McDonalds Corporation is renowned as one of the most successful fast food restaurant across the globe and the epitome of globalization. As the largest chain of fast food restaurants worldwide, McDonalds Corporation has a customer-base of more than 60 million people every day. Since inception in the late 1950s, the corporation has experienced tremendous growth and profitability due to its sound business strategies and practices. Some of the factors that have contributed to its success include providing quick meals at reasonable prices, global expansion, and commitment to hiring the right people. A critical aspect of the firm’s success and profitability in the market is its human resource practices. This paper examines human resource practices at McDonalds Corporation and their role in the firm’s operations and success. McDonalds’ History

McDonalds Corporation was founded in the late 1950s in California by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald (Han, 2008). During this period, the two brothers run the business as a small burger stand before it was bought by Ray Kroc who transformed it into a business characterized by uniformity and conformity. As part of the transformation, Kroc developed new, uniform production methods for McDonalds based on the concept of mass production ethic. Some of the changes brought by the new production methods during the initial years of McDonalds’ operations include production of genetically-modified potato instead of the use of locally grown produce. The use of a new, uniform mass production method during this period was geared towards ensuring that the firm’s products have the same uniform taste.

Since its inception, McDonalds Corporation has experienced tremendous growth and profitability characterized by increased global expansion and a huge customer base across the world. The global expansion has made McDonalds to become one of the most respected and recognized brands across the globe. As of 2016, McDonalds Corporation operates approximately 36,900 outlets and serves nearly 69 million customers daily across the globe. Throughout the years, McDonalds shapes its operations by using sound business strategies and practices that are based on specific outcome goals. One of these critical business strategies is quick response to changing customer tastes and preferences through transforming its products. Secondly, the company operates its outlets either as affiliates, franchises or the corporation itself, which provides a solid foundation for operations and profitability.

Challenges/Opportunities Facing McDonalds

While McDonalds Corporation is renowned as one of the most successful and profitable firms in the fast foods industry, its operations has been characterized by challenges over time. In addition, the firm has faced various opportunities for enhancing its growth and profitability in the market. One of the major challenges that McDonalds Corporation is currently facing is widespread criticism regarding the nature of its foods. As the modern customer has become more health and nutrition-conscious, healthy foods have emerged as a critical issue in today’s society. Consequently, McDonalds has faced criticism regarding the health and nutrition elements in some of its food items. Even through the corporation has constantly develops new menu items to attract customers, it has been criticized of providing unhealthy food items given the large obese population in the U.S....

(Mishra & Dwivedi, 2013). In this regard, McDonalds has been criticized for promoting unhealthy food habits, especially among socio-economic classes.
Secondly, McDonalds Corporation faces challenges relating to its environmental practices given that some of its production processes are considered to have environmental contaminants of unknown origin. These questionable environmental practices are attributable to the fact that McDonalds utilizes genetically-modified potatoes for its fries rather than locally grown potatoes. The use of such raw materials is problematic to the environment since they are obtained from extreme measures that could be environmentally harmful. Third, the company faces criticism of obsession with the American culture since most of its food items are American. This challenge is evident in McDonalds’ overseas markets such as Asia where the accompanying American cultural norms in food production and items are considered relatively problematic. According to Nawaz (2011), McDonalds is facing issues regarding its human resource practices since employee motivation is low because of low wage rate, poor relationships between the workforce and management, and less reward.

In light of these challenges, McDonalds faces numerous opportunities including the need to produce healthy and nutritious food items and promote an image of a socially responsible company. The company is facing the need to adjust its menu items to meet the demands for healthy foods as well as utilizing business practices that are environmentally-friendly in order to enhance its reputation and success in the market. The other opportunity for this company is to transform its human resource strategies and practices in order to maintain a highly motivated workforce, which will in turn enhance workforce productivity.

McDonalds’ Key HR Functions

As previously mentioned, one of the most important success factors to McDonalds operations is commitment to hiring the right people and maintaining a highly motivated workforce. The firm’s human resource department plays a crucial role in personnel management through carrying out various HR functions. The key human resource functions at McDonalds Corporation include policymaking, administrative functions, bargaining and negotiating, support services, and employee welfare. The three main kinds of jobs at McDonalds Corporation are franchise owners, office employees, and restaurant staff. Additional opportunities include customer care representative, operations consultant, area supervisor, and trainee manager. Each of these opportunities or jobs has different career growth paths given the different roles and responsibilities in every job.

The company’s human resource department handles recruitment and selection, compensation and benefits, and training and development of employees. In relation to recruitment and selection, McDonalds utilizes a decentralized approach in which its franchises recruit internally or externally depending on their specific needs. Additionally, the corporation has a comprehensive recruitment and selection process that includes two-week trials. McDonalds Corporation is also committed to employee training and development and uses different training methods including orientation, on-the-job, and classroom training. In relation to compensation and benefits, the firm has established a system of benefits and rewards based on performance, which…