5 Important Life Skills Working at McDonald's Taught Me

Being a McDonald’s employee is universally interpreted as negative. Nobody dreams of being a McDonald’s employee for their career, but a large portion of students get desperate for money and find themselves working in McDonald’s. I myself were one of those students that found myself working at McDonald’s throughout my high school career. What I didn’t know when I was starting my part-time job at McDonald’s, was how well-respected past McDonald’s employees are in the corporate world. Employers throughout the world favour past McDonald’s employees because of McDonald’s working environment and their world-renowned training program. A job that I thought was going to be an easy way to make money, ended up being one of the best decisions in my life. My experience at McDonald’s has opened up so many doors for me, which have been the building blocks to my resume and my career in marketing.

The following are some of the life-beneficial skills that McDonald’s employees develop throughout their work experience and how they will be beneficial for other aspects of their life:

1.     Learn how to balance work and life. 

Most employees at McDonald’s are students and this is their first job. Up to the point of getting hired, they have never had to truly balance work and life; their school schedule is set and after school hours they may have extracurriculars and homework, but it is very limited. Working at McDonald’s gives you early exposure to work-life balance. It teaches students to prioritize and organize their life tasks. McDonald’s lets you set how many hours you would like to week in order to balance your school load with your work. Having a job through school is a great experience, but it is important that school is coming first and that you are still getting to enjoy your life outside of both school and work. Knowing how to balance work and life is an important skill that will carry with you through university and into your career. Having this skill will be a great contributor to your personal health, as it will help you reduce stress and eliminate the risk of burnout.

2.     Exercise your organizational skills and time management skills.

Organizational skills and time management skills are essential in many aspects of life; including weekly schedules, jobs, projects, etc. They are important skills inside and outside of work. At McDonald’s the work environment is very stressful and their work processes are down to a science. Through training employees learn how long each work task should take and the most efficient steps to completing the tasks. The basis to completing these tasks are staying organized and managing your time to complete these tasks. At McDonald’s you want to be as quick and efficient as possible to meet the standard set by consumers, which requires the constant use of strong organizational and time management skills. By consistently exercising organizational and time management skills they become engraved into your daily work and life behaviours, which results in a higher success at work and more time for yourself outside of work. 

3.     Learn how to set goals and get to practise reaching your goals. 

Setting goals is a great practice when completing tasks. It allows you to have a clearer vision on what needs to be accomplished and how it will be accomplished, as well as provides a level of motivation. McDonald's relies on goals to motivate them employees. The management team works with employees to set hourly goals, weekly goals, and monthly goals for the entire team. The goals may consist of reducing service times, improving cleanliness, or up-selling a certain amount of an item. They also hold reviews every 3-months with individual employees to critique their current performance levels, see where improvements can be made, and then work with them to set goals for their next review. Being able to set goals is an important skill in any career, as it gives you something to work towards, sets a clear vision in your tasks, better organizes your time, and keeps you motivated. 

4.     Gain the skills needed to be successful working in a team. 

As a student in secondary school, there is often minimal opportunity to work in teams in a professional environment. Unless you play sports are involved in a club, teamwork is limited. Working at McDonald’s teaches the importance of teamwork and how to effectively work in a team. The tasks assigned at McDonald’s are very specific, which means everyone is relying on each other to complete the larger processes taking place. You learn to work in flow with other team members and recognize how the individual contributions being made lead to the efficiency and the success of the entire team. Teamwork is essential in university and in the career force, as the projects become much larger and collaboration results in better solutions.

5.     Build strong, long-term relationships.

In life you quickly learn it is not always what you know, but who you know. As previously mentioned, at McDonald’s, team work is a very important role in the work tasks. Since team work is an essential role, you get the opportunity to work very closely with and build relationships a greatly diverse group of people. The demographic of McDonald’s employees is very similar and have closely aligned schedules. Your colleagues become some of your best friends and the managers become your mentors. Having these relationships for life and being able to connect with McDonald’s alum on their experiences brings great opportunity in future careers. The relationships you build with your colleagues at McDonald’s is your first step in creating a network.

You can learn more about the life benefits and opportunities of working at McDonald's on their webpage . If you want to hear more about my personal work experience at McDonald's please refer to my contact page.