McDonalds Restaurants Corporation is an American restaurant chain that specializes in fast food including French fries, Hamburgers, Sandwiches, Coffee, Soft drinks, Desserts, and Milkshakes among others (Jehanzeb, Hamid, & Rasheed, 2015).Roy Croc founded the company in 1955 when he opened the first restaurant in Des Plaines, US. The Food Chain has experienced great success and is currently the largest fast food vending chain in America, followed by Burger King, with over 32,000 stores worldwide. It has its presence in approximately 119 countries worldwide and serves more than 50 million customers daily(Lewis & Heckman, 2006).
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McDonalds Restaurants have achieved and maintained success in the both locally and in the international markets employing business-level and corporate-level policies that pay attention to their customers and observe their different cultures. The company also employs employee development strategies that help in ensuring that employees are equipped and motivated to deliver the required level of customer service.
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The main goal of Talent Management in the modern business world is in order to develop high performing and committed future leaders (Eaglen, Lashley, & Thomas, 2000).The company has cultivated a culture that not only supports but also demands that employees lean and develop their skills. This has ensured that there is always a diverse pool of potential replacement candidates available, which has been one of the major backbones of MacDonald Restaurants’ success over the years. The company’s brand runs under the doctrines that talent is critical for success. This has been the driving force behind Macdonald’s training programs for over 50 years (Lewis & Heckman, 2006).
Talent Management Program that led to Success for the Company
Success is never guaranteed, but after McDonald’s lost four CEO’s as a result of death and illness, which resulted in losses, it formed a talent management team to ensure that there is continuous supply of replacements leaders (Eaglen, Lashley, & Thomas, 2000). The talent management team focuses on a number of initiatives including enhancing employee’s performance and talent development; improving the process of planning succession; and initiating as well as implementing leadership programs such as the McDonald’s Leadership Institute. Although the initial plan was that the program would focus on executive-level positions, this has changed and the focus has since expanded to the entire workforce in all the ranks.
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Merging today’s leaders with future leaders in an environment that promotes development ensures that the company has leadership talent to drive it both in the present and in future. Some of the key elements of the talent plan include forecasting leadership situation; performance assessment; and to advance potential. The program helps those charged with governance identify key leadership position backups, analyze diversity; and improve strategies that help retain employees.
Strengths of the Program and how they led to Goal Accomplishment
Linking business strategy and talent is one of the main reasons why this strategy helped the company accomplish its goals. It helps to ensure that the company identifies and natures employees who have the potential to lead the company successfully. Employee training begins with showing them how to provide great customer service and extends to higher levels where they are enrolled into programs that help them own their own franchises.
McDonalds Restaurants Corporation also ensures that the plan is always approached with discipline and progress tracked. The program was initiated at the top level and carried down the organization gradually. This gave those charged with governance time to learn and master its implementation. Furthermore, the program does not give much emphasis to empirical data, which ensures that the truth is not exaggerated to suit any employee’s personal goals.
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Another factor that contributed to the success of this program is continuous accelerated development. Having been introduced over 50 years ago, the McDonalds Restaurants Corporation’s training program strategies keep becoming outdated and their effectiveness tends to lower with time (Williams‐Lee, 2008). To counter these, the company ensures that it introduces new relevant strategies to ensure effectiveness and continue the talent development culture. For instance, in 2003, the company introduced the Leadership @ McDonald’s Program (LAMP), then the European Leadership Development Program (ELDP) in 2004 (Jehanzeb, Hamid, & Rasheed, 2015).MacDonald Restaurants Corporation also has cultural tailored training programs such as the Asian Leadership Development Program (ALDP) and the Middle Eastern & African Leadership Development Program (Williams‐Lee, 2008). These programs are applied in different parts of the world, especially in regions that have strict cultural beliefs and practices.
Opportunities for Improvement in the Talent Management Planning Process
There are several specific factors, which are likely to dictate the talent management approaches, policies and strategies employed. These factors can be divided into two major parts including external and internal factors. McDonalds Restaurants Corporation just like other companies faces a number of changes in their efforts of managing talent (Williams‐Lee, 2008). These changes have created both challenges and opportunities. One of the main changes that have created opportunities for the company is workforce make-up shift (Lewis & Heckman, 2006). This has in turn changed the way the organizations recruits, improve and retain talent.
A gradually growing global labor market and virtual workplace has created a extremely diverse workforce, in relation to age, culture and race. These diverse workforces are well informed about the career opportunities available to them leaders (Eaglen, Lashley, & Thomas, 2000). Employees are increasingly becoming independent minded and they have easy access information. McDonalds Restaurants should take advantage of this in identifying employees who are committed to self-growth and development. Such employees are more likely to make great future leaders hence the company should introduce strategies that will help them identify them.
Effective Approaches to Meet the Talent Management Challenges in the Future
Employees are among the most valuable assets in any organization, McDonald’s Restaurants Limited included. If an organization is committed to achieving its goals and objectives, it must ensure that its employees remain productive and affective. One strategy that McDonald’s Restaurants employ to ensure this is by providing its employees with proper training that helps enhance their skills. It is thus safe to say that employee training and development has become a company’s requirement rather than an option (Lewis & Heckman, 2006). As discussed earlier, McDonald’s Restaurants has implemented different forms of training strategies for both its new and its existing employees. The company has faced a number of challenges while implementing these strategies.
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One of the challenges is that some employees are not happy with the current strategies, which greatly reduces their effectiveness leaders (Eaglen, Lashley, & Thomas, 2000). I would recommend that the company formulates and implements employee development strategies that employees will play a bigger part in, especially in the selection stages. A good example of how this could be achieved is through asking employees to enroll themselves into various training programs willingly instead of making it compulsory or having managers enroll employees that they deem suitable.
Another challenge that the company faces when developing talent is shortage of resources. Talent development is not only expensive in terms of money but also in terms of time spent training employees. I would recommend that McDonald Restaurants Corporation link talent management and strategic planning. By so doing, the company can better their use of strategic allocation of duties to accelerate talent development. This would in turn save on time spent developing talent.
In conclusion, talent management helps companies create a pool of current and future leaders thus securing the company’s future. Though McDonald Corporation does not represent all companies; there are several lessons that can be deduced from their successful talent management strategies. Additionally, employing the appropriate business-level and corporate-level strategies can help corporations to successfully motivate their employees; identify, nature and retain talent; and exploit their opportunities for growth.
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