Staff commitment key to success of ‘best Thai boss’ McThai
IN THE QUICK Service Restaurant (QSR) business of McThai Co Ltd, the operator of McDonald’s in Thailand, people is the most valuable asset to deliver great experiences including quality foods and excellent services to customers, said Hester Chew, Chairman of Executive Committee and Chief Executive of McThai Co Ltd.
He says the company employs its core value “STEP UP” to increase staff’s engagement with McThai’s commitment to provide a great place to work with transparent communication and active listening.
STEP UP values, adopted by the company in 2007, include Sanook@Work, Team to Win, Exceeding Customer Expectation, People, Ultimate Ownership and Passion to Win.
Aon, a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions, has recently named 14 organisations as its “Best Employers Thailand 2017”.
In its selection, McThai was named the winner of ‘Best of the Best Employers Award Thailand 2017’, reinforcing its success in the QSR business focusing on people and human resources development while McDonald’s was awarded the Regional Accredited Best Employers Award in APAC 2017.
According to the 2017 survey , jointly conducted by Aon Hewitt and Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University on Asia Pacific companies participating in Aon’s Best Employers programme, McThai received the highest scores in all 4 categories: employee engagement, leadership effectiveness, employer brand, and culture to drive high performance.
“We are pleased with the ‘Best of the Best Employers Award in Thailand’ for the second time with the highest score of 99 per cent , increasing from 95 per cent in 2013, while McDonald’s, at the same time, received the ‘Regional Accredited Best Employers Award in APAC’ for the second time after the first award in 2011,” he added.
“The awards reflect the bonding and engagement of our people and their high commitment to better their performance , leading to the common goal of success. This is in line with McThai’s vision of being the ‘Best Employer of Choice’ where emplyees view the company as the ‘Great Place to Work’ and being proud to work with us,” said Chew.
Chew says the company attracts talents and grooms future management leaders by promoting people based on performance, attitude and skills .
“We do not promote people based on long service, seniority, education or gender. We have top management executives, operations managers who are homegrown, starting as crew members and rise gradually in their career paths. We have intensive training programmes for our employees in various levels.
“M academy is our learning centre providing intensive training to groom our future managers and top executives,”.
He says the challenge facing human resource development lies in labour supply.
In the fast growing QSR business with many players in the market, it is very challenging amid high competition in recruitment to support a growing business.
Focusing on fostering employees, McThai is the only Quick Service Restaurant business that has received the ‘Best Employer Award’ for five consecutive years out of ten in 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017 .
Apart from that, McThai has won the ‘Best of the Best Employer Award’ in Thailand in 2013 and 2017 while McDonald’s received the ‘Regional Accredited Best Employers Award in APAC’ in 2011 and 2017.
The company was also named top “Company for Leaders in Southeast Asia” in 2014 by Aon Hewitt, a provider of human capital and management consulting services.
