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More than 50 years ago, McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc said, “If we are going to go anywhere, we’ve got to have talent, and I’m going to put my money in talent.” As a successful food service company, McDonald’s continues to uphold and honor Kroc’s philosophy.
During these challenging economic times, many organizations are scaling back their investment in training and development, but not McDonald’s. We continue to strategically and purposely allocate funding and resources to create a brighter future.
Our training mission is to be recognized as “the best developer of people in the world with the most committed individuals to quality, service, cleanliness, and value.” We have refined our philosophy to focus on the specific training that drives the key expectations our customers have of our restaurants. McDonald’s began 2009 with six years of positive momentum and a business model that has delivered even in challenging economic conditions. The company’s learning and development program remains a force in driving positive results, including a 2008 record revenue of $23.5 billion.
Through this economic downturn, it’s even more critical for us to allocate training resources to ensure that our franchisees (85 percent of our system), company staff, and restaurant managers maximize their training budgets and restaurant profitability. We have more closely linked how positive people measures—such as low crew and manager turnover, full staffing levels, and higher employee satisfaction and commitment levels—are positively affecting our key customer measures, as well as profit levels. It’s no coincidence that our most profitable restaurants have the highest customer and employee measures.
We are currently taking a fresh look at our training curriculum to align with the needs of our business and those of future learners. We are investing in technology to maximize information access and individualize training, such as virtual classes and new levels of blended learning, to reach a wider demographic.
From the company’s inception, we have believed in the power of people and how exceptional training can bring out the best in our employees. Continuing with this philosophy means we have to use training as the means to improve and always look at how we can be more efficient and effective in all aspects of our business to ensure we’re serving our customers the way they’ve come to expect from McDonald’s.
Diana Thomas is U.S. vice president of training, learning, and development at McDonald’s; diana.thomas@us.mcd.com. |