McDonald's Strategic Human Resources Management

McDonald's and its affiliated companies employ approximately 300,500 people, of which approximately 33,000 are full-time salaried employees (10-K, 1998, 4).

Company-wide, more than a dozen languages are spoken, more than 200 different national sets of employment and labor laws are enforced, and a system of advancement both horizontally and vertically exists for employee growth.

When Ray Kroc founded McDonald's, he was a great believer in the value of his employees, whom he often called his most valuable asset.

Since the company is a franchise operation, it was essential that the same attitudes toward human resources that were exhibited in the company's headquarters spread out to the franchises.

In fact, the company, even with its growth, has maintained a solid strategic focus that is geared to maximize human resource potential.

This paper will deal with some of the major concepts of the McDonald's Human Resources strategy, considering the following areas: 1) Hiring policies; 2) Employment opportunities; 3) Career paths; and, 4)Training.

The company's franchise handbook, which is the "Bible" for franchisees, includes some 40 pages of instructions on hiring, ranging from the types of applications to use, and the way the hiring interview and the training should be handled.

McDonald's thoroughness in hiring the best people starts with its web site, which defines what the company expects from employees.

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t communication with the Illinois headquarters, typically communicating through a highly secure Intranet. When the company set up operations in France, Germany and Sweden, it was faced with making its employment and hiring policies seamlessly mesh with some 500 laws that regulate what the company has to do in terms of pay, on health and safety, working conditions,(there are even controls concerning lighting, wall colors, temperature and so on). "A hands-off, laissez-faire attitude is the only way to handle HR in our foreign operations "(Cassandra, 1999). She added in the interview that the main purpose of the HR facilitators in the various overseas operations is to serve as "pre-damage control experts. We want to know ahead of time if there is going to be a problem of some sort  a strike, a protest, a boycott, so we can alert the McDonald's legal team ahead of time" (Cassandra, 1999). So then how does a company like McDonald's, which based its success on highly standardized operations supervise the personnel activities in the different nations? "There's no way to supervise. About the best we can hope for is that by working with the key franchisers or area holding companies to make sure that they fully understand our HR p
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Approximate Word count = 2079
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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