Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The success of their company doesn’t just happen, it takes a lot of hard work and
focus on one very important detail. Even a franchise giant like McDonald’s owes a
significant amount of their success to the efficiency of their employees. The
employees are the most direct connection from customer to product.
To ensure customer satisfaction with your company, the employees need to be doing
a flawless job, considering many represent the company they work for. Although, to
get a fresh employee from a “young padawan” to an experienced, consistent, and
productive worker, there is always the grueling training process.
Managers are looking to speed up employee onboarding without sacrificing the end
result. McDonald’s recognized this and has begun to take advantage of new
technologies to improve their employee training and onboarding process.
With this platform, all content once used on paper can now be transferred to tablets
that can be accessed on site. This new transition is improving the learning
experience by combining training and kitchen work, as opposed to separating them,
speeding up the training process.
Using this technology, employees can multitask, increase their retention via training
videos, and can be sent new content immediately as it is created. The investment
McDonald’s made with Inkling is a long term profit and an intelligent move.
As this technology is implemented, McDonald’s will be able to swiftly add new menus
or policies, shorten training time, and improve consistency. Customers can now
expect the same service from a McDonald’s across the world compared to the one
across the street. McDonald’s will save money on training and maybe even a little on
paper, while making everything run smoothly in the process.
Granted, there is always room to improve. The technology itself can be pushed even
further. Rather than just transferring their training process from paper to tablet, why
not also focus on making sure that system is simple and easy to use?
We don’t know the exact details on how it all looks, but I haven’t seen much
emphasis on making sure the tech itself is efficient. Using tech to train employees is
not a new concept, so we now have options on how it might be done. It’s incredibly
important to make sure this system will be easily absorbed by employees and take
them step by step to the end result, or this might just end up in more confusion.
3. Lead by example
By open and approachable to new ideas. Ensure that each employee is encouraged
to share new ideas. This can be supported in numerous ways such as specific new
ideas, meetings, suggestion boxes, suggestion area on the internal intranet,
dedicated times and/or rooms. Many large companies often provided allocated time
for their employees to break from routine roles to inspire new thoughts – this could
be an employee retreat, allocated time each day or a day out of the office.
4. Have a process
Ensure that there is a process which everyone understands for assessing each new
idea. Employees will be encouraged to make suggestions and recommendations if
they are confident that the idea will be appropriately considered. This must be
supported by acknowledgement and feedback in a timely manner.
5. Implement quickly
Where possible, implement ideas quickly. Employees will be extremely motivated to
continue to share ideas, work towards the success of the idea and encourage
productivity of other employees when they see that they are in fact influencing the
direction of the business.
6. Reward employees
Even if the idea is not implemented, the employees should be encouraged to
suggest all ideas. Rewards can be for individuals or even teams or for the whole
workforce – the important thing is that employees see that you appreciate their
efforts to improve the business.
7. Create opportunities
Create work practices to encourage new initiatives. Have regular job swaps that
foster new perspectives from different employees. Develop cross functional teams
(employees from different parts of the business) to brainstorm improvements to
processes and other areas of the business. Introduce a new ideas or "what if?"
section to regular meetings.
8. Have a collaboration space
Have a dedicated area within the business that will promote interaction with
employees. Often informal discussions lead to improved employee relationship and
trust which can embrace collaboration that can lead to innovation. In large
companies, they often have open spaces where employees can sit and chat in a
relaxing environment.
9. Offer training
Offer training to employees that will inspire new thoughts and approaches to the
business. Employees will gain additional experience and the business will benefit
from possible new ideas and approaches that the employee has learned.
When you get to know the passions of the people involved in your business, you’ll
create a culture of acceptance that will make everyone more willing to get involved.
You never know what ideas are out there until you take a moment to hear them.
2. Put it on a schedule.
It seems like, in today’s world, in order to lend a hand you have to allow for time to
be innovative. We’re always on the go or too focused on our current task to spend
time coming up with better business solutions. If you want to foster innovation, make
time for it. Develop weekly or monthly brainstorming meetings where your team can
throw ideas around. Putting everyone face to face creates an experience that can be
remembered and offers more than an email blast.
If you’re in multiple locations, you can use Google Hangout or Skype to video call
one another. You can also use these communication tools to collaborate internally
outside of scheduled meetings. That way, your teams can share ideas regardless of
time zones or locations, which allows for innovation to happen anytime, anywhere.
4. Provide mentoring.
It won’t always be you offering one-on-one feedback to your team -- especially if you
have multiple locations. Mentorship programs are valuable connections. They help
get employees thinking outside of their expertise. To mix things up and keep them
modern, start developing reverse mentorship programs. This style allows your
younger employees to take the lead and offer their insight into technology trends and
a growing generation of customers. They will be the ones building the future of your
business, so I recommend setting them up with a foundation for success now.
Providing opportunities for creative thinking and collaboration will add value to the
lives of your employees. Build innovation into the core of your practices, and you’ll
set employees up with the tools they need to successfully execute projects and
remain inspired daily