Mcdonalds Hamburger University

Mcdonald's is if not the most, one of the most successful fast food restaurant chains in the world, and it amazes me how much time and effort they spend on training their managers. In 1961, Mcdonalds opened their first corporate University, called,  Hamburger University in Illinois, going with the motto " Learning Today, Leading Tomorrow" which they still currently use. I found it pretty funny how they they came up with the name for the university, and before I had done any research on it, I thought that it would be sort of a joke university, but I was wrong. According to this Hamburger University is actually more selective than the ivy league school, Harvard, as they only allow key employees to attend the university. There are an astounding 28 different languages that the staff has the ability to teach in, and more than 5000 students attend the university each year.

I think its extremely smart how Mcdonald's implemented a university in order to get the best out of their managers. Mcdonalds thought ahead and realized that they could gain a competitive advantage over their competition if they were able to give their employees a decent future career path, while having them trained to benefit their own restaurants. Giving this type of opporunity to employees helps create brand loyalty, because not only does it help educate them but it also helps advance their careers while allowing them to adapt to the culture which helps in making employees feel loyalty to Mcdonalds.

Corporate University's have been becoming more common, in 1993 only 400 companies owned a Corporate University, but because companies found that they were successful, more companies started to create their own, and in 2001 the number increased to 2000 companies. The goals for Corporate Universities usually include: Getting the most out of their employees by giving them an education, Retain employees, Gain a competitive advantage with their key employees and obviously to organize training for their selected employees.