Rob Lauber is chief learning officer at McDonald's, where he oversees a staff of 250 people across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Under his purview are the L&D Center of Excellence and seven Hamburger Universities around the world, as well as education and accreditation programs. In all, L&D's audience is about 1.9 million McDonald's employees.
How do you define talent development at McDonald's?
We don't really have a definition of talent development. Our aspiration at McDonald's is for us to deliver a better experience for our employees so that they can be successful elsewhere and be great consumers for us later. Talent development that way is a little different for us. When you are looking at big, large-scale, retail, consumer-facing businesses, I think talent development changes. It's nontraditional in a sense.
How is the definition of talent development evolving?
Overall, I'd say the way we talk about talent development has changed a lot, not just in the quick-service industry, but in the L&D profession as a whole. For the hourly employees—the crews in our restaurants—talent development has a completely different meaning and context than what we all read about each month in trade magazines. It's about helping them build life and work skills because, for many of them, it's their first job.
So, one of our talent development conversations is about how we help people around the globe build those life skills. Our education and accreditations programs around the world are the most tangible examples. In the United States, for example, we have thousands participating in our Archways to Opportunity program, where they can learn a language, get a high school diploma, or attend college. We want to equip them with skills they can carry throughout their lives and careers.
The talent and learning functions at McDonald's have evolved significantly the last three years. We have four strategic people priorities where it never was the case before:
- transforming the culture of our system
- creating a robust, honest talent pipeline
- ensuring that we have leaders at all levels with the capabilities and organizations they need to seize future opportunities
- access to the people we need.
For the first time, we have learning and development organized into one sub-function across the entire company. For 60 years, it's been very decentralized.
What are the components of L&D at McDonald's?
The L&D Center of Excellence includes classic learning capabilities such as development, learning technologies, learning innovation, content design, development, and delivery.
Where does L&D fit into the org chart?
I am part of the Global People Team and within that team is the L&D Center of Excellence. I report to the executive vice president/chief people officer, who reports to the CEO.
Read more from CTDO magazine: Essential talent development content for C-suite leaders.
