Employees’ ratings of their employer on online job boards could soon influence a company’s reputation and its ability to recruit new talent, McDonald’s top UK HR executive predicts. 

Customers’ reviews of products on internet retailers’ sites already have a greater effect on potential purchasers’ decisions than traditional influences such as advertisements or so-called experts’ views, said David Fairhurst, vice president for people at McDonald’s Restaurants.   

“Customers are increasingly coming into their own,” Fairhurst told the Executive Research Association (ERA) on 19 April. “They are the strongest in influencing [other customers]. I predict one of the major job boards will pick this up, with employers getting ‘star ratings’ from people.”

Fairhurst spoke to the ERA about future business trends over the next decade. Among his predictions was the increasing prevalence of “super specialists” who work only on a project basis. The rise of specialist networks, along the lines of special effects teams who serve the film industry, will drive a parallel need for permanent staff capable of harnessing and managing these elite service providers, Fairhurst said.

Fairhurst also gave the audience a preview of McDonald’s new campaign to put a new spin on the derogatory reference to the “McJob” as a low-pay, low-dignity role – “the dirtiest word in the business”, he said of the term.
He later told Recruiter that the company has halved its 90-day turnover in the last two years. Recruitment is not a problem for McDonald’s either, with a rejection rate of three out of every four candidates, he said.

“Our [staff] turnover is the lowest in UK company history, and the average tenure for store managers is 10 years,” he said.
What McDonald’s contends is an unfair and inaccurate representation of its working conditions needs to be revised, he said.
As to a new definition of McJob, Fairhurst said: “It should be: ‘rewarding employment that builds business and personal skills which last a lifetime.’”