Michaela Mendelsohn is killing two birds with one stone. A long-time restaurant-industry veteran and transgender woman, she’s the tour de force behind a partnership that’s solving two major employment problems with one unlikely union.
Her California Transgender Workplace Project (CTWP) and the California Restaurant Association have come together to launch the first large-scale recruitment of transgender jobseekers.
The initiative aims to place trans workers – a group that has experienced widespread discrimination in the workplace – in entry-level restaurant jobs. Michaela is hoping that California’s 220,000 transgendered adults might be the solution to the high turnover and low employee retention rates that have long plagued the state’s restaurant industry. And on the flip side, there’s the belief that the new alliance will provide valuable opportunities to a community in need of a safe, inclusive work environment.
Mendelsohn is the owner and operator of six El Pollo Loco restaurants in Southern California. She opened her first restaurant in 1988 before her own transition. After suffering from anxiety and depression related to gender identity issues for years, she transitioned from male to female in 2005, unveiling her new identity to her employees at a holiday party. Though she says she was nervous, the reception she received was a warm one.
“I was about five minutes into explaining to my employees who I was and what I’d been through when one of my managers stood up and yelled out, ‘You go, girl!’” Mendelsohn said. “It broke the ice, and from that point on, I felt more comfortable. All night, people were coming up to me and thanking me for being honest with them.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgc-AlcYDrA&feature=youtu.be
Because her own workplace experience had been so positive, it wasn’t until 2012 that Mendelsohn fully realized how often trans women suffer in the workplace. That year, when Kristy, a trans woman, was hired at one of her restaurants, what Mendelsohn learned about her new employee’s past work experience was disturbing.
While working for an international fast food chain, Kristy had been the victim of discrimination from her managers and customers alike, suffered sexual abuse at work and, ultimately, lost her job for being trans. Mendelsohn quickly learned that Kristy was not the exception.
In 2015, 26% of trans people reported being fired for being transgender or gender non-conforming, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality
According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, more than one-quarter reported that they had lost a job due to being transgender or gender non-conforming. A full 50% reported being harassed at work. Further, transgender people are four times more likely to have a household income of less than $10,000 per year compared to the general population.
“I hadn’t realized until then how lucky I was to have transitioned as the boss of my own company,” Mendelsohn said. “I never experienced difficulty in getting a job or worried how I was going to be treated at work. After meeting Kristy and realizing what trans women face, I started hiring more transgendered employees.”
A lightbulb had gone off for Mendelsohn. As a restaurant owner and a trans woman she could see the problem from both sides and realized that the trans community and the restaurant industry might be unlikely allies. To forge this partnership, Mendelsohn founded CTWP, the nation’s first ever large-scale program to help transgender people find jobs.
To that end, CTWP and its partners – which include the Trans Latin@ Coalition, Equality California, the San Francisco and Los Angeles LGBT centers, and others – teamed up with the California Restaurant Association and are hard at work trying to get California’s trans people placed in restaurant jobs.
In terms of the day-to-day, that means developing training kits for California’s restaurants, which will include a training video, workplace signage and new job applications that will allow trans employees to choose the name they’d like to be called at work. The kits, which will be ready in November, will be handed out during a series of meetings with chapters of the California Restaurant Association across the state.
On a grander level, an incentive will be offered to restaurant owners and managers for placing trans workers in entry-level positions. Specifically, the first 60 hours of the first 100 new hires’ wages will be paid for through a $150,000 grant from the California Workforce Development Board.
“There are about 96,000 restaurants in California with approximately 1.7 million employees and over 30 million customers,” Mendelsohn said. “It’s a great opportunity for [creating] jobs while opening hearts and minds.”
It’s not just about trans people. We all need to broaden our horizons…
Michaela Mendelsohn, founder of California Transgender Workplace Project
Marie Angel Hoole, a cashier and drive-through window attendant at an El Pollo Loco location in Los Angeles, said that walking into a workplace that she knew was trans-friendly has changed everything.
Hoole, who moved to L.A. from Houston, said she spent a year trying to find a job. She estimates that she went on more than 20 interviews that year at a mix of small businesses and large corporations without being offered a single job. She said her strong resume in the food and beverage industry made it easy for her to get interviews, but that time after time, opportunities would evaporate once the employer realized she was trans.
Referred to Mendelsohn’s company via the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Youth Center – which also caters to adults under age 24 – she has been employed there for six months. She said she’s been very happy working in an environment where she can truly be herself.
“The difference is huge. In past positions, if I had tried to present as a female it would have been a big no-no. Everything from [uniforms] to which bathroom I used to managers wondering whether I would impact the business negatively. But where I currently work, that doesn’t exist. I no longer feel like I am being punished for being myself. I am just allowed to present myself as who I am… I am being treated with equality. Ultimately, that is all I want. I want an opportunity to work and to grow within the company.”
I am being treated with equality. Ultimately, that is all I want. I want an opportunity to work and to grow within the company.
– Marie Angel Hoole, El Pollo Loco employee
These jobs will benefit the trans community, certainly, but the program will be helpful to the participating restaurants as well.
“They [Restaurants] are struggling to assemble good staffs and to maintain good retention,” Mendelsohn said. “What we are doing is bringing them a brand new pool of employees that they haven’t considered before. These employees will have been vetted, are fully employable and are ready to work.”
CTWP’s model is one that is being designed with the larger transgendered population in mind – more than 1.4 million adults in the U.S. alone. While Mendelsohn expects to have 50-100 participating restaurants this quarter, she hopes that in 2017 there will be thousands of restaurants in the state of California that have pledged to hire trans employees. Someday, she hopes the program will expand to other states.
“Being welcoming and inclusive of all jobseekers is not just good for business – it’s also the right thing to do,” said Sharokina Shams, VP of Marketing and Communications for the California Restaurant Association. “Training workers always comes at a high expense in any industry, and the restaurant profession is no exception. We’re pleased that through our partnership with the California Trans Workplace Project, we can not only do the right thing by transgender Californians, we can also dramatically reduce the cost of that on-the-job training.”
Being welcoming and inclusive of all jobseekers is not just good for business – it’s also the right thing to do,” said Sharokina Shams, VP of Marketing and Communications for the California Restaurant Association.
Mendelsohn is doing everything in her power to spread the message that inclusivity is a win-win for all involved. She’s given hundreds of talks at college campuses and has been interviewed by dozen of journalists, including Katie Couric, about the struggle the trans community faces in the workforce.
While the reaction from the restaurant community has so far been positive, Mendelsohn knows that restaurants simply taking a pledge of tolerance won’t solve the problem of trans discrimination. Leaders, she said, must insist on a corporate culture that applauds cultural diversity for all people.
“This isn’t just about policies,” she said, “This has to be a cultural shift. And it’s not just about trans people, either. We all need to broaden our horizons… It would be nice to get to a place of celebrating diversity and uniqueness.”