I am writing to you as a multi decade Licensee of the McDonalds System. The reason I am writing this is to express my utter frustration with the current Senior Leadership Team at McDonalds. At a time when government dictated extreme mandates exist, staffing shortages are rampant, supply issues dominate the news, Unions are knocking at our door, and in the midst of a global pandemic, McDonalds upper management team has totally ignored our attempts to address the current untenable situations. We are facing extreme abuse from our franchisor. The company, since the tech fee debacle has acted with anger, revenge and reckless disregard for any authentic collaboration. They literally told Owner leaders since they had to "eat crow" on the Tech Fee, (that they never proved Owners owed a dime of), we let them save face, and in August they were so naïve, yet so bold to make it clear to leaders that they were going to "double down" on their insanely ineffective culture of intimidation, command, and control. Neither Chris K or Joe Erlinger seems to give a whit for the owners, ignoring our cries for help and understanding of the situation. We have lost so many quality Owners over the last few years who were making great money but cannot stand the management ineptitude and negativity. Believe it or not, there is currently a line of good Owners looking to get out, but the decimated, limited corporate resources we've have in the HQ "shell of a company", rather than support from our Service Fees still being paid, cannot handle all those wishing to leave and sell their restaurants.
This is a tale of two companies, one that keeps paying lip service, so investors, media and analysts believe they are for real, while those internally continue to get mistreated, misrepresentations and lame promises that "we are working on it", which never occurs. There is no real dialog between us, only McDonalds dictatorial demands. A complete breakdown currently exists between the company and the realities we face in the field. Many believe the NFLA, NOA and the number of other Owner Advocacy and Diversity groups should be "blowing up" the news of the companies lack of any management leadership aptitude, the complete lack of cooperation, as they continue a charade of pretending to be supportive, even after being told by leaders in front of all owners they are spinning the truth without regard. Owners who are staying are doing it in spite of this management team. The Owner Led agenda is working for most, even if the corp counterparts have taken all joy out of one of America's most magical companies.
For example, the company is proposing 49 new initiatives on top of the existing local and national initiatives for 2022 consisting of multiple new disruptive and demoralizing "inspection" protocols through the new Brand Standards, new PACE evaluation system, "Safety" inspections, and other ways to use 3rd party, disconnected, impersonal inspectors for the purposes of intimidation. This is myopic, extremely out of touch and unattainable, and sets us up for failure. There is also talk of shortening the License agreement to only ten years (from its current twenty), which would decimate owners' equity. And the new Brand Standards were built with little or no input from owners and we need to reevaluate them. Now is not the time to complicate the business and further stress our crews. Operations have never been more challenging. But again, we're fools to believe they care. Since they cannot successfully work with Owners given their lack of leadership gravitas, nearly every policy or new program they offer, has a "hidden enforcement provision" that allows them to selectively continue to target whoever they want to stay or go, not depending on your results, but rather your willingness to play ball with such a young, inept and petty group of execs who have proven it over and over. If not stopped, they are creating another commoditized, soulless company, run not by the Women and Men that made McDonald's, but rather their hand selected patsies who will tarnish the Golden Arches to yet "another chain" without what made us so dominant for so many years.
As mentioned above, I have heard from many fellow owners that they feel that McDonalds acts as if we are expendable and can easily be replaced should we not agree with Corp. This is antithetical to the McDonalds culture that Ray and Fred, and hundreds of legacy operators, worked so hard to bring into fruition, and many have left on the current management watch. The threats and pressures we face both internally and externally as owners today are far too great to be ignored by the Senior Leadership Team and the Board of Directors of the company given our current realities. It seems their only concern is the stock price and their own "Golden Parachutes". Isn't anyone interested in how major disputes seem to disappear over time, more money thrown at key groups to make the critics go away?
The system is in dire need of leadership from McDonalds, from its Board, from analysts who have to see what is happening, not the scorn and disdain that owners are experiencing today. Corps 'selective targeting" tactics of who they want in, and out, of the system have never been more biased and retaliatory. Without a change in the current trajectory of the relationship with our franchisor, the "partnership" is a cruel joke and officially dead. I intend to boycott the Worldwide Convention, and increasingly many of my colleagues will be doing the same, as they know who is responsible for the real success. We will meet as Owners alone, before the fabricated convention, but it is of no use to try and repair a relationship without leaders trying to restore the greatness that once was McDonald's
Thank you for the opportunity to express my, and many others, concerns.
Respectfully submitted,
Anonymous
23 comments:
Wow. Absolutely Wow. This owner gets it. We all should.
In trying to explain the McDonald's system to journalists, analysts, and researchers I often try to make them understand that there indeed have been two McDonald's, call it MCD 1.0 and MCD 2.0.
MCD 1.0 was a growth company with enough opportunity for everyone involved in the three-legged stool.
MCD 2.0 is not a growth company and is run by bean counters trying squeeze every penny out of the existing system.
Owner/Operators are the only people left in the system who remember MCD 1.0. They can't bring it back, but they can keep it from being completely erased.
MCD 2.0, if left to the corporate pukes, won't be good for anyone.
.
TRIPLE WOW WOW WOW 🤩 - that says it all & then some
this should be shared by all operators - even the sheep 🐑🐑
they MIGHT learn something - how do we get this in everyone’s
hands
now we are doing the PEOPLE document whatever it is called
done by a 3rd party because they don’t have the BAL** to do
it themselves - also if the 3rd party does something wrong it
will not be on MCD but on the 20 something person with the
clip board
Been awhile look up SHANCHEZ vs MCD in California early
2010 THINK - 62 pages - I did not read it all but a good lesson
employees won $26,000,000 from BIG BROTHER & they are telling
us we don’t know what we are doing 😀😀😀😀😀 with handling people
to bad it was not 100,000,000 million 😀😀😀😀😀
earlier post boycott WORLD WIDE Agree
if you go - NOA should be selling LETS GO CRIS shirts
mentioned that before - no one commented on it
COME ON MAN - JOE BIDEN 😀 money raised can go
to RONALD CHARITIES
I totally concur with the above comments! Corp is highly dictatorial,(and getting worse),and they are replacing the smaller "on site" operators with unfeeling, unmanageable, detached, cold monoliths (20++ stores) who are incapable of being on the ground, in the stores, to interact with our crews and customers(exactly like Corp). This is what is happening currently to Starbucks, and why the unions will overwhelm them. The "secret sauce" of Ray and Freds genius was to seed smaller,hands on ,local on site operators who were the reason our stores succeeded. The future is bleak with the current scenario. The day of the "Mr McDonalds",(or Ms.), known locally to customers and perceived as a small business person and not a giant corporation, is quickly disapearing.
#BoycottWorldWide
Boycott World Wide Convention!!! You have a built in, unassailable, legitimate excuse- COVID.
Send a message.This opportunity may never come again. Grab it.
Historically. franchisors had the purview to control operational standards.However, MCD's recent foray into Brand Standards and EVP smacks of one undeniable conclusion. These dictates PROVE that MCD is a joint employer. At least that is what the unions will successfully argue. Employee relations are not between anyone but the employer and the employee. No third parties should be involved. The labor lawyers are champing at the bit to argue this in court for the Unions.
Not going to WW either. Waste of time and money.
I have spoken to many friends inside and outside of the system in the last several months, this company has marched directly away from my personal and professional values of integrity and doing what is right regardless of the consequences.
The author above explained the current situation as I could never do, clearly spent a great deal of time and effort in doing so and I fully support every single word.
A few examples come to mind; at the beginning of the pandemic while the company was sheltering in place, wringing their hands and eventually held seemingly endless webcasts about meetings and meetings about webcasts- screwing up everything that they touched with their clearly instinctive completely self-serving mindset, the Owner-Operator body and the NOA specifically took over and proved that we can and probably should run this company alone. From operations to marketing to finance; we had it figured out and if the company was smart they would have simply followed our lead. Opnad had advertising spots produced for them, ready to go that were timely and timeless, creative and perfect for that period but they chose not to- probably because it wasn’t their damn idea. Styrofoam cups- where do we start? These people pander to groups that hate us anyway, are not our customers and the end result is that they get to market their social responsibility to people who don’t spend a dime in our restaurants and will never ever be satisfied unless and until the day comes of our complete demise because we are the enemy. Finally I am reminded of the introduction of “McTeam”- I will never forget being told that we are fortunate to be allowed to be Owner Operators and that they will bench those who do not perform, grow with the best and that their vision is fewer owners with more stores. They carried this out in the field by at best unethical and probably illegal actions that lead to every owner operator I know to formulate and for some, to activate their exit.
I do not know and have never met company leadership but their actions over the last 6-8 years are certainly in poor judgment, sometimes destructive and always self-serving with few or no exceptions.
The only way that this dynamic changes is with a change in leadership. McDonald’s as a brand can be stronger than ever and perhaps the most effective and helpful development that in a perfect world should be unnecessary, the NOA. That stick that was referred to in the first few meetings may be required to get this dysfunctional but salvageable organization back on track. All it takes is a leader who recognizes, understands and takes action consistent with the undeniable truth that their only job is to help Owner Operators be successful. This regime and their constant push to centralized command and control, apathy and culture of NO will never be successful. There are only two outcomes, fortunately there are still enough out here who care enough and will fight for what could turn this around immediately. It won’t take much really- simply understanding who their customer is, the owner operators.
The NOA is the big stick that we hope will never be needed. Perhaps the time is now to pick it up and start warming it up. The company cannot do this without owner operators and over the last year they’ve reverted back to who they really are, destructive and completely unnecessary impediments to our continued growth.
At the end of the day Owner Operators do not need the corporation but the corporation needs owner operators.
real short
I commented above
we need to get this conversation
to as many operators as we can
what is the best way?
LETS GO CRIS !!!!!!
BE SAFE
The way is to send all of this to every operator. But the only ones who have that distribution list is MCD. Even the NFLA cant because every email they send out has to be approved by corporate. Our only chance is if the NOA has the fortitude to send it to NOA members and ask them to share it with other operators. Otherwise MCD holds all the communication cards.
"Otherwise MCD holds all the communication cards."
What? I almost fell out of my X-chair! I've been communicating with McDonald's franchisees by E-mail since the internet was a pup and I've always assumed that all Owners had a private E-mail account(s). I know little about the corporate E-mail system since I've never accessed it except to know that it's their property. They have a right to operate it in any way they see fit.
If there are Owner/Operators who only have one E-mail account and that's on the corporate system -that's just silly. Private E-mail accounts are either free or very cheap.
Anyway, let's assume that a lot of Owners have their own private accounts. And in their address book, there are dozens of other Owners' private E-mail accounts. Just send the link to the letter to all of those accounts. If 500 or 1,000 Owners send the link to a few dozen Owners and ask them to forward it on, that's a lot of people! Don't worry if a few well-connected Owners get 10 or 12 copies, it's just electrons. Maybe the members of the sheep community will get a copy or two.
And if any of you use the corporate E-mail system for everything in your life - have a little meeting with yourself. Do you talk to your accountant with that E-mail address? Your banker?
You can send your friends the link to the entire letter or just to the home page that leads them to the letter. I will keep the link to the letter prominently displayed on the home page.
Just send them: www.fegroupblog.com
.
Did you get some of the E-mail Christmas letters that have become popular? I got a bunch and several of them had all recipient's E-mail address prominently displayed at the top. Then I can go through and see who my friend or relative has in their personal network.
That's because the sender just put their entire address book in the "To" line and left the "CC" and "BC" lines blank. So when you send out the link to the letter, do this. Send it to yourself on the "To" line.
Then, put the recipients you've chosen on the "BC" line. They will get a copy but won't see who else got the message. You likely get messages like this all the time but since you don't see the other addresses it's of little interest. Since I'm a communications security nut I take one more step. I put my address in the "To" and then put my address again in the "CC" line. Then, the only place my distribution list can go is the "BC" space. Prevents mistakes.
I'm pretty sure this works with all E-mail platforms since I receive many messages sent this way.
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If the suits in Chicago read this blog they are going to have a cow! BRAVO
The NOA has advised members for YEARS to use a personal email not a partners account because Corp monitors and filters the accounts.
Want proof? Multiple NOA emails have been sent to owners in the past on partners email but were never received by owners.
As Richard correctly said "I know little about the corporate E-mail system since I've never accessed it except to know that it's their property. They have a right to operate it in any way they see fit."
Censorship is alive and well on partners.
BEWARE
What if McDonalds held a convention and NOBODY CAME?
If you are counting on the NFLA to remedy things you can forget it. McDonalds pays ALL of the NFLA costs, meeting fees, meals, travel expenses and lodging. NFLA is NOT independent. With McDonalds paying the costs, they effectively own the NFLA. They are a captive entity, just like the old NLC was. Sad.
The extensive anonymous New Year's comment was stated professionally and accurately. Will someone please send this to Wall Street and news media. The only way to get the Board and Upper Management to stop this harassment is to have the stock price feel our pain.
As much franchisees wish to place the blame on corporation; it must be willing to accept an equal portion of the blame themselves. Having elected feckless leaders at the regional and national levels; most whom either shown up with a willingness to sell out or forced converts to the cause. They sold the system for the understanding of expansion or mere narcissistic award recognitions.
The follow-on replay article discussed the MCD 1.0 – there’s very little history left in McDonald’s – and the practices, understandings and workings that made McDonald’s a globally recognized brand – are Dead. Not fading, not dinged – dead.
There is no leadership in the corporate level – as there is no leadership with any McDonald’s history. They too are all dead or gone. Its not Ray Kroc’s McDonald’s – did you think they were confused when they said it?
The brand isn’t innovative – its merely surviving off the BRAND TRUST built decades prior. Stock maneuvering and other tactics have overinflated the stock value – which is outside the availability of the average citizen trader to own. Who owns it – corporate traders who have no interesting in the brands survivability – only todays stock value.
90%+ of restaurants are controlled by operators. Operators can effect changes tomorrow – but it takes will and determination. Something the entire operator systems lacks – and corporation realizes it and uses it to their advantage.
When does the operator want to FIGHT – only when it directly impacts them, and its too late to address.
I know, lets have ANOTHER meeting to plan our doing nothing strategy.
We don't talk share price here but it's interesting that 69% of MCD shares are owned by institutional investors.
And 0.05% of shares are owned by insiders.
And yet McDonald's owners treat Chris K. like he owns the company.
Face it, the McFamily has been destroyed by the company and will never return unless owners grow a collective spine , support each other, and make public their grievances.
In spite of being the largest restaurant company on earth, why does MCD have vastly inferior technology than our competition? (Tech fees???)
You can be sure that if owners were not afraid of intimidation and retribution by corporate, many of the anonymous comments would be signed.
So many great comments above.
One additional example of Toxicity. Once the NOA came into existence, some alternative "McDonald's First" group started showing up in our Partners emails. It wasn't elected leadership, it was some faceless, nameless group. In order to Provide "a different operator viewpoint."
Going back to how McDonald's controls communications, how does one gain access to the distribution list if McDonald's Corp isn't involved? they don't. It's like watching "house of cards" on Netflix.... to pay protesters to go protest against the other protesters.
AND here's the other problem that's been touched on above.... "The Sheep" those operators in the system who would sell their souls to get more restaurants. They want to be friends with corp and be in the know, at the expense of other operators in the system.Those operators simply enable this poor behavior from Corp. I can't tell you how many coop votes we approved due to the loudest voice in the room saying "Guys, we need to do this. I can't imagine what our cashflow will be like without this promotion." no analytics, simply scare tactics to follow a corporate agenda.
As for me, I'm a piss ant within this giant system. Although, I'm a next generation 37 year old that's selling my restaurants to not partake in this poor leadership experiment. There are others around my age leaving too. AND it's not due to all time high cashflows, ppp, ertc, it's because McDonald's "leadership" and direction has been so piss poor, I frankly would rather leave then be a puppet.
Unfortunately, I truly feel like I'm witnessing the demise of a once great American institution.
BRAVO to ALL of the above!!!
#BoycottWW
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