From Marketing to CPO: A Creative Approach to People and Culture

Mo Fathelbab: Welcome to today's episode of people and strategy. I'm your host, Mo Fathelbab, President of International Facilitators Organization. People in Strategy is a podcast from the SHRM Executive Network, the premier network of executives in the field of human resources, and each week we bring you in depth conversations with the country's top HR executives and thought leaders.

For today's conversation, I'm excited to be joined by Nikki Rapoport, CPO at Call Your Mother Deli, the DC chain serving bagels. Welcome Nikki.

Nikki Rappaport: Hi, Mo. So happy to be here. Thank you.

Mo Fathelbab: Great to have you with us, Nikki. Let's start with your career. Tell us about your journey and how you became the CPO of this wonderful organization in the food industry.

Nikki Rappaport: Sure. So my career actually started in marketing, not people and not HR. Um, started actually originally doing marketing for my university. After I graduated, I was doing experiential marketing and digital marketing for admissions and athletics, which was very fun, but I always also had this passion for food.

And food writing and had a side project for many years. That's where I got to know so many great D. C. food brands and chefs. And then that's how I snuck my way into the industry. For my first real job in food, um, I was the first corporate employee at Cava, which is now a national brand.

But at the time we were pretty small. I led brand and marketing and design and strategy there. I touched all brand touch points in initiatives from menu to technology to employee engagement. We grew Cava quite a bit, and I wanted to do it again. I wanted to team up with another organization.

That was small and mighty and growing and had a really great product. And I knew the call your mother team and they have one location, which was one of my favorite places to eat and they were, had their sights set on growing. And we started talking and it was like, okay, but how do we do this? How do we actually scale?

And I took the experience that I had in marketing, but really just in, in building a small you know, growing a brand there and helped us at all touch points, and led strategy across many departments, but ultimately in the last year and a half have found myself leading people in culture. So that's my winding career journey to HR. 

Mo Fathelbab: A great journey and certainly an important role at Cava. What a success that company has been. You must be proud when you look back and, and see, uh, the, the, the seeds of your work. So, I understand that at Call Your Mother, you guys are really big on company values. Can you tell us how your team went about defining those values? 

Nikki Rappaport: Sure. Well, uh, it was one of the very first things that I did when I, when I joined the team a little over five years ago today. And we had this one location I mentioned and back then, uh, it was a very different time. I think in dining, it was like pre pandemic.

So me as a guest, even before I worked here, I would wait outside in line for 45 15 minutes for my bagel sandwich. I call your mother. I was so excited to get it. I had just been written up in Bon Appetit and food and wine as a best new restaurant. And once you made your way inside the energy was just electric.

The staff was so overly friendly. The food was hot and delicious and something like that. We really didn't have in DC. And so my challenge coming in was capturing all of the magic of this one location that made it so great so that we could start to replicate it and start to grow and and not lose the things that everyone felt were so so precious about who we are.

Um, so I. Talk to a lot of people. I talked to all of our team. I talked to our guests. I spent a lot of time with our founders to really distill what, what made us special. And one thing that came up often with our, our leadership team was, uh, the concept of vibes. The vibes are so good in here. And that was the thing we wanted to be able to really protect and, and replicate.

But without a shared language, we, we really couldn't do that. So distilled what were the themes of what made Call Your Mother special, and turned it actually into an acronym for VIBES. Those became our core values. So now we know what it means when we say the VIBES are good in here or how to start to, to build and replicate what that means.

VIBES stands for vibrant, integrity, belonging, energy, and seize the moment. 

Mo Fathelbab: Tell us more about that last one. It sounds really interesting. I'm curious how that plays out in a restaurant industry. 

Nikki Rappaport: Yeah, well, it came out of this, uh, philosophy we have to be a yesterant. We always want to be able to say yes to people and their requests.

And so the ask is for our team to seize the moment when they can for a guest or for another team member to make something happen for somebody when they might not expect it. 

Mo Fathelbab: And VIBES was, V was vibrant? 

Nikki Rappaport: Yes.

Mo Fathelbab: Yeah. And tell us about that. That sounds uniquely interesting because I've not seen that on a list of values, but I love it.

Nikki Rappaport: Yeah. You know, it is unique and it's very unique to call your mother. Um, it is all about first impressions for us. We want to have a vibrant, fun, playful, exciting, happy first impression for anybody who comes in contact with us. So Absolutely. Absolutely. You'll experience it if you come to call your mother.

If you walk in the door within two seconds, hopefully you're getting greeted by a team member, you'll experience it probably even before you walk in the door. Our buildings are painted bright pink and teal and have fun flowers everywhere and wacky designs. And then you absolutely will get a vibrant experience when you open up that bagel, open up our, you know, have a bite of food and hopefully it's a wow moment.

Mo Fathelbab: Yeah. How can you tell if a company's, um, statement of values or, or list of values are actually successful and do you have examples where they may be or may not be? 

Nikki Rappaport: Yeah. I mean, I think at the highest level, we're asking about our teams, you know, is everybody in alignment and showing up in the same way?

And do we understand? And of course, can we feel and see the impact of those things? And I think that all starts with consistency, uh, and what employee does not want to have consistency when it comes to where they work. Um, but especially in a rapidly growing brand and company like ours where there will be constant change, employees will stick with you if they can find the thread and find the things that they can come to know and rely on.

On you for, um, you know, if you walk the walk, uh, that's, that's really important. So yeah, as we're growing, there's a lot of things we can't always commit to because we're growing fast. We will be changing, but our core values, which are really the ways in which we show up and make decisions for our team and expect everyone to work and show up.

Has not really wavered in those five years. We've maybe defined them a little bit more, but it's been the same. So. I think one thing that's, if you build that consistency in everything that you do, not only will you hopefully get the results that you need of people falling through with them, but also they're going to call you out.

Our team members will call us out. When we're out of integrity or when they're not feeling a sense of belonging and that helps us really stay connected, uh, to what our mission is and what we do is important. Uh, and I think those moments are really great when someone can, can, can call out a specific thing.

It was like, oh, you rolled out this thing a little bit too fast. That wasn't, um, you know, that, that was the wrong sense of energy that you. That we brought to this, uh, that helps us stay in alignment. So I think feeling that impact, knowing what it is, and then ultimately, like, are people having a better experience?

Is it more frictionless? Is it more exciting because you've implemented these things? 

Mo Fathelbab: A couple of things. One is how do you encourage people to speak up when things are not in integrity? Cause that's easier said than done. And some people are afraid to speak up altogether. 

Nikki Rappaport: I mean, I think we want to do it in.

Many ways, both formally and informally, I think it starts with building trust with our teams, with our leaders, having, having trust with our teams and creating moments where people and our leaders can be vulnerable with our teams so that they can start to build that trust and, and feel comfortable. We really do have an open door policy, not only with.

The leaderships of each individual location, but with all of our employees to our people and culture team and to the rest of our support team and people do feel comfortable coming to us and and providing the insight. I think often because we we take it and we tell them that we take it and we. We show them what we're doing with it.

Uh, so it all really comes down to communication there. And then in more formal ways, we survey our employees regularly so that we can capture feedback in times that they might not feel as comfortable coming direct one on one to us. 

Mo Fathelbab: So speaking of communication, how do your leaders ensure and communicate effectively those core values?

Nikki Rappaport: Lots of ways. And In every way, honestly, we want to incorporate them in almost everything that we do. So, they're present during our interview process. They're probably even before that. They're present in our job posts. So that people who are applying to, to roles at Call Your Mother know that this is something that we're looking forward to having a conversation about.

Then they're present in the job interviews. Then they're present at orientation. Of course, in our shops and in our restaurants, in the back we have posters and everything there so people can see it there. Our performance reviews, the evaluation and rubric is based off of these core values. And so it's really, really hard to go, you know, Any time working for us without getting hit with one of them for either a reason why we're doing something or a celebration for an employee of the month or, or anything, because we really try to thread them through everything that we do.

Mo Fathelbab: So I'm curious, how did you decide to put them in the back of the house instead of in the restaurant? area where the customers can see them. 

Nikki Rappaport: Yeah. I mean, it's not that we're hiding it from, from our guests. I think for it's, it's on our website, it's, you know, it's in places where people can see it there. Uh, it's also, uh, the foundation really for our team members.

To enable what we want our guest experience to be. So we really want our team members to live and breathe those core values. And they do, because that's why we hired them, hopefully, uh, so that when they're out with guests, they can focus on the, the, the mission, which is creating great fricking experiences. We call them GFEs and that can all be about GFEs upfront with our team members. 

Mo Fathelbab: I like it. I like it. So, and how do you all as a leadership team model those values? 

Nikki Rappaport: Yeah, I mean, in many ways, we start all Goal setting conversations based off of that. We just had that really planning for the next year in mind.

We talked through what of our big company initiatives and everything that we wanted to do, but we didn't go through them without first talking about and getting really, uh, connected in on what our core values are. 'cause we're growing, we have people who have been. They're from the beginning like me and some of our other team members, but we also have a lot of new leaders as well.

And so any opportunity I think that we can connect in on the why and the purpose, uh, so that there's no confusion. It's all straight clarity that this is what we expect and what we're bringing to all those things. Um, Yeah, I think it comes through in almost everything we do. 

Mo Fathelbab: So let's shift gears a little bit.

Let's talk about, uh, your leadership journey. And I'm wondering what leadership lessons you've learned, Nikki, as, as a chief people officer. 

Nikki Rappaport: Well, I'll take it back a little bit because I am still fairly new in this role. And I think what is unique about my career coming from a marketing background is really about bringing creativity to leadership, uh, and something that, You know, when I came into the, the HR world, I wasn't necessarily seeing amongst my peers that are out there and yeah, I had to, you know, get polished up on all the policies and, and all the things there.

But I also wanted to take that approach to this role, um, and approach to this leadership position and how do we bring creativity to it? Thinking about our core values and consistencies as a marketing campaign, I have always thought about it like that. Um, thinking about how everything that we do as a people team is an experience, and it can be designed to engage our teams and learn about them and help them grow.

Can 

Mo Fathelbab: you give us an example or two of these experiences? Because I keep hearing a theme of experiential marketing, experiential learning. Yeah. So tell us more. 

Nikki Rappaport: Yeah, let me tell you about one thing that just came up with our team, uh, pretty recently a friendly benefit that we offer our team members that we have been for many years now, our language classes, free language classes.

So, um, our teams are almost. Nearly split 50 50 down the middle of our teams who are Spanish first or English first speakers, and they're co mingled within each of our shops. And so we've always wanted to provide an opportunity for them to be able to communicate better with each other, but also to be able to learn this skill as well.

So, um, something that we want Have offered for many years and more recently we've enhanced the program. We've added more opportunities, more lessons for our team members. And, um, so we rolled out a whole new benefit and we, we share that with our team and I think. Oh, a conversation I had with my, my HR team recently was okay.

So we have this benefit that we roll out. We communicate, this is when it starts. This is when you have to sign up. You know, these are the lessons you have to attend. Great. But then what are we telling about the story and the experience of our team members who get to take. These classes and or take advantage of this benefit.

How do they, um, you know, what are the testimonials? What are what are they learning in class? How do they feel afterwards? And how does that help them as individuals? How does that help them as teammates? And so probing our team to do a little bit more storytelling around the benefits that we offer and how our team engages with them.

I think that's one thing that kind of takes it. Mhm. You know, a different lens that is a little bit more marketing like, 

Mo Fathelbab: Yeah, love it. Love it. Um, I'm wondering, Nikki, if, um, as you've gone on this journey, you've had to unlearn any leadership myths. 

Nikki Rappaport: I think to be good leader, I, I truly feel like I need to understand all of the things in which our teams are doing.

And I, in early roles or in jobs I've had before, you see. leaders who are in positions of, um, authority in an organization, but don't, aren't connected to what's actually happening with the work. Um, so I don't necessarily think I had to unlearn that, but I think I had to learn that the way that I approached it and really being in there with our team, every single team member who starts at Call Your Mother, whether they're a, vice president or whoever goes through all of our shop positional training so that they can know what our team members are doing and what our guests want.

And nobody gets a pass at that. You don't get a pass just because you have more experience or you have a more senior title. We really want to stay connected to what that mission is. And the only way that we can affect change as leaders is to Really strongly stay connected to what our teams are doing.

Um, so once a month, our whole support team goes out and works. In all of our shops, we take the third Friday of every month where we get out of the office, we go work as a cashier or a barista, uh, spend time with our teams and really get to know the challenges and exciting things that our teams are facing every day.

Mo Fathelbab: And for those people who don't know the restaurant, Call Your Mother, and you said it was like the first of its kind in D. C., maybe tell us more about it because some people come to D. C. and they may just need to make a little trip to come visit. 

Nikki Rappaport: I would love that, yeah. So we're a neighborhood bagel shop and deli, uh, we're known for our outrageous and delicious bagel sandwiches, but we also have amazing coffee and pastry and other sandwiches as well.

We have, um, 15 locations now, and More on the horizon. The majority of them are in the DMV. So we have locations in D. C. Maryland in Virginia. And then more recently, we've actually expanded to Denver, Colorado. So we have locations out there as well. And hopefully another city is on the horizon soon. 

Mo Fathelbab: Amazing.

Thank you. Um, so thinking about, uh, leaders looking to create their own company values, what tips do you have for them? 

Nikki Rappaport: Yeah, a couple. So, first let's start with whether you know. You have the information in front of you at your fingertips to be able to Already sort of pick out the things that might already be there for us and for you.

So what are you known for? What does your team feel like that you do best or, or most consistently? Um, what are the things that you're most proud of as a team? Those likely will, those themes will come to the forefront. So once you have that. Keep it simple. I, I've seen company values that are like paragraphs long where there's 12 of them.

And it's like, how is anyone going to be able to, to digest that and live up to those things every single day? So keep it simple for us. That was five and we put it in an acronym so everybody could remember it. Uh, and it became something that was part of our everyday vernacular. And then lastly, you know, I've been saying this, but incorporate them in every opportunity, put them in your job posts, talk to them, talk about them during hiring, talk about them during performance reviews and conversations.

We use our core values, not only from a people function. It's a, it's a huge piece of it, but also how we make decisions as a company, how we say yes to the things out. An opportunity that we want to take advantage of and try also how we say no to a lot of the noise that's out there when we're we're trying to grow really fast and really, um, You know, in a, in a really pointed direction.

So, yeah, we use core values to determine what should our next egg supplier be? You know, we can go through and create a rubric that allows us to be able to filter those decisions to stay really true to who we 

Mo Fathelbab: are. So I'm curious, does anybody ever during the interview process say, I'm not aligned with your values, I don't think this is a good job for me?

Nikki Rappaport: Maybe not directly, but we've certainly had conversations like that, uh, where we have mutually decided to end an interview or end the process because we've been so, so upfront about who we are and what the expectation is that everybody's just like, yeah, this isn't it.

And that's one of our core values, integrity, you know, we're not, we're not trying to, uh, skirt around or be something that we're not. 

Mo Fathelbab: And I would assume you also make decisions as to who doesn't belong in the company any longer based on those values.

Nikki Rappaport: Yeah. Um, it's definitely part of our rubric for, um, corrective action for coaching conversations. Uh, and literally just gave a training on this right now to, to our teams about how to spot those. Um, moments when people are out of line, um, in unaligned with our core values and to start to really understand and recognize the patterns of the impact that behavior, those actions can have on the greater team.

Mo Fathelbab: Absolutely. I love that. Nikki, what is one piece of advice that has shaped your work or personal life? 

Nikki Rappaport: Cool question. I was thinking back on a conversation I had with my very first boss I had after college, my first job after college, and what she said to still down to was, be curious and learn how to connect the dots.

You know, she was the VP at a university with a very wide oversight, and I would be meeting with people from departments all over the place who all had various agendas and point of views, um, but I could be the person who threaded the needle to anticipate people's problems before they arise, to make experiences more meaningful because I figured out how they Matter to a group of people who may not have figured it out for themselves.

So, um, I always remember that. And I think It's what I do now. So, um, it was good advice.

Mo Fathelbab: That sounds like great advice. Indeed. Nikki Rappaport. Thank you so much. A huge thanks to you., and really a pleasure to have you with us.

That's where we're going to end it for this episode of People in Strategy. You can follow the People in Strategy podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

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