Yum! Brands Named One of the Aon Hewitt Top Companies for Leaders in North America

Yum! Brands
Published: November 12th, 2014

November 12, 2014 // Franchising.com // LOUISVILLE, KY -  Yum Brands, Inc. (NYSE: YUM) ), one of the world's largest restaurant companies and parent of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, has been named one of the Aon Hewitt Top Companies for Leaders® in North America for its unique and comprehensive leadership development programs and practices.

Conducted since 2001, the Aon Hewitt Top Companies for Leaders study is an analysis of talent management and leadership practices of organizations around the world. This year's winners were selected and ranked by an expert panel of independent judges based on a number of criteria, including strength of leadership practices and culture, examples of leader development on a global scale, alignment of business and leadership strategy, company reputation, business and financial performance.

"Yum! Brands is honored to be recognized as a top company for leaders," said Anne Byerlein, Chief People Officer, Yum! Brands. "This recognition demonstrates our focus on building people capability at all levels and investing in training and development programs to grow our next generation of leaders around the globe. We are providing the tools, systems, processes and support needed to equip our leaders to run great restaurants worldwide."

Yum! Brands has a unique people-first culture that is centered around reward and recognition to drive results. With more than 40,000 restaurants in 125 countries and over 1.5 million associates, Yum! Brands' approach to developing talent is customized and highly interactive. The Company creates programs and offers training and tools around the world – for restaurant team members to Restaurant Support Center employees – in order to unlock individual talent and foster business and personal growth. Some examples include:

• Yum! University – Yum! University is a worldwide learning and development platform that offers courses and workshops designed to teach the skills and behaviors to build the capability of above-restaurant leaders around the world. Yum! University offers classroom and online courses, with over 35 million online courses completed in the past few years alone.
• Achieving Breakthrough Results (ABR) – ABR is a high-impact leadership and action-planning training that Yum! has cascaded to its employees and franchisees around the globe to drive breakthrough thinking and innovation. ABR provides associates with more than 50 tools and concepts aimed at high performance.
• Taking People With You (TPWY) – Yum!’s Chairman and CEO, David Novak, developed and has personally trained his Taking People With You leadership program to thousands of managers and franchisees worldwide for the past 17 years. The training – along with Novak’s best-selling book based on the program, TAKING PEOPLE WITH YOU: The Only Way to Make BIG Things Happen – offers a step-by-step guide to key aspects of leadership such as setting big goals, getting others on board and achieving break-through results. The Company has cascaded the training in 11 different languages, reaching more than 50,000 restaurant general managers and above restaurant leaders globally.
• Sales Overnight, Brand Over Time – Taco Bell’s CEO (who takes over as CEO of Yum! in January), Greg Creed, and Pizza Hut CEO and Yum! Brands Chief Innovation Officer, Scott Bergren, teach associates the Sales Overnight, Brand Over Time program. The training is designed to help associates build a successful marketing mindset. The interactive experience focuses on developing a better understanding of how each brand’s identity comes to life in everything they do. Attendees include franchise partners and marketers from Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC.
• Tuition Reimbursement and Scholarships – Yum! wants to make learning and career development accessible to as many of its associates as possible. In the U.S., the Company provides salaried associates with tuition reimbursement opportunities. In addition, through Yum!’s Andy Pearson Scholarship Program, the Company has awarded 2,500 scholarships and nearly $6 million in grants to associates since 2003.

"In today's complex and unpredictable business landscape, Aon Hewitt Top Companies for Leaders are passionate about cultivating resilient and engaging leaders who take the time to know and develop their talent and understand what experiences they need to rise above the rest," said Pete Sanborn, Global Talent practice leader. "We congratulate Yum! Brands on being among a select group of organizations that excel at building and growing a strong leadership environment."

Visit www.aon.com/topcompanies-winners for the full list of Aon Hewitt Top Companies for Leaders.

About The Aon Hewitt Top Companies For Leaders Study

With more than 1,500 data points and more than 300 executive interviews, the 2014 Aon Hewitt Top Companies for Leaders study is the most comprehensive, global research on leadership in the market, examining the link between leadership practices and financial results. This study explores how organizations assess, select, develop, and reward leaders, and examines the execution of leadership practices, as well as the strategy that guides it. To learn more about this study, please visit www.aon.com/topcompanies .

About Yum! Brands

Yum! Brands, Inc., based in Louisville, Kentucky, has over 40,000 restaurants in more than 125 countries and territories. Yum! is ranked #216 on the Fortune 500 List with revenues of over $13 billion. In 2014 Yum! was named among the top 100 Corporate Citizens by Corporate Responsibility. The Company's restaurant brands - KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell - are the global leaders of the chicken, pizza and Mexican-style food categories. Outside the United States, the Yum! Brands system opened over five new restaurants per day, making it a leader in international retail development.

SOURCE Yum! Brands