If you’re unfamiliar with the name Sodexo, you’ve almost surely interacted with one or more of the company’s ubiquitous consumer touchpoints – stadiums, schools, hospitals, corporations and campuses, to name a few. In 2022, the global food services and facilities management enterprise partnered with MLT to provide an assessment and strategic thought partnership to improve its workplace culture, business practices, and outcomes.
The MLT partnership came together at a significant time in Sodexo’s evolution, amid the Covid-19 pandemic and a cross-company shift to remote work. “We wanted to ensure that we continued reinforcing the importance of reflecting the diversity of our clients and communities inside of our workforce,” says Tony Tenicela, Sodexo’s Global Head of Culture and Belonging.
For Tenicela and the Sodexo leadership team, the relationship between employee experience and business performance is always top of mind. “The more that our employees feel seen, heard and valued, and that they are in an environment where they feel safe to be authentic, to be accountable and bring their real life experience to their work, they’re going to engage more deeply,” Tenicela says. “That is going to improve productivity. When people feel they matter and they are making a direct impact on business results, organizational performance is going to increase.”
Michelle Powell, Director of Partner Success at MLT, and a business psychologist, agrees with Tenicela, stating, “When espoused values are consistently demonstrated in daily practice, high performance becomes a predictable outcome. Studies show this cultural alignment strengthens trust, psychological safety, and belonging, leading to a workforce that is four times more engaged, five times more likely to advocate for the organization, and 30% more likely to drive innovation. Companies that operate with this level of integrity see up to 40% higher retention and outperform competitors financially by as much as 20%.
“Since the beginning of our relationship,” Powell continues, “Sodexo’s commitment to achieving these types of outcomes has been unwavering, and I’m glad we could be a strategic partner in helping them realize the success they’ve achieved to date.”
The Path to Impact
Forging a path of transformational change across a highly matrixed organization of Sodexo’s size requires tremendous effort, and it can be daunting – especially when first steps involve allowing external collaborators to take an unflinching look behind the curtain. “Part of that process was, how are we holding up the mirror to see what’s not working?” says Charity Chandler, PhD, Sodexo’s Director of Culture & Belonging. “A lot of times in business, we don’t want to hold up the mirror because we know we’re not going to be completely satisfied with what we see. MLT helped us take a self-reflective approach, rather than comparing ourselves to other organizations. And that empowered us to ask, Where are there gaps, and where are the greatest areas for opportunity? And then benchmark against ourselves and hold ourselves accountable.”
Sodexo began its journey in 2022 with a commitment to drive change across five key areas aligned to both its internal policies and external impact. From talent mobility and workplace culture to community investments and contributions, MLT Path’s framework offered a clear roadmap for taking intentional steps to advance equity and inclusive practices across the entire enterprise.
The MLT Path assessment helps organizations surface areas that are often overlooked, such as pay equity, living wage considerations, and other organizational practices that directly affect employees’ day-to-day experiences. A consultative approach also provides partners like Sodexo with actionable guidance that extends beyond workforce composition into business operations.
Sodexo utilized MLT Path, which encourages reflection on existing practices, to identify steps that were both rigorous enough to produce meaningful change, and realistic within the organization’s capacity, support, and internal timelines. “MLT’s Path program includes review and strategy support to improve enterprise-wide business practices, not just workplace culture, to ensure the partner organization’s values are consistently demonstrated across all stakeholder groups,” Powell notes.
The MLT Path framework also helped Tenicela and his teams cultivate global stakeholder buy-in for the recommended initiatives, and leverage the collective power of leadership expertise and collaboration throughout the process. “MLT’s assessment tool provided us with the platform to bring all of these leaders representing different business units together to collectively understand the task at hand, and approach it together,” he says.
“It really does take a village,” Tenicela says of Sodexo’s partnership with MLT. “It takes the engagement, accountability and collaboration of a number of organizations to collectively shape intense ambition.”
Through year-over-year tracking, ongoing thought partnership, and strategic roadmapping, the three-year relationship with MLT has enabled Sodexo to avoid one-off actions and instead make meaningful progress with intentionality, ensuring sustainable strategies for the future.
Culture Matters, Inside and Out
A key takeaway from MLT’s assessment of Sodexo’s workplace culture, according to Chandler, was “a need for an evolution” from employees feeling seen and heard toward “a culture of belonging. Belonging really resonated and came to the forefront,” she says.
“Workplace culture and belonging shouldn’t be viewed as soft concepts, and just ‘nice to haves,’” Tenicela cautions. “They’re much more strategic drivers.”
Informed by their engagement with MLT Path, the Sodexo team has strengthened the company’s onboarding process to foster a stronger sense of belonging from day one. For employees at Sodexo, this intentional cultivation of a safe, inclusive, supportive ecosystem is paying dividends. “Sodexo has truly helped me understand bringing my authentic self to work, and the importance of how that will impact how I'm able to contribute to my team,” says Sherina Barnes, Sodexo’s Culture & Belonging Coordinator for External Relations, who has been with the company for five years.
The business case for cultivating an intentionally vibrant, welcoming workplace culture is not strictly internal. “Our clients don’t just want to know about our operations, they want to know about our values,” Chandler says. “Our clients want to know who we are, what we stand for, and what we're doing for our team members and in the communities that we serve.”
Sodexo’s investments in workplace culture have increased employee retention and positioned the company as a trusted advisor and service provider. “Our clients want to replicate this type of environment in their site operations and respective organizations,” says Tenicela.
“Demonstrating values isn’t just an internal leadership imperative—it’s a market advantage,” says Powell. “When organizations consistently act on their stated principles, they not only earn employee trust and commitment, but also build credibility with clients who are increasingly choosing to do business with companies that lead with integrity. In today’s transparency-driven economy, values aren’t just communicated—they’re experienced, and both talent and customers are watching closely.”
MLT continues to serve as strategic advisors to Sodexo in support of the company’s initiatives to elevate employee voices, to better understand and enhance the employee journey at every stage of the workplace lifecycle. “We’re not just checking boxes,” Chandler emphasizes. “We are encouraging candid feedback, interaction and collaboration. We want to know, what is the felt experience of our folks?”
“Our people are at the heart of everything we do,” Tenicela says. “It all starts with the employee.”
Where the Magic Happens
For Tenicela and Chandler, their work with MLT to enrich and strengthen Sodexo’s workplace culture is an ongoing exercise in collaboration and curiosity. “This process will continue to evolve as we identify and address things that matter to our employees and to our organization,” says Chandler, who sees the concept of mattering as an increasingly important facet of the conversation. “How do we bring mattering forward so that, as a Sodexo employee, I not only feel a sense of belonging, but a sense of purpose that what I do matters?”
Sodexo’s commitment to workplace culture and continuous listening applies not only to employees and stakeholders, but to MLT and the opportunities for this fruitful strategic partnership to make further impact. “It's not just about the numbers and making progress in specific areas to address these gaps,” Tenicela says. “It’s being committed to continuously improving on those numbers year to year, and asking ourselves what else we can do to improve specific areas of priority together.”
Collectively, MLT and Sodexo have architected significant, impactful change for the global powerhouse, and implemented a proactive, structured approach to continuous improvement and leadership accountability. “Having MLT as a strategic partner and trusted advisor throughout the process was highly valuable.” Tenicela says. “They helped us reflect on so many areas of opportunity by coming in with an external lens and saying, ‘Have you considered looking at the problem in a different way?’ That is what makes a truly highly interactive and successful collaboration.”
“The value of this partnership goes both ways,” Powell says. “Sodexo's willingness to let us serve as a guide and accountability partner has enabled us to have candid conversations, brainstorm ideas, and add to the insights and best practices we are able to share with our broader community of partners. We are proud to call them out as an example of what good looks like.”
Together, the good work continues. “The more we do to ensure that our employees feel valued, respected, and feel a sense of belonging and mattering, that's where the magic starts happening for us,” Tenicela says. “It's so powerful, because it's one thing to say it. It's another thing to actually take action on it.”
