Human Resource Equality and Diversity in McDonald's

This paper discusses McDonald's diversity and equality practices for human resource and how it fits into their business strategy. It explores the competitive advantages of diversity and equality in the workplace. The paper also analyzes the UK equality and diversity regulations and how McDonald's fits into them.

Running head: Human resource equality and diversity
Human resource equality and
diversity
2018

Human resource equality and diversity
Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Background of the organization...................................................................................................................3
The key policies that govern its equality and diversity practice...................................................................4
Organization’s business strategy and how its quality and diversity practice fits in......................................5
The UK equality and diversity regulations and how the organization fits...................................................6
Competitive advantage of equality and diversity.........................................................................................7
Ways in which the company can maximize the benefits of equality and diversity......................................8
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................9
References.................................................................................................................................................10
2

Human resource equality and diversity
Introduction
McDonald’s company is a centralized international company which renders fast food products
like French fries, hamburgers and other food products. The company is expanding and exploring
the business activities globally by serving majority of customers in the international market. The
main motive of this task is to highlight and discuss about the activities and operations of
McDonald’s. The paper discusses how McDonald’s is maintaining diversity and equality at the
workplace to cope up with rivals globally. Diversity and equality is needed in every company to
fulfill the needs and requirements of the customers and employees as well. By using equality and
diversity, the company is able to meet the long-term requirements and needs of the business.
Thus, diversity and equality put direct impact on the revenue and profitability of McDonald’s.
McDonald’s is committed to expanding and fostering diversity among its three legs such as
suppliers, workers and franchisees. Better outcomes and innovative thinking are significant
advantages of diversity and equality. To maintain diversity and equality is costly process, it is a
biggest challenge in McDonald’s. The key policies that govern McDonald’s equality and
diversity practices also have been discussed in the task. The paper also provides brief
information about business strategy that is adopted by McDonald’s Company. Along with this,
the paper also analyzes the policies and regulations related to diversity and equality that are
made by government of UK. The paper outlines that how Equality and diversity provide
competitive benefits to the company with maintaining reasonable prices of the products. At the
end, various ways and strategies that can boost the benefits of equality and diversity also have
been presented in the task. More detail of the task has been drawn below.
Background of the organization
McDonald’s is an American fast food company, incorporated in 1940 as a restaurant managed
and controlled by Richard and Maurice McDonald in United States, Bernardino and California. It
has been studied that McDonald’s is a biggest and growing restaurant chains measured by
3

Human resource equality and diversity
revenue which is serving more than 69 million customers on daily basis in approx 100 countries.
The organization has approx 36,900 outlets in which 235,000 employees are working together at
the workplace (McDonald’s, 2018). The firm is proud to have become one of the fastest and
growing food service brands in all over the world (McDonald’s, 201b). From the start,
McDonald’s has been committed for doing right things in every day. It is stated that the firm
introduced a velocity growth plan in March 2017 to grow and survive business internationally.
The company provides an excellent restaurant experience to the customers in the global market.
The suppliers, operators, and workers work together to fulfill the needs and requirements of
customers in an effective way (McDonald’s, 2018b).
The key policies that govern its equality and diversity practice
The diversity and equality policy would state that the firm objectives to safeguard and protect
those who may face harassment or inequality due to one or more of the protected attributes. The
key policies that govern McDonald’s equality and diversity practice have been detailed below.
A fair workplace: It has been found that McDonald’s recognizes the significance and value of
rendering an atmosphere where everyone could expect to be treated with integrity and esteem.
The company promotes and improves equal employment opportunity to ensure that workers
enjoy a harmonious and dynamic work atmosphere that is free from bullying, annoyance and
unlawful discrimination (McDonald’s, 2018a). A fair workplace helps in promoted and
improving the diversity and equality in McDonald’s.
Diversity and inclusion: It is stated that McDonald’s is proud of its strategy to assortment and
inclusion. They respect the unique attributes and perspectives of people, and the company further
relies on these diverse perspectives to support people develop and improve the relationship with
each other, business partners and customers. This policy embraces the diversity of the workers,
business partners, customers and franchises and the company work hard to make sure everyone
at McDonald’s feels happy and welcome. The company provides equal employment opportunity
and ensures in merit-based decision making. There is no discrimination in the workplace
between men and women. The effective employment decisions including hiring, placement,
benefits, compensation, recruitment, promotion and training are taken by the firm while
4

Human resource equality and diversity
expanding business internationally (McDonald’s, 2018a). Diversity and inclusion policy leads to
higher satisfaction and equality in the workplace.
Promotion on merit: At McDonald’s, top management believe in putting aces in their places.
This means that in guidance, recruitment, identifying and developing workers for providing
innovative opportunities to them. It is one of the significant and unique equality and diversity
practices (Janssens and Zanoni, 2014).
Being disability confident: It has been found that McDonald’s is an effective and long-standing
supporter of employment opportunities for employees with disability. The main objective of the
company is to ensure that whether the employees are addressing and fulfilling the needs, and
requirements of consumers or not. The training programs further help in providing innovative
services to customers across the globe (McDonald’s, 2018a).
A responsible employer of students: It has been studied that McDonald’s is a primary
employer of young people in the country and the people take this seriously. It is the company’s
responsibility to support a suitable and effective balance between employment and schooling to
ensure workers have excellent opportunities in near future. McDonald’s has an accountable
student policy to sustain the academic and effective commitment and of young people and a
dynamic roistering system that lodge learning and work (McDonald’s, 2018a).
Community engagement: It is one of the best and leading policies at McDonald’s that helps in
maintaining diversity and equality in the workplace. Being an active and effective member in the
communities, the company serves excellent services to the customers in all over the world
(Janssens and Zanoni, 2014). McDonald’s, franchisees and workers continue to look various
ways to make meaningful and effective impacts on the diverse and innovative communities
where people work and live. The inclusion and community engagement team at McDonald’s has
set up a shared value relationship with tremendous based companies (McDonald’s, 2018a).
Organization’s business strategy and how its quality and diversity practice fits in
It is stated that McDonald’s uses a growth strategy to expand business activities and operations
internationally. In March 2017, the company launched a velocity growth plan to maximize
profitability and to gain competitive benefits internationally. The company knows the most
5

Human resource equality and diversity
significant and effective way to grow and survive the business and generate value for all the
stakeholders is by serving various customers more often (Talpau and Boscor, 2011). By using
growth strategy, the company is able to focus on the needs, demands, and requirements of the
business. Apart from this, velocity provides competitive benefits in the international market. The
growth strategy is connected with equality and diversity in the workplace (Michielsens, Bingham
and Clarke, 2013). The key pillars of growth strategy are included the following.
Retain: It is one of the unique and effective pillars of a growth strategy that helps in retaining
the potential and talented candidates at the workplace. By retaining the customers and
employees, McDonald’s has been able to extend the areas of strength with monitoring on family
and breakfast occasions. The retention strategy is suitable to maintain diversity and equality at
the workplace.
Regain: Regaining the customers help in improving and enhancing the taste and quality of food
and enhancing convenience and rendering strong value in the global market. This will further
help the company to enhance and boost diversity at the workplace (Carpenter and Sanders, 2009)
Convert: Converting casual consumers to more committed customers with snacks and coffee. It
will also help to identify and analyze the diversity and equality at McDonald’s.
The company uses intensive growth strategies to support business expansion and development.
Growth strategy helps in boosting cultural competencies and skills of the workers so that they
maintain diversity in the organization (Azim and Azim, 2012). Cross-cultural communication is
very useful that helps in improving and enhancing communication and ignoring
misunderstanding and barriers (McDonald’s, 2018c).
The UK equality and diversity regulations and how the organization fits
Equality act 2010 had been made by the government of UK. The equality act 2010 legally
protects people from discrimination at the workplace. It sets out the various ways in which it’s
unlawful to treat someone. This act helps McDonald’s to run the business functions and
operations in an effective way. It eliminates the victimization, harassment and discrimination at
the workplace. This act also covers gender, reassignment, age, disability and marital status. With
effect of this act, the company is able to reduce and eliminate the discrimination and inequality at
6

Human resource equality and diversity
the workplace. The equality and diversity is a term used in the UK to outline and explain
champion equality, human rights and diversity as defining value of community. By considering
equality act, McDonald’s promotes the workers towards the achievement of goals and objectives
in the organization (Educationservice, 2018). The equality act 2010 provides a single legal
framework with effective, clear, and streamlined legislation that would be more dynamic and
significant for handling disadvantages and discrimination and that would provide a legal
framework to protect the rights and interests of individuals and advance equality of various
opportunities for all. According to this act, if a person concerns about discrimination of any kind,
the people need to inform HR adviser. The equality act brings together over 116 separate pieces
of regulation into one single act (Equality and human rights, 2018). The government of UK
provides guidance to employees, service providers, employers, education providers and services
users for understanding and evaluating the equality act. The nine main pieces of legislation that
have merged into a single equality act are discussed below.
 The equal pay act 1970
 The race relations act 1976
 The sex discrimination act 1975
 The disability discrimination act 1995
 The employment equality (belief or religion) regulations 2003
 The employment equality (sexual orientation) regulations 2003
 The employment equality (age) regulations 2006
 The equality act 2006, part 2
 The equality act (sexual orientation) regulations 2007
It has been studied that the equality act 2010 helps in running and developing the business
activities internationally. It also provides job satisfaction and job security to the workers in the
organization while functioning effectively. Diversity is significant at the workplace because it
helps the workers relate to a dynamic and effective customer base and supports to generate a fun
and favorable environment in which to work together (Equality and human rights, 2018). This
act further protects the individuals from discrimination at the workplace.
7

Human resource equality and diversity
Competitive advantage of equality and diversity
It is investigated that equality and diversity provide ample of competitive benefits at the
workplace. Individual from diverse backgrounds could render a selection of various talents,
experience and skills that can be of benefit to the company and their work performance and
productivity (McDonald, Payne and Frow, 2011). Therefore, McDonald’s can overcome the
rivalries in the international market. Equality and diversity also create innovation at the
workplace. McDonald’s embraces diversity to attract and retain the wide range of applicants for
filling the vacancies (Tatli, 2011). It will further help the company to cope up with rivals
internationally. Equality and diversity in the workplace are significant and effective for
encouraging and improving the employees from all backgrounds to feel confident in their
capability and attain their best. The excellent and higher team morale and loyalty, the more
productive and effective workers are. With dynamic equality and diversity, the company can
create a favorable working environment and relationship at the workplace. It also helps in
standing out against the rivalries in the competitive market (Tomlinson and Schwabenland,
2010).
A team with dynamic working relationships would be more engaged, productive and focused.
The more diverse and effective workforce helps in analyzing and evaluating the opportunities
and threats of the market. The skilled and potential employees also support McDonald’s to
identify and measure the policies, strategies and products of the competitors. In this way, the
company is able to compete against the rivals in the international market (Eze and Jooda, 2013).
Equality and diversity are significant to maintain good and strong communication and
collaboration within the organization. It will also help McDonald’s to measure and determine the
external factors internationally. In this way, the firm can take ample of competitive advantages
while functioning and operating business at international level. Language issues and cultural
differences may often act as a bit of a hurdle for McDonald’s who want to explore their business
over shores, however by recruiting and selecting workers who speak various languages it can
make it possible for a firm on a international basis and communicate with a broader client base.
It will also helps in struggling with competitors across the globe. The skilled and talented
workforce helps in making effective and unique policies and plans in the organization to stand
out over the rivals internationally (Greene and Kirton, 2015). The diversity and equality increase
creativity, profitability, outcomes and performance. On the other hand, there are various
8

Human resource equality and diversity
disadvantages of diversity and equality includes communication barriers, increased competition,
and increased cost of training and collaboration issues.
Recommendations / Ways in which the company can maximize the benefits of equality and
diversity
There are various ways that can help McDonald’s to maximize and improve the benefits of
diversity and equality. Some of the ways have been discussed below.
 It is stated that top management at McDonald’s needs to communicate and collaborate
diversity policy regularly and clearly. Communication helps in reducing and eliminating
the barriers and challenges that are rising in the organization. To maintain strong
communication at the workplace, the company needs to hold meetings and seminars for
the workers on regular basis. It will further help in maximizing diversity and equality
benefits to a large extent (Herring, 2009).
 Training and development is another way that helps in boosting equality and diversity in
the workplace. Training and development are essential to increase and enhance the
diversity within the organization. It also helps in preventing various differences such as
ethnicities, gender, ages, races, and socio-economic issues. By providing training and
development, McDonald’s can maximize the profitability and outcomes and it also helps
in maintaining a favorable and dynamic working environment (Oswick and Noon, 2014).
 Develop organization policies aligned with government laws on equal employment
opportunity. This will further help in enhancing diversity and equality benefits globally.
McDonald’s also celebrate the significant events to augment diversity and equality at the
workplace. It will help in achieving the desired objectives and targets within the
organization. By maintaining diversity at the workplace, the company can attract and
retain the majority of customers and employees widely (Roberge and Van Dick, 2010).
 Performance management system shall be implemented to take maximum benefits if
diversity and equality in the organization. Performance management system helps in
9

Human resource equality and diversity
identifying and analyzing the performance, effectiveness and efficiency of the workers. It
also provides increases satisfaction level and job security of the employees (Barak, 2016).
Conclusion
It is concluded from the above discussion that McDonald’s is one of the biggest and well known
brands in the global market that provides food products to the customers in all over the world.
The above analysis reveals that McDonald’s uses innovative and dynamic strategies and policies
to maintain diversity and equality at the workplace. The above analysis indicates that UK
government makes effective and unique policies and regulations to exercise diversity and
equality in the organization. Diversity and equality play a significant role in attaining
competitive advantages in the global market. It is recommended that McDonald’s should provide
rewards and recognition to the workers to survive business internationally and to govern equality
and diversity practices across the globe. The top management and managers should maintain
reciprocal relationship with workers to stay in the competitive market. Talent management
system shall be implemented at the workplace to identify and evaluate the skills, talents and
experience of the workers internationally.
10

Human resource equality and diversity
References
Azim, P. and Azim, S., 2012. Impact of Constructive Marketing Strategies on Return (Revenue
& Profitability): A Case Study of Mcdonald’s. Journal of Asian Business Strategy, 2(7), pp.153-
169.
Barak, M.E.M., 2016. Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage
Publications.
Carpenter, M.A. and Sanders, W.G., 2009. Strategic Management: A Dynamic Perspective:
Concepts. Pearson Prentice Hall.
Educationservice.2018. Diversity, equality and the law in the UK[Online]. Available from
https://www.parliament.uk/documents/education/online-resources/Diversity%20Resource/
Topic3.pdf [Accessed as on 9th November 2018].
Equalityand humanrights.2018. What is the equality act [Online]. Available from
https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/equality-act-2010/what-equality-act [Accessed as on
9th November 2018].
Eze, P. and Jooda, O., 2013. Enhancing Working Relationship in a Multicultural Organization;
McDonalds Borlänge, Sweden.
Greene, A.M. and Kirton, G., 2015. The dynamics of managing diversity: A critical approach.
Routledge.
Herring, C., 2009. Does diversity pay?: Race, gender, and the business case for
diversity. American Sociological Review, 74(2), pp.208-224.
Janssens, M. and Zanoni, P., 2014. Alternative diversity management: Organizational practices
fostering ethnic equality at work. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 30(3), pp.317-331.
McDonald, M., Payne, A. and Frow, P., 2011. Marketing plans for services: A complete guide.
John Wiley & Sons.
11

Human resource equality and diversity
McDonald’s.2018. About McDonald’s [Online]. Available from
https://www.mcdonalds.com.ph/content/page/about [Accessed as on 9th November 2018].
McDonald’s.2018 a. Global diversity, inclusion & community engagement [Online]. Available
from https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/about-us/diversity-and-inclusion.html [Accessed
as on 8th November 2018].
McDonald’s.2018b. Macca’s people [Online]. Available from https://mcdonalds.com.au/about-
maccas/people [Accessed as on 8th November 2018].
McDonald’s.2018c. Our growth strategy [Online]. Available from
https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/about-us/our-growth-strategy.html [Accessed as on
9th November 2018].
Michielsens, E., Bingham, C. and Clarke, L., 2013. Managing diversity through flexible work
arrangements: Management perspectives. Employee Relations, 36(1), pp.49-69.
Oswick, C. and Noon, M., 2014. Discourses of diversity, equality and inclusion: trenchant
formulations or transient fashions?. British Journal of Management, 25(1), pp.23-39.
Roberge, M.É. and Van Dick, R., 2010. Recognizing the benefits of diversity: When and how
does diversity increase group performance?. Human resource management review, 20(4),
pp.295-308.
Talpau, A. and Boscor, D., 2011. Customer-oriented marketing-A strategy that guarantees
success: Starbucks and McDonald's. Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Brasov. Economic
Sciences. Series V, 4(1), p.51.
Tatli, A., 2011. A multi‐layered exploration of the diversity management field: diversity
discourses, practices and practitioners in the UK. British Journal of Management, 22(2), pp.238-
253.
Tomlinson, F. and Schwabenland, C., 2010. Reconciling competing discourses of diversity? The
UK non-profit sector between social justice and the business case. Organization, 17(1), pp.101-
121.
12