MCDONALD’S CORP.
Diana Thomas, vice president of U.S. training, learning and development at McDonald’s Corp., has worked at the fast food company since she was a crew member at age 16. Much has changed in the last three decades to make the business more complex. There are new products, extended hours, increased guest counts, larger and more diverse staffs and changes in equipment, technologies and processes.
These changes led Thomas and her department to address the traditional single management model employed by most McDonald’s franchises throughout the United States. Their solution: restaurant department management, a people migration strategy developed in conjunction with HR, owners and operators.
With the new model, the training, learning and development department aimed to clarify roles and define specific areas of responsibility among the management team, create a development path within the restaurant and establish accountabilities and success measures. The structure of the new people model includes three additional department managers: management of product, customers and employees. Training for these positions included five new curricula with a combination of test out features, e-learning, coaching guides, videos, virtual collaborations, delivery in tracking on an LMS and a two-day immersive simulation tied directly to McDonald’s three key business measures: leading teams, guest satisfaction and restaurant results.
Thomas said she knew the biggest hurdle would be adoption among the 47,000 restaurant managers and mid-managers and 600,000 crew members. Therefore, the training, learning and development team partnered with three franchise owners to pilot the new training curricula. Restaurants that have adopted restaurant department management have seen improvements when compared with their peers. Hourly manager turnover is 10.1 percent less than peers, crew member turnover is 2.4 percent less and customer service opportunities are 5.6 percent higher.