help support it.

[00:28:20.610] – Stacie Barrett
But really it’s about filtering out the content so that the right stuff comes out on the top. One of the things that I learned early on at my career at Domino’s, because this is an incredibly fast paced business with lots of information and lots of constant change, we frustrated our end users by providing them with all of that information and constant change. It was our job to filter that and using those tools to not share everything, but share the important things on the right tools and push the important things in the right tools. And I think that’s going to be important part of the strategy for every communicator always is figuring out the best way to do that for their organization.

[00:29:13.890] – Nancy Goebel
And that’s such salient advice. I think when we look at the employee experience, we have to provide the right information filtered to your point, that is fit for purpose. Whether our employees are heads down at a moment, they need to be part of a heads up conversation, connecting with others, or they’re on the go. And certainly when you think about your franchisees, they’re always on the go. Depending on that context, you need different things. But ultimately in telling stories we need to be very clear about what we want people to think, feel or do as a result of being in the flow of information or conversation.

[00:30:01.250] – Stacie Barrett
Absolutely. If you’re not thinking about how you’re building out your messages with that end in mind, then you are going to be caught on the wave of order taking and you won’t have any strategy in your communication and your audience will stop listening because it’s just too much. And you’re not the only input. You’re not the only person pushing messages down to them inside and outside of work. They’re full. One of the things that we do at Domino’s is that every single corporate team member has the opportunity to work in the pizza store for a week. And once you do that, you realize that experience greatly shortened every single message I sent out to the franchise community. Because knowing what a store experiences makes you shift. One, it gives you great appreciation for the hard work it takes to run the store, but two, it also gives you great appreciation for the time that someone has to stop and process information. So as you’re thinking about what tools to use and how to push down, put yourself in the shoes of the person that you’re communicating with and think about all of the tech, both professional and personal, that that person.

[00:31:33.620] – Stacie Barrett
Is exposed to and what really matters and think about that great content for those things that really drive people to what you want them to think, know, or do or feel when they’re finished and limit yourself to that stuff.

[00:31:51.250] – Nancy Goebel
Well, that certainly hones in on the empathy factor and really bringing to life the importance of having that wider context for how the world really works inside of Domino’s on a day to day basis and ensuring that the approach to the employee experience is not an ivory tower exercise.

[00:32:20.350] – Stacie Barrett
100% and I think as you’re building out your tech stack, the other thing that you need to think about is what tools do you have that allow you to listen to the voices of your team members at all levels of the organization? How do they give you input back? How do you listen? I often hear engagement surveys. Great. What are you doing in the in between moments? Is there a place where people can actually provide you with words and feedback? Is there a place where people can ask questions? You’ve got to have those tools that help you measure and track to make sure that you’re headed in the right direction. But you also have to have tools that allow you to just engage in conversation. And having both is important.

[00:33:18.170] – Nancy Goebel
And ensuring that that’s part of the continuing story. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had applications come through for Digital Workplace of the Year or Modern Intranet of the Year. And part of the story is we involved our users at the start when we were getting ready to launch, and we’re waiting for the rest of the story that hasn’t come that says what’s your active listening post on an ongoing basis so that you stay connected with new issues or changing needs and all the rest.

[00:33:51.130] – Stacie Barrett
Exactly. And what we found is that sometimes there’s a connection at a store level or at a supply chain level that gives you an insight that you don’t have because you’re not there. We were launching a new product years ago and we had a tool that allowed the store team member to comment and said, hey, this isn’t working for me. Well, we were able to call audible and make a big change because we could send someone to investigate that right. And knowing that you’ve got a way for your team member at any level of the organization to give you feedback back is helpful. So it’s great that we have that as part of our platform.

[00:34:43.850] – Nancy Goebel
I have to say, I never know when I ask a question around opportunities and challenges where the conversation will flow. But I think what really stood out for me is that there’s a level of you saying technologies can come and go, but you really have to stay grounded in the fundamentals to ensure that you’re actively listening, ensuring that empathy factor is feeding what you do on a rolling basis and that there has to be authenticity in terms of how you tell that purpose driven story. And I find that refreshing.

[00:35:28.730] – Stacie Barrett
Good. It’s important, and you definitely need to identify what your technologies are. And we continue to look for ways to identify the right technologies to reach our deskless workers, and make sure that our remote team members can feel connected and engaged. But it does really come down to how you’re developing your messaging and you’re listening just as much as the messages that you’re pushing down to people on whatever platform you choose.

[00:36:08.710] – Nancy Goebel
And this is the time of year where lots of people are thinking about what are their professional development plans, what are their overall employee experience agendas. Can you give us a little bit of a window into what’s priority for you this year?

[00:36:26.570] – Stacie Barrett
Yes, I think for us it is really continuing to go down that path of making sure that we are continuing to build up our platforms to reach our front line and making sure that we’re able to think about some ways to do some better measurement around some of those things. So we’ve heard a lot of fantastic feedback about digital screens that we’ve pushed out to our corporate stores and our supply chain centers around the US. And now, of course, because it’s basically a digital billboard, thinking about how we can measure the impact on that beyond the anecdotal feedback that we’re receiving, and also doing a better job for our existing tools of measuring what’s working and what’s not. Not just having those measurements because we’ve got those, but doing a better job of sharing those measurements more broadly as we continue to look for ways that we can grow the services that we provide to the organization. I think that is always important as you look to make change and to make the connection of all of our communications better and better and better. It’s a constant cycle. I run the same playbook over and over again because it continues to work.

[00:38:03.550] – Stacie Barrett
Just add in new tools and technology and innovate with that. But it’s really about knowing our audience, listening, doing great storytelling, measuring the results and repeating it.

[00:38:17.870] – Nancy Goebel
I have to say you’re in very good company in saying that measurement is among your priorities this year. I think in part it’s a reflection of the fact that we’ve moved past endemic and now we are seeing recessionary pressures in different locations and I think it’s calling upon the need to bring back the business case for investments and for demonstrating ongoing impact backed with numbers. And that’s actually a very prominent theme that came up when I sat down to write predictions for the digital workplace going into 2023. That’s something we at DWG have done gosh since 2014 or so every year as a way of giving people a window into the future to have context for their own agendas. And so the first two pieces of research that we’re going to be publishing in the new year look at both impact, which is the storytelling, as you’ve put it, and then the meaningful metrics, which are the supporting pillars that give teeth to the story.

[00:39:36.810] – Stacie Barrett
Well, I’m glad to hear that we are aligned with where a lot of organizations are thinking. I think it’s been a crazy few years, right? For all of us, particularly as internal communicators, there was so much coming at us, so much response that we were doing and shifting back into being able to be proactive and setting longer term strategy and bigger thought leading projects is going to be important in helping your organization, as you mentioned, as economy changes, how do you get everyone aligned on doing the right things that are really going to help drive the business and put it where it needs to be so that they can weather whatever storm the economy brings us and be in a good position to do the best that you can do as a brand in that environment. And communication is going to play a key role in that, no matter what organization you’re in, because you want to make sure your team members are focused on the right thing.

[00:40:52.320] – Nancy Goebel
Well said. So Stacey, I can’t believe we’re approaching the end of our time together. Is there a question that you were hoping I’d ask and didn’t? And that’s not meant to be a trick question, by the way.

[00:41:07.180] – Stacie Barrett
No, in fact, it was funny. I was thinking about that as we were going along and this has been just such a great conversation. I think we covered all of the big things that I was thinking about. I think this is a year to start thinking about all the big things that we can do as internal communicators. I truly believe that this role can make an incredible, meaningful and strategic impact on the business and that as leaders within your organization are stepping up to look at the challenges that the economic environment has on whatever business you have. You’re in a great position to help and to support that. Because when an organization is running fast together in the right direction and then you’re able to help tell the strategic story about where the organization is going, those economic blips aren’t going to have the same impact that they would if people are scattered and running in all different directions. So as communicators helping to get everybody aligned on that, that’s super important and that’s super powerful part of what we do, and that’s part of why I’m so passionate about communication.

[00:42:37.170] – Nancy Goebel
Well, Stacey, that is a perfect way to tie a bow around this conversation. Thank you so much for coming into the studio for a fantastic chat. It is very clear why you were dubbed a rock star of culture and communication, and I look forward to continuing the conversation, hopefully over a coffee one of these days.

[00:43:03.130] – Stacie Barrett
That sounds fantastic.

[00:43:07.210] – Nancy Goebel
Digital Workplace Impact is brought to you by the Digital Workplace Group. DWG is a strategic partner covering all aspects of the evolving digital workplace industry and boutique consulting services. For more information, visit digitalworkplacegroup.com.