Our People, Our Priority

At McDonald’s, our people are at the heart of everything we do. The crew members that work in both our and our franchisees’ restaurants are committed to delivering great food, and a great customer service, every day and we’re proud of the role they play in serving local communities across the country.

We and our franchisees believe that everyone working under the Golden Arches should feel valued, have a true sense of belonging, and be supported to grow and develop at McDonald’s.

Creating Opportunities for Young People

Nearly 40% of McDonald’s employees are teenagers — and we are the first job for many. Helping people take their first steps in the world of work is something that we, and our Franchisees, are very proud of.

We offer young people the chance to build vital skills like confidence, leadership, communication and time management — skills that last a lifetime – whether they choose to progress their career with us or elsewhere. As part of our Plan for Change ambitions, we’re committed to helping one million people gain new skills and open doors to jobs by 2030.

Young people make up a vital part of our diverse teams across the UK, reflecting the communities we serve. It is important to us to make sure everyone — especially young people — feels safe, supported, and seen.

Our people are our business. And we’re strengthening our measures to help protect them.

Our Action Plan

Creating a safe, respectful and inclusive workplace has always been a priority at McDonald’s, and it’s now an even greater focus. We’ve taken numerous steps to further build on the measures we already had in place, and to help ensure this culture is embedded throughout McDonald’s.

We’ve launched a comprehensive Cultural Action Plan which is making a positive impact to the near 159,000 people currently employed across McDonald’s today. Every single person that we, or our franchisees, employ has a voice, and we believe it is essential that they have the channels available to them if things aren’t feeling quite right.

We’ve taken steps to make it easier for people to Speak Up, developed a new training programme to help ensure those leading restaurant teams are better placed to support their people and raise awareness of the behaviour we expect in every restaurant. Our latest anonymous employee survey* found 95% of people are aware of the ways in which they can speak up and 92% believe management would act. But we will never be complacent and we, and our franchisees, are committed to investigating robustly all complaints and taking action where necessary. 

In developing and delivering our Cultural Action Plan, we have sought expert advice every step of the way to help our business learn and develop and will continue to do so. We also continue to work closely with the Equalities & Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and remain committed to our agreement as our relationship evolves.

Our Cultural Action Plan has seen us implement a range of far-reaching initiatives and measures and these include:

• Established a new Investigation Handling Unit – led by dedicated HR and legal experts.
• Launched a new Speak Up campaign, Red Flags –Crew members across McDonald’s restaurants wanted to speak up in different ways and were more likely to do so via a mechanism they felt familiar and comfortable with.
  • We worked with them to co-create a communications campaign using the language of Gen Z. ‘Red Flags’ adopts the cultural shorthand for calling out concerning behaviour, to make it relatable and current.
  • We already had speak-up channels in place - but crew members were very clear these needed to reflect the way they interact in other parts of their life. So, we made them digital-first. We have deployed the largest AI-enabled HR platform in the UK and Ireland, a chatbot available 24/7 in multiple languages so crew can connect with our People Team in a way that feels natural and accessible.
• Enhanced training programmes – with mandatory completion requirements for all new employees and new training programmes dedicated to a safe, respectful and inclusive workplace that require annual compulsory completion for all employees. All training materials have been reviewed and, where required, replaced with more engaging and contemporary resources.
• Developed our Leaders - we have developed a new comprehensive face to face training programme for 2025, designed to enhance our leaders' understanding of safe, respectful, and inclusive workplace issues. This initiative also focuses on equipping leaders with the skills to effectively manage and address challenging situations while also understanding their responsibilities in building, developing and maintaining a safe workplace. The training has been rolled out to Franchisees, Area Managers, Business Managers, and other key employees in both franchised and company-owned restaurants.
• Created a new dedicated Culture Team with a new Head of Safeguarding – the team includes new roles such as our Director of Culture and our Head of Safeguarding who oversees and develops our safeguarding capabilities for young people.
• Strengthened our restaurant review processes – this includes introducing an independent third party to visit and review restaurants as part of our ‘Putting People First Visits’ to help raise our standards. As part of these visits, we have also included a review of every restaurant’s sexual harassment risk assessment with checks on ensuring preventative measures are in place. A restaurant visit will be ‘failed’ without such measures in place with immediate remedies required.
• Enhanced our onboarding practices – we have implemented a new platform designed to support new employees as they join McDonald’s. This platform emphasises engagement and clearly outlines our expectations regarding workplace behaviour. It also provides detailed guidance on how to raise issues or concerns effectively
• Updated existing workplace policies and created & embedded new ones – covering key issues such as harassment, safeguarding, respect in the workplace and diversity & inclusion. In addition, we have developed a comprehensive set of practical support documents that illustrate our policies in a creative and engaging way that resonate with our people and clearly state the behaviours we expect.

Building for the Future

We’re always looking for new ways to do more. That’s why we're working with Professor Carlene Firmin and Durham University with the goal of developing an industry-leading safeguarding programme. Our joint research, ‘Everybody’s Business’, seeks to apply contextual safeguarding - addressing risks beyond the home – to hospitality settings. Our goal is to embed a culture of safeguarding at every level of the business, with a flexible framework that can adapt to future challenges. These findings won’t just inform our approach – we’ll share them across the industry to support broader change.

We’re also looking into ways to harness the opportunities that come with adolescents being in management roles — exploring how we can offer developmentally-attuned support to young restaurant managers as they step into leadership roles for the first time.

And by working with the award-winning charity Power the Fight, who specialise in supporting young people in community settings, we’re tapping into their expertise to help us turn this research into training and resources. That way we can provide meaningful and lasting safeguarding support that continues to resonate with young people.

Sharing what we learn

We know this is an issue experienced by other individuals and organisations beyond our Golden Arches. We want to help drive systemic, industry-wide change in hospitality and beyond. Because safeguarding isn’t a box to tick. It’s the foundation of every great experience — for our crew, our managers, and our customers.

We’re proud of what we’ve started. And we’re committed to going further, every single day. We’re building a culture where everyone knows what’s right, feels confident speaking up, and trusts that every concern will be heard and acted upon.