Steve Browne, Chief People Officer at LaRosa’s Pizzeria, Inc.

Show Notes

Episode Summary
What if HR didn’t feel like “HR”? In this episode of HR Voices, host Emily Fenech sits down with Steve Browne, Chief People Officer at LaRosa’s Pizzerias a Cincinnati-based, 71-year-old brand built on family, food, and fierce community pride.

Steve shares how LaRosa’s has cultivated a people-first culture where employees from teen cooks to long-time franchisees feel seen, heard, and supported.

With more than 1,000 team members and 65+ locations, Steve explains why HR at LaRosa’s isn’t about policies it’s about presence. He dives into the practice of “one plus one” conversations, why they ditched departments for a skills-first approach, and how intentional development is replacing outdated performance management.

The episode also explores how LaRosa’s is embracing technology (yes, even ChatGPT) while staying true to its local, human touch.

Whether you're leading a people team or just craving a slice of culture transformation, this conversation will leave you with practical insights and possibly hungry for pizza.

Timestamps

• [00:34] – Meet Steve Browne and the culture behind LaRosa’s Pizzerias

• [01:29] – What makes LaRosa’s “iconic” in Cincinnati

• [03:04] – Transforming HR’s image through presence and relationships

• [06:12] – Why showing up—without an agenda—builds trust

• [09:21] – Development over performance: A new way to grow people

• [13:48] – Rethinking departments: Moving from silos to shared skills

• [17:43] – How AI and tech are enhancing—not replacing human work

• [23:04] – Steve’s final advice: Lead with passion, not policy

  
  

Actionable Takeaways

• Be present, not performative – HR builds credibility by showing up consistently and authentically.
• Shift from performance management to personalized development – Focus on strengths and ask employees what they need to grow.
• Use tech to amplify human potential – Let AI streamline workflows, but keep the people experience at the center.
• Challenge traditional org charts – Break silos by focusing on work, not just roles or titles.
• Build relationships before you need them – Trust and connection are the foundation of resilient cultures.

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What is HR Voices?

HR Voices is a scenario-based podcast for People Leaders who’ve actually had to make the call.

Each episode brings experienced HR and People leaders into realistic, anonymized workplace scenarios—the kind you recognize immediately. Performance issues. Messy conflicts. Investigations that don’t fit neatly into a policy box. Instead of talking about their own companies, guests react to outside cases and walk through how they’d think it through in real time.

There are no right answers here. What you’ll hear is judgment: how seasoned leaders balance risk, fairness, legal reality, and humanity when the stakes are high and the path isn’t obvious.

HR Voices is for HR, People Ops, legal, and leaders who want to hear how other smart humans actually handle employee relations—without confidentiality breaches, hypotheticals that feel fake, or a lecture on “best practices.”

Emily Fenech (00:01.138)
Welcome to HR Voices. I'm your host, Emily Finick, and today we get to chat with Steve Brown, the Chief People Officer at La Rosa's Pizzas. Welcome, Steve.

Steve Browne (00:11.842)
Hi Emily, it's great to see you.

Emily Fenech (00:13.658)
Yes. It's so nice to meet you. I was telling you before, huge LaRosa's fan. there's few things I love more in this world than pizza and LaRosa's makes a wonderful pizza. It's seriously one of my top five favorite brands for those of people who are listening, who may not frequent the greater Cincinnati, Ohio, Kentucky, area. LaRosa's is a local, a local business making incredible pizzas.

And La Rosa's brand is about more than just pizza. It's more about community than it is about pizza. I love this brand. So maybe Steve, you could tell us a little bit more about La Rosa's, the people that work there, and your role as the chief people officer.

Steve Browne (00:59.074)
sure. We're kind of iconic. And that's not it's hard to say that because you don't want to sound like, look at us. But we've been around for it's an essential we've been around for 71 years, and we're part of people's lives. It's a lot different than you know, great food, great experience. We offer that. But we have generational hiring, we have generational experience. We do

Emily Fenech (01:06.79)
You can't, you are, you're iconic. For the people that live there, I mean, it's, yeah.

Steve Browne (01:26.318)
baseball teams, softball teams, weddings, funerals, you name it. And my role is I get to be with the great people that work with us. I am very fortunate. We have about a thousand team members on the LaRosa's Inc side. And we have 65 stores if you include all of our franchisees. And I get to know the owners and some of their team members, but primarily I work with the people in the corporate side.

in our locations, have 10 locations that are ours. And it's hard to put into words how we are. We're very familiar with each other. We're very down to earth and genuine. It's not a show. A lot of places I've been in the past or I know put on work faces like you go, oh, I'm going to work. So I need to act like this and look like this and not here, not at all.

Emily Fenech (02:19.634)
Yeah, that's sort of the vibe I get from the Cincinnati area in general. I feel like everyone I meet who's from there is so down to earth and just ready to have a nice conversation with you, comfortable in their own skin. I mean, that's not everybody, right? But I feel like La Rosa sort of reflects the region.

Steve Browne (02:37.92)
It does. And what's interesting is if you go into our different locations, they reflect the neighborhood and community that they're in and also the leadership of each location. it's fun. One of my favorite stories is one of our stores. When I first started, they used to say, no, here comes HR. And 19 years later, but it was sooner than that. But now one of the team members saw me coming in on the camera and the other team member hid behind the house stand.

while we're open. And as I came in the door, they go, Steve, I'm like, what's up, how you doing? And the guests are like, what's going on? And they go, that's our HR person. That's Steve. They don't use that. He's the chief people officer or he's this. We're not a company of titles. We're not a company of roles. We're a company of great people that get to take care of other great people.

Emily Fenech (03:33.532)
Yeah. So how did you turn that around from here comes HR to a warm welcome like that? What changed?

Steve Browne (03:41.066)
Being out with others. Simple. You know, not being at my desk. For the, when I first started here, my boss told me, and I hate even using the word, but the person I reported to said I wasn't allowed to make an idea or give an idea for three months. And I said, huh? He says three months. I mean it. And if you give me one more, and I'm going to talk about it, I want you to watch and learn and observe.

And so the 91st day, literally the 91st day I was having my meeting with him, says, so what'd you see? And I said, my gosh, I saw that people were apprehensive. People felt challenged. They didn't know how they were connected with our company. They didn't know how they could find support or have a listening ear. He says, do you think you can provide that? And I said, well, you know, with everybody else's help, sure can. So I think it's just not being tied to.

traditional methods of HR through electronic communication or some big tome of a handbook or policies and procedures that will change the world. People want to be human and too many HR people aren't themselves. That's not me. I am very much who I am. And so to go out and learn and a 16 year old wants to earn money so they can go to college.

Emily Fenech (04:58.087)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Steve Browne (05:08.518)
or that one of our people wants to be a cook, not with us, like a chef. I'm like, well, how can we help you? What's going on? And I went to the general manager and said, do you know that Emily wanted to be a chef? says, no. said, okay, you need to start talking to Emily and find out how cool she is. I think it's just making those connections and understanding if we treat people well on a consistent basis and intentionally, they'll give us results we've never seen.

If we try and treat them as good workers, we'll get results. But it won't be as good as they could be.

Emily Fenech (05:44.317)
That's right. So it sounds like your listening strategy is really rooted in being there, being present in your stores. Maybe not just you, but all members of the team, sort of being present.

Steve Browne (05:57.462)
Yeah, it's I think we had to teach each other that we're allowed to do that. Because it's funny, whenever you walk into any area, a department or a location, the first thing they think is, uh-oh, something's wrong. They go, I just came to say hi. And they go, so what are you, what's on your agenda? I nothing, I'm here to see you. And it took a long time for people to, one, believe that.

because they've been in situations where that wasn't the case. Two, to let others know that you can get a lot addressed and if there are problems, if you get to know each other. Relationships are so much more important than tasks. Great relationships allow people to do the best job that they can. If it's just about stuff, we just get angry at each other and it doesn't work.

Emily Fenech (06:53.245)
Yeah, that's such a good point. I love HR teams who lead by being there because then you don't associate it with they're only showing up with bad news, right? I was talking to an HR leader the other day, Justin Jackson. He's one of my favorite writers on LinkedIn and he's a HR leader. He leads HR for company with a bunch of stores. And when I talked to him and I called in, he was in the crawl space of one of the stores fixing something.

Steve Browne (07:03.726)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Fenech (07:21.947)
And it was so disorienting, what, am I talking to the right person? Who are you? You're an HR person and you're fixing something in the crawl space? But I think, you know, who wouldn't be happy to see somebody who's willing to roll up his sleeves and help out in the store? He seems to have a similar approach as you,

Steve Browne (07:40.482)
Yeah, one of the things I learned was when I go out to our pizzerias, they love to make you food. And you go, OK, so I sit down and I have lunch or I'll grab something there and they'll say, what else are you doing? I say nothing. I have a book or I'll bring my laptop and they said, what's this about? I came to see how good you are and let's try it out. And my gosh, then you're like people want to show what they do well when we had children or if we know children or.

are aware of children, just to cover everybody. Kids love to show their work. my gosh, they're like, look what I made, look at this. And then we say as adults, they go to work instead of show their work. People still wanna show their work. So I gained a lot of weight when I first started here, but that's okay. Just to see somebody, to see a cook come out and go, look, I made this just for you.

Emily Fenech (08:24.658)
Yeah.

Steve Browne (08:38.444)
That's the kind of environment we want to have not only for people from our office, but for our guests. And if HR can't model that, who can?

Emily Fenech (08:46.801)
Yeah, between Skyline and the Roses and UDF, if I lived in Cincinnati all the time, it would be dangerous. It sure is. So as we think about the year ahead, 2026 is coming at us fast. I would love to know what's on your mind. When you think about, know you have a great, sounds like you have a great culture and a great place to work, but all companies have challenges. All people teams have challenges.

Steve Browne (08:54.25)
It is. It's a food town for sure.

Emily Fenech (09:14.833)
What's the biggest challenge on your mind and what are you thinking about as you plan for next year?

Steve Browne (09:20.334)
We're looking at development and not performance management. We've never looked at that. We want to develop our people, but we want to develop them for who they are based on their strengths so that they can continue to contribute and do better. Too many HR people try and do this collective, here's our launching program and we're going to do all of these check ins and all this kind of stuff. We don't. We do things called one plus ones.

where it's me and the person that they work with most. And we sit down and say, Emily, do you have everything you need? How's it going? What else can we do? Is there an area of the business you'd like to learn more? And when we gather that by asking you, we can help develop you. Because we're not a giant bureaucracy or layers and layers of people. In fact, we're very flat on purpose. So our biggest challenge is...

identifying how to develop you and allowing you to do it your way. It's very unnerving. People want a lot of this conformity approach. It's never worked. So we're trying to launch this and get it moving so that we can be able for people to grow, take on new responsibilities, step into roles and plan for succession, but do it more incrementally versus giant leaps.

Emily Fenech (10:42.941)
How do you guys help prevent those one-on-ones or one-plus-ones from turning into business as usual? I think that's the challenge with those. They always tend to sort of devolve over time into a status update, right? How do you guys keep that fresh and keep the focus on development?

Steve Browne (11:00.746)
We don't do reporting. It's not like a look behind. So tell me what accomplishments you have and let's do our seven goals. We don't do that. It's a conversation. I keep the notes. It's terrible. It's very, it's cloistered. I say, so Emily, we take the notes on you. And then I come back and say, three months ago, we talked about this. How's that going? Is that going well? Are you kind of stuck? We're all stuck.

What we find out is that people tend to go back to what they enjoy doing. And there's a great book out there called orbiting the giant hairball by Gordon Mackenzie. And Gordon talks about how everybody has hairballs in their life, whether it's work or home or children or you name it. And if you figure everything in work is a hairball and I bring all that other stuff on top, it's overwhelming. And people get frustrated, angry, disengaged.

all the stuff you read about. But what McKenzie says, you got to pull out, check it out, and go make the hairball better. A lot of HR people try and straighten everything out. Oh, we got to fix this and make it in line. Life is not a line. It's a hairball. So when I introduce this to the company, you can hear in our conversation, we'll be in a meeting and the executive, you know what? It sounds like a hairball. And people love hairballs, man.

They're like, I love to be busy and angry and frustrated. Do you? And they really don't. That's what you hear. So development should pull you out of that. So to answer your question in an odd sort of way, if I pull you out, it you to clear your head. When you go back in, because you're gonna, when you go back in, you can make it better. And incrementally over time, you'll develop.

Emily Fenech (12:51.431)
Yeah, I love that. Just fresh perspective, right? Get out of your own way for a second, take a walk. That hairball starts to look a lot more solvable with, if you just stop.

Steve Browne (13:00.62)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you have time to stop. I think a lot of people don't think they do. For instance, we jumped on today to have a conversation in the middle of my full day and your full day. But we were able to do it. Hmm. It's that simple. But people don't see it. We think of giant monumental efforts that have never worked and aren't sustainable. So why not do it a little at a time?

Emily Fenech (13:07.453)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Fenech (13:13.437)
Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Steve Browne (13:29.806)
and how it goes and check and do a little more. It works.

Emily Fenech (13:34.865)
Yeah. Eat the pizza one slice at a time.

Steve Browne (13:38.53)
Yes.

Emily Fenech (13:40.229)
When you think about specifically, so we talked about your challenge and what you're thinking about development. What about the people team specifically that you lead? What is sort of their biggest challenge specifically and how are you supporting them?

Steve Browne (13:58.006)
I think anybody, including the people on my team, want to add value. Things can get mundane. And then you have to process another insurance bill every month. You're like, So I use the same practice that I use with people outside my area. So I make sure to spend time intentionally with each one of my team. How are you doing? What's going on? And what's really interesting and what's hard is we expect reciprocity.

And that was wonderful if you get that. But if it's not, it still needs to happen. And that's where I think a lot of companies miss it. Like, well, Emily never asked about me or Julie never asked about me. So I'm just not going to talk to them. You're like, okay, well, that's silly. Let's try this. So I hear a ton from my team and they're wonderful. Julie, Rebecca and Shauna are the best. I put them up against anybody. I know they're doing well.

because I'm allowed to do my job well. I don't hear people going, you know, I gave it to such and such and this didn't happen. But I'm also trying to help them grow organizationally. Historically, we've kind of stayed in our own lane, all of us. And recently, we kind of eliminated departments and it's freaking people out because really they're areas of work. So.

People who have skills in HR do the work of HR, but they're not the HR department. Finance people aren't the finance department. Now people aren't there yet. They're like, ugh, what's going on? But when you look at how work is really done, the work is what happens. Where you work is important. You know, so you're in your right group of people. But if everything is separated, you have silos. We want to be one organization with a great

Emily Fenech (15:28.904)
Wow.

Steve Browne (15:52.334)
team of areas of work that pull us together as an organization. So how can I develop my team to give them a broader perspective and have them do the great work that they do at the same time? That's what I'm shooting for.

Emily Fenech (16:04.808)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So when you shift the focus to skills-based and not just limiting it to titles, how do you ensure people still know where to go?

Steve Browne (16:15.842)
That's a great question. They don't. And what's funny is, well, it's so funny. Historically, companies are like, if I report to Michael, then I know exactly what to do. I'm like, do you? So if you report to Michael, what does Michael do for you in that reporting relationship? And we boiled it down to you get my PTO request. And that's about it.

Emily Fenech (16:21.885)
more.

Steve Browne (16:44.832)
If I work with Michael, now it's different. If I have to wait for him or wait for her or whoever, if everything's very top down, it's never worked. It has to, I drew an organizational chart and Michael, that's our CEO, he's amazing and wonderful. I show him the org chart and it's all bubbles. And he's like, what is this? And I said, this is how work is done. He goes, really? Watch. And he goes,

It is, this is how work is done. So it's not, it's, I know it's semantics, but if you use language and methods that pull people apart and you cordon them off, then that's how work's going to be done. And you'll hear, you'll hear things like, I don't do that. That's not in my area. I can't get in the crawl space because I'm in HR. Right. Instead of the company, the assembly to get in the crawl space to take care of whatever's going on.

Hey Justin, you're available. Guess what? So if you can teach behaviorally how you want people to work, you don't need departments.

Emily Fenech (17:53.085)
Yeah, I love that creative approach. That's amazing. One more question about, I wanted to ask you about technology. I feel like people and technology, the lines are getting really blurred. New tech is coming at us every day. Has technology shifted how you get work done at La Rosa's? And if so, what's an example?

Steve Browne (18:17.646)
It has. I think we're learning to understand AI. We're different. We're not like we're pizza makers. I mean, when it comes down, it's still pizza. And we won't change that core part of us. But you can amplify and implement all these new technologies around it.

So I think people are getting confused and they're saying we have to forsake everything and change everything and eliminate this and get rid of this instead of saying, Hey, great example.

my phone. Okay. When these first came out, the first thing we did was write policies of what you can't do, which is what's happening right now. Hey, this is what AI should do. Hey, this is what AI shouldn't do. And what is hilarious is we missed the point that when people said back when social media came out about 2007, 2008, giant policies. And then people are like, Hey, they told me I can't do this on the phone.

Emily Fenech (19:02.119)
You

Steve Browne (19:22.51)
So instead of learning how to work with the platforms and the technology and see how it can make your company better, we go through the fear cycle first. So right now, everybody's afraid. People are not seeking to understand. We're trying to understand. Where does AI help us? Where doesn't it help us? How do we give the human side or how do we take your job and make it different and upskill you so that you can do more work?

won't let AI do the stuff that they do well.

Embracing technology always moves you ahead. Fighting technology or fearing technology doesn't.

Emily Fenech (20:04.166)
Right, right. Any specific technologies you've embraced that have helped free up your time?

Steve Browne (20:10.622)
man, chat GPT. I'm telling you and I know there's Gemini and all this other stuff. And when people hear the episode, they'll go, you know, Steve, there's more. I know, you know, but I drive a Chevy and I'm cool with it. And I know there's a lot of other cars, but I still drive a Chevy. So if it works for you, it's okay. So, but instead of asking it prompts, I give it text and say, improve this. So

Emily Fenech (20:36.616)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Browne (20:38.156)
take what I'm doing and make it flow better, personalize it. It saved countless hours of time, but it's not replacing what I do. It's enhancing what I do. My team's the same way. And we know that others are doing it. Where we're finding a challenge, because I heard this yesterday at a board meeting I was at for another organization, and they said that there are now AI candidates interviewing for jobs. And I went,

Emily Fenech (21:07.373)
yeah. Yeah.

Steve Browne (21:08.386)
And I went, huh? And he said, yeah. So now I have to worry if the person I'm talking to is real or not.

Eek! mean, that kind of stuff freaks me out. But we're looking at improving our phone system and improving our internal systems and finance and improving our IT cybersecurity. I mean, we get hung up on the narrow trendy thing instead of understanding tech is everything around us. So I would caution people not to get hung up on two letters.

Emily Fenech (21:36.83)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Browne (21:46.978)
Technology is everything. There's so many great platforms out there. We're looking at HR tech options as well, but they need to fit us. I've never been a fan of something that goes, my gosh, here's them. I love HR tech vendors. And they come and go, you know, we have the solution. I go, do you? Tell me. And not once did they ask about us or who we are or what we do and how it fits. It's all about the platform itself.

That's silly.

Emily Fenech (22:17.95)
They need to come see me. They need to do some work. I could coach him up on doing better discovery than that. But yeah, you got to tailor it. Yeah, I can see how AI could really shape even just the customer experience at LaRosa's too. You mentioned phone systems and a light bulb went off because how you get to the, know, AI can't make the pizza. And luckily the employees, you know, who are making that, they have to show up in person.

Steve Browne (22:20.535)
Yes.

Steve Browne (22:24.61)
No doubt.

Steve Browne (22:35.49)
Hmm, sure.

Steve Browne (22:48.088)
Yes.

Emily Fenech (22:48.094)
So hopefully you won't get fooled by any sort of bot candidates. But I do think like the phone systems, the way that you order, the way that it remembers what you want, you know, remembers your order from last time. I think all of that will just be enhanced and automated.

Steve Browne (23:03.214)
Yeah, and we're excited about that. We think that those things will make us better. We were. We have a centralized call center. And that was back in 1991 that that was put in. And what's funny is you still have places like where you live. I'm sure you can call your local pizza place. OK, well here you call a call center and people in Cincinnati are just used to it. And but we've seen it shift. We were like 70%.

Emily Fenech (23:05.374)
Yeah.

Emily Fenech (23:11.528)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Fenech (23:27.773)
Yeah.

Steve Browne (23:32.91)
web in mobile ordering. But the 30 % that call the call center, they want to know, hey, I did this and hey, my orders this and can you tell me about this? And where's the next store that does this? There's AI stuff that can handle some of that process oriented things. But the nuanced things, that's always going to be people. And that excites us.

Emily Fenech (23:45.896)
Yeah.

Emily Fenech (23:53.776)
Mm-hmm. Yes. That's right. That's right. Well, this has been a great conversation today, Steve. Is there any sort of final words of advice or encouragement that you could leave our audience with?

Steve Browne (24:09.388)
I would love to see HR people continue to be passionate about what we do. I don't see it. I think we get worn out like, people. And what's funny is we're people too. We can't keep thinking of others in third person like, know, those people, because those same people are saying that about you. So instead of saying, hey, you know, I have to talk to Emily, do things like I get to talk to Emily.

My day is going to be better because I get to interact with her. Whether it's a good thing, a problem, or whatever. But my day is better because I get to meet with her. If I could see more HR people do that, you'd have people flocking to do this type of work.

Emily Fenech (24:50.352)
Mm-hmm. I like your attitude, Steve. This was such a great conversation. I'll be in Cincinnati for fall break to visit on Saturday. And the first thing we do when we get there every time is there's a La Rosa's pizza waiting for us when we get there. So can't wait.

Steve Browne (24:53.772)
Thanks.

Steve Browne (25:09.998)
Tell your family to get the stuffed pizza pie because it's amazing.

Emily Fenech (25:14.472)
All right, I'll have to. My kids get that crazy pickle pie thing. I can't. They love it. They love it. Well, have a great day, Steve. Thank you.

Steve Browne (25:20.504)
Ha ha ha ha!

Steve Browne (25:25.944)
Thank you, Emily.