McDonald’s, winner of last year’s Personnel Today Awards overall prize, has achieved impressive results with the introduction of a user-friendly and flexible HR system called PeopleStuff.
With a UK workforce of almost 100,000, restaurant chain McDonald’s needed to ensure that its HR systems could cope.
In the last five years, the company has announced at least 8,000 job openings, along with having to cope with countless changes to employment legislation and the expectations of its staff.
Recognising its existing HR system had room for improvement, the company introduced PeopleStuff, which combines Oracle HR for human resources and training with Reflexis Workforce Management to handle its complex shift, time and attendance requirements.
The implementation was so successful it gained McDonald’s the coveted overall award at last year’s Personnel Today Awards, as well as the award for excellence in HR through technology.
The focus is on making the system as user-friendly as possible for the staff who use it, so McDonald’s also implemented Oracle’s Webcenter user engagement platform, which ties together different tools and makes it easier to collaborate with others.
PeopleStuff was rolled out across 1,230 restaurants, where teams can access “crew screens” to see shift allocations, swap shifts or enable staff to do extra work if they wish. Employees can also change their availability or gain manager approval.
Implementing the system on such a broad scale was quite a feat. But McDonald’s tackled this by developing three distinct streams in the roll-out programme to deal with franchises, training and business change.
This was supported by classroom sessions and more than 100,000 e-learning modules, which staff could access in their own time.
Streamlining business
There have been benefits both financially and in terms of business efficiency. Employees can access the system remotely, there is a single record per user, and the accuracy of scheduling has improved.
And because employees have control over their personal information, they can adjust their own details to a certain extent and see their payslip online.
McDonald’s predicts that introducing the new system has made sales projections 12.5% more efficient, so managers are able to see more accurately how much support they will need on a shift, and maximise their sales.
Employee engagement has also improved tangibly. Turnover is at around 32%, 8% down on the company average, while employee commitment scores are 4% higher than the overall company average, at 95%.
Managers spend less time on legal compliance and administration – typically a reduction of four hours to complete the schedule – so they are able to spend more time on the shop floor.
The changes have even made a difference to profitability, with an 0.81% improvement in profit at the restaurants that piloted the system.
Celebrating their win, Leigh Joynson, People Systems and Insights Consultant at McDonald’s UK said: “One award was fantastic, but to win the overall prize was really staggering.
“Our leadership did a brave thing taking on a project like this at in a difficult market at a difficult time.”
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The Personnel Today Awards judges clearly agreed, saying: “The right actions seem to have been taken, and in a complex environment.”
This year’s Personnel Today Awards will take place on 30 November 2015 at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London. Enter this year’s awards here.
