McDonald's

case study

The McDonald’s brand is one of the most recognisable throughout the world. Its employer brand, perhaps fittingly, is also very strong and McDonald’s UK has won many awards for its approach to staff training, benefits, reward and incentives.

But the fast food giant knew it could do more to engage and excite its 80,000 strong workforce, most of whom are in the 18-30 age bracket and the large majority of whom work offline in one of McDonald’s 1,200 restaurants.

When McDonald’s appointed Asperity to provide an employee discounts programme for its employees back in 2010, neither the McDonald’s HR team nor Asperity expected the level of success that the programme achieved in such a short space of time.

Record success

Just three months after launch, McDonald’s announced record success with the programme, having exceeded £2million in employee discount spend in that time. This equated to over £100,000 worth of savings for employees – making them very happy with their saved cash and their HR team very happy with their benefits investment!

Despite the dispersion of its workforce across 1,200 restaurants nationwide, over 60% of staff registered for the employee discounts scheme through the company’s award-winning internal staff website ‘ourlounge’, which enables McDonald’s employees to access the integrated programme quickly and easily.

Jez Langhorn, UK HR director at McDonald’s, said that providing an extensive range of benefits is essential to engaging employees. “Our employee discount scheme is a fundamental part of our employee website ‘ourlounge’. Nearly half of all our employees log on every day to look at their schedules, enter competitions, or go on the employee discounts site. Our people tell us it is one of the things they value really strongly in their benefits package. It is a central pillar of how to engage employees.”

Employee feedback

The enthusiasm for the new discounts programme was confirmed through a recent employee survey conducted by McDonald’s.

One McDonald’s employee said: “Adding a Cashback feature is a really useful addition and I will certainly be using it more in the future.”

Another added: “The website is easy to use and offers great value to everyone irrespective of their geographical location. It is as relevant to people in Scotland and Wales as it is to employees in Southern England which is great!”

Continued growth

The programme has since gone from strength to strength, recently surpassing the £15million employee spend mark and winning several awards including ‘Outstanding Employee Engagement Strategy’ in the HR Excellence Awards 2011. The scheme was also shortlisted for ‘Most Effective Use of a Voluntary Benefits Plan’ in the Employee Benefits Awards in 2011 and most recently won the ‘Grand Prix’ employee benefits prize at the Employee Benefits Awards 2012.