CHRISTINA M. COMBS

McDonald’s Corporation provides training and development for crewmembers, managers, and franchise owners throughits internal training program, Hamburger University (HU).  Founded in 1961, Hamburger University has invested $40 million in developing and facilitating training courses, materials, and facilities (Combs, Franklin, Tatum, Wingate, 2013).  Although McDonald’s is “the premier company to develop a global training program”, HU can improve several learning support functions to retain and continue the professional development of talented employees.  This plan makes recommendations for learner support in the areas of basic academic skills, e-learning support, distance learning course offerings, and the training program’s recommendation system.

 

Overall Goals

The learner support system proposes the following goals to meet the needs of students attending Hamburger University:

 

Skill development through remedial courses. McDonald’s does not require crewmembers to have a high school diploma or GED (Combs, et al., 2013).  Individuals who have not completed high school may struggle with basic skills such as reading, writing and calculating. Hamburger University offers over forty-five business-related, but offers no remedial courses (American Council on Education, 2013).  Hamburger University currently relies on store managers to recommend employees to the management program who have the potential to lead other crewmembers and manage their own store (Combs, et al., 2013).  Managers may not consider the crewmember’s education when making the recommendation.  This can be detrimental to crewmembers that enroll in HU but do not have basic education skills to complete HU’s program. In addition, recommended crewmembers may choose not to enroll if they do not have this additional educational support. 

 

Enhance access by implementing distance learning courses. Attending face-to-face classes can be difficult for nontraditional students, as they are juggling many responsibilities such as parenting, working, and being caregivers.  To meet the need of busy adults, many institutions and corporations offer training at a distance.  Majority of HU courses are face-to-face and take place on the main campus or at regional centers.  This can be a major deterrent for talented employees who cannot travel to the HU training center and regional centers for training.

 

Provide e-learning support. McDonald’s crewmembers complete 32 hours of on-the-job e-learning training during their first month of employment (Combs, et al., 2013).  E-learning modules consist of “carefully crafted scenarios that help employees discover, then digest the material” (Kannenberg, 2008). Although e-learning modules save time for the crew trainers and trainees, HU should not assume that all crewmembers and managers are computer literate.

 

Standardize the manager-employee recommendation system.  There is no system in place to determine employee eligibility to enroll in HU’s management training program.  McDonald’s employees become eligible only when recommended by store managers, which may give some employees unfair advantages (Combs, et al., 2013).  

 

Elements to Implement Immediately

 

HU may be missing the opportunity to prepare some of McDonald’s most talented employees for management positions due to the current recommendation system.  While McDonald’s may simply be a part-time job for some employees, long-term employees can seek careers as restaurant managers, mid-level managers, and corporate executives (Combs, et al., 2013).  All employees should be aware of the potential to grow within McDonald’s, as well as the free training and development opportunities.  HU should notify all new hires by emailing brochures and offering an online open house providing information about different career paths and the professional development opportunities (Smith & Drago, 2004).  It is important for HU administrators to consider the notion that managers may be biased and demonstrate favoritism when selecting employees, which can result in poor employee morale.  Managers should be required to follow some sort of criteria when recommending employees to the training program.  HU should implement a standardized scoring system immediately that measures knowledge, leadership skills and performance quality.  On a quarterly basis, managers are to score employees through the management online portals.  Most students have two to three and a half years of restaurant experience before enrolling in HU (Combs, et al., 2013). HU should implement a mandatory requirement that employees work in restaurants for a minimum of two years before they are eligible for a recommendation.  Once employees reach the score set by administrators and complete two years of work experience, they will become eligible to apply to HU. 

 

The implementation of basic education courses and assessment should also begin immediately.  Eligible employees should take basic reading and math assessments if they have not completed high school prior to acceptance into HU’s management program.  This will enable HU staff to determine the educational needs of students before they plunge into intensive management courses. Remedial courses in reading, writing, and math will be available through the same LMS portal used for crewmember training modules.  Unlike on-the-job training, students complete remedial courses on their own time, with an assessment following each course. Scores will be stored in the online system for each local store where managers can retrieve the data when determining eligibility for enrollment.

It is also recommended that HU administrators and instructors develop a distance education program for the introductory management course over the next twelve months.  This pilot program may take several months to launch so administrators should implement the program within the next year.

 

Organization and Staffing

 

HU's main training center in Illinois produces the training materials.

• Instructional designers and instructors located at the HU training center work together to develop basic curriculums for reading, writing and math.  The instructors will serve as subject matter experts, as they will inform instructional designers on the basic academic skills needed to be successful in their course.

• HU administrators and staff develop a pilot distance learning course for the first management class in the training curriculum. The pilot program should be available to all new students.  If the program is successful, HU should continue to develop distance learning courses. Because HU requires hands-on experience, distance learning classes should not become the primary teaching and learning model. 

• HU administrators should outsource the task of developing a standardized scoring system to an organization experienced in developing scoring systems and performance assessment tools.

• Local store managers should provide e-learning support.  Managers should select appropriate hours (preferably slow service hours) for employees to participate in e-learning to ensure that they are able to easily navigate through the system and to provide assistance when needed. The HU training center should also notify store managers of any changes made to current e-learning courses.

 

How to Reach Goals

 

HU can make these changes in the current learner support system without raising additional revenue, as McDonald’s allots $1 billion a year for training (Combs, et al., 2013). HU has eight virtual classrooms (Combs, et al., 2013).  The distance pilot course can utilize a virtual classroom in a synchronous or asynchronous format, including a comprehensive assessment after the virtual course is completed.  Although HU will have to allot a portion of the training budget to the development of a distance education class, this cost is offset as there will be fewer students to house on-site.  

 

Evaluation of Proposed Support System

 

We will conduct reviews and audits on a quarterly basis. We will gather information from all students who sign up for the pilot program about course delivery and content, whether they have completed the course or not.  Randomly selected new crewmembers will receive surveys by postal mail and email to determine level of assistance from managers and the level of difficulty of navigating through the e-learning on-the-job training courses.  We will also use the tracking tools available in HU’s LMS. 

 

Rationale for Recommendation

 

The recommendation for the implementation of distance education courses is in response to a question posed by distance education scholar Terry Anderson (2004): “Is travelling to a learning center worth the expense and hassle when we can cost effectively deliver via audio and video to the home or workplace?”  To attend the training program on the main HU campus in Illinois, employees must make travel arrangements. Employees that are caregivers of children and other family members must also deal with arranging care for their loved ones while they are away.  The literature available did not state whether HU or McDonald’s employees are responsible for travel costs.  Even so, distance learning courses can reduce the costs of trainee wages and allow students to manage the amount of time invested in learning the materials (Stahmer, 1995).

 

McDonald’s employees are a diverse population and have different levels of education, work experiences, and computer literacy.  The fact that McDonald’s requires employees to complete 32 hours of training at the beginning of their employment demonstrates McDonald’s goal to provide uniformity of services and products for all restaurants. According to Barbara Booth, McDonald’s Director of Sensory Science, Quality Systems, U.S. Supply Chain Management, McDonald’s must be consistent in the quality and taste of food products across the global market, from Alabama to Australia (“Trends & Innovation”, n.d.).  E-learning training supports McDonald’s mission of quality and consistence and provides an effective on-the-job training tool to promote consistent training for all employees. According to Smith and Drago (2004), all employees should be able to use the technology that facilitates e-learning (Smith & Drago, 2004).  Managers must ensure that new employees are able to easily access the training and have a meaningful learning experience.  Additionally, companies should hold front line managers accountable for their staff’s e-learning course completion (Smith & Drago, 2004). 

 

Companies should have systems in place to inform all new hires about training and development programs (Smith & Drago, 2004). Employees should be knowledgeable about opportunities to grow within McDonald’s, especially since employees seek other employment opportunities when there is no clear career path (Smith & Drago, 2004).

Basic reading skills and math skills are necessary skills in most working environments. Although Hamburger University’s primary goal is to develop managers, these managers must be able to read, write, and calculate in order to run restaurants efficiently.  Additionally, managers must have these basic skills in order to train new employees with text-based manuals and on the e-learning system.  Students may also need to brush up on academic skills in order to be successful in courses requiring numerical skills and effective reading skills to be successful in courses (Johnson, 2004  HU should work with students to address their basic skills needs before courses begin (Johnson, 2004).

 

Conclusion

 

Hamburger University runs an effective training and development program. Implementing the proposed learner support system can enhance the current program by expanding access to management courses, supporting e-learning and promoting opportunities to all employees. 

 

References

 

American Council on Education (2013). McDonald’s Corporation. Retrieved from http://www2.acenet.edu/credit/?fuseaction=browse.getOrganizationDetail&FICE=955564

 

Combs, C., Franklin, D., Tatum, C., & Wingate, G. (2013). McDonald’s Hamburger University: A case study. Unpublished case study, University of Maryland University College.

 

Johnson, M. (2004).  Enhancing study skills: Developing self-help materials for distance learners. In J. E. Brindley, C. Walti, & O. Zawacki-Richter (Eds.), Learner support in open, distance and online learning environments: Vol.9 (pp. 169-178). [Adobe Digital Edition]. Retrieved from Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg website: http://www.uni-oldenburg.de/en/

 

Kannenberg, L. (2008). McDonald’s moves to online training for restaurant workers [Press release]. Retrieved from http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/display.aspx

 

McDonald’s Training & Innovation. (n.d.). Barbara Booth. Retrieved from http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/food_quality/trends_innovation/barbara_booth.html

 

Smith, L., & Drago, K. (2004). Learner support in workplace training [e-chapter]. In J. E. Brindley, C. Walti, & O.

Zawacki-Richter (Eds.), Learner support in open, distance and online learning environments: Vol.9 (pp. 169-178). [Adobe Digital Edition]. Retrieved from Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg website: http://www.uni-oldenburg.de/en/

 

Stahmer, A. (1995). Learners in the workplace. In J. M. Roberts & E. M. Keough (Eds.), Why the information highway: Lessons from open and distance learning (pp. 41-59). Toronto: Trifolium Books Inc.