El Pollo Loco’s Work Culture Takes Flight

About this Case study

By listening to feedback & increasing communication across the organization, El Pollo Loco addresses that matter the most to their employees. See how they did it.

1. For anyone looking to:

   Implement a hotline intake or incident management system

2. Solution:

   EthicsPoint®

3. Page length:

   2 pages

Read the Case study

El Pollo Loco’s Work Culture Takes Flight

“Knowing individual issues is not enough for an effective system. I need to know what the trends look like. NAVEX’s case management software allows us to identify trends early, so we can immediately address workplace issues.”
- Patsy Estis, Vice President of Human Resources at El Pollo Loco

El Pollo Loco is the nation’s leading quick-service restaurant chain specializing in flame-grilled chicken. Founded in Mexico in 1975, El Pollo Loco’s success stems from the unique preparation of its award-winning “pollo,” fresh chicken marinated in a signature recipe of herbs, spices, citrus and garlic passed down from the founding family. The chain ended 2010 with a total of 412 restaurants located in nine U.S. states.

When it comes to legal compliance, is it enough to just wing it?

Patsy Estis, Vice President of Human Resources at El Pollo Loco, is crazy about chicken – and making sure employees are happy. “In the restaurant industry, we live and die on our reputation. That means our reputation with our employees as well as with customers.”

Focus on Restaurants

Maintaining a good relationship with employees involves listening to feedback and acknowledging concerns. This kind of communication has the added benefit of reducing legal risk, according to Patsy Estis, Vice President of Human Resources at the California-based company.

“We want to generate employee communication. If people have questions, issues or if they are upset, we want them to tell us so we know how to make employment better at El Pollo Loco.” Initially, El Pollo Loco used a basic employee hotline service and a relatively disorganized case management system. With only spreadsheets and scattered notes, it was impossible to see any trends emerging in the data. The process was clearly inadequate for El Pollo Loco’s needs. Patsy helped choose NAVEX to provide a single case management product that could improve communication, identify trends and analyze data.

Fresh Results with NAVEX’s EthicsPoint Incident Management

Patsy began by working with NAVEX’s Implementation Services team to configure the system to meet El Pollo Loco’s needs. “The case management system is set up within each division of our organization. Reports automatically go to the right manager. The system enables us to keep track of each issue and resolution.”

Now, employees are able to submit a report in a familiar language, online or by phone, at any time and place. Patsy’s team immediately responds and acknowledges the report, so the caller understands that the issue is being resolved.

Patsy then uses tools within the case management system to analyze the data. She now has a greater ability to identify trends in the workplace. The new level of insight into compliance risks helps El Pollo Loco identify any concerns, understand if the issue is more common in a region, and handle the situation early.

With Patsy’s team listening to employee concerns and responding to potential issues, the company’s commitment to keeping employees happy is readily apparent.

El Pollo Loco uses NAVEX’s services to stay crazy about employees. by listening to feedback and increasing communication across the organization, El Pollo Loco is able to keep abreast of and address issues that cause concern to their employees.

**About NAVEX** NAVEX's GRC software and compliance management solutions support the integrated risk, ESG and compliance management programs at more than 13,000 organizations worldwide.