Talent Management in McDonalds - Case Study Example

?Running head: Talent Management in McDonald’s Talent Management in McDonald’s Talent Management in McDonald’s Overview The industrial success recorded by companies and organizations, such as McDonald’s, clearly does not come on silver platter. They also do not come about as coincidences or by chance. Indeed, these successes happen as a result of series of coordinated efforts and through the implementation of carefully planned strategies and protocols. One of the aspects of the coordinated used by these organizations has to do with their talent management programs. From the account given by Goldsmith and Carter (2009), it can really be seen that McDonald’s has invested so much into talent management and that process deserves some key consideration. The present paper considers some of the key considerations. Talent Management Program that Led to Success for the Company Goldsmith and Carter (2009) outline the talent management program as used by McDonald’s in gaining market dominance in the food services industry. First, we are made to understand that the company undertook a keen alignment of the individual goals of its human resource to achieve larger goals of the organization. This alignment was necessary in ensuring that the human resource talent that the company was recruiting was people whose individual concern for success was in line with those that had been set by the company. Inferably, acts of conflict of interest were minimized if not entirely reduced. It will be observed that companies such as McDonald’s and some of its other competitors have their own organizational goals, missions and visions (Barlow, 2006). Because of this, recruiting talents that possess entirely different ambitions from these ones could be suicidal for the companies because it would eventually be like two captains who are trying to control just one ship. Even more, the case presented by Goldsmith and Carter (2009) makes a very clear case of how McDonald’s as part of its talent management program made it a core aim to identify the career paths of highest performers. This component of the talent management essentially involved two key tasks and activities, which were first to discover highest performers. In other words, the company distinguished between ordinary talent and special. This is a very important responsibility in talent management as it paves the way for human resource management policy such as the assignment of roles. Without knowing who is best in what area of operation, the phenomenon of putting round pegs in square holes may arise. The second component of this same management program was to closely and carefully link the career paths of these highest performers to suitable roles. For instance some who is best in pizzas will not be put in charge of pastries. In the long run therefore, there is the creation of a squarely balanced talent positioning. Furthermore, McDonald’s has been a company that has over the years fostered the development of future leaders and this has been a key aspect of the talent management program of the company. By fostering the development of future leaders, reference is being made to the fact that McDonald’s has always concentrated on the role that can be played by its human resource in not just the present circumstance but in the future as well. For this reason, the company has constantly directed its endowment programs towards equipping the knowledge and skill of human resource for future challenges (Bersin, 2010). A clear example of this is the creation of the Future Leaders Forum in the company whereby a group of young talents are given technologically advanced skills on the food services industries so that these talents would always be ahead of time in terms of management of the key technological components of the company. The result of this innovation is that the company has always had a competitive advantage in terms of the application of advanced technology in the conduct of business. Finally, the talent management program of McDonald’s has critically paid attention to the need to motivate and encourage deserving talents so that these talents continue to give off their best to the utilization of the greater aspiration of the company. For this reason, the company provides adequate higher merit increase to specialized talent. As much as possible, the company ensures that there is adequate room for people who exhibit specialized talents to continue to explore their heights. Some of the provisions that are made to people like this includes the provision of scholarships for these young talents to seek further education to expand their academic knowledge base. The program has also included the allocation of special assistance roles to top managers. In other cases, there has been the creation of new portfolios in the company for these people to manage so as to allow them to explore their individualized potentials. Strengths of the Program and How They Led to Goal Accomplishment The programs outlined above have been used extensively by McDonald’s and the good news is that these programs have had some major strengths that have accounted for the general success of the company in its world acclaimed talent management program. First, there is a special advantage of the talent management program of the company whereby the company has ensured that its talent management program is focused on the future wellbeing of the company (McCartney, 2009). This is indeed a very important strength when it comes to the sustainability of the company. By this, it would be reiterated that the success of any company today may not be important and useful if there are no equating strategies and structures to ensure that the successes continue to exist in the future. This is said against the backdrop that as companies flourish today; they must understand that there will be future competitors who may have even bigger plans, resources and dreams. For this reason, it is always important to have organizational programs that budget for such future competition (Barlow, 2006). On a second note, the fact that the talent management program of the company looks critically at the need to expanding existing talent is a very useful strategy that has grown to be a major strength of its talent management program. If for nothing at all, talents must be seen as seeds that can be grown. For this reason, if they are left unattended to, they become a liability in the sense that the true essence and wealth they can create become jeopardized. It is therefore a step in the right direction that McDonald’s does not just look at what its talents can offer today but that it tales initiatives and steps to further expanding the scope of the talent of its human resource. Consequently, the company spends less on the quantitative recruitment of human resource. Instead of employing two marketers for instance, the company would employ one and train and equip him or her to take up the task of two marketers. Opportunities for Improvement in the Talent Management Planning Process For all the major talent management programs outlined above, there is one key opportunity for the company to even improve its present performance. This opportunity is in the present size of the human resource base of the company. According to Goldsmith and Carter (2009), McDonald’s employs as many as 400,000 human resources in the form of employees. If the company has so far showed the ability to be able to perfectly manage talents, then it means that it has a very fine opportunity into turning all of its 400,000 into not just ordinary employees but into a bunch of perfectly merged talents. Again, there is no denying the fact that the huge market base that has resulted in abundant capital access for McDonald’s will continue to be a major opportunity for the company to implement any talent management scheme it plans to. For instance the company is in a position to afford the cost of as many scholarships to its workers to further their education as possible. Such financial cost may not be available to all other companies who may want to develop talent and so it is said that it is an opportunity for McDonald’s (Cairns, 2009). More Effective Approaches to Meet the Talent Management Challenges in the Future As it is often said, there is space even beyond the skies. This means that no matter how much McDonald’s has achieved, there remains more that the company can still achieve if it takes certain effective approaches into consideration. The first of such is the need to create a talent marketplace that will be composed of a purposely assigned training and development strategic implementation plan to cater for all future talent advancement schemes of the company. Secondly, a talent evaluation is highly recommended as an effective approach for improving the talent management (Cappelli, 2008). This means that even with those who have been identified to be highly talented to carry out certain key functions in the company, it is still important that there will be a specialized evaluation system to closely monitor their inputs and levels of process in the company. Through such an evaluation process, it will be possible to identify areas where talents need to be reequipped and where new talents need to be rediscovered. References Barlow, L. (2006). Talent development: The new imperative? Development and Learning in Organizations 20: 6-9. Bersin, J. (2010). The business of talent management. In Talent Management. Strategies for Success from Six Leading Companies, ed. L. Israelite Danvers, MA: ASTD Press, pp.15-44. Cairns, T. (2009). Talent management at homeland security: A corporate model suggests a recipe for success. Employment relations today Fall 2009: 19-26. Cappelli, P. (2008). Talent management for the twenty-first century. Harvard Business Review March 2008: 1-8. Goldsmith L., & Carter M. (2009). Talent management. Best Practices Institute. Lewis, R., & Heckman, R. (2006). Talent management: A critical review. Human Resource Management Review 16: 139-154. McCartney, C. (2009). Fighting back through talent innovation. Talent management under threat in uncertain times. Part 2. Hot topics. London: CIPD. Read More