In any given year, the McDonald’s® corporation employs over a million people around the world. All employees, from cashiers to executives, receive training, but Hamburger UniversityTM is the one training facility that many McDonald’s® employees aspire to attend. The American branch of Hamburger UniversityTM, an 80-acre campus in Oak Brook, Illinois, is considered the premier training ground for employees. Every year, the university’s American branch trains nearly 5,000 employees in all aspects of the industry, including information for crew, management, and executives. Hamburger UniversityTM, like the company it serves, had humble beginnings.
Since its inception in 1961, the Hamburger UniversityTM has provided training to over 80,000 McDonald’s® managers, mid-managers, and owner/operators. The first graduating class of Hamburger UniversityTM, on the other hand, consisted of only 14 students. The first Hamburger UniversityTM training facility was in the basement of a McDonald’sTM in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. The current facility was built with a $40 million USD budget in 1983. Participants in Hamburger UniversityTM classes go on to manage nearly 31,000 Hamburger locations around the world.
The Hamburger UniversityTM faculty is made up of 19 full-time professors from around the world, all of whom have prior restaurant experience. In addition to these professors, Hamburger UniversityTM hires translators to help them reach a larger audience. The Hamburger UniversityTM facility currently supports more than 28 different languages. While Hamburger UniversityTM’s American campus was the first and is still the largest, the university also has satellite campuses in Sydney, Australia, Munich, Germany, London, England, Tokyo, Japan, and Hong Kong, China.
Classes at Hamburger UniversityTM cover a standard curriculum that includes topics like safety and customer courtesy, as well as business strategies and marketing best practices. While the courses may be the same, each standard can be tailored to the needs of the region in which it is implemented. While courtesy standards for a McDonald’s® in the United States may require a verbal greeting, those in Japan require the employee to bow. These standards are taught and tested to university students, including written, oral, and practical tests. Professors may conduct evaluations, and a mystery shopper may conduct a follow-up evaluation in the student’s store.
Those who attend Hamburger UniversityTM for management careers are eligible to receive college credit for their work, unlike those who attend other employee training programs, thanks to a decision made by the American Council on Education. Most management training programs are worth around 21 college credit hours, or one semester, and the credits can be transferred to both private and public two- and four-year colleges. McDonald’s® also provides educational assistance to its employees as part of the standard benefit package, demonstrating its commitment to their future.