McDonald's Global Human Resource Strategy

The McDonald’s Corporation is a chain of fast food restaurants operating in over a hundred countries and serving millions of people every day. Although it is the biggest corporation of its kind in the world, it has some of the best-managed and highly motivated teams of employees in the world. McDonald’s motivates its employees through what can be considered as social drivers, namely: recognition, opportunities for advancement, and the fostering of the feeling of belonging to a family. According to Burkinshaw (2010), the company puts a lot of emphasis on awards and celebrations and, if one were to walk into any McDonald’s restaurant in the world, one would be able to see a line of “employee of the month” pictures. Furthermore, there is a vigorous awards system for such things as putting customers first, years of service, or jobs done particularly well. These awards may include money, trips, plaques, and certificates and they are commemorated with much celebration and delight.

The managers at McDonald’s always seem to be very relaxed, and are most of the time indistinguishable from the other employees because they do not simply give orders to those under them, but they also accept feedback from them and are ready to get alternatives to their decisions. This, according to Kincheloe (2002), helps to show that although they have managers, the employee teams at McDonald’s are obviously in their later stages of development and are very comfortable outside their predefined roles, displaying high levels of motivation. The managers do not attempt to put any verbal barriers between themselves and their employees and they, instead, show genuine concern in the emotional and physical well being of their employees, something that is very rare in this type of environment.

The McDonald’s restaurants have a culture that is generally inviting to new employees and these are motivated to work in these restaurants. This is because of the laid-back environment found within them and the fact that the jobs are not very stressful to the employees. Another reason why employees are motivated to continue working at McDonald’s are the different shift schedules, which the management formulates so that they can accommodate every employee. Since most of the jobs found in these restaurants are low skilled, any other employee can take over the other’s shift if they are not able to make it to work due to a need to attend to other more pressing obligations. The numerous growth opportunities available at McDonald’s, because of the training given to the employees at various levels is an additional motivator. The longer one works for McDonald’s, the more the likelihood that he or she will ascend the ranks to the level of assistant manager or manager in just a few years.

It can be said that people not only go to McDonald’s for the great food that it has to offer, but also for the great service. The employees of this company, due to the high levels of motivation that they have as a result of its policies towards them, give the best kind of service to its customers, and this encourages these customers to keep coming. This is one of the reasons why, the profit margins of this company have kept on increasing over the years and it serves to show just how very important it is to keep the employees motivated in their work because they will give their best as a result. According to Ritzer and Atalay (2010) the key to McDonald’s worldwide success is that people everywhere know what to expect when they go to the restaurants it owns but this does not mean that the corporation has resisted change and refused to adapt when local customs require flexibility. For example, McDonald’s restaurants in India serve Vegetable McNuggets and mutton based Maharaja Mac, innovations that are necessary for the business to survive in a country where Hindus do not eat beef, Muslims do not eat pork, and Jains do not eat meat of any type.

Carroll (2011), states that organizations establish internal social networks to give employees the opportunity to connect with the management and to support each other. In 2008, the McDonald’s Corporation established Station M, a social network strictly for McDonald’s employees. Station M provides a space for the chain’s restaurants to share ideas, best practices, as well as customer stories and there is also a forum section that allows dialogue between McDonald’s corporate members and its employees as well as discussions between employees from the different restaurants within the chain. Station M has proved successful in getting the employees more involved with both the corporate office and the other crewmembers.

McDonald’s recently adopted the strategy of abandoning old policy of forcing its employees to retire at the age of sixty in Japan. That change was made to comply with Japanese legislation that took effect in but the company stated that this was not the reason why it was instituting this strategy. Japan law calls for companies to allow people to work longer because the age at which retirees become eligible for pension benefits has been raised. This legislation is intended to add tax proceeds to save the country's pension system and, perhaps more importantly, fill a labor shortage created by a very low growth rate in the population (Smerd 2006).

The employment policy of McDonald’s, which is based on hiring staff on outlook rather than experience or credentials, has been renowned as having created opportunities for people from marginalized communities. In addition, praise has been given for the range of other staff benefits on offer, including eight-week paid vacations and discount cards offering savings on, for example, driving lessons, holidays and computers. In 2005, McDonald’s Corporation became the first large employer to achieve Investor in People Profile status and was voted one of The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers for the seventh consecutive year, something which makes the company unique in its own right. Other recent initiatives, all having been influenced by feedback from employees, included ensuring all company cars are hybrid, environmentally friendly ones. In addition to this, McDonald's launched a Cycle to Work initiative with Universal Bicycles, offering employees bikes at a sixty percent discount, which is delivered to their door (Paton 2007).

McDonald's, in the 1990s, created the Made For You, a new food-production system that was designed to enable employees to make fresh sandwiches to customers' exact specifications while still retaining the restaurant chain's accustomed speedy service. Several equipment changes were made to accomplish the objectives set for the Made For You system and this included the company’s revamping its point of service software, toasters, holding units and prep tables. The new programming that was designed for the Made For You system was to help employees to prepare for upcoming customer orders with predictions. The new system not only prepared employees for a rush, but it also automatically routed expected orders to the staff member who was most likely to be able to handle it immediately. This new system also helped restaurant management determine how quickly employees are working (Doucette 1998 pp.31).

In 2001, the McDonald’s restaurants in the United States started a process of eliminating as many as seven hundred jobs from its home and field offices, primarily by cutting regional divisions to from thirty seven to twenty one. Each division was to be headed by a regional manager, who was to oversee a team which included a vice president of quality, service and cleanliness, the last of which was a new position. Teams also included operations consultants whose primary function was to work with operators and restaurant managers to improve the dining experience within the restaurants. Other initiatives to improve the level of service included restaurant simplification and an improved restaurant evaluation system (Hutchcraft 2001 pp.16).

In 2004, the company was in the midst of revamping its public image after a wave of negative press towards it that cost it a lot of business. Among the major causes of its distorted image was the author Eric Schlosser, who in his best-selling Fast Food Nation, found fault with the fast food industry in general and particularly with this company, mainly due to its popularity, for outbreak of obesity in America. In addition, this view was fomented by the popular 2003 film Super Size Me, in which Morgan Spurlock consumed a diet which consisted of McDonald’s products for one month, and this procedure turned out to have been detrimental to his health. It was therefore necessary for the company to promote its image by presenting itself as a hub of health and wellness (Davolt 2005 pp.1).

In 1996, McDonald's was named a Corporation That Cares by Exceptional Parent, and this was because at that time, this company was still offering the Mcjobs program, which provided training and job openings to disabled people. By 2000, however, the Mcjobs program was no longer in place in the United States, and this was due to the fact that it has evolved from a special program to a mainstream practice within this company. The Mcjobs program was originally began in 1981, and during its existence, provided training for more than twelve thousand individuals with disabilities who then went on to become successful restaurant employees. In the following years, as the result of a loss of financial support, McDonald's ended the use of extraordinary job trainers and instruction programs. In addition, it took the best practices learned in the McJobs program and integrated them into the company’s training procedure. As a result, the accessibility to employment was no longer a priority for the company and instead, it became a means through which business was done. Beginning in 1998, as part of a new system for interviewing employees, managers were provided with information on how to interact with potential employees, and be practical in catch the attention of potential employees. This has developed to an extent of where McDonald's encourages its restaurant managers and their management teams to hire employees with disabilities by working locally with different organizations, schools, and school districts. If job coaches are involved, they come from the community and not from the company as was previously done (Jurasek, 1999).

The success of this company is based on its ability to have very god people working for it on the ground. This means that the employees are well-trained, promotable, diverse and committed. To achieve this, McDonald’s has had to create some extremely good employee policies which have worked to gain their confidence. One of the main reasons for its success has been its ability to bring potential employees into its club, since statistics show that as much as one eighth of the American work force has, at some point, worked in one or the other of the McDonald’s restaurants. This fact shows just how powerful and influential the human resource department of this company has become because it is not as if quick service food chains make for easy recruiting. Despite this fact, many of the current and former employees have several good reasons to name this company as their employer of choice.

One of the foremost reasons behind its human resource success is due to its intense training efforts the company gives employees ample means for self advancement. These efforts are so advanced that this company has been named one of the largest training organizations in the world, superior even to the United States military. When one is hired by the company, a lot of investment is put in the individual in order to encourage them to stay on and develop a career within McDonald’s. Statistics show that as many as sixty percent of the current restaurant managers started out as par of the crews. One of the strongest human resource strategies at McDonald’s is education and this company has developed a system where it offers beginners orientation through its Crew Training Program. Afterwards, a Management Development Program takes up where the Crew Training left off, and this results in the development of a group of leaders for the future of the company (Flynn 1996 pp.54).

According to the article McDonald's: Junk food, junk jobs (2002) the managerial approach that is used in all McDonald’s restaurants is quite well known. In keeping with how the company operates in the United States, the company’s French branch will do whatever it takes to prevent its employees from forming a union. The franchise system has enabled McDonald's to go around the French legal obligation of all employers to negotiate with unions. In addition, the French branch has also adopted the idea of passing on to franchisees the direct costs involved in managing their employees. McDonald's offers crew members the minimum wage, and not much more to higher ranking personnel. It has also been found that overtime is rarely paid for and that there is no such thing as a bonus for the senior employees. The most common business practice in this company is that all the jobs are part time; and the need to speed up and the pressure put on the employees are so intense that they result in high turnover, which leads to the health and safety requirements of such employees to be ignored.

McDonald’s is a company that has continually strived to create a workforce that is full of diversity. The company started its diversity campaign in the nineteen seventies, when it began working with outsourced consultants to build the foundation of what was to become the Affirmative Action Department. That department, which was made official in 1980, has from that time developed into the Inclusion and Diversity Department. The Inclusion and Diversity Department has the role of integrating diversity initiatives which include workforce, education, external partnership development and metrics for McDonald's global business. One mission of this diversity initiative is to provide workplaces with diversity education resources. This company also provides resources and training for the seminars to be conducted in the regional offices. McDonald's diversity and inclusion seminars are made possible by proficient employees with assistance from attached professors. For this company to take action to promote cultural diversity in the workforce, the end result is a working environment that is inclusive and one which is progressive, unlike those which are not inclusive. In addition, diversity often extends beyond the restaurant level since more than sixty percent of the workforce at McDonald's headquarters and restaurants in the United States are comprised of racial or ethnic minorities or women. In addition, just about a quarter of the company's executives come from minority groups (Gibbons 2007, S28).

In conclusion, it can be said that people not only go to McDonald’s for the great food that it has to offer but also for the great service. The employees of this company, due to the high levels of motivation that they have as a result of its policies towards them, give the best kind of service to its customers and this encourages these customers to keep coming. This is one of the reasons why this company has not had a lack of customers over the years and it serves to show just how very important it is to keep the employees motivated in their work because as a result, they give McDonald’s their best.