My two cents on a few cents raise

McDonald's corporate offices announced  they would raise hourly wages for hourly employees by 10%. This announcement caused me to recall the meetings I was a part of as an assistant manager at a corporate run McDonald's nearly ten years ago. In those meetings we discussed the prospect of raises for each of the employees.  The maximum amount any raise could be, per the store manager, was 25 cents an hour. This meeting was held every quarter. Therefore, if an employee received the maximum raise each quarter, they could be making a dollar more per hour each year. Often this was not the case. Some of the managers quibbled over whether an individual should get even 5 or 10 cents raise. I told them if you felt an employee deserved a raise give that person the full amount. You would get better work and retain employees (even train up future leadership) if you payed them well for their hard work. Under the guise of saving money few employees, even deserving employees, ever received raises above 15 cents.

They failed to understand the cost of training because of the overturn of employees. They failed to understand that employees working for a pittance will work harder and better if they feel appreciated and respected, and especially if that pittance visibly increases at regular intervals. They failed to grasp that happy, hardworking employees kept customers happy and in turn were worth any expense as they would bring in more sales. I saw proof of the power of respect on mornings where I regularly ran shifts that set store records for the number of  cars through the drive through and overall sales. I only wish those employees had been properly rewarded for their efforts.

The corporate stores I worked for had many other issues including withholding breaks from employees, not paying managers in training the proper overtime pay during training, and hiring numerous illegals, but the largest issue at McDonald's was leaderships' respect for employees. That is an issue that will take more than some corporate announcement or a 10% raise to correct.