One year on for McDonald’s and elementsuite

Who could have predicted that the last year would have been so memorable, when McDonald’s UK rolled out elementsuite’s digital HR platform to all their UK staff in November 2019?  Now, one year on and we’re delighted to be celebrating this partnership and the successes. Watch the McDonald’s story video.

McDonald’s is an iconic and globally recognised brand, renowned for delivering a world class consistent experience to their customers. They’re also an innovative brand that embraces new technology and digital tools; but never at the expense of the customer experience: only to enhance. They’re just as passionate about delivering the same ‘best in class’ experience for their people; empowering and inspiring them to be the best they can. Its what makes McDonald’s an employer of choice.

The only constant is change

Implementing a leading-edge HR technology solution, has enabled McDonald’s UK to be more resilient and responsive during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a great example of how technology enables agility in the face of constant change. Neither elementsuite nor McDonald’s had a crystal ball in November 2019, however implementing smart HR technology has considerably simplified the complexities of new legislation, CJRS (Furlough and Flex Furlough), holiday carry over, and capturing employee wellness and new absence types in relation to COVID-19.

The intuitive mobile-first approach has been branded according to McDonald’s UK specification – featuring a responsive design for use on all mobile devices, and including federated authentication and single sign on (where users can sign on with their social media accounts) and integration to other systems via a flexible landing / navigation page.

The driving force for change

As part of their wider strategy to embrace the power of digital technology, McDonald’s UK needed to replace their legacy HR system with a solution that was:

• Mobile first, intuitive and easy to use
• Self-service, automating process and eliminating paper records
• All inclusive, with ability to access all information in one place
• Flexible enough to accommodate the differing needs of Franchisee organisations
• Provide real time alerts, dashboards and analytics to target action and deliver insight
• At the heart of a sophisticated people technology landscape

Go-Live: Big Bang

In November 2019 elementsuite was deployed across all of McDonald’s UK staff, restaurants and franchisees in a big bang approach. Deployment to 135,000 employees, which we understand to be the largest SaaS deployment in the UK at the time.

McDonald’s Go live Nov 2019

 “I can’t express the admiration I have for this team, passion, expertise, work ethic, professionalism, cohesiveness and a great bunch of people to boot…I have to say that this project is being held up as the gold standard” HR Project lead, McDonald’s, November 2019.

Let’s talk benefits and successes

There is a lot of complexity in the McDonald’s UK business model, when it comes to on-boarding new staff, new starter training, performance management and delivering flexibility for Franchisees.

By implementing elementsuite’s intuitive mobile-first solution, minimal training was required. Managers only required 45 minutes of training and Franchisees, Supervisors and People Managers 4 hours training. Adoption is often low and slow with new systems, but in this case the adoption is 100%.

McDonald’s desired outcomes

One year on for McDonald’s: the story so far

Elementsuite’s Pandemic response

The COVID-19 crisis has had a significant impact on all consumer-facing businesses – including McDonald’s.  Owing to the agility and flexibility of elementsuite, inbuilt system changes were designed, built, tested and deployed in rapid and continuous release cycles, to support McDonald’s.

We’re delighted to be celebrating one year on with McDonald’s. See the full story.