Pompeian’s People-First Culture at Top Workplaces 2025

Announcer:
Welcome to the Recruiting Community Podcast, the go-to channel for talent acquisition leaders and practitioners. This show is brought to you by CXR, a trusted community of thousands connecting the best minds in the industry to explore topics like attracting, engaging, and retaining top talent. Hosted by Chris Hoyt and Jerry Crispin.

We are thrilled to have you join the conversation.

Chris Hoyt:
Hey, everybody, welcome back. We’re excited to have you here on the Recruiting Community Podcast. We do this weekly, and what we typically do is bring in talent leaders to talk about insights, things happening in their space, lessons they’ve learned, and what’s keeping them up at night.

Usually, we pull those experts from our own CareerXroads community. We have hundreds of companies that participate and thousands of practitioners. But today is a little bit different. Where are we today?

Renee Evans:
We’re in Las Vegas.

Chris Hoyt:
That’s right—Las Vegas, baby! We’re at the Top Workplaces 2025 awards conference, and I’m super excited to be here today. We’ve got some finalists we’re interviewing, but you don’t quite know where you’ve landed yet, do you?

Renee Evans:
No, we don’t. I think we find out tomorrow evening.

Chris Hoyt:
You do! There’s a fancy party—you’ve gotta get dressed up and celebrate.

Renee Evans:
Yes! I brought all the things.

Chris Hoyt:
You brought fancy shoes?

Renee Evans:
I brought all the things. It’s always a bit tricky. They say business or cocktail attire, but what does that mean in Las Vegas—especially when you’re with colleagues?

Chris Hoyt:
I thought you were going to say, “At home,” and I was picturing sequins or slippers!

Renee Evans:
Exactly—sequins or no sequins? Which way do you go?

Chris Hoyt:
Slippers, real shoes—all the things. So you’re with a company called Pompeian. Renee Evans, you’re the VP of Human Resources. Before we get into what Pompeian is, why don’t you give us a little background on who you are and the scope of your work?

Renee Evans:
Sure. I’m Renee Evans, VP at Pompeian. I focus on HR and have done so my entire career. Pompeian is a manufacturing facility, and I’ve always worked in manufacturing. My dad was in manufacturing—and a farmer. While I wasn’t interested in farming, here I am working with olives, making olive oil, so I’ve carried on some of those family ties.

I’ve got about 20 years of HR experience across various manufacturers and in different states. It’s a lot of fun.

Chris Hoyt:
Nice! How long have you been at Pompeian?

Renee Evans:
Almost 13 years now.

Chris Hoyt:
And how big is the organization?

Renee Evans:
We’re about 220 employees right now. We’re close to becoming a billion-dollar company and continuing to grow. When I started 13 years ago, there was no HR department, and we had about 60 employees.

Chris Hoyt:
So it’s all you—this is all you!

Renee Evans:
Not all me! It’s about the team.

Chris Hoyt:
Let’s talk about that. What brought you to Top Workplaces? Why participate in a program like this?

Renee Evans:
For us, it’s about making sure we continue to be a good employer. We talk about our team all the time—how do we help them grow and develop? We couldn’t accomplish what we do without every person working toward our goals.

It’s not about the awards or accolades. It’s about how we continue to improve. These recognitions help us stay on the path we’re on, but the core of it is getting feedback from employees and continuously improving. That’s one of our core values.

Chris Hoyt:
I mentioned this in another interview—the selection for who makes the top 10, who gets ranked as a top workplace, isn’t decided by a panel. It’s rooted in survey results from the teams themselves.

Did anything stand out from those results? Any “aha” moments where you thought, “We should do more of this,” or, “Maybe we should pull back a little”?

Renee Evans:
Definitely. We’ve been doing the survey for the last three or four years consistently. We’ve seen a shift in results over the last couple years, especially with work-from-home and hybrid work becoming part of our lives.

One of the lowest scores we received was around the statement, “Meetings make good use of my time.” That’s something we all need to improve on. We also had great high scores—people said they believe in Pompeian and our values—but meetings stood out as an area for improvement.

Chris Hoyt:
I initially thought you were saying people liked meetings and thought they were a great use of time! I was shocked!

Renee Evans:
No, definitely something we need to work on.

Chris Hoyt:
What did you do with that feedback?

Renee Evans:
We changed our performance evaluation questions to include feedback points from the survey. We asked employees directly, “What would you change about meetings?” “How can we improve them?”

Different departments had different approaches. Sales, for instance, is more meeting-focused than the production floor. So, sales created their own action items and followed through on them. It was targeted based on each department’s needs.

Chris Hoyt:
I love that. It’s not surprising employees would want better meetings, but it’s great that your organization actually took action on it.

Renee Evans:
And we saw an improvement in that score the following year, which was really great!

Chris Hoyt:
Yay, meetings!

Renee Evans:
Exactly. Things like adding an agenda to invites, “parking lotting” off-topic items, or making sure the right people are in the meeting—simple stuff that we sometimes forget to do.

Chris Hoyt:
That makes sense. Now, I understand you offer your teams opportunities to give back to the community. Can you talk a bit about that?

Renee Evans:
Absolutely. We’re really passionate about not just having a healthy product, but also giving back to our employees, their families, and the community.

We have several employee-led internal programs focused on health, wellness, and inclusion. They plan fun activities that benefit both the team and the community.

For example, we send backpacks home during back-to-school season, do holiday events like gingerbread kits for families, and partner with local food banks for volunteer time—paid volunteer time off, actually.

Right now, for Women’s History Month, we’re collecting purses—new or gently used—and filling them with toiletries. It’s a fun team-building activity that also supports a local shelter.

Chris Hoyt:
That’s really impressive. What’s one thing you’d want listeners to know about Pompeian?

Renee Evans:
We’re truly focused on our team. We make a healthy, quality product, but it’s about the people—we call ourselves the Olive Oil People. Our values are built around leadership, passion, authenticity, and continuous growth.

Everyone has a voice in shaping the company.

Chris Hoyt:
Speaking of voices—we’re going to give you a chance to use yours. If you got to write the USA Today headline for you and your team, what would it be?

Renee Evans:
I actually wrote it down!

Chris Hoyt:
You’re prepared. What is it?

Renee Evans:
“The passion and care behind Pompeian’s people-first culture creates a meaningful and inspiring future for the Olive Oil People.”

Chris Hoyt:
I love it. Not gonna fit on a T-shirt, but that’s a heck of a headline. Fantastic. Congratulations again. Great stuff.

If you want to check out past episodes or see what’s coming up, head over to cxr.works/podcast. And if you’d like to see interviews with other USA Today Top Workplaces winners, visit cxr.works/usatoday.

Thanks, everybody!

Announcer:
Thanks for listening to the Recruiting Community Podcast, where talent acquisition leaders connect, learn, and grow together. Visit cxr.works/podcast to explore past episodes, see what’s coming up, and find out how to join the conversation.

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