Diversity Action Plan for McDonalds

McDonalds is one of the largest multinational corporations operating worldwide. Its brand is recognizable in many countries of the world. At the same time, while entering new markets, the company faces a problem of functioning in the multicultural environment. To put it more precisely, the company needs to adapt to the local culture as well as provide various cultural groups with services and products that could meet their expectations and needs. It is obvious that the company has to change its style of work not only abroad but even in the US, where the cultural diversity is traditionally extremely high. In such a situation, McDonalds, being is often perceived as a symbol of Americanization or as a company reflecting American spirit, has to solve the problem of attraction of foreign cultures. This may be done in different ways, including the development of contacts with minority colleges and market recruitment to other cultures.

Basically, the development of contacts with minority colleges may be quite an effective strategy, especially in culturally diverse countries, where different communities occupy different position in society, i.e. where some ethnic or cultural groups are dominant, while others are minor. In such countries as the US, this approach may really solve the problem of attraction of foreign cultures. For instance, it is not a secret that the southern states of the US have a large share of Hispanic population, which has the culture different from traditional American one. As a result, in order to meet the demands and preferences of these people, the company has to adapt to the needs of their traditions, cuisine, and, what is probably even more important, to the communicative and cultural norms of Hispanics. What is meant here is the fact that McDonalds need to provide representative of different ethnic and cultural groups with an opportunity to feel comfortable and be able to communicate with the personnel of the company without any linguistic or cultural barriers determined by the difference in mentality between the traditional national culture and cultural norms of the particular ethnic group.

Moreover, the orientation on the minority college students is quite logical because they represent the major part of the personnel of McDonalds that is in a permanent contact with customers. Consequently, when McDonalds recruits employees from minority colleges, this will make representatives of minorities feel comfortable in McDonalds since they will deal with employees, which have the similar mentality, culture, values, etc. Obviously, many countries where McDonalds operates have some ethnic minorities which may need a special attention from the part of the company to maintain the interest of these customers to its products and services. In such a situation, the orientation on minority colleges can provide the company not only with employees that are mentally and spiritually close to the specific customer group, but they may also have a significant potential for their further professional growth.

At the same time, it is not always possible to employ the personnel from minority colleges because in some countries college students did not get used to work in such companies as McDonalds. In such a situation, the company has to choose the market recruitment to other cultures which may be also very helpful since it gives certain advantages McDonalds can use to attract the interest of customers. It is not a secret that customers will more readily use services of McDonalds if the personnel of the company perfectly understand their needs and expectations. In this respect, the company does not have much choice but to recruit employees that live in the specific cultural environment. For instance, it can be a country, where there is a distinguishable cultural group that totally dominates in society, such as Japanese in Japan. Consequently, it would be illogical to attempt to use students of minority colleges because there are actually few minorities and the long-term perspective simply forces the company to use the potential of the local personnel.

It is necessary to underline that the recruitment of the personnel that represent other cultures may be quite helpful for the increase of the effectiveness and productivity of work of employees because if they work in a culturally friendly environment, i.e. they work with customers and colleagues that represent the same culture, they will more likely to be more satisfied with their work and they will have less problems caused by cultural differences. In fact, this strategy minimizes the possibility of conflicts on the cultural basis between employees and between employees and customers. For instance, Asian and Western employees apparently have a totally different culture, style of work, traditions, norms, they have different attitude to customers that may lead to misunderstanding and even conflicts. In such a situation, the recruitment of employees that represent one and the same culture naturally solves this problem.

Thus, it is obvious that the development of contacts with minority colleges and recruitment to other cultures can improve the relationships between the personnel of McDonalds and customers and improve the atmosphere within the company, as well as provide the company with a possibility to recruit perspective, young employees.