Why McDonalds could be good for your health

The NHS could learn a lot about performance management from fast food giant McDonalds, an NHS executive said last week.

Hugh Taylor, human resources director of the NHS Executive, told a conference of NHS HR professionals that the McDonalds approach to generating ideas from staff and standardising good practice across the company was a model for the health service.

NHS HR managers could adopt McDonalds techniques when they implement a new NHS performance management framework, due to be outlined by the Government this week.

Taylor said the chain’s approach to change management could also teach the health service lessons.

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“The challenge will be to control developments in the way we do things – we will get a McDonalds approach if we do this,” Taylor told delegates at the annual conference of health service body, the AHHRM, in Dublin.

Taylor seemed unconcerned that the McDonalds comparison could backfire if staff who are unhappy about pay and conditions compared their pay and conditions to “Macjobs”, the catchphrase invented to describe low paid work with few prospects.