USA: McDonald’s Corporation has celebrated International Women’s Day with the launch of its new strategy – Better Together: Gender Balance & Diversity.
By 2023, the company aims to improve the representation of women at all levels of McDonald’s, achieve gender equality in career advancement, and champion the impact of women on the business. In addition, McDonald’s has signed the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles to mark the company’s commitment to progress further.
“Gender balance and diversity makes McDonald’s stronger,” said McDonald’s chief people officer, David Fairhurst. “Together with our franchisees, McDonald’s provides jobs for almost two million people across the world and is one of the world’s largest employers of women. We’re commit- ted to inspiring workplaces where everyone – from crew to c-suite – is equally supported and empowered to realise their full potential. But we also want to drive progress on a global scale by encouraging franchisees, suppliers and other partners to deliver initiatives that drive gender balance and improve diversity, with the goal of reaching millions of women worldwide.”
The strategy includes four pillars – representation, rising, recognition and reach, which will guide McDonald’s in developing key milestones and piloting a range of activities to promote gender balance.
McDonald’s will advance education and development programs to support women to progress. As part of this, McDonald’s is piloting a new “Women in Tech” initiative through its signature education and tuition assistance program, Archways to Opportunity, to enable women from company-owned restaurants and participating franchisee restaurants to learn skills in areas such as data science, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and more.
At present,30% of
McDonald’s Officer positions and 41% of staff positions at Director level and above are held by women globally, and in the US, 60% of all restaurant managers are women.
To mark the launch with a statement of support for workplace inclusion, McDonald’s CEO, Steve Easterbrook and other senior leaders across the business took to LinkedIn – the world’s largest job site. By switching their profile pictures for the McDonald’s arches turned upside down, the leaders aim to raise awareness of unconscious bias and the importance of mitigating it.