Which of the universities is the most prestigious and at the same time inaccessible to most of the applicants? To this question, most of us will immediately say - Harvard, Oxford or Cambridge - and will be wrong. The thing is that recent studies by the British have shown that the most exclusive university in the world is the company's university. It is in this educational institution that there is the lowest percentage of students enrolled for admission to a university.

So, if every fifth applicant gets to Oxford and Cambridge (18% and 20.5% respectively), then only eight applicants out of a thousand who want to study there are accepted to the hamburger university. Now the branches of this university are open all over the world. You can study in Sao Paulo and Munich, Tokyo and Sydney, Illinois and Shanghai. McDonald's University will soon open its doors in the capital of the Russian Federation.

For the first time to comprehend the science of hamburgerology began in Illinois more than half a century ago. Then 14 graduates received his diplomas. To date, more than five thousand students study within its walls around the world. It is considered the oldest corporate university in the world. Over the entire period of its existence, it has released more than 275,000 people.

Hamburger University trains its students in management skills, develops their leadership qualities and develops their business skills. Of particular note are a number of practical disciplines. For example, in the program of one of them, students learn how to communicate with a “mystery shopper”. In the Institute, globalization is in the first place. This is evidenced by the fact that in the first university

In its 50 years of operation, Hamburger University, or "Hamburger University," officially McDonald's Corporation-Worldwide Training, Learning & Development (WWTL&D), has become a top-notch training provider for McDonald's. Today, it ranks among the best corporate universities in the world. Hamburger University is one of the first corporate training centers and the first educational center in the history of the restaurant business.

McDonald's has over 34,000 restaurants around the world with $28 billion in combined sales. McDonald's restaurants serve 64 million customers daily in 117 countries. Since 2003, the value of the company's shares has increased 6 times.

Corporate University of the Corporation, Hamburg University(HU) began with a class of 14 in the basement of a McDonald's restaurant in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. This class was launched just 6 years after the founding of the company itself. Since then, the learning center has changed address twice, until finally, in 1983, the company opened its first $40 million campus in Oak Brook. The company's headquarters are also located there. The training center is named after its founder, Fred Turner, the former CEO of McDonald's. Turner himself wrote the first manual on operations management and staff training, a work that is still the basis for McDonald's and other restaurant chains.

Today the center is 12 thousand square meters of premises located on 32 hectares of land. It has 64 professors and teaching is conducted in 28 languages, including Korean, Malay, Portuguese and Swedish. All instructors of the center have practical experience in McDonald's, that is, they have worked at some level of management in the company.

Since its inception, 22 regional training centers have been added to the Oak Brook site, which are considered branches of Hamburger University, and six more international branches have been opened in Tokyo (1971), London (1981), Sydney (1989), Munich (1982), San Paulo (1996), Shanghai (2010). The company spends about 61 million US dollars annually on the operation of the London Center alone.

To date, more than 275,000 McDonald's franchisees, employees and suppliers have completed training programs at HU locations around the world. 96% of McDonald's restaurant managers in the US have been trained by HU. Among them was the current CEO of the company, Jim Skinner. Now on campus in Oak Brook, an average of 5,000 people are trained per year. As a rule, students are top and middle managers of McDonald’s itself, but since some part of the franchisee training also takes place within the walls of the university, there are many students among students who plan to open their own business.

Training programs at HU are directly linked to the career paths that employees can choose for themselves as part of the McCareer HR Development Program:

Basic staff development courses for ordinary employees are conducted at the place of work according to training programs developed by HU employees;

• Shift management and restaurant systems administration programs for restaurant managers are held at one of the training centers, and upon completion of the course, students can be sent to the Oak Brook campus or to the training center in Shanghai to complete their training;
• The middle management programs focus on training department heads and consultants, who then help restaurant managers grow their businesses;
• In 1996, McDonald's created the Leadership Institute to develop talent from around the world. Programs for future leaders of the corporation, aimed at developing leadership competencies, are held on campus in Oak Brook.

100% of the restaurant management and management development courses are accredited by the American Council on Education. Only 11 of the 500 Fortune 500 companies have in-house training courses accredited by the organization. At the same time, a two-week advanced restaurant manager training course is equivalent to a similar two-semester course in a regular college. And this is an adequate assessment: despite the fact that work at McDonald’s is not very quoted in the labor market due to the not the best reputation of fast food chains, in reality, a restaurant manager must manage a business with an average turnover of $ 2.5 million a year. Competition for the training programs of the Shanghai branch of HU - 125 people per place.

Many universities in the US credit courses taken at HU. In this way, many McDonald's employees get a chance to get a higher education, which is quite significant in the US, where the cost of a full course of college education can reach tens of thousands of dollars. Similar opportunities are available for students in HU branches in other countries.

The center pays close attention to technological equipment. One of the center's innovations is the creation of classrooms 2.0. The audiences are built on the principle of open space, which makes it easy to organize group work. The instructor does not spend all the time in the center of the classroom against the wall, but moves around the entire space. The content of the lecture is projected not only on the wall, but also simultaneously on students' laptops.

In the Service Lab, students use experiential learning methods. In particular, situations are created here that mimic the problems that arise for untrained staff during the intensive hours of the restaurant. Divided into groups as staff, customers and observers, students have the opportunity to see in real time what happens to restaurant sales when work is not organized properly. At the second stage, students correct mistakes and start the shift again, which in most cases leads to an increase in sales up to 40-50%.

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Recently, in an interview with Kommersant FM, the president of McDonald's in Russia, Ramzat Khasbulatov, announced that the company plans to open a university in Moscow to train managers. “We used to use internal training centers, then we sent people to study in Europe, here in Munich there was a university, but we plan to open the same educational institution for training our own managers in Russia,” said Ramzat Khasbulatov.

This post has sparked interest. Does McDonald's really have its own university? If so, what do they teach there and how do they train staff? Neo HR decided to look into this issue.

When was McDonald's University founded and how many specialists does it produce?

The first university opened in 1961 in Illinois, USA. The initiator of the creation of the educational institution was Fred Turner, at that time the head of McDonald's. The institution was called Hamburger University (Hamburger University). From the very first day, training was aimed at working out all aspects of the restaurant business: operational processes, service improvement, improving quality and maintaining cleanliness Gradually, the university became a global center for excellence and leadership development.

On February 24, 1961, Hamburger University released the first specialists - 15 people in total. Today, more than 7.5 thousand students study at the McDonald's educational institution every year. Since 1961, more than 80 thousand managers and other specialists have managed to study there.

The educational mission of McDonald's is to discover talent and find people who appreciate the basic concepts of the restaurant business, such as quality, service, cleanliness and value.

In 1983, McDonald's invested $40 million in Hamburger University. These funds made it possible to equip 13 classrooms, an auditorium for 300 seats, 12 interactive rooms for team learning, 3 experimental laboratories.

How many universities have opened McDonald's in the world?

Today there are seven campuses of Hamburger University: in Oak Brook, Sydney, Munich, London, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Shanghai. All of them apply a global educational approach that allows the integration of educational materials and tools in different languages ​​and cultures.

Hamburger University Munich

US campus of Hamburger University

Shanghai Hamburger University

Hamburger University Tokyo

What is studying at Hamburger University?

McDonald's uses a blended learning approach, tailoring programs to different markets. In some Asian markets, for example, McDonald's restaurants offer home delivery. Therefore, certain components of personnel training and development are aimed at working out precisely this unique business need. The same approach applies to other markets, as each market differs in product offerings and some menu items that are more or less unique to a particular region or country. Everything revolves around the client.

A few years ago, the training of middle managers was modernized, which was based on the principle of autonomy. This means that, for some time now, field leaders have not needed to travel to Oak Brook for training (it is still a learning hub), as they can simply use technology to get the training materials they need.

The learning process itself has also changed. The university no longer has classrooms for lectures. Thanks to a constructive redesign, a comfortable environment for team collaboration has been created. So, for example, desks have turned into tables for six people, they are located next to a large monitor. There can be several such tables in one auditorium. During the training, each student can use a laptop or other device. The new design of the classroom allows the teacher to move freely and interact with each student.

Hamburger University works in tandem with the Skinner Institute of Leadership, named after former McDonald's CEO and Vice Chairman Jim Skinner, who left the company after 41 years.

The curriculum includes face-to-face learning, practical labs, goal-oriented activities and e-learning.

Training is selected in accordance with the career development of a McDonald's employee. For example, restaurant managers are trained in change management and system management by visiting one of the 22 regional training centers. After completing the course, managers are trained at Hamburger University, where they receive additional knowledge and skills, which allow them to run a multi-million dollar restaurant.

The Mid-Management program is designed for business consultants and department heads. She develops leadership and consulting skills, teaches staff how to effectively manage a business and coach others.

The Executive Development program is designed for top managers and helps to consolidate leadership skills. Courses available at Hamburger University develop leadership competencies, the ability to support employees and influence sales growth.

After graduating from the university, graduates receive a diploma.

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