McDonald's bosses to boost job image

Thursday, June 23, 2005; Posted: 8:21 a.m. EDT (12:21 GMT)

Finding talented employees is tough for all fast-food companies.

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (Reuters) -- McDonald's Corp. this week rallied its restaurant managers to a new campaign to improve the poor image of McDonald's jobs.

After years of listening to attacks on its employees as burger-flippers with no benefits and opportunities for advancement, McDonald's executives said they hope to enlist the company's more than 13,000 U.S. managers in an aggressive campaign to reverse that perception.

As part of that effort, McDonald's opened its managers' convention to the media for the first time. Reporters, however, were kept on a tight leash and accompanied by company-appointed chaperones at all times during the Las Vegas event.

In his opening remarks at the manager's convention, McDonald's North America President Ralph Alvarez promised managers that the company was working hard to improve the image of their jobs.

"We can redefine what it means to be a McDonald's employee," he said.

Merriam-Webster in 2003 defined the term "McJob" as "low-paying and dead-end work," while many McDonald's managers said their biggest challenge was recruiting and keeping staff.

As evidence of the attempt to change that outlook, Alvarez pointed to a new television commercial in which a man in a business suit tells a McDonald's counterman that he, too, once worked at McDonald's, and he asked managers to share their own stories to spread the word about careers at the chain.

The speech did not strike a chord with all the restaurateurs.

Asked whether Alvarez' remarks had had an impact on her, Debbie Orr, a restaurant manager for the past 28 years from Gorham, New Hampshire, replied, "Apparently not, I can't come up with anything."

But Donta Thomas, a McDonald's manager from Baltimore, said opportunities for career advancement have been evident to him throughout his 18 years with the company and that he had never had trouble motivating staff members.

"I don't think (people) look down on a job at McDonald's," he said.

At the crux of the fast-food industry's image problems are the long hours employees often work and campaigns by industry groups against minimum wage increases, according to Dave Pavesic, a professor of hospitality at Georgia State University's Robinson College of Business.

Restaurant staff turnover of roughly 130 percent and manager turnover of about 42 percent, according to restaurant chain research firm People Report, has also made matters difficult for the industry's image.

Finding talented employees is getting tougher for all fast-food companies, according to People Report founder Joni Thomas Doolin, due to stricter immigration policies and fewer teenagers in the work force.

Jackie Paris, a franchisee who owns six McDonald's restaurants in Gainesville, Florida, said she would like to see the company offer more incentives and benefits to employees throughout the system.

Kristin Smith, a restaurant manager from Port Orange, Florida, said she appreciated the help with training and managing employee shifts.

"More people are proud to work at McDonald's than they were before," Smith said. "People look at McDonald's and see that they are changing."