Gillian Keegan MP visited the Chichester Gate McDonalds to meet franchisee Grant Copper and his team. On her visit, Gillian was impressed to learn about the opportunities available for employees to receive training and develop professional careers. The strong culture of career progression was exemplified by Grant who himself started working as a McDonald's crew member in Portsmouth over 30 years ago and is now the franchisee of 20 restaurants.
As an MP Apprentice Ambassador, Gillian was pleased to hear that McDonald’s has an ambitious apprenticeship scheme, which has seen over 18,500 employees gain the necessary skills to progress in their careers. Currently, there are 450 people on the schemes, gaining qualifications from ‘level 2’ all the way through to 'Degree Level'.
As the only degree level apprentice in the House of Commons, Gillian has been promoting them as a great way to get both a degree but also learn the skills businesses need and want. She recently explained at a reception in Parliament how rewarding she found learning about business in class and implementing it the very next week.
To date, McDonald's has 186 business managers nationally that have completed a foundation degree in ‘Managing Business Operations’, sponsored by the company. Each year McDonald's puts in £43million annually into training their staff with both internal training programmes and externally recognised qualifications.
This upskilling through in-work training has worked for the company. Today, 30% of the current Executive Team started out as a restaurant crew member and have worked their way up the business.
During her visit, Gillian was also shown how the restaurants operate day to day. She spoke to staff and learnt about the flexible or guaranteed hours contacts they are offered. She was also shown how the Chichester branch are making use of technology to encourage customers to make healthier choices, through the in-store kiosks
