Cortney Worle, Chief People Officer at Cafe Rio

Show Notes

Doing More with Less: Cafe Rio’s CPO on Frontline Engagement, Cross-Training, and Practical AI

Summary

How do you keep 4,500 non-desk employees engaged when hybrid isn’t an option?

In this episode, host Emily Fenech sits down with Cortney Worle, Chief People Officer at Cafe Rio Mexican Grill (formerly HR leader at Road Runner Sports), to unpack what’s unique and universal about leading people in restaurants and retail.

Cortney shares her non-linear path to CPO (including a strategic step back), why engagement strategies must evolve every 18–24 months, and how Cafe Rio’s “Talk & Tacos” listening sessions with the CEO/COO surface real, fixable issues fast.

She gets specific on shifting from specialization to cross-training amid tight margins, rolling out mobile-first scheduling and shift swaps, and where AI actually helps today (dynamic labor scheduling) versus where she’s cautious (AI-driven hiring).

Cortney also tackles the “boundaries vs. growth” conversation and closes with simple advice: get out of the office and watch the work to find your next high-impact improvement.

Timestamps

[00:45] – Cortney’s journey: taking a step back to become CPO at Cafe Rio

[02:33] – The frontline HR reality: high turnover, non-desk workers, and limited peer benchmarks

[03:45] – Post-COVID shifts: rethinking recognition, comp, and what younger workers value now

[05:21] – “Talk & Tacos”: real-time listening with execs that drives concrete changes

[06:55] – From feedback to action: mobile schedules, in-app shift swaps, and faster fixes

[08:38] – Doing more with less: cross-training, agility, and reframing “not my job”

[11:30] – Boundaries vs. growth: addressing misused terms without missing real issues

[13:08] – Tech in restaurants: robotics vs. AI, and smart scheduling that frees managers

[15:34] – AI and recruiting: governance, bias risk, and why not to be an early adopter

[16:35] – Field-first leadership: don’t decide in a bubble—watch the work to find opportunities

Takeaways

- Build continual listening loops (e.g., small-group forums with executives) to surface high-signal, fixable problems.

- Revisit recognition, training, and comp every 18–24 months; the frontline’s needs change quickly.

- Modernize scheduling: give employees mobile access, enable shift swaps, and use AI to optimize labor by demand.

- Cross-train intentionally; frame it as career growth (trainer/manager paths) to overcome “not my job.”

- Discern language vs. reality: prioritize true toxicity and discrimination while coaching on productive boundaries.

- Apply AI where it’s low-risk and high-impact (scheduling, forecasting); be cautious with AI-led selection due to bias.

- Spend time on the floor; observing real workflows reveals bottlenecks you’ll never catch from a desk.

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Emily Fenech (00:34)
Welcome to HR Voices. I'm your host, Emily Fenech And today I get to chat with Cortney Worle who is the Chief People Officer at Cafe Rio. Welcome, Cortney

Cortney Worle (00:44)
Thanks for having me.

Emily Fenech (00:45)
Yeah, thanks for joining. Cortney, you have been deeply embedded in two of my favorite things in the world. ⁓ I love running and you people's strategy at Roadrunner Sports, which is so cool. Love that. Love that store. And I also love Mexican food so much. And now you're the chief people officer at Cafe Rio Mexican Girls. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and about your journey to CPO at Cafe Rio?

Cortney Worle (00:54)
Okay.

Yep.

Okay.

Yeah.

Absolutely. So ironically, it's two of my favorite things too. So that's how I ended up working for both Red Runner and Cafe Rio. I've been really fortunate in my career to work for companies that I was passionate about what they did. I've always said that whenever I interview candidates talk about, you know, my companies, I love working for a company where when I tell people what the company is, they automatically know what that company does and they're excited about it because they're a

So I've been really fortunate to have that be my career path. And yeah, I've been at Cafe Rio for eight and a half years now. And I originally joined Cafe Rio because I was looking to return to Salt Lake where I grew up and be closer to family. And when an opportunity came up at one of my favorite brands, I had to jump on it. ⁓ And I did take a little bit of a step back career wise to do that. For that opportunity, I came and joined as the director

of HR when I'd been leading the HR function at Roadrunner Sports, but knew that that was kind of worth it. I have taken step backs in my career a couple of times for personal reasons, and it's always worked out in the end, and it worked out here. We had gone through a transaction just after I joined the company, and my predecessor decided that she was going to take advantage of that change and move on. So I was given the opportunity to step up.

up rather quickly to the VP of HR role and then kind of improving myself as a part of the senior leadership team was able to be promoted to CPO about a year after that. Yeah.

Emily Fenech (02:51)
Wow, what a journey. That's

great. You rolled the dice and it worked out. Love when that happens. Well, when you think about cafe, mean, Roadrunner and Roadrunner being retail and cafe being restaurants, they're not exactly the same, but they do have a lot in common in terms of the frontline and multiple stores and things like that. When you think about your experience across both, I'd love to hear.

Cortney Worle (02:55)
Yep, I did. ⁓

Yep.

Yeah.

Emily Fenech (03:16)
how you'd characterize the biggest challenge, leading a people function in that context.

Cortney Worle (03:22)
Yeah, and it is the same and different, right? I think the similarity is one of the bigger challenges, which is having a highly non-exempt workforce with a lot of frequent and rapid turnover and competition for talent when it's oftentimes somebody's first, second job. They're not looking at it as a career and trying to keep that workforce engaged and excited and knowing what are the things that are going to appeal to that

workforce and then oftentimes not always having the exact group of HR professionals to talk to from that context. know, post COVID, everybody was talking about hybrid work and work from home. And while we do have, you know, a corporate office, there's only about 60 people in the scheme of having, you know, 4,500 employees. And most of those employees hybrid or working from home. That's not a possibility. You can't run a restaurant from home. So ⁓ it was, it's always a little bit of a challenge.

Emily Fenech (04:16)
Right.

Cortney Worle (04:20)
to find other HR professionals to kind of bounce things off of or have that conversation with because a lot of the groups I've been in are highly exempt and aren't really facing the same challenges that I am with trying to engage that younger, very mobile workforce.

Emily Fenech (04:37)
It

seems like there's a community opportunity there for frontline HR leaders. Yeah. Well, when you think of those challenges, turnover, things like that, how do you do it? What has proven effective in terms of keeping a workforce like that engaged?

Cortney Worle (04:39)
Yeah.

For sure.

I think it's an interesting question because I think it's a changing answer. There's sort of like as even like I was just talking to my CMO about this coming out of COVID, it was like we had to sort of pivot and there was the great resignation and we were competing for talent in a way that we never were before because things like banks were hiring away our team members where they would never have even have looked at our team members before. It was so competitive. so, you know, coming out of COVID,

we went into sort of like a more frequent recognition and compensation change program. And now we're looking at it at that again and going, okay, now it's changed a little bit more and there's this bigger need for sort of immediate gratification and attracting somebody and keeping them, you know, sooner. So it's one of those things where you can't just go, okay, we're going to put this program in place and hey, it works. So let's not look at it again. It's almost like

You

have to every couple of years look at what is, you know, what does the training look like? What does the compensation look like? And just continue to change that. Because even our generation that we're dealing with is slightly different than it was eight years ago, you know, because again, we're getting that group of people that are anywhere from like high school age all the way into sort of the early twenties is a predominant part of our group. And now that's a whole different generation that wants different things than the generation wanted before.

Emily Fenech (06:19)
Right.

How do you keep a pulse on what they want?

Cortney Worle (06:22)
So one of the things we've instituted, I think has been, and I won't take credit for this, one of the companies that our private equity owns, they had done it and made it as suggestion as we do a thing and we call it talk and tacos because know, fun terminology. But instead of doing like a traditional employee survey twice a year, we have selected two employees from every single location and we do it in markets. So we do it, you know, within, you know, smaller groups, say 30 stores.

at a time, maybe less, and we get on a teams meeting with them and ask them questions. What do you love about your job? What are our customers saying? What drives you crazy about your job? And it's with our CEO, our COO, and then another member of the executive team. And it's a really great way to get straight from the horse's mouth. What's working? What's not working? What are the things on their mind? And that does change over time. And it gives us an opportunity. I mean, it seems silly.

And I know it's something that we were going to talk about later, but one of our technology challenges was that we had this sort of antiquated time and attendance system that the employees would have to go either into the store to look at their schedule or call to get their schedule. There was no in their hands way to get their schedule. I know you make that funny face, but it's like it's one of those things that just hadn't grown. And that was a simple ask is like employees want to be able to just have it in their hands. I mean, they've got their phone in their hands. Everybody expects to be able to just get information really

quickly. And so we're in the middle of the implementation of a new system right now that will enable them to do that. And that was something that we heard loud and clear in one of these talking taco sessions that it's ridiculous that we can't just have our schedules available and even swap shifts with each other, you know, on an app or the touch of a button because everything is so app and mobile enabled at this point. So that's just one example. that's that's a way we can kind of keep in touch with what the questions are, what the demands are, what the needs are.

is by having those sessions and well I think culture surveys are important and we do those as well. There's nothing that you don't get that direct feedback out of a culture survey. You don't get those specific things that are wants and needs.

Emily Fenech (08:36)
And yeah, and it's

also sometimes hard to capture like the emotional power behind it. Like, this really bothers them. It's hard to see that in, you know, black and white responses, you know.

Cortney Worle (08:41)
Yeah. Yep.

Yeah. And it's even

really cool when they give us feedback from the customer from that perspective. Cause a lot of times it just reinforces other pieces of information we have on our customer feedback, but it really helps us go, yeah, the customers really care that we changed this recipe or that we took this thing away or you know, those types of things. it's, it's cool to get directly from the employees that are dealing with the customers day to day. are the customers saying?

Emily Fenech (09:13)
Yeah. that's

also powerful. You think about that. when I think of retail and when I think of, you know, restaurants, it's obviously the food that you're cooking and serving. And it's obviously what you're selling in the stores, but so much of the brand are those individual people. So like, and as a marketer, you know, the ability to like, they're just the mouthpiece of the customers. hear it all day long, right? What a great source. What a great source of research.

Cortney Worle (09:26)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yep.

Emily Fenech (09:41)
Well, I'd love to hear about, again, what do you think as we move into the next year your employees would say their biggest challenge is, right?

Cortney Worle (09:50)
Yeah, I mean, I think that we're continually, know, things are tightening up, but I think that they would say being asked to do more with less in particular hours. Restaurants are very tight margins. It's funny because there's, think, sometimes this illusion that, you know, you make all this money and, you know, why can't you afford to do this and this and that? But there's not a lot of profit in restaurants. And so we are constantly having to look at ways to become more efficient ⁓ and be more agile.

And that definitely comes down sometimes to the employees where it's funny, our early model used to be you would did one job. So if you were the one making the tortillas, that was your specialty and that's what you did. Or if you were, you know, on cashier, that's what you did. And we are in more of a point in sort of where we are economically where we have to say, hey, tortilla person, when you're

you have all your tortillas made that you're gonna need for the lunch rush, we need you to slide over and help on the salad prep and things like that. it's not always very well received. It's definitely asking people to kind of be more agile, but you have to help them understand that that's making them more well-rounded and giving them more opportunities to grow and either become a trainer, become a manager, but it's definitely...

I think the thing we're hearing the most right now is like, you know, not enough hours, not enough time to do everything.

Emily Fenech (11:17)
You know what's wild is that I literally did a podcast interview yesterday. Industry could not have been more different. It was insurance brokerage firm, CPL. When I asked him what would his people say the biggest challenge was, he said to doing more with less. It's just, you know, people are people. And businesses are businesses that run on people, right? So it's to me, I just always find those connections across.

Cortney Worle (11:22)
Okay. huh. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. ⁓

Yeah.

Yeah.

Emily Fenech (11:46)
industries to be so fascinating because at the end of the day, we all do struggle. Context is wildly different, but the root struggle can be so similar.

Cortney Worle (11:52)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

and I think it's important, like I said, to help people see what they gain out of spreading themselves and challenging themselves because I think one of the things that drives me the most crazy is they don't maybe say it literally this way, but people, the employees, they're like, that's not in my job description. That's not part of my job. And when you asked about my journey to CPO, if I had done that, I wouldn't be in the position I'm in today because I just said, you need help with that? Okay, I'll do it.

I learned a lot that maybe didn't in that moment benefit me. was doing a lot that I That wasn't quote-unquote part of my job description but I think I got to the role that I'm at because of Accepting those things and so I think helping employees understand That that is positioning them for that growth for that success for that next career step is super important because otherwise They're just gonna feel like why are you asking me to do this? You're not paying me enough to do

I don't have enough time to do this.

Emily Fenech (12:58)
And there's a balance there though that's delicate because I can see how again, it's so much of a conversation has shifted culturally to like boundaries, toxic boundaries.

Cortney Worle (13:00)
Yeah.

Yep. Yep. Yep. It's true.

Emily Fenech (13:12)
If there's something that you don't like, it's toxic, or if someone's asking you to something, there's boundaries. And while that's actually kind of cool that we're having those conversations, honestly, I think there's another extreme to that too, which is if all you ever do is put up boundaries, when are you gonna grow? You gotta have room for discomfort in some areas where you don't grow.

Cortney Worle (13:15)
Yeah.

Yeah, well,

and I think the danger of some of this terminology that gets thrown around so carelessly nowadays is that, you know, as HR professionals, we need to address the situations where there really is something that is toxic or discriminatory or, you know.

bullying, those types of words. And so, you know, we only have a finite amount of time to address employee situations as well and try to get to the crux of that. And so you want to be spending that time where there really is an opportunity where things need to change or be corrected and not where maybe those words are being a little bit misused.

Emily Fenech (14:09)
Yeah,

I'll speak at All Voices. We're an employee relations platform. And the trend that we've heard from customers and just the folks in our network is that with AI, ⁓ that it's sort of, it's only ramping up the language, right? Because they're asking AI to make the best possible, I don't know, it ramps up the language. The AI is almost assisting in charging the language. ⁓

Cortney Worle (14:19)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, interesting. Yeah. ⁓

Emily Fenech (14:36)
Which is unique because what you don't want to do to your point is have it have the real issues disappearing behind the overcharged issues. And how do you tell the difference? It's such a struggle. Yeah. Yeah. But that's maybe a good transition to technology because I did want to ask you about how technology is impacting your workforce. What does that look like in a restaurant context?

Cortney Worle (14:42)
Right. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough.

Yeah.

Yeah,

it's interesting because it's there, especially AI, and sometimes you don't even realize it. So I think one of the, I sit on a council with our HCM.

technology and they started talking about AI a couple of years ago with this council. And for me at that time it was like, ⁓ we're not there yet because the technology, at least the way it was being thought about then was not super relevant to restaurants. I think it's becoming more and more relevant now, but it's funny because the other technology that's really being talked about as if it's AI, but it's really not is more sort of I would call robotic.

and things like that so you'll hear about like a machine that will you know make the guacamole for Chipotle for instance that's one that they've talked about it's not something we're currently doing but those are the kind of technologies that we're paying attention to and I think it's all being sort of lumped into this AI

category, but I would say there's sort of this mix of like, again, from an efficiency cost saving standpoint, how do we make the food better, still same quality, there might be some robotics or some consolidation there. And then more in the fast food space, you're talking about like, you know, order takers through drive through and things like that with AI, but our experience is so one to one so so ⁓ customized, we're not quite there yet. It's a

lot of, it's really hard to replace that with AI at this point in time. And it doesn't mean that it's not coming, but we're looking at it more on the side of, ⁓ I mentioned that time and attendance system that we're deploying. So what that's going to do for us is make our scheduling more dynamic so that it's scheduling smarter with those hours to say, this is where you really need the people. This is how you want to deploy them against whether it's catering orders or to go orders or in restaurant orders.

So AI is behind the scenes in that learning, okay, what's the best schedule to make? So it kind of takes that responsibility out of the manager's hands so they can be right there in front of the customer, making sure that they're having the best experience possible.

Emily Fenech (17:09)
Yeah,

I can also imagine maybe you mentioned, I mean, I've worked myself on the corporate side of a retail network and I can imagine the recruitment efforts being maybe assisted in some way by AI.

Cortney Worle (17:21)
Yeah, it's

interesting because we've actually explored and talked to a couple of companies, but I'm a little bit not wanting to be in an early adopter there because again, you kind of have to be careful about.

how much influence sort of AI technology does in sort of selection because of inherent biases that can be built into the AI technology and not wanting to get yourself into a bad situation where you haven't selected somebody and there might be some discrimination biases that are built into that technology. So I'm definitely not wanting to be an early adopter on that side of things.

Emily Fenech (17:54)
I mean, fair enough. read a LinkedIn

post this morning from someone who specializes in AI governance and it is, mean, guess, fraught is the word. It's just like a lot of complexity. I mean, if you don't want to be the first one to trudge through it, then that's your prerogative. wouldn't, I mean, might not either. ⁓ Yeah, a lot to think about. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation. We covered a lot of ground for our HR listeners who

Cortney Worle (18:00)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Emily Fenech (18:23)
who might be in a similar retail restaurant front line space. Do you have any words, wisdom or encouragement to leave us with?

Cortney Worle (18:25)
Yeah.

I

think it is just be really in tune with what's going on in your business. Spend the time in...

the locations in the restaurants. It's so easy to make decisions in a bubble. And I will admit I've been guilty of that a lot and really more recently have just been spending more time kind of just sitting there and watching. for me, it's like if I'm not actively doing something, I'm thinking, am I not being productive? But just sitting in a restaurant, I did it earlier this week with my CMO, just watching what was happening. You learn so much about where the opportunities are that you just don't

yet when you're behind the screen at your desk.

Emily Fenech (19:12)
Absolutely

great advice. Thank you so much Cortney. Well, I appreciate you taking the time. This is a great, great combo. I appreciate it. Stay warm out there.

Cortney Worle (19:15)
Yeah.

Yeah, thank you. Thanks. You have a great week.