McDonald's Supersizes Its Recruitment Strategy

"We are taking a serious look at where our money and resources are being spent with the aim of increasing the diversity of our talent pool," emphasized Stacy Sotiropoulos at McDonald's Global Inclusion and Diversity Benchmarking event. Sotiropoulos is a member of McDonald's HR department and was on hand along with Irene Franze, director for US talent management, to discuss the company's recruitment strategy.

That they have had issues attracting high talent is an understatement. For decades, McDonald's continued to supersized its menu but failed to place the same emphasis on the learning and development of its workforce. When Harris revamped the diversity department, this became a core piece of the equation. Led by Franze, the talent management team today has evolved beyond a simple recruitment strategy.

Franze described her team's focus as three-pronged:

1. Strategic training and mentoring of employees with diverse ethnicities and genders toward leadership roles;
2. Developing and training local leaders at restaurants as well as corporate offices; and
3. Ensuring diverse pools of candidates when hiring externally.

Sotiropoulos, who began by discussing why McDonald's emphasis on diversity was an important factor in her decision to join the company, described 2010 as a "year of awareness." Everything underwent intense internal scrutiny: From its education policies and outreach, to internal and external relationships, job board utilizations as well as how all this was playing into the talent they weren't attracting.

Emphasizing that her team recruited only for the Oak Brook location—company headquarters—Sotiropoulos next moved on to McDonald's new talent acquisition strategy. A new strategy, she began, must encompass more visibility. And this is how they plan on attracting talented candidates:

1. More participation in career fairs;
2. Attract job candidates to website, which has recently also seen massive additions of information on careers, diversity, nutrition, CSR, etc.; and
3. Optimum job board utilization.

Bottom line: Attracting and retaining talented candidates has moved beyond an annual recruitment exercise for producers of the Big Mac. It is now an all-encompassing strategy that has evolved under the direction of Pat Harris' core vision that places inclusion and diversity central across departments, as a goal as well as the means. And to that end, the team is ready to supersize their resources toward increasing McDonald's employability rating.

Previous posts:

At McDonald's, CSR Is Everybody's Business

McDonald's Institutionalizes Diversity: Career Management for Executives

When Diversity Shifts From PR to HR