Equity, Inclusion & Belonging

As we navigate the journey ahead in partnership with our more than 1,500 franchisees around the world, we understand equity, inclusion and belonging (EIB) are critical components to our social purpose. So across Yum! Brands, we’re making room for all people and voices at our tables by taking bigger, bolder steps to ensure we reflect the customers and communities we serve in every corner of our business. This will ultimately fuel long-term growth and help build brands that people trust and champion.

And we’re calling on everyone to enable an equitable and inclusive workplace at all levels of our organization and to promote these values across our system of franchisees and suppliers.

Here’s more on how we’ll do that across key stakeholders.

Our People

Our first priority is our people. At our corporate offices and company-owned restaurants, we are working to increase representation among our above-restaurant level employees, including executives and managers and to achieve gender parity by 2030.

Oversight for equity, inclusion and belonging starts with our Global Leadership Team and is managed by our global Equity, Inclusion & Belonging team, led by Yum! Brands’ Chief Equity & Inclusion Officer James Fripp.

Building on our ongoing efforts and starting from the inside out, Yum! Corporate and our brands are strengthening and implementing plans for our corporate offices and company-owned restaurants with a focus on:

  • Creating more diverse representation among our executive and management ranks, including elevating women into leadership to achieve gender parity globally by 2030, in alignment with our partner Paradigm for Parity®.
  • In the U.S., increasing underrepresented people of color and gender diversity including Black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian-American, women and LGBTQ+ leaders and employees.
  • Expanding the multicultural competency of our existing corporate workforce through increased access to global “Inclusive Leadership” experiences, individual equity and inclusion commitments and engagement in our employee resource groups (ERGs).

Franchisees

We are dedicated to ensuring Yum!’s inclusive culture is amplified for our restaurant team members via our franchisee organizations through recruiting a wide spectrum of franchisees who represent the diverse communities in which our brands operate, including a commitment to add 100 women and URPOC franchisees by 2026. Franchisees are welcomed to Yum! and supported with a variety of programs, including:

  • The EmpowHER leadership development program connecting women leaders in franchise organizations across our brands through development opportunities with the goal of investing in these leaders, recognizing their contributions and providing an opportunity to network, collaborate and grow.
  • The Yum! Center for Global Franchise Excellence at the University of Louisville (UofL) College of Business, educating and supporting aspiring entrepreneurs to advance the franchising industry, with intentional focus on equity through the recruitment and education of underrepresented people of color and women to reduce barriers to entering the franchising industry.
  • “Inclusive Leadership” experiences for Restaurant General Managers by 2025 across franchise-owned restaurants.

Customers & Communities

Show our accountability in action so that our customers and communities experience our commitments and invite us into their homes and lives by doing the following:

  • Provide a relevant and inclusive experience for all populations that better serves our current customers and attracts new ones.
  • Engage and invest to drive more equitable outcomes in our communities (tackling inequality as defined and measured in each market and in alignment with UN Sustainable Development Goals).
  • Invest in entrepreneurship, equity and inclusion and education for under-resourced communities.
  • Partner with franchisees on implementing Unlocking Opportunity Initiative programs as well as leveraging and expanding their involvement.

Suppliers

We are deepening our commitment to equity, inclusion and belonging by ensuring anyone we work with shares our ambition to achieve equitable and realistic representation.

In partnership with our exclusive supply chain management organization, Restaurant Supply Chain Solutions, Yum! has built a leading corporate supplier diversity program. We actively seek qualified underrepresented suppliers for all possible product and service needs and encourage our majority-owned suppliers to do the same when they are choosing vendors, subcontractors and distribution services.

Yum! welcomes certified suppliers of the following designations:

  • Minority-Owned Business Enterprise
  • Woman-Owned Business Enterprise
  • Lesbian-, Gay-, Bisexual-, Transgender- and/or Queer-Owned Business Enterprise
  • Business Enterprise Owned by People with Disabilities
  • Veteran-Owned Business Enterprise
  • Disabled Veteran-Owned Business Enterprise
  • Small Business Administration [8(a), SDB, HUBZone]

Our Partnerships

We know that strategic partnerships with organizations that share our values are key to advancing this work. We’re proud of the commitments we’ve made through the following organizations:

In 2018, we signed onto the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion, the largest CEO-driven business commitment to advance equity and inclusion within the workplace. The organization continues to help support our work in this area by amplifying the voice of corporate leadership and providing best practices and developmental resources.

Our Paradigm for Parity (P4P) pledge is to achieve gender parity in global leadership by 2030. We’ve made strong progress in this area and in 2021, reached 42% women in senior leadership globally.

Yum! joined the Hispanic Promise, a national pledge to hire, promote, retain and celebrate Hispanics in the workplace.

Yum! is a member and supporter of MFHA, an organization dedicated to bringing the economic benefits of diversity and inclusion to the food and hospitality industry by building bridges and delivering solutions. MFHA is committed to delivering more connections and opportunities to build its Members’ Cultural Intelligence to effectively engage multicultural employees, customers and communities.

Yum! has partnered with the National Black MBA Association on events and programming dedicated to advancing Black professionals, students and entrepreneurs.

In 2021, Yum! joined OneTen, a coalition of U.S. businesses leading a bold initiative to create career mobility and advancement opportunities for 1 million Black individuals in the U.S. over the next 10 years. This group will develop, retain and advance diverse and underrepresented talent, more broadly, but with an explicit commitment to hire, upskill or promote Black talent without four-year degrees. Across Yum!’s U.S. brands, participation in this coalition will include supporting advancement initially to roles in restaurant general management and field leadership for company-owned restaurants and jobs in Yum!’s U.S. corporate offices.

Yum! has partnered with Prospanica to host professional development conferences, connecting Hispanics and Latinos to opportunities while building connections with the community.

Also in 2021, Yum! joined the Publicis Media Once & For All Coalition, a multiyear, cross-industry collaboration, aiming to build a more equitable advertising ecosystem for ethnically diverse media suppliers, content creators and production partners, with an initial focus on Black and Hispanic platforms.

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Our Employee Resource Groups

At Yum!, we commit to providing opportunities for professional and personal growth through employee-led employee resource groups (ERGs), which create a community for likeminded individuals and the opportunity for ally support and development. While these groups focus on the descriptions below, employees are encouraged to join any ERG that interests them.

  1. Women

  2. Supports the advancement of women in the workplace by building networking opportunities, creating community, leveraging cross-functional knowledge and identifying and addressing barriers to growth.

  3. Multicultural

  4. Advocates for equity, inclusion and belonging in the workplace. These communities promote inclusion through celebrating cultures, breaking bias and building bridges by connecting multicultural employees and allies.

  5. LGBTQ+

  6. Promotes inclusivity, acts as a tangible resource and voice for Yum!’s LGBTQ+ workforce and helps the company serve as an employer of choice for LGBTQ+ talent.

  7. Young Professionals

  8. Connects emerging professionals within the Yum! family through our three pillars of professional development, community and fun.

  9. Community for Parents

  10. Creates an environment and community to support parents in the workplace as they nurture, educate, survive and thrive in all stages of parenthood.

  11. Veterans

  12. Focuses on connecting and supporting veterans, reservists and active military, as well as their friends, family members and advocates.