|
 RALPH
ALVAREZ
President
McDonald’s ® North America
Nearly a
decade before I joined McDonald’s, Richard Castro, a
McDonald’s franchisee from El Paso, Texas, was so
alarmed at the number of Hispanic students dropping
out of high school that he sought to create a
scholarship program to encourage young Hispanics to
continue their education.
That same year, he won the support of McDonald’s
Corporation as well as Ronald McDonald House
Charities® to establish the RMHC® Hispanic American
Commitment to Educational Resources (HACER®)
scholarship program. Castro earned an initial fund
of $97,000 to launch the program, which provides
scholarships to high school seniors across the
country. Today, the RMHC/HACER scholarship program
is the largest high-school-to-college scholarship
program for Hispanic students in the nation and
since 1985 has awarded more than $12 million to
14,000 students.
To me, efforts such as this exemplify not just good
diversity practices in business, but good business.
I held executive level positions at other restaurant
chains before joining McDonald’s in 1994. And one of
the main reasons I was attracted to McDonald’s was
its unprecedented commitment to diversity across all
aspects of its business.
As our founder Ray Kroc once said, “None of us is as
good as all of us,” and in my current role as
president of McDonald’s North America, it is my
responsibility to promote and protect diversity in
our restaurants, our employees, our franchisees and
our valued suppliers.
Today, diversity is omnipresent under The Golden
Arches®. We have one of the largest numbers of
Hispanics serving as corporate officers among all
major U.S. corporations. Latinos hold many key
leadership positions. Among them: Jose Armario,
President of McDonald’s Latin America; J.C.
Gonzalez-Mendez, Senior VP of Supply Chain for North
America and McDonald’s highest-ranking Latina Gloria
Santona, Executive VP and Chief Corporate Counsel.
I’m proud to say that, more than 12 years after
joining McDonald’s, one-third of our employees are
Hispanic and 12 percent of our U.S. officers are
Hispanic.
In addition to the notable successes of McDonald’s
Hispanic executives, the McDonald’s Hispanic Owner’s
Association (MHOA) is the largest organization of
Hispanic franchisees in the country. The combined
revenue generated by our Hispanic-owned restaurants
is estimated at more than $1.5 billion per year.
Two years ago, McDonald’s Hispanic franchisees and
employees saw an opportunity to better understand
and serve the Hispanic consumer market. As a result,
they developed the Hispanic Business Vision –
designed to make the brand more appealing and
inviting to McDonald’s Hispanic employees,
franchisees, suppliers and customers.
Ensuring the McDonald’s brand remains relevant to
Hispanic customers can have a ‘halo effect.’ Whether
it is through bilingual restaurant signage and
décor, new products or even attitude – it’s a
different experience. It’s expressing to customers:
“You are welcome at McDonald’s.” It’s about creating
the right environment for employees and making
McDonald’s the best place to work, for example:
offering educational tools to Hispanic employees to
improve their language skills as well as offering
Hispanic employee networks on a national and local
level.
The evolution of McDonald’s toward diversity as a
business objective began in the mid-‘70s, when the
company established an Affirmative Action Department
– one of the first in the quick service restaurant
industry – which is known today as McDonald’s
Diversity Initiatives Department. This department
introduced a major initiative around diversity
education in the late 1970s. Seminars were designed
to educate employees about the changing landscape of
the American workforce. These seminars were followed
by career development seminars for women,
African-Americans and Hispanics.
While the seminars were one of the first diversity
initiatives undertaken by McDonald’s, our employees
had already started informal networking activities
on their own. Many of the employee networks were
formed in the mid-’70s. Today, they include the
National Hispanic Employee Network, McDonald’s
Hispanic Owner/Operators Association, Hispanic
Leadership Council, Hispanic Steering Committee and
the National McDonald’s Diversity Advisory Council,
among others.
But what does that all mean?
It means that diversity at McDonald’s is about
understanding, recognizing and valuing the
differences that make each person unique. McDonald’s
is committed to identifying the talents and job
performances of all employees and we value the
contributions that come from people with different
backgrounds and perspectives.
Diversity is more than just a directive; it’s a way
of life and business imperative. It is ingrained
into the McDonald’s business philosophy just as much
as the Golden Arches‚ which symbolize the brand
itself. From the crew room to the boardroom,
diversity will always be on the menu at McDonald’s.
© 2006 McDonald’s |
