In the fourth quarter in 2002, McDonald’s had their first profit lost and the company began to ask themselves what went wrong because they had a history of outstanding performances until then. Upon reviewing some of their key components, the organization realized that they had to revamp their Talent Management process so that it would become aligned with the company’s business objectives and policies. Talent management is defined as “a subset of human resource (HR) processes, programs, and tools designed to identify, assess, develop, and retain talent (Silzer & Dowell, 2010, p.75). The company’s first two steps in achieving success was to restructure their performance development system (PDS) throughout the organization for all of the staff positions along with coming up with a talent review process for all of the officer-level positions in the company. Next on the list was creating and implementing a sequence of enhanced development programs, such as, Leaders at McDonald’s Program (LAMP), the McDonald’s Leadership Institute, finally, the launching of the Global Leadership Development Program. When McDonald’s had originally rolled out their strategy for the performance development system (PDS) in 2001 for all of the staff positions, they decided to hone in on three critical areas. First area was placing emphasis on accountability; second step was to increase the difference in performance, and third, emphasis being placed on the need to increase receptiveness to change and innovation. This development system was basically put in place in the organization to promote advancement of executive talent and create development for new employees emphasizing on diversity and talent (Intagliata, 2001). The “LAMP” program was designed to create innovative ideas to change participants thought pattern and to incorporate a global approach in becoming effective at retaining top talent. Its focused was on developing high potential talent in becoming future leaders and to improve performance to acquire accelerated business results. The goal here was to broaden the competency and readiness or prospective successors for important leadership positions, decreasing time required for newly promoted officers and obtaining more quicker results, thus becoming more effective at developing and retaining top talent; and last, continuing to improve the diversity profile at the officer’s level. McDonald’s Leadership Institute and the launch of the Global Leadership Development Program were the last steps in being success for the company according to Goldsmith and Carter (2010). The primary goal of the Leadership Institute was developed to be viewed as a superior leadership institute used as an online resource center that focused on Director level employees of the company, which provided special development support, learning seminars and development training. The Global Leadership Development Program was started to prepare applicants for a more in-depth overview of leadership duties and to give individual contributors a wider base of networked peers.
Identify strengths of the program and how they led to goal accomplishment.
A strength this company achieved was in the changing of their culture of privilege by the implementation of the new performance development system and because of this, creativity and new ideas was allowed along with amplified performance. The difference in evaluating employees now allowed the top twenty percent of the performers to be rewarded for their contribution to the company. The “PDS” became an effective tool because unlike the previous rating system, this tool placed more emphasis on accountability for success across the board, increased performance variation, and embraced sincerity to change and innovation. The newly formed talent review process created “more cross-organizational movement that has resulted in better selections and also more developmental