Day 137 - 19 Jun 95 - Page 47
1
2 Q. You mentioned earlier that you would restart somebody or
3 try to restart somebody at or near the same rate that he
4 left at. Do you remember that?
5 A. Yes, I do.
6
7 Q. You mentioned in the course of giving that answer the one
8 reason for that is that he has already been trained?
9 A. That is correct.
10
11 Q. He has had some experience. How important, in your view,
12 is the value of the training to the efficient conduct of
13 your business?
14 A. It is enormously valuable. Very candidly, we spend
15 millions and millions of dollars on our training. We
16 consider our training to be state of the art and essential
17 if we want to satisfy our customers to teach our people how
18 to satisfy our customers and accomplish what we need in
19 order to do that.
20
21 Q. Is there an extent to which McDonald's is a first-time
22 employer?
23 A. To a great extent.
24
25 Q. Is the training which these first-time people doing their
26 first job which they get at their first job with
27 McDonald's? Do you know whether to any extent that
28 training is a marketable commodity when they move on?
29 A. There is no question about that.
30
31 Q. How do you know?
32 A. Because I deal with our business people. I am out
33 there talking to people, working with people, plus the fact
34 that people attempt to I use the word "steal" our people,
35 but recruit away our people because they value the training
36 and others do not want to make the kind of investment that
37 we do but would prefer to try to employ our people after we
38 have trained them.
39
40 Q. Given that disadvantage, if you like, which you have
41 suffer, do you have any difficulty recruiting people?
42 A. In general not. There are pockets of extremely low
43 unemployment, virtually no unemployment, where we do make
44 some special efforts. But generally not.
45
46 Q. Leaving on one side the specialised, if I can call them
47 that, advertisements which we looked at earlier which you
48 said are, in effect, recruiting advertisements, what are
49 the other methods by which staff are recruited?
50 A. Our principal way of getting new crew people is our
51 employees refer their friends and relatives to us. That is
52 our principal way of getting new crew.
53
54 Q. Is that what we call "word of mouth"?
55 A. Word of mouth, yes. Your reputation in the community,
56 your reputation among current employees.
57
58 Q. Do you go into the schools and the universities in search
59 of employees?
60 A. Yes, we do.
