Recorded live from the SmartRecruiters booth at the HR Tech conference, this episode features an engaging conversation with Stefan Premdas, who made the unique leap from biomedical engineering to HR. Now at sweetgreen, Stefan is redefining "people experience" by managing the full employee lifecycle with a focus on integration, engagement, and retention.
Stefan shares how sweetgreen leverages automation to enhance both customer and candidate experiences, streamlining recruitment while boosting employee satisfaction. He dives into retention strategies, emphasizing career growth opportunities and the importance of a robust Employee Value Proposition, with exciting initiatives on the horizon to strengthen sweetgreen's brand identity.
Listeners will also get insights into sweetgreen’s naturally diverse workforce, the role of technology in HR—from their ATS to video interviewing tools—and the company’s plans for future expansion. Whether you're an HR pro or just curious about how tech is reshaping talent operations, this episode is packed with forward-thinking strategies and inspiration.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Podcast Intro: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Cheese: Let's do this. We are live. HR Tech, the SmartRecruiters booth. I'm Cheese, he's Chad, and we are here with Stefan Premdas.
Stefan Premdas: Stefan... [chuckle]
Cheese: Director of people experience at my favorite restaurant, Sweetgreen.
Stefan Premdas: Lies.
Cheese: I pass it every time I go to Taco Bell.
Stefan Premdas: Lies.
[laughter]
Cheese: Stefan, welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast.
Stefan Premdas: Absolutely. My pleasure to be here. Thank you so much.
Cheese: Awesome. Awesome. So a lot of our listeners and viewers won't know who you are. Give us the quick elevator pitch. You've done a good stint at some brand name companies. So feel free to name drop.
Stefan Premdas: Absolutely. So my story is actually kind of fun. I was a biomedical engineer. I ended up switching...
Cheese: What?
Stefan Premdas: Yeah.
Cheese: Biomedical engineer.
Stefan Premdas: Yeah.
Cheese: Welcome to people experience.
Stefan Premdas: Exactly. Direct correlation. Okay.
Cheese: I get it. Yeah.
Stefan Premdas: But I did that for about a year and a half, realized that it's not really the field that was going to be right for me after spending all that money on a degree that I'd probably never use again. From there, I ended up switching over to financial services, and doing more analytics.
Cheese: Okay.
Stefan Premdas: Realized that was fun, but I got tired of solving problems that... Sorry, reporting on problems that no one was solving. So I moved into process engineering. Ended up picking up a project, helping out our talent team and reengineer the entire recruitment process. And next thing you know, I was a recruiter. Switched out of...
Cheese: Surprise.
Stefan Premdas: Yeah.
Cheese: Lucky you.
Stefan Premdas: Switched out of there because I just enjoyed building my own tools. Ended up going to Twitter and doing a lot of work there, Twitter.
Cheese: What year... What year was this?
Stefan Premdas: Gosh, that was 2018.
Chad: Not Elon.
Stefan Premdas: Yeah. Pre-Elon.
Chad: Pre-Elon. Yeah. Pre-Elon.
Cheese: We call it pre-Elon. Yes, Pre-Elon.
Stefan Premdas: Worked there for a couple of years and then moving over to Postmates, leading their talent operations team, left Postmates when Uber acquired them. And then I ended up going to a health tech company called Noom.
Cheese: Oh, yeah.
Stefan Premdas: Yeah. Great, awesome company, built their first talent operations and people analytics function there. And then most recently, I found myself over at Sweetgreen.
Cheese: It won't surprise you, Chad, to know I don't know Noom. I don't know what they do. No clue. Sounds made up.
Chad: Can't imagine.
Cheese: Sounds made up.
Chad: Can't imagine you don't, with all the ads they're running on TV for God's sake.
Cheese: Yeah, and I'm not targeted apparently.
[laughter]
Chad: You would definitely be their target.
Stefan Premdas: It's 'cause you're not going to Sweetgreen. That's our direct correlation.
Cheese: Oh, okay. We're coming full circle on this one, Chad.
Chad: Okay. So let's talk about people experience. What the hell does that mean?
Stefan Premdas: Yeah. So I joke it's all the functions that no one else wanted to manage in HR.
Chad: Okay. Well, that makes sense. Yeah.
Stefan Premdas: No, but it's... Really, for me it's, I wanted to take a step back and build something that was a little bit more holistic. I think too often we've approached HR from a very like segment and silo perspective. And if we don't look at it as the full people experience, then we end up missing parts. So my function covers everything from the very beginning, where in talent acquisition, really kind of understanding who our candidates are, how do we target them? How do we get them into the door? I also manage people operations, total rewards, engagements, and analytics. Really allowing us to really kind of do that whole full 360 degrees.
Chad: Wow, that's a lot.
Stefan Premdas: Yeah, it's a lot. But, Sweetgreen, we really do believe that the more integrated you are and the more focused you can be on the employee, the better you can deliver, so.
Chad: How big is your team? And what do you mean by integrated?
Stefan Premdas: Oh, okay. My team is about 16 right now.
Chad: Okay.
Stefan Premdas: We have four recruiters and the rest kind of varied functions between support and operations. And then, sorry, what's the second question?
Chad: How... You said integrated, right.
Stefan Premdas: Oh, integrated.
Chad: Everybody says they're integrated. What does that actually mean?
Stefan Premdas: So the way I kind of divided up the team was I created a people lifecycle management function, and broke up the people lifecycle into three core parts, talent and attraction, onboarding and retention, and then development. And then there's kind of a tail end around that happy leaver alumni network, which we're trying to tie back into the talent cycle. I have three project managers focused on each one of those areas. What we're trying to do is basically we support in a similar way that you would have a talent operations team, a people operations team.
Chad: Yeah.
Stefan Premdas: Our entire focus is how do we re-innovate and re-deliver around Sweetgreen. So in the talent acquisition, talent op sections, we're really focused on how can we deliver experience that feels exciting and new, something that is very differentiating for our industry.
Chad: Yeah.
Stefan Premdas: On the onboarding and retention, we're taking a look at our engagement surveys and how we can drum up numbers when we're dealing with workforce that is pretty varied coming in at random hours... Not random hours, but coming in all over the schedule. And how can we start to gather information from them and deliver programs that are exciting and attractive, that really create something that's new. And then on development side is how can we build something that is... People want to stay, they want to feel like they have a voice here, but also feel like they have a career here.
Stefan Premdas: And we've been really focused on succession planning as a whole and bringing that into our function, trying to deliver something that, one, if someone does decide to leave, we have a backfill. We don't run vacancies out in our stores, or any... For that long of a period of time.
Cheese: Yeah. So Stefan's a big fan of the show. I don't know if... You might not have caught that.
Chad: Really? What?
Cheese: So Sweetgreen has been a point of conversation on the show.
Chad: Oh, yeah.
Cheese: And interestingly, on their quarterly earnings report they were very open about the automation process of making the bowls, augmenting the workers. And on one hand, I think a lot of people would be excited to work with machines, if you will, or robots. And I think a lot of people might be scared that they're going to robot me out of a job. How do you balance that in your position? And how does Sweetgreen as a whole sort of look at automation in the workforce?
Stefan Premdas: Yeah, I mean, the reality is automation's here. There's not much we can do about that. But I think the reality is it's how you use it that it causes people to worry. Some people think automatically as like, "Oh, your full intention is really to just replace all the workforce." But that's not how we view it at Sweetgreen. Really, we want to bring in automation so we can deliver more for the customer. If we can take off the tasks that no one wants to do anyways, and give our employees an opportunity to engage more with the customer, to deliver that higher hospitality-focused experience, then that's going to be more engaging.
Stefan Premdas: We're seeing an increase in our retention rates, a decrease in our attrition, in our IKs. We're really seeing a more excited workforce. And on top of that, it's people are going to have the opportunity to say like, "Oh, I'm working with the next frontier of restaurant industries."
Chad: Yeah. Yeah.
Stefan Premdas: So again, attrition in the rest of quick service industry is relatively higher compared to most industries. But people are leaving Sweetgreen. If they do leave, they're like, "Hey, I worked at a store that is the future." And that makes them a little more marketable when it comes down to finding the next job.
Chad: Which is really cool because we talk about this in recruiting. And you're doing this on the front lines in restaurants. So we talk about taking away the administrivia of doing the recruiter, everyday pushing buttons, the things that we don't want them to do. We want them to actually be more human with other humans. Right?
Stefan Premdas: Absolutely.
Chad: And now you're talking about, well, now we don't have to have Joel in the back creating bowls, right? He can be up front actually pressing the flesh...
Cheese: I need all the profits.
Chad: There you are. Yeah.
Stefan Premdas: Well, not there you wouldn't.
Cheese: Well, maybe not there. No.
Cheese: Not there, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[chuckle]
Chad: But at the end of the day, it's the same kind of scenario and narrative, is what I'm hearing. So, seeing that, what are you doing from a recruitment standpoint to be able to really embody the same thing that's happening, you know, the restaurants?
Stefan Premdas: Yeah. So John Nieman, he really does push us to look at automation technology, AI first. A big focus of mine has really been, how can we continue to drive more value to our stores, without necessarily having to grow our support center, our Sweetgreen support center is what our corporate function is. And we've actually been able to... I mean, we have four recruiters working over at 230 stores and supporting that. When I first walked through the door, my team was about 12 deep and we brought that down.
Stefan Premdas: We were able to redeploy some of that talent in other places. As a result of us looking at more automation, looking at our ATS, seeing if there's opportunities not only to simplify our workflows, but also increase our quality. And that's really the journey where we're on. Coming in post-pandemic, everyone wants like, talent, talent. There's a war for talent, everyone panic. But we got through that. And now we're at a place where, well, we are relatively staffed. I think almost 99% staffed across all our stores. So now it's about making sure that we have the right people that we're hiring there, especially as we start to look at more IKs across, the infinite kitchens, across our department.
Chad: So, real quick, because you talked about the people who are working in the back of the kitchens and they feel, "Hey, I worked with automation." Is that also a great way to keep your recruiters, because the automation piece, not to mention draw in new recruiters and say, "Hey, you don't have to do this stupid administrative shit," right. "You get to actually do the thing." Is that how you're starting to lure them in? Is that a great way to market it?
Stefan Premdas: Yeah. I haven't had to grow the team yet. So that's been a nice element.
Chad: That's awesome. That's great.
Stefan Premdas: But as far as retaining my team, I really do focus on... It's not about the job they're doing now. It's about the job in the future. We've actually taken our leadership recruiters who are just solely focused on hiring general managers. And we're able to, one, extend them to support team member hiring. So the people you would engage with in a Sweetgreen when you walk in there the next time. And then also, we've also been able to allow them to almost serve as a proxy for our people business partners. All because that we were able to take what they were doing administratively, cut that job down, and now we can actually create a true talent advisor role for the recruiters to sit in. So that's been the journey for this year, for the recruitment team, is how can we get them to a place where they're not just filling roles, but they're truly understanding the market in which they serve, from every single role that we have them accountable. But also understanding our internal talent and understanding who's ready next when we have a role that's coming up.
Cheese: Yeah. Talk about the branding, employment branding perspective. How has the changes in the business changed the brand or has it? Are you all in on what you're doing now or are you steadfast on, "We're Sweetgreen?" It feels like a Patagonia type brand that you stay the course. What has the new technology meant to the brand?
Stefan Premdas: It's actually an exercise that we're kicking off next year. We want to go through a full EVP. We realize that as a company, we're growing, we're maturing. We've just brought in a lot of new folks to the C-suite and the company's changing. The pace at which we want to grow is... We're really on that trajectory that we've always wanted to be in. I think our brand is, and I don't know where it's going to land, but I have a feeling that it's going to land in, we are kind of a future first company.
Stefan Premdas: And if you want somewhere to grow, you can go from a team member to a general manager or a head coach, as we call it in Sweetgreen, in three years. But then what does that trajectory look like beyond that? And that's what we're starting to figure out now. Our investment into succession planning is really going to be the next future. We want to get to the 60, 70% internal growth, promotion growth. So I'm not exactly sure where it's going to land yet. We still have a lot of research.
Chad: We want to differentiate. We don't want to be another Chipotle. We don't want to be another Raising Cane's.
Cheese: I know. Watch it. Watch it.
[chuckle]
Chad: Yeah, they got to be their own.
Cheese: That's going to score you no points on this show.
Chad: They've got to be their own.
Cheese: It's not gonna score you any points.
Chad: It's so many points with me, Stefan. So many points.
Stefan Premdas: I mean, let's say the Adacado, someone's following our lead now, so.
Chad: Yeah. Well, you get...
Cheese: How about diversity? Obviously, a plethora of diversity is probably working at your stores. Again, I've never been in. But how has the new technology impacted widening the net of who you're appealing to?
Stefan Premdas: Yeah, we've been lucky enough to never really have any sort of disparity for diversity throughout our entire... So we haven't had to draw a lot of initiatives toward it because it just naturally kind of worked out. Even in our corporate function it's, we're very highly diverse. The IK hasn't really changed that. I think the opportunity, one of the things I do want to keep an eye on particularly is when we start to talk about age demographics because as you start to introduce new technologies, that can always be a concern.
Stefan Premdas: But it really hasn't. I mean, the folks that want to join Sweetgreen and the folks that want to kind of start a career or build something new. It's not very highly for folks that are at the end of their journey or end of their... Where they want to take it.
Cheese: Why'd you look at Chad when you talked about old people, not understanding what you're doing?
[laughter]
Stefan Premdas: Well, he's been in the Sweetgreen, so.
Chad: Lies. Lies. Some of us know what's going on here. So with the automation, are all stores using it today?
Stefan Premdas: No.
Chad: Okay.
Stefan Premdas: We just at... We only have three stores right now.
Chad: Three stores.
Stefan Premdas: Yeah.
Chad: How many stores do you have in total?
Stefan Premdas: We're about 230 plus.
Chad: Okay, so what's the rollout plan for that, number one? And then number two, what's growth for 2025? 'Cause obviously, you guys are looking at growth, automation, I mean, everything seems to be really streamlined for growth throughout the United States. So talk a little bit about that, if you would.
Stefan Premdas: Yeah, so on our last quarterly earnings, Jon, our CEO, mentioned that the idea is really tight, to get to like 50% of our IKs in the future... Or sorry, 50% of our restaurants are going to be IKs in the future. Really, 'cause it just doesn't make sense for the whole portfolio to be. We have a lot of smaller stores that it doesn't make sense to go back and retrofit with a relatively large machine. But we also see the value of being able to bring that kind of technology, especially in very urban areas where you have such high volume, lunch rushes and such like that. As far as the growth, I mean, we want to scale next year. That's really the focus for us. The hope is we can get to 10% about more of where we are in stores, which would put us somewhere around the 30, 40 mark, and then continue to 10, 20% every year on top of that. In this industry, every time you open up a new restaurant, that's more revenue flowing through the store. So that's really how we make our money.
Cheese: Yeah.
Chad: Yeah. Yeah.
Cheese: Yeah. So we are at the HR Tech Conference. Your organization is clearly a forward-thinking business. What are some of the tools that you can't live without on the technology side?
Stefan Premdas: Oh, gosh.
Cheese: And we name names on this show, by the way, as you know.
[laughter]
Stefan Premdas: I mean, I have to say, even though I have committed to a few brands, I'm relatively technology agnostic. But we've been working with Fountain as our ATS. And it has been a bit of a game changer for us in the industry. I will say, and I told this to Fountain yesterday, when I first walked through the door and the contract was already signed, our CPO was committed, so excited, about this tool. I assessed it, I was like, "Are we sure this is the direction?" Yeah, I was like, "Are we sure this is the direction you want to go to?" But after really kind of sitting down with the team, we sat down and said, "Hey, I think this could be a next version of this tool." We built out something that's pretty amazing, co-collaborating, really delivering a tool that has set us apart. We are right now actually experimenting with one-way recorded video interviews.
Chad: Oh, nice.
Stefan Premdas: Which is not something that's really very common in our industry. And we're seeing two times attendance in our second round interview. There's about three and a half times more likely that a candidate that passed a one-way interview will be hired. We're seeing higher throughput across every almost dimension, and it's one of those things where we just said, "Hey, this would be a great opportunity, want you to build it?" They went ahead and took that on. So, again, really pretty agnostic. I would say, and ATS obviously is important. We're also exploring right now the opportunity to take a lot more of our data and see if we can be more predictive on who could be a good hire and also who's ready for promotions. So we're looking at a few companies to really kind of help us out, and that's actually part of the reason why I'm here.
Chad: Nice, nice. Yeah, got to get that data. It's got to be a clean data.
Stefan Premdas: Got to get data.
Chad: You got to collect the data. The systems have to talk. Man, I... Your job's fun. Jesus.
Stefan Premdas: I get to do all the fun things. I don't have to deal with the people issues or employee relations. I got a lot of fun stuff.
Cheese: All you need now is a fried chicken bowl and I'll come visit. That is Stefan, everybody. For our listeners and viewers that want to know more about you or connect to Sweetgreen, where do you send them?
Stefan Premdas: Check out my LinkedIn, Stefan Premdas. I don't have a Twitter handle even though I used to work there. I mean, I do, but I haven't looked at it in a while, so no one should look at it.
Chad: Join the club. Join the club.
Stefan Premdas: Or X handle, sorry. Whatever. We gotta adjust. We gotta adjust.
Chad: But that's probably the best place to get me, is LinkedIn.
Cheese: Outstanding. Chad, that is another one in the can. It's lunchtime. I'm a little hungry after talking to Sweetgreen. We out.
Chad: We out.
Podcast Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.