Dive Brief:

• Chipotle has reorganized its corporate structure and eliminated 25 roles at its restaurant support center last month, Laurie Schalow, Chipotle’s chief corporate affairs officer, confirmed in an email to Restaurant Dive.
• The move, originally reported by Bloomberg this week, followed an in-depth review of the company’s business needs and organizational structure over the last couple of months, meant to determine what would best position the company to meet its “aggressive goals for future growth,” Schalow said.
• Chipotle’s reorganization came a few months after McDonald’s closed its regional offices in the U.S. to consolidate its support teams as part of a corporate restructuring, a move that resulted in an undisclosed number of job cuts.

Dive Insight:

Chipotle added new roles and invested in areas like development, international, digital marketing, data and analytics and food safety, Schalow said. It has restructured teams for efficiency and eliminated some roles. The company also confirmed that Tawanda Starms, its VP of people experience and chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer, is leaving at the end of the month. Starms, who was with Chipotle for over four years, held that position since last August.  

The company also changed its return to office requirements, which were previously set at three days a week per Bloomberg. Chipotle now requires its workers to come into the office Monday through Thursday with Friday being a flex day, Schalow said. Returning employees to the office will allow the company “to preserve our unique, collaborative culture and achieve our aggressive growth plans,” Schalow said. Starbucks also began requiring its corporate workers to go to the office three days a week starting Jan. 30, but was met with heavy resistance.

The restructuring appears to be unrelated to the company’s overall performance. Last quarter, it reported same-store sales up by 10.9%, and its net income was $291.6 million compared to $158.3 million in the year-ago quarter, according to an earnings release. The company is pushing to reach 7,000 units in the future and had 2,892 units at the end of the quarter.