Introduction:

History of McDonald’s

Food culture has been dominated by fast food outlets for the last few decades In America, and
McDonald's is king in fast food. McDonald's is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food
restaurants which is serving more than 58 million customers daily. They use Simple and efficient format.
It really helped the brothers to produce huge amount of food in a short period of time. And also, at very
low prices. They provide a basic hamburger which costs 15 cents and about half the price charged by
competing restaurants. Self-service counter helped them to eliminate the need for waiters and
waitresses. Customers received their food and hamburgers were cooked ahead of time, wrapped, and
warmed under heat lamps. In 1948 by brothers Maurice (“Mac”) and Richard McDonald in San
Bernardino, California the first McDonald’s restaurant was started. They bought appliances for their
small hamburger restaurant and the very first McDonald's restaurant opened in Des Plaines Illinois on
April 15, 1955. $366.12 was their first day sales. By 1965 there would be over 700 M.C.’s throughout the
United States.

The first McDonald's, Des Plaines Illinois, 1955

McDonald’s first public face of was created in 1963. They introduced a clown named Ronald McDonald,
while the double-arch “m” symbol became McDonald’s most enduring logo in 1962, lasting far longer
than the tall yellow arches that had once dominated the earlier restaurant rooftops. Other products and
symbols would define the McDonald’s brand, including the Big Mac (1968), the Egg McMuffin (1973),
Happy Meals (1979), and Chicken Nuggets (1983).

Domestically and internationally the chain continued to expand. Extending to Canada in 1967, reaching a
total of 10,000 restaurants by 1988. In the early 21st century they operated more than 35,000 outlets in
more than 100 countries. Growth was so swift in the 1990s that it was said a new McDonald’s opened
somewhere in the world every five hours. Successfully it became the most popular restaurant. As a
family restaurant it emphasized affordable food, fun, and flavors that appealed to children and adults
alike.
Present position

McDonald’s has made itself to be the family friendly low-cost restaurant in the fast food business. It is a
customer-based restaurant and follows low-cost strategy.

McDonald's today:

Number of Global Restaurants: More than 32,000

Number of Countries: 117

Number of worldwide employees: 1.7 million

Percentage of franchised restaurants around the world: More than 75%

Doing different activities than your competitors or doing the same activities differently is defined as
Strategic Positioning. For a superior performance in the industry companies all should follow the way for
better performance. Many people describe their positioning based on their customer base for an
example Burger King focuses on young adult males as their target customer. Their strategy and
positioning are directed to satisfy this sector of the market. On other hand Wendy's has made a
different positioning and they base their positioning to satisfy the older health conscious individuals.
Burger King and Wendy’s both differ from McDonald’s strategy. When one simplifies things down it
turns out there are only two basic types of positioning one is low cost and another one is differentiation.
This is how one can choose to serve, customer base or else how customer base guides to operate. Pick
customer base on either broad or narrow scope. The company may select one or both categories to
achieve average results and be mediocre. McDonald’s has selected one and doing it

Product and services:

McDonald’s offers food in their menu for instance French fries, hamburgers, milkshakes, and
cheeseburgers among many others, the fast food giant has also expanded to serving fish, fruits, salads,
and smoothies. McDonald’s serves close to 69 million consumers in more than 100 countries and this is
where most of their 24.6 billion dollars’ worth of revenue (as at 2016) is generated from.

Hamburgers -Hamburger
(Double Cheeseburger ,Triple Cheeseburger)
- Triple Cheeseburger
- Big Mac
- Quarter Pounder
 - Big N' Tasty
- McDouble
(Bacon McDouble ,Daily Double)
- McFeast
-Other notable burgers

Chicken -McChicken
-McNuggets
-Premium Chicken Sandwiches
(Premium Chicken Deluxe,Grilled Chicken
Deluxe,Tasted Crafted,Deli Choices)
- Snack Wrap
-Premium Chicken McWrap
-Chicken McBites
-McArabia
-Buttermilk Crispy Tenders
-Other notable chicken products

Fish
Pork

Sauces Szechuan Sauce

Other services - Salads

-Sides
(Loaded Fries)
-The Happy Meal

Breakfast - McMuffins
-Breakfast Sandwiches
(Bagels)
-Breakfast Wraps
-All Day Breakfast
 -All Day Lunch
-Additional Breakfast Items

Beverages -Soft Drinks

-Coffee and tea
-Shakes
-Alcoholic Beverages
-Frozen Beverages

Desserts

Service Design Model

McDonald's always try to properly use a restricted food menu, division of labor, a homogenous product,
assembly-line strategy, task groping to enable specialized skills, all applied to the practical principle that
is shielded from the customer. Product quality and customer satisfaction are the basis steps which they
follow. Which McDonald's to make the exceptional fast food service in town? McDonald's was
established and the service has been based on few concepts like first-class quality, value, and cleanness.
These all helped them to become an essential service direction of the company's marketing operations
(Thornton et al., 2016). And moreover, the service concept is simplified by the employees. Employees
also helped to reveal positive attitudes and commitment aimed. It assisted to get customer satisfaction.
In this case, McDonald's restaurants paid attention on attracting customer by the quality full food in a
very cheap rate and employing the best. At the same time, they offer the finest place to work.

McDonald's ensure a very strict sanitary principle to keep a clean kitchen. Also, they overlook the dining
environment. McDonald's aims to offer distinctive service quality and high value to its customers as it
are broadly recognized that the service quality is a major aspect in defining the accomplishment of a
company (Schaarschmidt, 2016). The company has a belief that it is more convincing in marketing the
brand by using the service concept along with the service operation. According to Hanks and Wansink
(2013), the continuous change across the globe calls for an appropriate service operation in any business
corporation that is in line with the changing customer preferences.

Competitions:

McDonald's competition is diverse and boundary less as in the market there are thousands of
competitors. As a company McDonald’s competes with large international and national food chains. As
well as regional and local retailers of food products and it competes globally on price, convenience,
service, menu variety, and product quality in the fragmented restaurant industry.
As we discussed above, McDonald’s faces competition from local food outlets to global food chains. So,
competition is fierce for McDonald’s. It competes directly with similar format chains such as Yum!
Brands (YUM), The Wendy’s Company (WEN), Domino’s Pizza (DPZ), Burger King, and Jack in the Box
(JACK). It’s also facing increased competition from other formats such as Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG),
The Cheesecake Factory (CAKE), Panera Bread, and many more.

Additionally, Starbucks (SBUX), Darden Restaurants (DRI), Tim Hortons, and Bloomin’ Brands (BLMN) are
some other food and coffee providers that offer people options when they plan to eat out.

Market Share:

Market leaders of fast food is McDonald’s, with a market of 22% globally. Where Burger king holds 3.2%
and Starbucks holds 4.6% of share. It refers they have a strong control over the global share market.

Objectives:
Question: 1

What do you think McDonalds training initiatives are aligned with business strategy? Explain
the reason for it. Why is it important to establish business strategy –training linkage?

Answer: Yes, the objectives of training initiatives taken by McDonald’s are aligned with business

strategies.

From the organizational perspective, this represents a successful and on -going initiative. Most

importantly, the results can be seen in feeding through to levels of customer satisfaction .This is

essential for a corporate goal of creating value around the employees , a measurable value and

sense of competitive differentiation , or as McDonald’s says, unlocking the power of our people

. HR functions have always served as a supporting tool to the strategic levels. The design and

implementation of the strategic option chosen by the company depends fundamentally on the

human factor.

Important of business strategy –training linkage

I. Training helps the firms Readiness preparation for New Opportunities and Threats.
II. Training Impacts the firm’s Productivity and Efficiency.
III. Training helps firms Differentiate themselves in the market place.
IV. Training helps the firms to innovate new things.
V. The integration of training in the firms Business strategies Increases.
VI. Impact of Training on the firms competitiveness.

Question:2

Discuss how McDonalds strategic commitment to training has contributed to its position as a “Leading
global food service retailer”.

Answer: McDonald’s strategic commitment to training is “as the way we do business around here”. The
founder of McDonalds was well prepared to invest a great deal money only for its training staff. It was
initially aimed at growing number of franchises, a learning process through which the founder could
assert control over his cherished standards of quality, service, cleanliness, and value.

Being in leading global foodservice retailer McDonalds strategic commitment to training has
contributed a lot.

Its founder Kroc’s philosophies & beliefs about learning and work are now known as the company’s
attitude to training and development today.

Instead of looking for degrees on hamburger ology and experience or formal training in the food
preparation, restaurant and service business the owner is looking for different mix of dedication,
entrepreneur, and wider skills in service and quality.
Belief in ‘Try anything’ philosophy that would better deliver the national brand.

Giving considerable initial and ongoing training at crew level which is consistently applied to everybody
in the business, whether it is part time, full time, hourly based paid staff or salaried managers
undergoing their compulsory in-restaurant training.

Question: 3

Examine Ray Kroc’s training philosophy .How has McDonald’s gained from this philosophy?

Answer: The company’s attitude to training and development today can be traced straight back to Kroc’s

Philosophies and beliefs about learning and work. Kroc’s focused mainly on quality standards, services,
cleanliness, and value. In this course he avoided Recruiting people who wanted to do it their way, the
way that they had learned through their formal Training in catering. Instead, he saw a different mix of
dedication, entrepreneurship and wider skills in service and quality as the right type of skill mix. He
freely admitted to putting the burger in the assembly line, a process where traditional catering and
restaurant were absolute. His try anything philosophy delivered McDonalds as a national brand.

The current training methods and strategies that the McDonald’s follow now is a better reflection of
Kroc’s philosophy. The entire development planat McDonald’s stem from the same essential principles
that Kroc’s introduced in 1950s. I.e. quality, service, and cleanliness .Kroc’s philosophies helped
McDonalds in achieving better employee and customer satisfaction and drastically reduced staff
turnover rate.

Question: 4

How Relevant is training and development for a company like McDonalds’ which is seen as deskilled?

Answer: Training and development provides:

 Employee Development (Job fit)

 Maintaining Better Connection with Diverse Customer Base.
 Enhancing personal and professional effectiveness
 Building skills for management in inclusive and diverse workforce.
 Improves employee’s satisfaction level.

Question: 6

Discuss the training and management development process at McDonald’s with respect to its design,

purpose, methods and content. What org cultural goals does it help McDonald’s achieve? Evaluate

McDonald’s T&D process based on your understanding of the process based on your understanding of
the process of training.

Answer:

Design: Orientation and Introduction

 Welcome meetings.
 Structured Development Programmed
 Floor –based or on- the- job training as a people learn more while practicing
 Classroom – based training sessions where they complete workbooks for quality, service and
cleanliness.
 The employees are rated after three months on their performance and they are either retained
or have their employment terminated
 Training and Management Development: After the induction program the employees go
through an individual training programmed.
 There is no set time limit for these on –the – job training plans.
 The tightly controlled process is called the one best way. It covers all areas of business, from
meeting and greeting, to food preparation, to cleaning the floor.
 To reduce monotony in the process, crew members are rotated through a number of different
roles.
 Training is delivered and assessed through a variety of methods such as shoulder to shoulder,
classroom programs and e- learning models.

Purpose:

-The purpose of training was to insist control and maintain high standards of quality, service, and
cleanliness &value.

Method:

 On the job training

 Classroom –based training sessions,
 E- learning models
 Job Rotations

Content:

Courses for management development include:

 Employee relations training

 Time Management
  Staff retention and discipline
 personal leadership and effecting coaching
 Employee Communication
 Learning to manage shifts
 Community image
 Managing staff development
 Optimizing restaurant food cost
 Accounting & Financial procedure.

Theoretical explanation
The purpose of strategic training is to prepare managers and employees with the skills they need to
complete their work tasks both efficiently and effectively and help them reach your company's main
goals. And in the case we see that McDonald is aligned with business strategy through training
initiatives. This training usually first happens when an employee or manager begins to step into the
role and often involves both job shadowing of experienced workers and course-related activities. Not
only does a strategic training plan focus on improving the quality of work in the present, but it is
developed to make your workforce more competitive in the long term. Strategic development's
purpose is to enhance those skills your employees and managers already possess. You might use
developmental activities to assist employees who are underperforming in their work based on your
findings from performance reviews, or you might use them to teach new skills that changes in the
work environment now require. As with strategic training, a strategic development plan has a long-
term outlook that will create a strong, prepared workforce who will assist with your company's long-
term growth and success. Training helps McDonald’s to gain customer satisfaction, creating values
around the employees to gain corporate goals, creates a sense of completive differences . According to
Holden and Livian (1992) many of the European countries have increased their training expenditure. On
the other hand Bishop (1993) suggests that accurate costing of training, and poor firm performance
often results in cuts in training budget. In the current research all the interviewees agreed with Bratton
and Gold (2003) and told that HRD is process of changing an organization, its employees and group of
people within it. McDonald’s is a very well-known and large scale organization so they can afford to
spend on HRD but if we take a look at small organization it is very difficult for them to implement official
human resource development Another important point is that the Restaurants always profits and
productivity these two things are always on top priority and they are not willing to lose this focus from
profits and productivity when concentrating on development of resources. Organization always needs to
understand that HRD must increase profitability factors for the organization but workforce capabilities
should be improved. The training should not be given for the sack of training there should be a purpose
behind it. The organization looks at to improve employees skills-set so that organization can achieve its
competitive advantages. McGoldrick et al, (2001) tells a very similar and simple view and suggest that
the organization that always looks and focus at improving the skill-set of their employees they always
achieve competitive advantages over other organization in similar industry. By focusing on employees
skill-set can increase the work force which can manage more tasks and do the task in less time. Another
aspect that Desimone et al, (2002) observed was the lack of measure of assessing training needs arising
from strategic goals, poor developed systems for evaluating training effectiveness, and insufficient
information systems to capture record analyses and communicate human resource Development
information. In current research none of the manager suggested disadvantages of the process affiliated
with the running of the good HRD process so this aspect was not raised.
It can be seen in literature review on training and development in chapter 2 that training with strategic
commitment is always considered as very important factor in growth and development of any
organization (Bratton and Gold, 2003). They also argue that training is a kind of luxury for small
organization they cannot afford it. But in the current research the organization is not small it is a
worldwide organization and also very well-known organization so it can afford training. They will not
look at affordability factor. In current research organizational training is not optional but employees can
avoid it by opting out the management training but still normal training is required to maintain the
standard of the organization. If there is a new product, promotion, or any new process comes in the
current organization in that case employees has to go through training weather he want it or not.
Management training can be avoidable but normal training which is necessary for the flour is must.
Training doesn’t include only fees of course but cost on term of absence from the organization at that
period of time is also counts. If we see in current organization here absence because of training cost
doesn’t count. It is why that most of the training is given within the organization mostly on the flour
except of that managerial trainings otherwise this factor is ignored.

 Training and development is a process by which managers find right people for right job and they move
right people to organization ladder and give them required training so that they can manage their
responsibilities effectively and efficiently. If we look in HRD prospective according to Torrington et al,
(2005) training is the first and most common HRD activity that always focuses on employees learning,
skill, knowledge and attitudes to perform a job. Training development is second important activity which
focuses on learning new skill, knowledge, and attitudes to do that job perfectly or to do a new job in the
future time.

Raelin (2000) said that from the prospective of employer’s training and development also ensures
decrease in cost of recruitment as well as decrease in rate of turnover. The interviewees suggested that
for employers the benefit includes the improve productivity, better quality of service decrease in
turnover and flexible work force. In today fast food industry they need staff with multiple skills to deal
with highly flexible nature of work so companies should focus on building a workforce that is competent,
flexible, adoptable and highly professional. Finally when they were questioned about benefits of training
and development to the line managers working on the flour they suggested that flexible and adoptable
nature of the trained staff helped a lot on the flour to ensure high efficiency and customer satisfaction.
And they are also very cooperative with the line managers.

Conclusion
The current result tried to highlight the importance of training and development and the factors which
make training and development for large scale companies like current research organization,
McDonald’s Restaurants Limited. Employees are the main asset for any organization and in the current
research if we look at the literature review it is proved that people are the main assets. There is another
important factor which was noticed that if any organization wants to achieve its goals or competitive
advantages employees of that organization must be productive and affective. The management cannot
achieve any objective if the employees are not well trained and effective. It is very necessary to enhance
the employee’s skill-set if company want to gain competitive advantages over the competitors. This will
not be wrong if we say that it became an organizational need that employees should be well trained and
so that they can handle the different situations. In the literature review different kinds of training are
mentioned which should be given to the employees. Both the new and existing employees should be
trained equally because only training can make them perfect and they will be able to maintain the
standard of the organization. Especially the employers which are moving the ladder of the organization
should be trained very well because they are going to manage the organization later. Human resource
Manager should take training as a serious issue and need to find the right people who need training in
the organization. The main objective of this case was to understand that why training and development
is most important for the organization and also to understand it organization as well as employees point
of view. It is proved from research that organizations do not train staff just to improve their abilities but
they want to improve employee’s capabilities as well so that they can help organization in long term.

Human resource development organization design, learning, work place learning, job design, training
and development and by using training and development and using training to understand the influence
of training and development in McDonald’s restaurant. In current situation we think according to the
case the other different issues which are directly related T&D. The considerable areas like motivation
organization design, structure, job satisfaction as areas that could be a great way to develop the
restaurants industry.

The most important part of this case is related to ensure employees skill-sets which further leads to
organization development and also gave competitive advantages to the organization like over
competitors. Planned and unplanned learning are very important to achieve and maintain competitive
advantages for the organization. The second important aspect was organization development and it
bring change in organization and the peoples, culture of the organization. Another important part is
organizational development by making work force more effective, improves quality of work and
enforces empowerment along with making culture of new learning among the staff.

Another important aspect was the organization implements, organizational learning and believes the
organizational learning. As McDonald’s is a worldwide organization and they have a well reputation so
they are aware of the advantages for the organization. That is why organization in discussion focusing a
lot on training and development. Organization knows well that the training and development in
increasing motivation and job satisfactory levels. Improves skill-set and maximum pay rise. Similarly for
the employer there are huge benefits for training and development which includes productivity,
improved quality of service, reduced turnover, efficient and flexible work force. Managers learn various
different things from training and they can implement on the floor. Hence it will not be wrong that
training makes line manager more flexible and adaptable. And the staff who get training they can co-
operate very well with the manager to achieve the goal of an organization. This could be said that
effective use of training of development in the organization makes sure there are many peoples who can
work on different position on different times depending on the need of the organization.

Recommendation:
1. Service Differentiation:
The service differentiation strategy implies that McDonald’s shall offer superior services at each step of
the customer touch points right from the placement of order through the delivery of the products.
Managers of McDonalds are trained professionally. As a result, they can train employees well.
McDonald’s employees are evaluated high by customers because of their behaviors as well as attitude.
However, customers are not pleased at the idea of waiting in long lines and insufficient employees to
handle the volume of customers. Just the minority, but sometimes the employees are rude forcing the
customers to go to a competitor’s restaurant next time. At the market which has high market share and
very huge number of customers such as USA, Canada or United Kingdom, this issue occurs more
frequently. McDonalds should find a way to solve it. For example, the company has to rent more
employees and increase their salary in order to keep them working for a long time. This time is just
enough for them to get skills to service customers well. Besides, it is necessary to increase the number
of employees at the weekend or in the lunch time. More employees mean that pressures are shared and
avoid the bad attitudes.

2. Personnel Differentiation:
The availability of well-trained staff is essential for delivery of high quality service to the customers.
McDonald's should continue to invest in the training and development of its employees to ensure high
service quality. Well-structured training programs shall ensure the long term growth of the organization.

3. Integrated Promotional Mix:

McDonald’s can implement an integrated promotion mix that has a balance of both traditional and
modern digital media for brand promotions. McDonalds uses social media in the form of commercials,
radio ads, and other ads posted on Instagram, Facebook, and twitter to advertise many of its products.
Through social media McDonalds reaches a younger audience through its many promotional ads posted
online. By hooking in all different targets and not focusing on one particular group of people to target it
allows them to increase its sales. Because technology is so widely used by many different groups of
people, McDonalds would greatly benefit if it is up to date with all of the information systems that are
being used. For example some McDonalds use the E-Payment which allows customers to order and pay
through the IPhone 6, 6plus and apple watch. This makes ordering easy for only a few because not every
McDonald’s is implementing this system. They cannot limit this only to Apple users because not
everyone is 100 percent
Working together is the only option to advance so they need to collaborate not only with apple but
other companies.

4. Product Augmentation:
McDonald’s can offer additional product and service features such as food on demand and home
delivery so as to provide convenience to customers. Product quality can be further enhanced with fresh
ingredients. McDonald’s should continue to invest in menu customization and menu standardization
strategies to attract and connect with target customers in diverse geographical markets. However, the
company seems not diversify its products regularly while competitors are stronger and have new
products gradually. First, one thing McDonald should focus on is that the play place for kids. McDonalds
has play place but not in every restaurants. If you eat in McDonald’s restaurant, you can be free to party
while your children play at the place for kids. Customers love this service. Thus, if it is popularized in all
restaurant of company, customers will be more satisfy and of course they want to comeback regularly.
Moreover, toys have to be cared much more with many new interesting toys as well as safety. Jolly Bee
is one brand which applies this strategy very successful. McDonalds can learn from Jolly Bee developing
this service to improve its market position. Next, even if the company’s menu is still relatively
inexpensive compare to that of its competitors, it is not totally enough. Because apart from price,
customers also make decision rely on menu. After bring a fresh menu with tuna sandwich and salad in
some restaurants, especially in Britain and get support from a lot of customers, there is no new one like
that. McDonalds focus too much on cheese, beef or chicken menu, more than vegetable. For instance,
McDonalds has fruit slice in menu. However, it is served once a week. In the recent time, with the
change in eating habit of a large part of customers, McDonalds also should change. Company should
bring new vegetarian products to restaurant’s menu. An organic menu is very necessary. This would give
customers an alternative while allowing McDonalds to maintain its market share globally.

5. Market Extension:
McDonalds has great expansion capabilities abroad. According to the grand matrix, market development
is one strategy that McDonalds should implement. Company should prepare an international strategy
which focus on big cities along with high populated areas, especially in Asia.
There are not many McDonald restaurants in this potential market. Japan is the only Asian country
which has a lot of McDonald’s fast food restaurants. In contrast, China is considered as one of the
biggest market in the world because of this country’s population. Nevertheless, according to the recent
figures, China is just in ninth position among the countries which have McDonald’s restaurants with
about 1000 restaurant while this number in US is about 14000. If McDonalds can develop more and
more in Asia, it is a huge advantage for company to gain market share. One way McDonalds could
attract more customers is by looking at what its competitors, such as Wendy’s or Burger king, are doing
on a daily basis. By looking at what the competition is doing to attract and keep customers, McDonalds
can try to improve on what they do not have to try to attract more of its competitor’s customers. Being
versatile and doing what many of the other fast food giants do can help McDonalds become a better
service company by trying to offer something that every customer wants. While trying to attract more
customers from its competitors, McDonalds can improve its customer service to ensure every new
customer leaves satisfied and with the intention of returning