Lisa Schumacher on Workforce Development at McDonald's

Work Forces

Lisa Schumacher, Director of Education Strategies and Workforce Policy at McDonald's Corporation, shares her professional journey and the innovative workforce development practices embedded in the Archways to Opportunity program. Lisa discusses the importance of non-traditional career pathways and how McDonald's is providing a range of education opportunities, from English language skill development to college degrees, for its employees. The conversation delves into the challenges and successes of implementing workforce development initiatives within a corporate setting and offers practical insights for employers and their education and training partners. Join us to learn how McDonald's is transforming lives and shaping the future of workforce development.

Transcript

Julian Alssid: Welcome to Work Forces. I'm Julian Alssid.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning.

Julian: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin: Work Forces is supported by Lumina Foundation. Lumina is an independent private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Let's dive in.

Julian: Today, we're speaking with Lisa Schumacher, Director of Education Strategies and Workforce Policy at McDonald's Corporation. Lisa has more than 25 years of experience in organizational learning and development, and her current focus is on leading workforce development efforts to provide access for education and create non-traditional pathways to careers, both within the McDonald's system and in other industries. She leads the execution of McDonald's education strategy, Archways to Opportunity which provides restaurant employees an opportunity to learn English language skills, receive a high school diploma, complete a college degree, and access education advising services. In Lisa's previous role at the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning, or CAIL, as the Director of Workforce Chicago, she collaborated with Chicago area CEOs and managed a business-led initiative that identified and disseminated best practice learning strategies and policies. Lisa was the director of the Learning Academy at the University of Chicago Hospitals. Lisa sits on the board of the National Association of Workforce Boards, is a member of CAEL's advisory board, and sits on the Alliance for Adult Education's board of advisors. Lisa completed her bachelor's and master's degrees in communications at Purdue University. On a personal note, Lisa, I think we met somewhere fairly early on in this journey. I believe it was when you were at CAEL, and I...I'm so looking forward to this conversation. And in particular, I really see you as one of the very few people who has kind of made your way both on the kind of nonprofit side and now and then out of the corporate world and while advancing kind of the missions and goals of both sides in a way that is, I believe, absolutely needed more and more. So I think it's going to be a great conversation and welcome to Work Forces.

Lisa Schumacher: Hello, Julian. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here and have this conversation.

Kaitlin: Yes, thank you for joining us today, Lisa. We're excited to dive into this conversation. And though we just heard a little bit about your background, we'd love it if you would tell us a bit more about your background and how you approach your work.

Lisa: Yeah, absolutely, Kaitlin. Again, thanks for having me. So as my bio said, I currently am part of McDonald's global impact function. Just to give you a little bit about my background, I started my career at the University of Chicago Hospitals, which is now the University of Chicago Medicine, I believe it's changed names a few times, and spent actually 20 years there. But the last 10 were part of what we called the Academy. So it was sort of one of the first corporate learning universities that existed and really got my introduction there to, you know, I would say sort of the traditional learning and development, but also taking a step out of that and thinking about career pathways. I'm not sure if we called them career pathways at the time, but we really dug into what does it look like for folks in entry-level roles in healthcare to grow their careers within our organization, within healthcare? Had a very innovative, future-looking chief learning officer at the time. Coincidentally, she came out of higher ed, so she had a different perspective, didn't have sort of that corporate perspective necessarily. And there was a critical skills nurse. There was a nursing shortage at the time. It was the nineties. And so we had to figure out ways to compete in Chicago to get nurses to work at our institution. And our chief learning officer said, well, hey, why don't we grow our own? Didn't really know what that meant. And so we set out on this adventure of looking at our entry-level employees in food service, in housekeeping, in entry-level admin roles to say, you know, what would it look like for those folks to become a nurse? Are there people that are interested in pursuing that career? And then who are the education partners we can bring on to make that happen? And so that's what we did. We brought education partners in-house. We provided pay for folks while they went through the program. And we did just that, we grew our own nurses. And so again, that was really my first introduction to kind of what this looks like. What does upskilling, again, I don't think we called it upskilling at the time, but what does upskilling really look like? And I think I was really very struck by the impact it was having on people's lives. And I think that is the piece that stuck with me. Certainly we were meeting a business need and that was important, but the fact that we were really able to change people's lives, change the trajectory of people's lives by these programs, I think is what stuck with me. And so when the opportunity to go to CAEL, the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning came about, this nonprofit who was really kind and is dedicated to this concept of upskilling and bringing employers and higher ed and policymakers together to think about this concept, I jumped at the chance. And it gave me exposure to sort of the other side of things. It gave me exposure to the policy side, higher ed policy, workforce policy, and this sort of realization that we have these different entities, government, higher ed, corporate America that are ultimately kind of striving towards the same goal, but don't speak the same language. And so don't, didn't, and I still think to a large extent, don't have the ability, right, to come together and have the conversation about, you know, there's a business need. We have people who work in the business. There are people who are underemployed or unemployed. So there's all this opportunity that and just getting your arms around that. And so the beauty of CAEL again was and I think still is as it brings those entities together to have that conversation. And then the opportunity arose at McDonald's pretty, I would say, serendipitously, if you will. And it was attractive to me, one, because it was McDonald's, which seems really cool. And I think two, because I miss sort of that direct connection with frontline employees, which I didn't necessarily have at CAEL. And I missed that from my healthcare days. And so when I came to McDonald's, there was an English as a Second Language program, and there was a desire to do more of that. No one really knew what the more was. And so my sort of ambiguous direction when I started at McDonald's was basically do more of that. We like that, we should do more of that. And so set out on this, you know, mission of first figuring out what more is, and then trying to, you know, sell the business, if you will, on what this can potentially look like for the people that work, the 850,000 people that work in McAllen's restaurant.

Julian: So speaking of more of that, what is the Archways to Opportunity program? Tell us tell us about those goals of the program and your work within it, please.

Lisa: So we launched in 2015. So I started at McDonald's in 2013 in the spring. So it took about a year and a half to two years to really create this thing called Archways to Opportunity, to build it, to work through the process. How was this going to happen in a franchised organization with almost a million people working in our restaurants across that franchise organization? But we launched Archways to Opportunity in 2015. It does serve as our overarching education strategy, as I think my bio says. We designed it thinking really obviously specifically about who are the people that work in our restaurants. And we wanted to create something and did create something that meets them at their point of need and also takes them where they want to go. So this realization that we have people in our restaurants who aren't necessarily ready to go to college, right? My previous experience had really been around college tuition assistance, right? What does it look like? What does higher ed look like? What are the barriers to higher ed? But knowing that everyone in our restaurants that was not the stuff they were ready to take and maybe not the stuff they wanted to take. And so we had to start with leveraging that English as a Second Language program that we already had. So the first component of Archaways to opportunity is English Under the Arches. So it's an English as a Second Language program. We actually just launched Spanish Under the Arches because we have managers and restaurants who have predominantly Spanish speaking employees and they want to be able to communicate with them more consistently. And so now we have English and Spanish language learning. The second component of Archways is around high school completion. We know that there is a percentage of folks that work in our restaurants who weren't able to complete high school for the multitude of reasons that people don't finish high school. I think my third week at McDonald's, I had the privilege of meeting folks from Cengage at the time and Ed2Go, and they have a program called Career Online High School. And Career Online High School has been our partner since the beginning of our choice. It's a program designed specifically for working age adults who did not complete their high school diploma, of which I don't know the exact number, but we're around 35 to 40 million working adults in this country who don't have a high school diploma. And so that has been, they have been our partner since the beginning of our choice when we launched in 2015. We just reached a milestone. We have 2,000 folks who have graduated from Career Unlit High School and received their high school diploma. Importantly to us, this program is a high school diploma at the end of the program. It's not a GED program. We wanted to make that distinction for our folks. The third component of Archways is around college completion. We really focus on accessibility and affordability. By far the most, I would say, popular component of Archways is our tuition assistance. So people who work in McDonald's restaurants, both franchised and corporate owned, have access to $2,500 annually in tuition assistance. And importantly, again, that money can be used at any accredited institution. And that was really important to us because when we started sort of shaping what this was going to look like, we had lots of conversations about the importance of community colleges in this country. And when you think about the population of folks that work at McDonald's restaurants and the population of folks that community colleges are designed to serve, there's obviously an overlap there. So we wanted to really make sure that folks could use these funds to attend their local community college That they had some options, they had some choice, but very specifically, they could leverage their local community college. Our eligibility requirements are relatively low. Someone just needs to work in a restaurant for 90 days and work an average of 15 hours a week, so about two shifts, and they have access to $2,500 annually. Again, that can be used at any institution. Then our managers get a little bit more. Our full-time managers have access to $3,000. Knowing that, obviously, cost is a huge barrier for folks returning to school. We also have under the sort of college completion umbrella, partnerships, national partnerships with schools that offer opportunities for our employees. So our longest running partner is Colorado Tech University, CTU, and because of our long standing relationship with CTU, our restaurant employees can get a two or four year degree at no out of pocket costs. So between the McDonald's, Archways, tuition assistance funds, the money that, and the money that CTU puts in, the scholarship grant money that CTU puts in, there's no cost, no out of pocket cost to our restaurant employees, which is just a phenomenal benefit. The final component of Archways is around advising services. And again, this comes from my CAEL days, clearly comes from my CAEL days, the importance of advising. You know, really understanding that many of the people that work in our restaurants don't know what the first step is, right? I've had this thought of going to school, I've had a dream of going to school, I might be the first person in my family to even pursue this idea, I might not have access to an advisor in my high school or never had access to an advisor. And so someone who can help them navigate the kind of complicated waters of higher education. Simple things like, which I have a high school senior, so not so simple, a FAFSA form. What is a FAFSA form? How do I complete a FAFSA form? To more, I think, in-depth conversations around what's the education I wanna pursue? What, do I need a degree? Is a certificate sufficient? How many hours in a week do I need to dedicate to be successful at the college level? Am I ready to enter at the college level? Or is there things I need to do to prepare myself for that? So all of those conversations, obviously critical to the success of folks pursuing higher education. And so we think that's a really critical factor under the Archways umbrella.

Julian: I'm interested to hear a little bit about the impact on sort of the corporate, on the company side in terms of retention and both for McDonald's own franchises and for the store, and for the franchises.

Lisa: From a goal perspective, so I would say, you know, our big goal that we talk about is overall participation, right? So we've, since 2015, we've increased access to education for almost 83,000 restaurant employees and awarded just under $200 million in tuition assistance dollars. From a company perspective, from a business perspective, in 2020, we did an ROI study with Accenture to really look at what is the impact around promotion and retention. I certainly wasn't surprised by the results because we've all seen those studies and we know that the results are positive, but it was really, I think, exciting to see the results that we got. So we had two, almost two and a half times more likely to be promoted for our choice participants, about 2.3% lower attrition rates, 19% more likely to stay. So we had just some really great results from that ROI study. What Accenture was actually able to do is to drill that down, not direct result, but correlation to sales. And so what they found was that for restaurants that had high participation in archways, there was a 1% bump in sales. And I know that 1% doesn't necessarily sound like a lot, but in McDonald's world, 1% is actually pretty significant. And so it was exciting to see the ability to get that correlation down to actual sales numbers. And so I think the benefit of us being able to tell that business side story, I don't have the dollars off the top of my head of how much it costs to recruit and train a new crew member or a new shift manager. But we all know there's dollars associated with that. And so the ability to say, you know, this person's 19% more likely to stay if they participate in our choices is significant.

Kaitlin: That's fantastic. It's really interesting to hear what you've experienced as far as the successes on the learning side and the business side. Lisa, as we think about designing this program for scale and within a franchise organization, what are some of the challenges and successes you've experienced over time?

Lisa: Great question. And certainly doing this in a franchise organization is, it has its challenges, right? Is different than doing it where it's a, you know, fully owned corporate entity. And so I think that the biggest challenge, and it's an ongoing challenge, is communication, our ability to communicate directly with the folks that work in our restaurants to make sure that they are aware of all the benefits that live under the Archways umbrella. So there's layers that we have to go through to get that message into the restaurants. So I think that's a big challenge for us. Data is also a bit of a challenge for us. So because we're a franchise organization, we see aggregate data. We can see aggregate data by franchisee, but we're not seeing individual data. And so that lends itself to challenges. However, the benefits of doing this in a franchise organization, I think outweigh the challenges. I think the benefit of us working through a franchise model is that we have small and mid-sized business owners who run our restaurants, who run their organizations and they are so closely connected to the people that work in our restaurants. And you have, so then you actually have the business owner who's invested in that individual who is say, going through that high school completion program. And so they really become sort of their coach, their cheerleader, right? They're the person who's hosting that graduation in their restaurant to celebrate that individual. And I think that that has had a huge impact on the success of Archways because the business owner is so close to what's actually happening in their restaurants.

Kaitlin: So Lisa, you mentioned the storytelling aspect of the communication work. Do you have any stories you'd highlight? Success stories or individuals who have had really impactful experiences. We have so many stories that come through. I mean, it's the rewarding work that my team and I get to do and a big part of that is seeing these stories come across our desks, through our computers on a regular basis. A great story that comes to mind because we just had a graduation celebration last week in the Miami area. Jenny Escobar is a general manager of a restaurant in the Miami area. She came to this country from El Salvador, did not speak English, learned English by working in a McDonald's restaurant. When we launched Archway, she heard about the high school completion program. She immediately jumped on us. She was one of our first graduates from the high school completion program. She was then promoted to general manager. She then got her associate's degree from Colorado Tech University. And just last week we celebrated her getting her bachelor's degree from Colorado Tech University. Uh, and the picture, I wish you and your audience could see the picture, but the picture of her and her husband and her four children, so general manager of a restaurant pursuing a college degree. And raising four children, small children, um, just amazing. And so to be able to, you know, see that story, especially because we've seen the longevity of that story, right? It was not a one and done thing. She's still with McDonald's. She's still committed to to her work, to her job, but also pursuing her education is just such a, again, a rewarding experience to see. I mean, we are we're changing people's lives.

Julian: So then what are some of the current pain points? And then what are the steps you're taking to expand Archways?

Lisa: Pain point that I just mentioned, you know, the ability to communicate is challenging. And I think even in fully owned corporate entities, right? That's still a challenge, right? So it's not a one-time message. You know, it's interesting. When we first launched Archways, I had a franchisee say to me, well, I did Our Choice. And I said, okay, great, I don't know what that means that you did Archways. I'm assuming it meant, right, he maybe put up a poster in a crew room or maybe he had a conversation with his folks. But that was a big learning for me to help people understand that this message about going to school or pursuing your education or going back to school is not a decision that people take lightly, especially folks who are in entry-level jobs who have, you know, complicated lives and face lots of barriers to moving themselves forward. And so understanding that that communication piece is such a critical component because it's, you know, somebody who's maybe in the back of their mind has thought you know, I took one college class, I'd love to go back. Or I dropped out of high school and because I was pregnant and I had kids and now they're in high school and I wanna demonstrate to them that education is important so I wanna go back. That's not, again, not a decision that people take lightly. There's a lot of fear involved in making that decision. And so the communication piece, you know, is critical because they have to hear those messages on a consistent, regular basis, right? Until I'm like, okay, I can. I think I can do this now, right? It was an idea and then I got excited, a little excited about it and then I got scared about it and then I got excited about it, right? It's something that they have to hear regularly. And I also think what we've done a pretty good job of is storytelling, right? So really making sure that people see people who look like them and have similar lives to them that have been successful, that have gotten their high school diploma, that have then gone on to pursue a college degree, who have gotten promoted to general manager in a restaurant. Right? Seeing those stories and being able to recognize themselves in those stories, I think lends itself to a lot of confidence. That's, you know, that's work, right? Getting those stories, getting that communication into the restaurant on a regular, on a regular and consistent basis. So that, you know, that is certainly a challenge. I think, you know, the second question you asked Julian is, you know, what's, what's next? Part of it. And I get that, certainly get that question a lot internally. And you know, one of my sort of my flip-in answer is, well, we haven't solved the education gap yet. So we're going to keep doing what we're doing. I think it's important to, you know, stay on course with, with what we're currently doing. Right. There, there, we've had a lot of success. There's a lot more to be had and there's a lot more we could be doing. So I think that's part of it. I think the expansion part is thinking about how do we better position ourselves as a pipeline employer, as the country leans into skills-based hiring and thinking more strategically about skills and the value of skills. How do we, as a company, along with our franchisees, who employ about a million people, how do we think, again, more strategically about talking through the skills that people learn by virtue of working in a McDonald's restaurant. And the importance of those skills, those work readiness skills, power skills, soft skills, all the words that we call them. But they are work readiness skills. They're things that you learn in a first job that carry you through, that stay with you, that are critical in any career pathway that you choose. So really being able to demonstrate, importantly, internally, right? Here are the skills you're learning. And here is how they are transferable as you navigate a career path within McDonald's, but here's how they're transferable as you navigate a career path wherever you want to go, whatever industry you want to pursue. So I think that that piece is important for us to focus on internally. And then I think externally, again, because this conversation has really taken center stage is what part does, not just McDonald's, but what-part do entry level employers play in this skills conversation. And I don't have the answer to that yet. I don't know what that looks like, but I think there is, I mean, I think the first step is just transparency around skills learned in those entry level jobs. And that we stop sort of overlooking the importance of those entry level jobs.

Kaitlin: Absolutely. And actually that's a lead in directly to our next question. And in our discussion today, but, and maybe you can, you can build further on that or go in a different direction. But I feel like, you know, you've shared so many practical steps as we think about how, you know, our audience can become forces in designing scalable workforce development and upscaling initiatives. However, I will ask the question explicitly. I mean, are there other steps you would recommend or specific steps within what you've discussed that you would recommend, you know, as we think about how to take this work broader, deeper that you would recommend to others.

Lisa: Step one is understanding your workforce, understanding what are the sort of individual pain points, if you will, within your workforce, right? So for us, as opposed to, you know, maybe even Starbucks, for example, we had to really think about where are the people along that education spectrum, where are they, knowing that we had a lot of non-native English speakers, knowing that we had folks who didn't complete high school. And so it was important to us to think about what can we design that really helps them along that pathway? We couldn't just start at college tuition assistance. We really had to take steps back to think about, to get them to that point, if that's something they wanna pursue, there's things that have to happen first. And so I think understanding your workforce is a really critical step. I think then also understanding from a business perspective, right, what need are you filling, right? Is there a burning platform? Is there a burning platform around critical skill shortages, for example, in particular roles? Do you wanna grow talent to meet those critical skill shortages? Is there an opportunity to sort of build people up and then allow them to pursue their careers in other industries and other places? So I think getting your arms around what are the needs of the businesses and how do the goals of what you're creating tie into the needs of the business? I think another really critical piece is finding the right partners. We certainly couldn't do this on our own. Right, we are not an education provider. I mean, we do great things in our learning and development space, but we're not an education provider. So who are the right partners? And I think finding partners who are willing to understand your business, and more importantly, understand your employees and the challenges that your employees face, right? That they're not just giving you sort of an off the shelf, one size fits all program or model or process, but they're really willing to and eager to, and I would go as far as to say passionate about, understanding who are the people that you are trying to serve and what challenges can we help them overcome? I think we got really lucky in that, specifically with Career Online High School and Colorado Tech University that they are, they go to events now and there are times I'm like, well, I don't need to be there, cause they're there. Right, I mean, they speak the same language that we do. So we have really great partners in this work and we certainly couldn't do the work without them.

Julian Lisa, you're so clear in your vision and your description and it's all very practical. And I guess it's just a little too bad that technology isn't quite at the point where we can just replicate you and plant you in every corporation in America. But I guess short of that, we're gonna have to keep following you. And so I'm wondering, how can our listeners learn more and continue to follow your important work?

Lisa: I'm not like a social media expert for certain. But you know, I think the Archways to Opportunity dot com website, there's definitely information on there that gives more detail than I provided. You know, LinkedIn, I try to post as much as possible. I also, you know, I'm happy to, when I got your invitation, I like to share this message. As I started and what my background was, it's really this passion around entry-level workers and they're, you know, helping them navigate their barriers, helping them navigate their careers. So there are a lot of opportunities that I have to speak about this work, which I'm so appreciative of. And so I think a lot of people have an opportunity to see and hear about this work that way also.

Julian: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today and for sharing that passion. It just comes right through the pod. I can feel it. And, you know, really appreciate your time.

Lisa: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Julian. Thank you so much, Kaitlin.

Kaitlin: Absolutely. Thank you. That's all we have for you today. Thank you for listening to Work Forces. We hope that you take away nuggets that you can use in your own work. Thank you to our sponsor, Lumina Foundation. We're also grateful to our wonderful producer, Dustin Ramsdell. You can listen to future episodes at workforces.info or on Apple, Amazon, and Spotify. Please subscribe, like, and share the podcast with your colleagues and friends.