Grubhub Delivers DEI Impact Through Paradigm Partnership

For almost two decades, Grubhub — a pioneer in online food ordering and delivery — has helped restaurants grow their business while providing diners with more options for take-out. As Grubhub navigated hypergrowth across its six U.S. locations and two international offices, the company knew it had to build a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategy that addressed their unique gaps and showed their workforce it was committed.

Grubhub wanted expert support, and decided to partner with Paradigm. According to Becky Altman, Grubhub’s Director of Culture and Community, “Paradigm was the best fit for a couple of reasons. There was an understanding of how Grubhub operates — high–pace execution, focused rapid growth — we weren’t a cookie cutter client. And that resonated with us, that whoever worked with us was going to take us as we were and honor our authenticity as a culture.” With Paradigm’s comprehensive suite of DEI consulting services and products, Altman knew the partnership could cater to their needs instead of Grubhub having to adapt to a program that might not truly fit their organization.

Grubhub and Paradigm’s partnership kicked off in early 2020, just as the Covid–19 pandemic sparked even more demand for food delivery.

Creating the Strategy

First, Paradigm led two sessions with Grubhub’s executive team, helping them create a vision for the company’s DEI efforts that went beyond only increasing representation (though that was also important).

“Having an expert who could communicate about nuanced DEI topics at an executive level, helped us navigate tough conversations, and show how DEI can be approached with rigor as a core business function was incredible. Having executive buy–in was critical to our success, and Paradigm made that easy and generated a lot of excitement for what came next.”

After the session, Paradigm reviewed Grubhub’s current demographic data and employee engagement survey data, and helped build a DEI strategy focused on three pillars:

  • Who We Are: Representation at Grubhub
  • How We Work: A Culture of Equity and Belonging
  • How We Support: Our Diners, Restaurants, and Communities

Industry:
Technology, Information, and Internet

Employees:
1,000-5,000

“Paradigm was the right fit for a couple of reasons. There was an understanding of how Grubhub operates — high-pace execution, focused rapid growth — we weren’t a cookie cutter client. That resonated with us, that whoever worked with us was going to take us as we were and honor our authenticity as a culture.”

Becky Altman
Director of Culture and Community

Communicating to Employees

The company also created its first internal DEI report with Paradigm’s support. For Grubhub, it was important to be authentic with employees about the current state of DEI and what came next. Grubhub shared their DEI framework, highlighted the progress that had been made, and outlined initiatives that would help the company continue to make progress in a company wide meeting.

Executing Against the Strategy

With executives bought in, a strategy in place, and employees excited about Grubhub’s DEI efforts, the company began to implement key initiatives, including:

  • The launch of a returnship program – A 16-week paid returnship for experienced professionals returning to the workforce after taking time off for caregiving.
  • The implementation of Employee Resource Group (ERG) effectiveness training for leaders of six ERGs: Working Parents, Women of Grubhub, UNIDOS (Latinx and Hispanic employees), GrubPride, GAIN (Grubhub Asian Impact Network), and BEACON (Black Employee Affinity Culture Organizational Network). The goal was to equip leaders, and ultimately members, with the tools needed to build effective ERGs that advance diversity and empower an inclusive company culture.
  • An annual engagement survey with a lens on inclusion, which enabled Grubhub to measure the effectiveness of DEI efforts and monitor the experiences of employees across demographic groups.
  • Inclusive Leadership training for executives, senior leaders, and people managers. Since then, 10 employees have gone through the Train the Trainer program for Inclusive Leadership and are now facilitating these trainings internally. They have already facilitated 10 sessions for 162 people.

“All the training Paradigm has done for us is really powerful,” said Altman. “It’s institutional knowledge that we’re building within our community and to take the learning from Paradigm and make that part of our leadership has been tremendous.”

Altman said that having a DEI strategy in place, a framework for using data to guide their efforts, and specific goals have allowed the company to focus on initiatives that drive impact, and learn from what’s working and what’s not. Two years into their efforts and partnership with Paradigm, Grubhub has already seen meaningful changes in representation in three specific areas: women in leadership, women in technical roles and representation of Black/Latinx in manager roles. Altman believes Grubhub can continue to focus on the right things as their workforce and their space evolve.

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