Steve,

I think it is a wonderful idea. From my experience, you only get a URL to the intranet, if you are lucky. We worked hard on making our intranet as intuitive as possible, but I get an awful lot of emails sent to me asking me where something is located.

I have been wanting to do this, but do not have the bandwidth right now.

Question, does the HR staff at McDondalds do the orientation, or do the communicators?

I, of course, whole-heartedly support this. As an IT geek, I am so frustrated with management that does not see the importance of computer training, whether it be the intranet, a brush up on M$ Word or that new web app that just came down from programming.

Training is necessary if administrators expect the computer/intranet to be a useful tool for any job position.

Steve,

My organization does this early on with attendees getting a full day devoted to learning the various and sundry databases as well as Lotus Notes, our e-mail app. However, we've found we could spend more time on this, if we could squeeze it in. Like Dale Carnegie said, "90% of all management problems are caused by miscommunication." Soon we'll have to update the training to include blogs.

Nice blog. Keep it up. I like your HR Director:-)

Hey, Mark: Their communications does the training . . . all employees get a full day of orientation, and they block out some of that time for the intranet stuff. McDonalds is REAL good about training . . . they do lots of brown bag lunches, hold regular conferences, and other stuff.

Glenn . . . hands off my HR guy. Since I wrote that item, I've been fending off headhunters left and right.

Speaking of my HR director, him and I are off right now to Wrigley Field, for an important corporate meeting.

Steve

Hey, you can lead 'em to training, but you can't make them adopt it. I'm embarrassed at how much time I spend in their restaurants. Most good, a few literally stinkers. Comes down to how the franchise owner holds his/her staff accountable. Or bottom line, it comes down to pride. How much the owner cares.

I go to McDonald's every single chance I get. Why? Because I love Big Macs in the same way that I loved them when I was in the fifth grade. Totally, and completely.

What strikes me about McDonald's is that there are very few of those REALLY TERRIBLE stores.

In fact, in all my Years of Grease (nobody steal that; it's the title of my autobiography), the only truly rancid McDonald's I've been to was one at a rest stop on Route 80 in Indiana--unfortunately, the ONLY one on Route 80 in Indiana. I live in Chicago, but I'm from Cleveland, and I've got pals there. So I'm on that road a lot, and in that McDonald's a lot.

Ask anybody from Cleveland who comes to Chicago a lot, or anybody from Chicago who goes to Cleveland a lot about the Indiana McDonald's. They'll be able to pinpoint the weaknesses of INDIVIDUAL EMPLOYEES. This emotionally unbalanced cashier gets frustrated and occasionally storms away from the register in a huff. That manager breaks into a sweat when the lines get too long, and starts yelling at everybody to "hurry up with the cheeseburgers, Goddamn it."

And so on.

What's my point? If a McDonald's freak like me can only think of one store that's truly upsetting to go into, the company is probably doing a good enough job of training its people.

"Good enough." When it comes to McDonald's, it's good enough for me.

I get 15 minutes of time to introduce our intranet out of an entire day of mandatory inservice. I know it is better than nothing, but it is usually at the end of the day and I am staring at glass eyed robots dreaming of Steve's martinis.

However, I was so pleased when I came here to find the intranet our home page for the web - not changeable, always there. I highly recommend this.

DATE: 04/11/2005 01:84:9P PM
I think it is a great idea Steve. As a matter of fact, i passed it on to our upper management as my own idea and am hoping for a raise.

DATE: 04/11/2005 03:45:4P PM
Very cool stuff indeed. I work for a small organization (60 staff) and we're just now developing an intranet. I'll make sure that training for the new site is on the list for orientation. By the way - does anyone have any really good websites that would guide me as we develop an intranet - i.e. what not to do?

As for your HR director, maybe he needs a dedicated assistant to help him get the most out of his day. I have a mixed breed dog name Rosie who might be available, but she demands afternoon naps and snacks on demand.

DATE: 04/11/2005 08:85:0P PM
I'd hack off my left arm if the newbie trainers would so much as mention our Intranet, but so far no luck. Maybe bribes would work.

And no good "corporate meeting" ever took place outside of Fenway.

DATE: 04/11/2005 10:51:2P PM
We ensure that each new employee spends an hour on our special intranet, just for training: the Anti-net. On this intranet, all the links go to the wrong place. and there is misinformation at every turn. This helps instill a healthy dose of distrust in the company, which saves the new employee a lot of time of getting their hopes up, only to be disappointed later on.

Kidding of course. There is training for the intranet site - but to my knowledge, it is different at each office location, and what they teach is decided by a different department than the one that runs the intranet. I do not believe there is anything like a mandatory hour of just surfing around.

Thanks for posting this article, it underscores how important it is to start good habits early.

DATE: 04/12/2005 63:00:3A PM
<<< "... everything is top notch ... " >>>

You obviously haven't been to one of their Washington, DC area McDonald's. The service isn't so hot. Most employees can't speak english. Orders are not correct. Nobody's happy. Nobody welcomes you. Customer serivce? Not!

DATE: 04/12/2005 82:70:7A PM
Well, see . . . here's the problem, Jon. I, too, have been in stores where the service/quality is sub-par. But I was referring to Corporate. Seriously, these guys do SO much to train their franchisees and employees.

Unfortunately, they can't monitor every store, I guess. But have you ever been in a GOOD McDonalds? I was in one, in Iowa, once. Spotless, excellent, hot food served promptly, polite counter people . . . when it is done right (the way Corporate tells them to do it) it's a very pleasant place to be.

Done wrong, and it's a seething hell hole of grease, acne, and attitude.

Steve

DATE: 04/17/2005 12:21:7P PM
1. I think I know that McDonald's. You're right.
2. The McDonald's at the Peotone-Wilmington Road exit off I-57 as you're going from Chicago to Champaign was consistently fantastic for the three years I traveled that road regularly to visit my husband (then fiance) while he was in law school. The owners have a few other stores and all of them get super high marks.
3. I work at a very large corporation and we've been trying to get an intranet module added to training at ALL our sites for at least a year. HR didn't really want to play but the message finally got to the right people and we're planning to add the module after our intranet revamp is complete later this year.

Last august, 2006, I wrote a nice poem for Mcdonald's ( I'm a crew member): and it was placed in my crew file. When a big wig came to visit (the district manager), I casually mentioned this- unfortunately, my file has been "misplaced".
Well, I must admit to feeling a little hurt. I bring in muffins once a week for the crew and I even dyed my hair to hide my grey so I wouldn't look old enough to be their mother. Should I send a copy of the poem I wrote to Corporate Headquarters, or not bother?