Analyzing McDonald's HR: Strategies, Policies, and Engagement Plan

This report provides a detailed analysis of McDonald's Human Resource functions, strategies, policies, and structures, with a particular focus on employee engagement. It highlights McDonald's HR strategies, including recruitment and selection, training, performance management, reward and recognition, and employee retention. The report also explores HR functions such as training and development, compensation and benefits, and health, safety, and security measures. Furthermore, it examines McDonald's employee engagement initiatives and proposes a structured plan to boost employee engagement, emphasizing the importance of employee knowledge, friendly competition, and internal social initiatives. The conclusion underscores the effectiveness of McDonald's HR strategies in achieving organizational goals and enhancing employee engagement.

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Master of Business Analysis 1
Executive summary
This report includes human resource functions, strategies, policies and structures of McDonald’s.
it can be summarized from the below report that Human Resource Department of McDonald’s
works effectively and efficiently for achieving the goals of the company. The report mainly
includes employee engagement in the company. In addition to this it also includes the structure
plan of initiatives which can boost the employee engagement in the company. It further includes
the initiatives taken byMcDonald’s to increase employee engagement in the company.

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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Overview of McDonald’s............................................................................................................................3
HR strategies at McDonald’s.......................................................................................................................3
Recruitment and selection........................................................................................................................3
Training...................................................................................................................................................4
Performance............................................................................................................................................4
Reward and recognition...........................................................................................................................4
Employee retention......................................................................................................................................4
HR functions, policies and structures..........................................................................................................5
Training and development.......................................................................................................................5
Compensation and benefits......................................................................................................................5
Health, safety and security.......................................................................................................................6
Employee engagement at McDonald’s........................................................................................................6
Structured plan of initiatives........................................................................................................................7
Understand the power of employee’s knowledge....................................................................................7
Encourage friendly competition...............................................................................................................8
Let the internal initiative be social...........................................................................................................8
Initiatives.....................................................................................................................................................8
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................9
References.................................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Employee engagement can be defined as the relationship of the employees and an organization.
Individuals who are fully absorbed and enthusiastic about their work are known as an engaged
employee. It can be further explained as the commitment and energy that employees carry along
with their work is a main evidence of their involvement and dedication towards the organization
(Gambetti and Graffigna, 2010).
Overview of McDonald’s
McDonald, an American fast food company was founded in the year 1940 and it is owned by
Richard and Maurice McDonald’s. It is located in San Bernardino, California, United States. It is
one of the world’s largest restaurant chains in India. It serves over 69 million customers on day
to day basis in over 100 countries. It has more than 37000 outlets. It is known to be the second
biggest employer within the private company sector after Wal-Mart. McDonald’s mission is to
make McDonald’s the favorite place and way to eat for the customers (McDonald’s, 2018).
HR strategies at McDonald’s
Recruitment and selection
McDonald’s prefer to recruit suitable clients which ever post it may be crew member or a
Trainee business manager. The company has always been providing exceptional support to the
employees. It also provides progression opportunities to the employees which further help to
enhance the personal and professional skills of the employees (Boxall and Purcell, 2011).

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Training
The strategy called training is the key to improve the performance of the employees. So
McDonald’s also has been using this strategy to improve and enhance the skills of the employees
at both personal and professional level. As McDonald’s aims at making their restaurants a
favorite place to eat for their customers. So to achieve this objective well trained crew members
and business managers are highly needed. At least 55000 employees are trained by McDonald’s
every year (McDonald, 2016).
Performance
McDonald’s evaluates the performance of its employees on a regular basis which further helps to
improve the performance of the employees.
Reward and recognition
McDonald’s offers excellent range of rewards and potential benefits to the employees.
Thisfurther motivates the employees to perform well in their jobs. When the employees’ efforts
are valued by the organization, the employees get motivated and this further helps in increasing
productivity and satisfaction (Madani, et al., 2015)
Employee retention
McDonald’s tries to retain their employees by providing them the best working environment,
offering flexible working schedules, paying them right and giving a career map.

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HR functions, policies and structures
Training and development
Training & development is a very important part for the employees. McDonald’s comprehends
the value of training and development for its employees. The company provides in-house
training to employees with the help of its own corporate university. There are different levels of
training such as member training of crew, training for managers and a few others (Cascio, 2018).
The motive behind the training is to make sure that the employees comprehend the prescription
of Ray Kroc which includes V-quality services, Q, C, S, cleanliness. During the training of Mc
Donald’s, it teaches its employees the technique of serving burgers weather it is one serving or
thousands.
Compensation and benefits
Best results can be expected when there is sharing of profit with huge employee engagement and
provide workers about the company information. At McDonald’s, two types of incentives are
given: one is cash based and the other one is non-cash based.
Incentives that are cash based include allowance for attendance, allowance that is given annually
and medical allowance. McDonald’s also includes incentives such as Hard Soft Furnishing and
Leave Fair Assistance. Under hard soft furnishing, all the employees can equip their houses with
new carpets, curtains etc. on company expenses. Non Cash based incentives includes recognition
status such as team of the year, team of the month and incentives like free food, access to gift
certificates and other (Sparrow, Balain and Fairhurst, 2010).

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McDonald’s employees can take leave for maximum two months for any reason. The mangers
working in the restaurants get eligible for the company car after working three years. The
company also offers educational assistance for the employees working in the company.
Health, safety and security
The Company McDonald’s consist of many safety programs for work place for making sure of
the high safety standards and processes of the company are properly communicated and
toughened regularly. For McDonald’s, the health, safety and security of the employees is very
important (Sorenson, 2013). McDonald’s has always been concerned about the safety of the
employees. Special precautions such as use of gloves, apron and hand cleansing gel and fire
prevention program and others
Employee engagement at McDonald’s
As employees are the greatest ambassadors of the company so employee engagement has been
always the highest priority for McDonald’s. Implementing a province-wide competition such as
The Challenge generates an opportunity to cooperatively engage, recognize and rejoice the
employees, whereas showcase the skills and talents of the employees. The business
transformation of McDonald’s was eased by focusing on 5 principles for employee motivation,
known as ‘five vital ingredients to great customer experience’, to which its recognition strategy
is aligned (Chhabra and Sharma, 2014).
Neal Blackshire (the reward manager at McD’s ) stated that McDonald has announced these 5
values in the year 2014 to make sure that they fix their hospitality culture in company’s
restaurants after knowing that the older ’10 commandments’ were out of date. Road to Rio
initiative in 2014 was one of the project that shows measure improvements for the company.

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From February to April 2014, this initiative has incentivized the top 5% of restaurants which was
based purely on customer ratings. The employees from these restaurants were asked to enter
themselves in a prize draw for winning the trip to the Word Cup in Brazil (HR Editorial, 2011).
In the conjunction, a competition ran with Fifa World Cup, McDonald’s has used the advantage
of its sponsorship of the competition by sending eleven employees from the workforce to Brazil.
More significantly, it facilitated to increase the speed of their services at the same time providing
great customer experience (Rocca, 2017).Neal Blackshire has stated that “The mechanic was
simple”. After ending of the 3 month project, there was appreciation in two hundred and thirteen
restaurants. This implies, McDonald’s has served extra 24k customers on daily basis. This
further was marked as an improvement factor as it helped in creating buzz in reality at the
workplace.
Structured plan of initiatives
Employee engagement has been always the highest priority for McDonald’s. The structure plan
of initiatives which supports employee engagement in the organization is mentioned below
Understand the power of employee’s knowledge
McDonald’s has understands the power of employee’s knowledge as employees are the greatest
ambassadors of the company. Employees comprehend the brand of the company more than
owners. Implementing a province-wide competition such as The Challenge generates an
opportunity to cooperatively engage, recognize and rejoice the employees (Kompaso and
Sridevi, 2010).

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Encourage friendly competition
The Company McDonald’s has increased the friendly competition. The challenge given to the
employees make the employees invested in each other’s successes by participating in the
competition. Consequently bring the employees together and nurtured strong team comradeship.
The employees get motivated by knowing the chances of getting recognition in the restaurant
(Schneider and Bowen, 2010).
Let the internal initiative be social
The manager should encourage the employees to chat about their jobs online as it will further
create the opportunities to share positive brand messaging and have implausible ROI.
McDonald’s being a national brand should involve the employees as part of its external voice
(Leberman and McDonald, 2016).
Initiatives
McDonald’s has also taken the steps towards keeping the employees safe and sound. Through an
online wellbeing kit, McDonald’s has invested in the wellbeing of its employees. It invested
almost £35 million in providing the training and enhancing the skills of the employees. It has
also launched various reward initiatives, involving hundred free holidays and plusses for mystery
shopper awards.
Road to Rio initiative in 2014 was one of the project that shows measure improvements for the
company. The purpose behind this initiative is to meet corporate goals and employee
engagement. It has been found from the report that 84.5% of employees feel appreciated, 83.8%
feel honored in working at a restaurant like McDonalds, and 83.5% are motivated (Mone and
London, 2018).

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Conclusion
Thus from the above report it can be conclude that the HR strategies McDonald’s are very
effective. It works efficiently and effectively for achieving the overall goals of the organization.
The report also includes the functions of human resource department. In addition to this structure
plan of initiatives to increase the employee engagement has also been included. Further, this
report includes the initiatives taken by McDonald’s to increase the employee engagement in the
company.

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References
Boxall, P. and Purcell, J. (2011)Strategy and human resource management. Palgrave Macmillan.
London.
Cascio, W. (2018) Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill Education.
Gambetti, R.C. and Graffigna, G. (2010) The concept of engagement. International Journal of
Market Research, 52(6), pp.801-826.
HR Editorial. (2011) HR Excellence Awards 2011 - Outstanding Employee Engagement
Strategy: McDonald's. [Online] Available from http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/article-details/hr-
excellence-awards-2011-outstanding-employee-engagement-strategy-mcdonalds [Accessed on
09/04/18].
Kompaso, S.M. and Sridevi, M.S. (2010) Employee engagement: The key to improving
performance. International journal of business and management, 5(12), p.89.
Leberman, S. and McDonald, L. (2016) The transfer of learning: Participants' perspectives of
adult education and training. Routledge.
Chhabra, L.N. and Sharma, S. (2014) Employer branding: strategy for improving employer
attractiveness. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 22(1), pp.48-60.
Madani, V.et al. (2015) Distribution automation strategies challenges and opportunities in a
changing landscape. IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 6(4), pp.2157-2165.
McDonald, M. (2016) Strategic marketing planning: theory and practice. In The marketing book
(pp. 108-142). Routledge.

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McDonald’s. (2018) About Us. [Online] Available from
http://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd.html[Accessed on 09/04/18].
Mone, E.M. and London, M. (2018) Employee engagement through effective performance
management: A practical guide for managers. Routledge.
Rocca, V. (2017) McDonald’s secret sauce for employee engagement. [Online] The Globe and
Mail. Available from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/leadership-
lab/mcdonalds-secret-sauce-for-employee-engagement/article28851243/ [Accessed on 09/04/18].
Schneider, B. and Bowen, D.E. (2010)Winning the service game. In Handbook of service science
(pp. 31-59). Springer, Boston, MA.
Sorenson, S. (2013) How employee engagement drives growth. Gallup business journal, 1, pp.1-
4.
Sparrow, P., Balain, S. and Fairhurst, D. (2010)McDonald’s UK: From Corporate Reputation to
Trust-Based HR. In Leading HR (pp. 209-230). Palgrave Macmillan, London.