McDonald’s restaurants serve over 68 million customers in 120 countries and territories daily. As of 2018, McDonald’s operated 37,855 restaurants worldwide, employing over 210,000 people. But do you know what the McResource Page is?
McDonald’s executives once created a “McResource” page for their minimum-wage employees. The page advised them on how much to tip their trainers, massage therapists, and pool cleaners.
What is the McResource Page?
McDonald’s cannot stop giving questionable advice to its employees. McDonald’s provided a Post guide to holiday tipping on its employee resource website. Who are the potential recipients of holiday tips from McDonald’s employees? Au pairs; one week’s pay plus a gift from the child, pool cleaners; the cost of pool cleaning, housekeepers; one day’s pay, dog walkers, massage therapists, and personal trainers are all available.
Given that fast food workers across the country have been protesting for higher wages since this summer and that a recent study found that more than half of all fast food workers receive some form of public assistance, it appears unlikely that the Emily Post advised McDonald’s chose to share with its employees would be of much use. (Source: Twisted Food)
Is the McResource Page Still Available?
After a series of controversial content, McDonald’s finally took down their McResource website in 2013. In one of the last posts on the site, McDonald’s employees were warned about the health hazards of eating fast food.
We have offered the McResource program to help our valued McDonald’s employees with work and life guidance created by independent third-party experts. A combination of factors has led us to re-evaluate, and we’ve directed the vendor to take down the website. Between links to irrelevant or outdated information, along with outside groups taking elements out of context, this created unwarranted scrutiny and inappropriate commentary. None of this helps our McDonald’s team members. We’ll continue to provide service to them through an internal telephone helpline, which is how the majority of employees access the McResource services.
Lisa McComb, Spokesperson of McDonald’s
(Source: ABC News)
Replacing Humans for Kiosks
Since the late 1990s, McDonald’s has attempted to replace employees with electronic kiosks that can take orders and accept payments. McDonald’s first tested E-Clerks in suburban Chicago, Illinois, and Wyoming, Michigan, in 1999, with the devices able to “save money on live staffers” and attract higher purchase amounts than average employees.
McDonald’s purchased the AI-based start-up Apprentice in September 2019 to replace human servers with voice-based technology in its US drive-thrus. (Source: Twisted Food)
Did McDonald’s Venture into Artificial Intelligence?
McDonald’s new robot plans aren’t the first time the fast food industry has experimented with artificial intelligence. In fact, several other enterprising businesses are interested in the concept.
Miso Robotics, a California-based technology company, developed a special burger-flipping robot several years ago. The Flippy robot is making waves at restaurants such as Pasadena’s CaliBurger chain, where it is already taking over cooking duties.
Miso made Flippy available for private purchase late last year. You could get your burger-flipping fast food robot for $30,000.
It remains to be seen whether McDonald’s interest in robotics extends to making them cook. However, there is no doubt that significant changes are on the way for the industry.
However, Kempczinski is not convinced that robots are the universal solution.
The level of investment that would be required, the cost of investment, we’re nowhere near to what the breakeven would need to be from the labor cost standpoint to make that a good business decision for franchisees to do.
Chris Kempczinski, CEO of McDonalds
Kempczinski estimates that the technology will take more than a year to implement. (Source: Twisted Food)
Image from AbcNews