How McDonald’s Builds a Strong Workplace Culture
In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, we speak with Emilee F. DeMartino, Chief People Officer for International Markets at McDonald's, about building a culture of care, leveraging technology to transform HR, and leading with empathy across a global workforce.
Emilee highlights the importance of meaningful recognition, the role of predictive analytics in workforce planning, and how digital innovation is reshaping employee experience at scale.
🎓 In this episode, Emilee discusses:
Balancing empathy with strategic decision-making
Using predictive analytics for workforce optimization
Creating and maintaining a culture of care and recognition
How digital transformation enhances employee experiences
The role of meaningful community connections and partnerships
Deel is the all-in-one payroll and HR platform for global teams.
Deel helps companies simplify every aspect of managing a workforce, from onboarding, compliance and performance management, to global payroll, HRIS and immigration support.
Deel works for full-time employees and independent contractors in more than 150 countries, compliantly.
And getting set up takes just a few minutes.
Emilee DeMartino 0:00
Emily, how are you? I am excellent. Chris, how are you? I'm good. You're here in the flesh. I am here, and it's sunny and beautiful in London. No one believes you. I wish I could turn the camera. I literally for
Chris Rainey 0:11
the audience. I was driving down the road to the studio, and I saw you walking. And I was like, Emily, surely that's not Emily just having a nice stroll down the street in London. Yes, it was so at least you had on so you chose to walk and have a yeah, enjoy the journey. At least.
Emilee DeMartino 0:24
I love walking. Yeah. Love walking peaceful, relaxing. And a
Chris Rainey 0:28
day like today you can and you had to drive and you had to walk past the McDonald's. Yes,
Emilee DeMartino 0:32
I did very tempting not to stop, but I will be going there after how's
Chris Rainey 0:36
that feel when you walk past? Are you always tempted to listen to I have a little sneak in and see what's happening. 100%
Emilee DeMartino 0:42
I would say more. So I feel like stopping in and just saying thank you. Oh, great. Our restaurant teams work so so hard, and they truly are the heartbeat of our business. And yeah, stopping in to say hello, thank you for absolutely everything you're doing to serve our guests. What's
Chris Rainey 0:57
their reaction? Normally? How do you intro life? How to intro yourself. What do I Oh,
Emilee DeMartino 1:02
don't. Sometimes I don't, okay, I don't want to create because at times it could create stress. But it's more about just sharing the appreciation as a as a customer, yeah, but certainly when we go on market visits, it's incredibly important that we make them feel special, because they you know why? If I, if I think about what our purpose is, it's delivering delicious feel good moments, and they serve up millions of those over the course of a year. And so how can we celebrate them? How can we make them feel special? One of the, one of the things we'll often do is we'll, we'll carry pins with us and give them pins to recognize, recognize them when we go in for our visits, and the
Chris Rainey 1:43
other things that people really remember, you know, the moments that matter. Ai, when I look back on my career, at some of the best moments, it's those moments of gratitude, absolutely, where a leader has walked out the office and said congratulations, or just well done, those things mean more than promotions. In some cases, to me, to be honest, just that recognition absolutely most people, unfortunately, not. Not every company is great at doing that right as well, as well. So before we get into that this, take a step back further. Tell everyone a little bit more about yourself personally and your journey to where we are now happy to
Emilee DeMartino 2:16
So Emily DeMartino, I head up HR. I'm our Chief People Officer for our international markets at McDonald's, supporting, from an HR standpoint, and serving 15 markets, 750,000 employees. Did you say 750,700
Chris Rainey 2:32
50,000 I never did. The great,
Emilee DeMartino 2:34
great sense of responsibility is
Chris Rainey 2:38
a lot. You say just, that's just within international markets. Yes,
Emilee DeMartino 2:41
just our international operated market. Wow, what is that globally? Roughly about 2 million.
Chris Rainey 2:46
Oh, yeah, I knew, obviously as big, but just Yes, I didn't know. Yeah, that makes you one of the largest employers in the world.
Emilee DeMartino 2:54
Absolutely, absolutely. And if you think about our people practices, I would say that's one of the things that we really think about, how are we creating a culture and environment where people feel safe, supported, respected? How do we, you know, do we have the best hiring practices so that as we bring people into the organization, we're bringing the right talent in, and we're setting them up for success with our learning and development? So it's an incredible role. You know, we are the, you know, in the in the people function, the keepers of the culture, as are all of our leaders in the organization, that's incredible, incredible responsibility.
Chris Rainey 3:27
It's also an interesting responsibility, because many of my friends, even my neighbor, growing up. For most people, it's their first job. Yes, there's their first experience of working in in going to work. I said it sort of this additional responsibility there. How does that? How does that? Absolutely,
Emilee DeMartino 3:42
I would say we completely pride ourselves in having having that accountability, having that responsibility to help set people up for success. Yeah, education, life skills. You know, if you imagine working in a McDonald's restaurants, the relationships and the connections that you build, the communication and engagement, the focus on customer service and serving serving guests, all of those critical life skills go so far. Being part of a team goes so far when you think about setting yourself up for success. Yeah, we actually. We did several years ago. We did an exciting campaign made at McDonald's, and we started to look at some of the research and insights on where our crew went, you know, and some of it beyond, yes, where they went. We had over 500,000 that had gone on to be nurses, two and a half million that became entrepreneurs. You know. We've had some some recent work where we looked at data and in the US, one in eight Americans have have worked for McDonald's in Canada. It was one in 10. So 100% it's a great place to get a start.
Chris Rainey 4:51
Yeah, it's also was discussing this before we hit record. It's like part of your childhood. Oh, every so. Ingrained. We were talking about the Happy Meal twice, yeah, that we still love, or remember from when we were kids and collecting them like so you've also got that super interesting, interesting dynamic that most brands perhaps don't have, where people you know, you don't have to explain this is who we are and what we do, what some of the common questions you get, oh,
Emilee DeMartino 5:21
the most popular question, and even from my family, I get, do you get free McDonald's? And no, no, I proudly pay for my McDonald's
Chris Rainey 5:31
McDonald's black card. Like, exactly, exactly this unlimited card. No, okay, so that's the most common question, yeah. That
Emilee DeMartino 5:38
is, that is perhaps the most, common question that I get, yeah. The other thing I think people often don't realize is that we are a franchise business, yes. So over 90% of our restaurants are owned and operated by local franchisees in the community, and that is something that I would say is a massive point of pride for us. You know, when we think about the connection to the community, being able to to build excitement recognition. We've seen incredible things that they do to bring bring the culture to life.
Chris Rainey 6:09
So I think I said to you, when we first spoke, one of my neighbors growing up worked at McDonald's and worked his way up to be an owner, and it was like I remember when he became a manager, let alone an owner from where we grew up, in East London, which is pretty rough, like, on a council estate, you know, didn't have much that he managed to do that for us, looking at, looking from the outside in, being like, wow. Like, that's really inspiring to see someone that represents our culture and our community achieve that was huge. Like, I just remember seeing that and just being like, wow, that's inspiring.
Emilee DeMartino 6:42
And I would say that's that is something. When I think about McDonald's, there's probably two core principles that I think about. The first one is opportunity. There is so much possibilities that come with being connected and attached to the brand, whether it's, you know, the education and the learning that we provide the life skills over the course of working and even the connections that you create, but the opportunity we've got 1000s of franchisees around the globe that are their own independent business owners and entrepreneurs, and the way that they're able to thrive and create such value in their communities, I think is incredible to see so that that opportunity is certainly massive. The other piece is partnership. One of the things I love about our business is what we call the three legged stool, our franchisees, our suppliers in the company, and to be able to work across those three areas in tight connection, collaboration. You know, when hard things happen, I think about COVID. Everyone leaned in together to say, how do we come through this as a system? How do we come through this as a mcfamily and so mcfamily,
Chris Rainey 7:50
yeah, of course. Yes. Brandon, take me back one second to your career. How did you get into HR? Did you choose this career, or did it choose you along the way, yes,
Emilee DeMartino 8:00
yes. Well, so going, going clear back to the beginning, I would say, growing up in a very small farming community in central Kansas, I never dreamed I'd be sitting in one of the most amazing cities in the world and working for one of the most amazing brands. And so as I graduated high school, went on to college, studied business, ended up working in banking for a few years already, as I was getting my master's great experience, to be able to be in the business, work with clients, and it was commercial banking at the time, and then go, go through my master's the learning, the connecting the dots, the understanding how You can apply some of the ideas that you're seeing really got me energized. And one of the ladies that I was working with at the bank said, your mind works like my daughters. Her daughter worked for Accenture, and so I ended up then going and working for Accenture. And that was an incredible experience. Appreciated the variety, appreciated the the deep learning on project management, change management, how you bring people on a journey. And so spent a few years in consulting with with Accenture, and then Mercer, and then I went to CNA insurance. I spent about seven years at CNA insurance, leading ultimately, when I left change in culture, which was a brilliant combination of business strategy, corporate strategy, yes,
Chris Rainey 9:25
changes at work without the culture totally and vice versa as well, totally
Emilee DeMartino 9:29
and so that was an incredible role that that focused on some of the HR centers of excellence, but also gave me the opportunity to work really closely with the leadership team there to think about new go to market strategies, strategic priorities that needed to get executed, and really harness talent, harness our leaders across the organization to help drive those Yeah, programs forward. And then McDonald's called and, you know, certainly I had, I've had a variety of roles, excellent roles, over the course of my. Time at McDonald's, and I would say, perhaps most proud of some of the progress that we've made around creating a culture of care, whether it was redefining our values in 2020 to ensure that everyone across the system listening to our franchisees, listening to our restaurant teams, listening to our suppliers, redefining those values in a way that resonated across the system, and then leveraging those values to make decisions. And so whether it's where we're operating, whether it's how we navigated COVID, so that, I would say, is certainly an exciting part of the journey. And then, you know, a couple other elements that I would mention. Is, as we were in the midst of COVID, we asked ourselves, Are there no regrets moves that we could lean into? And we ended up shaping what we called Global people brand standards, which basically what we're doing is saying we want to have the same level of rigor and consistency when it comes to our people practices in our restaurants, as we do with our operational excellence and with our food safety. So can we come up with some key standards that across every restaurant we have, we know that we're assessing and we're ensuring that we've got those practices in place. And so that was another area, I would say. We've made great progress. We continue to, you know, listen, learn, improve, prove on those practices. But that's how did
Chris Rainey 11:23
you agree on highlight practices? Could you kind of do, like, a survey? Did you like go on a tour of the business? Like, because that's especially it's a large organization, you got so much
Emilee DeMartino 11:36
strategy? Yeah, listening was a big part of it, certainly across several of our international markets at the time, we had several of these practices in place, but one of the things we did is we said, you know, let's listen to the the various stakeholders out there. Yeah. And then we also said, and took a look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and said, We're going to start by ensuring that we've got a solid foundation when it comes to safe, respectful, inclusive workplace. And then also, we were going through COVID At the time, so we said, we need to have the right practices in place. And again, it was about PPE, safety procedures, protocols. You kept going right? And yes, I mean, we were keen to serve our customers as quickly as we could. We had lines queuing up significantly the moments we opened our doors back up. But it really is, I would say, this combination between having a clear, aligned set of values, values and priorities, and being committed to following those as you're making decisions and guiding the business. And that's something I would say, really proud of, how the business has Yeah, has leaned in.
Chris Rainey 12:41
That's been amazing. I love to talk to you about the digital transformation piece, yeah, because, obviously, you've got a massive population of frontline workers, right? It's like, the biggest part of your business, yes, as well. Like, how are you looking at Tech Data to Improve the employee experience? What some examples? Yeah, some of the things you're doing to make sure you can really reach them, right?
Emilee DeMartino 13:03
So we've been highly decentralized for several, several years, and so one of the things we're doing right now is asking ourselves, where does having consistency and some common practices make sense? And I would say the first one is data. So over the last few years, we've worked really hard to start to harmonize our data to get to a consistent place. Think about the value and the power of insights on people data as well. Yes, wow, you know. So it's, you know, things like, are we defining turnover consistently and tracking turnover consistently? So some great work has been done over the last few years to get us there. So I would say we're kind of in the foundational stage of, let's put some of those practices in place. Then we're thinking about, how do we get more sophisticated, lean into advanced analytics, and that being, how do we take some of this now consistent data, as we get there, and generate some common reports that we know we're going to help our restaurant managers, our franchisees, you know, our market teams really run the business and support our people. And then, thirdly, getting to predictive analytics, which, again, that's a little bit further out, you know, if I think about a horizon of the next, you know, three to five years. But having those foundational pieces in place, having structured operational reports that help us navigate the business in a consistent way, and again, learn from each other. Having that consistency, and then moving to Predictive analytics is quite powerful. And when I think about some of the predictive analytics space, you think about, start to think about quality, quality of hire, you start to think about predictive scheduling. I would say we're quite obsessed, and I'm quite obsessed about, how do we make work better for our people? And I will admit I like to get geeked out on data, but having data that's structured, that's consistent, and building some of that process flow, I think, is going to certainly help enable that's going
Chris Rainey 14:59
to be. Huge. What about from, like an upskilling and re skilling perspective? Because obviously, you're When do they have time to do that? You have to show up in the flow of work. It's changed while experience, etc. So
Emilee DeMartino 15:12
if you think about 50 years ago, how we served our customers, how we served our guests, was through very few channels, walk up, drive through, dine in. Today, we have so many more service channels, whether it's delivery, mobile, order and pay. Ordering on the, you know, ordering on the the screen the kiosk, the kiosk screen, yeah. So there are so many different ways to order. We also have loyalty. You know, we are building out different promotions, different deals, loyalty programs, to support our support, our guest and so all of that, we have to train our crew on. We have to help our managers understand what's coming when, so that they can manage, manage the restaurants. But then I would also say for our people. So moving from a place where you ran a restaurant without all that technology is quite different. Running it with that technology. If I reflect back over the last year, I think about 30% of the new roles we filled were completely new roles that we've had in the organization when it comes to cyber or transformation roles. And so not only are we thinking about, how do we have the right skills and capabilities in the restaurant to deliver, you know, delicious feel good moments to our guests, but we're also thinking about, what are our corporate teams need to be able to enable some of that change, some of that growth as well. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 16:38
so a lot of those roles didn't even exist. Yeah? You have now, yeah. So do you have, like, an app that employees use so they can access resources? Yeah?
Emilee DeMartino 16:45
We absolutely, yes. We've got, so yeah, in the restaurants, we'll have our learning programs. And one of the things I'm excited we're leaning into this year is shift leader certification and recertification. Nice. We've developed some excellent training that gets at how do we make our learning more modern? Also gamification, when it comes to, you know, a shift simulation and running a shift. So that's good. That might be a good one to try out. But there's, there's tons we've continued to do to really invest in modernizing our learning, making it more bite size, making it digestible for our for our restaurant teams as well, and again. Then I think a big part, if I think about on the corporate side, is investing in some of the digital fluency that's needed in, you know, a big focus that we've, we've continued to lean into, is customer centricity, data and analytics, you know. So certainly, from a people standpoint, we're investing more and more in, you know, data and analytics, and thinking about, how are we going to create the systems, harmonize the data, pull it together, but then we have to, you know, upskill our business partners on how they're going to interact with the business. Upskill our teams. Upskill our people leaders and people managers on the new ways of working? Yeah,
Chris Rainey 18:01
I love to learn more about your hiring, right? Because you're, I can only imagine. How many people, roughly, do you hire
Emilee DeMartino 18:06
a year? We hire approximately 2 million people a year. No way, and Partially, partially. That's because we're continuing to open more restaurants. So we so it's part of 40. Yes, about 40. 43,000. Restaurants today. By the end of 2027 we want to have 50,000 restaurants.
Chris Rainey 18:25
It's rain. Connie comprehend, yeah. So as
Emilee DeMartino 18:27
we think about, how do we rationalize some of our systems? How do we get benefit and value from scale and consistency? We're also looking at, are there areas we can lean in to drive greater impact now? And one of those areas we have leaned in has been with hiring solutions and platforms. So we've partnered with with paradox. We are leveraging, leveraging the Olivia functionality. We call the solution make hire, of course, but it has had a massive impact on our hiring. I mean, one of the things we talked earlier about is obsessed about, how can we make work better for our restaurant teams, they spend a lot of time, as you can imagine, interviewing, reviewing resumes, trying to narrow down applications, and what we've been able to do is give them back five to six hours a week, where we've deployed mcire To streamline that process. And one of the other things that we've seen the impacts is we're bringing time to hire down by about 10 days in many cases. So if you think about someone walking into a restaurant or a fine, yes, yes. I mean, if you've got, if you're waiting two to three weeks for someone to call you back to say you've got an opportunity. And so this has absolutely changed the game in terms of the experience for our existing, you know, our restaurant managers and our existing teams, but also streamlines that process so that you know a candidate that's that's interested is going to be in the mix now, instead of going next door to a competitor, so
Chris Rainey 19:52
they have basically the mobile app experience on their phone, and they can engage and get answers without even waiting for. Human beings come back, yeah, straight away, and then it's kind of escalated forward,
Emilee DeMartino 20:04
yes, yeah, absolutely. Collect all the the prerequisite information that's required, streams like streamlines the process quite significantly. Well,
Chris Rainey 20:13
how's that? How's that made? What's been the feedback from your hiring team? It's
Emilee DeMartino 20:17
been incredible. And I would say feedback from our franchisees has been incredible as well. Oh, they must be loving it. So, you know, isn't Yeah, exactly, I know, well done, well done. I
Chris Rainey 20:27
didn't mean that, yeah, yeah. They must be over the moon, because then that frees them up to spend more time, absolutely,
Emilee DeMartino 20:34
the people, absolutely, and that's exactly it. I mean, where we want our restaurant managers to be spending their time is with our guests and with our crew, you know, helping coach, helping support, helping manage the restaurants. And so this has been a game changer for us.
Chris Rainey 20:49
Nice you mentioned earlier around health and well being. How do you kind of personalize and prioritize your your health and well being? And also, how do you encourage your teams? Yes, to do the same,
Emilee DeMartino 21:02
such an important area, I would say me, personally, one of the things I love to do. You know, you noted that I was walking in from the train this morning. I love, I love walking, getting some fresh air, and, you know, decompressing. I've recently got this aura ring that's that's tracking my sleep. I'm getting it up, thinking about getting one for a while. Actually, yeah, I've but foundational. I think some of those pieces, it's really hard to be at your best if you're not taking care of yourself. And I think that's important for all of us with our teams, we do have a focus on well being, and we don't think solely about physical well being, but it's a broader construct. It's physical, well being, emotional, well being, social, well being environment, so ensuring that our people have the space, have the access to resources. And one of the things we just recently had a people manager connect, where we bring our people managers together, we'll have a conversation. But focusing on well being was a space that is so important, it was interesting. I mean, if we think about the cost of mental illness, I mean, it was, it's quite stark to see $16 trillion by 2030 and so there's a it's a massive, massive opportunity, a massive issue, to get our arms around. And as an employer of so many, we feel great responsibility to ensure that we're leaning in. And one of the biggest areas that we've seen is, how are we equipping our people leaders to be supporting that culture of care, engaging and checking in with people, asking questions, directing and providing support. Because we also saw an interesting stat that nearly 70% of workers feel that their manager has a greater impact on their well being than their doctor, than their therapist and even a partner, and so it's a massive area of focus at the moment for us. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 22:57
I love that, and as leaders and managers, it's not something that we were trained or prepared for, right, like when I grew up, when first became a manager, I never, I never, ever had any training or a conversation around, how do you have a conversation around, well, being right, an employee. So we have to help prepare them right, to have these conversations. And again, sometimes, and that was me earlier on, is the expectation that I had to have an answer, and I realized, actually, I don't need to have an answer. I need to be there to listen and then signpost and help, where sometimes, kind of, our managers feel like this is pressure, that they have to have all the answers, and then they don't have any conversation, right? Which is probably the worst thing 100% that you can do. So bringing them all together in that way that you did, so they could realize that I'm not alone, right? I have this great support network around me. Of other managers in the business to have open conversations. I'm sure that was really helpful for them.
Emilee DeMartino 23:47
Absolutely I mean to be to be seen, to be heard, to be valued, to be respected. I would say that is something that we we take a lot of pride in, is ensuring that everyone feels cared for, and everyone feels that they have that level of support. It reminded me, Chris of one of the other elements I was going to mention. And I so when I, when I was started early in my career in consulting, I used to think you had to have the answers to everything. And I put all this pressure on myself, and again, prepared and would would study up on my clients, the business landscape, you know, learn as much as I could, but I felt this deep level of pressure. And then I did an executive or life coaching certification, and it completely changed my perspective, the power of questions, the power of listening. And I think in leadership, that is so big, that is so big, no one knows all of the answers. But if, if you've got a leader that's able to surface the questions, focus on what's the problem we're trying to solve and listen, really, really listen. You know, we talk a lot about listening to understand. To respond, listen, to understand, it's quite it's quite powerful, yeah.
Chris Rainey 25:05
And also, I think for me to that point, the power of being vulnerable, yes, right? So your point, I, when I again, I felt like, I think all of us have that pressure. You feel like you have to have the answers, you have to be the person to know. But as a leader, I realize one of my biggest strength is being vulnerable, so that my team can then shine, right because I was getting in the way right so and once you ask for help, lean in, you see the engagement, the excitement, you know, leading with empathy and being vulnerable. I used to think that that was like, a weakness for many years, super now, exactly, yeah. And Chester, my coach, kind of helped me realize that, and all of a sudden my team so much more excited and engaged. I remember had a few employees in the past when who first joined him, like, it is really strange that you're in a I'm in a business where the team can challenge the CEO, yes. And I was like, why is that? It's like, but you're the CEO, then that person just said that you're wrong. And I'm like, gay, it's great. That's why, that's why I hired so many great minds, yes, just, just because it's my business doesn't mean I have the right answer. And they were like, I could never say that in my previous companies to something, to someone more senior to me. I was like, No, this is I want you to bring you to the table, right,
Emilee DeMartino 26:20
right? How do you drive innovation? You know, I think it's creativity, innovation ideas. I mean, I know I mentioned earlier, when we think about our franchisee network around the globe, there are so many incredible ideas that exist out in the system. Our ability to connect the dots, to learn from each other, is so crucial to helping the system move faster and further.
Chris Rainey 26:42
Can only imagine in Have you gone on sort of the talent marketplace journey yet? Or is that sister was still early? Because I can just imagine the wealth of knowledge and skin and skills that exist in Yes, yes in your organization that you perhaps don't know about. Yes,
Emilee DeMartino 26:58
we are in the process of digitizing, I would say our core HR and our talent and performance processes as we speak, we've got a few markets that have have already launched our new system, and we're part way through, but it is so important to be incredible.
Chris Rainey 27:11
When you get to tap into all those skills that exist out there, it's going to be unbelievable. I can only imagine that at scale. Yeah, you know the mentor opportunities to gig opportunities must be really exciting. Absolutely. Imagine, I
Emilee DeMartino 27:25
would say, you know, talent is a massive priority for us at the moment, one of the areas we're leaning in as we're modernizing our systems to create more visibility and also more empowerment for our people to create their own profiles in a system so where their where their interests lie, what their mobility looks like. All of that is something that we're giving us a bit of a sense of control, versus not having that clarity of who knows what and what my you know, my preferences might be, what my skills might be, but creating that and one of the things we're focused on is, how are we developing our talent, not necessarily just for the next role, but for the next next role in many cases. And thinking about the balance of 7020, 10, right? We want to get 70% of those experiences or that development on the job as we're going through change and transformation that is abundantly available, because there are so many opportunities to lean in, to stretch, to think about, how do we redefine the future in terms of how we operate in a way that that allows us to grow the business? You know, the 20% the coaching, the mentorship, and then also former formal learning are certainly key as part of that as well. But I would say, in a moment of change and transformation, we've got so many opportunities to stretch our talent. But coming back to the empathy piece, I think that also there is a as you're going through change and transformation, as leaders, we've got a responsibility to help meet people where they are, help them understand the meaning and the why that we're leaning into the change and making the change as an organization and a business. Secondly, think about what you know. What does it mean for them? What are the skills and capabilities? How might that be evolving and then helping them focus on what they can control, the self efficacy, the at times, it can be disorienting going through change when you don't have clarity or certainty. Yeah, and where we can provide as much as we can provide clarity and certainty on where to focus, what roles and responsibilities look like, I think, is something that certainly is going to help us on that journey. It's
Chris Rainey 29:31
going to keep people engaged. Yeah, because people need to know. What does this mean? For Chris, yes, right. It's all well and good sharing the change in the transformation. But you have to be you have to make it personalized Absolutely. So you're relying quite a lot heavily, then on your leaders and managers to really translate that, yes, ripple down throughout the business,
Emilee DeMartino 29:52
absolutely. And I would just do a shout out to you know, our CPOs and HR partners around the globe that as we go through. Change in transformation. We've got change within our function. So, you know, the oxygen mask moment, but also we're helping other other functions navigate that change as well. Thinking about, what are those skills? Thinking about what you know, are there shifts in organizations? What does that look like? How will we work together? New ways of working, new partnerships, collaboration. So, yeah, great, great time to be in HR, yeah, exciting time to be in HR, and exciting time to be at McDonald's. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 30:28
amazing. Rid of a random question, but what would you say is one thing about McDonald's and your culture in the business that people don't know that they really should isn't spoken about enough.
Emilee DeMartino 30:41
Yeah, you know, the first thing that I think about is our values. But what I would say is, I, you know, traveling across so many markets, I see them posted up in crew rooms around the world, so they they are maybe, it's probably let maybe less known. Um, outside of, outside of the golden arches, is our values. You know, our very first value is serve, put people first. That's our P you know, that's our employees, that's our customers. But really putting people first is, I would say, at the heart of our heart of our business, inclusion. We open our doors for everyone. Absolutely a critical central value, that we have integrity, doing the right thing. Community. We are good neighbors. So we talked a bit about the franchise model and the proximity local sourcing in many, in many of our markets. But that community piece is so critical. And then family, you know, last, certainly last, but not least, the three legged stool that we talked about. We get better together. And so I would say, you know that that's something that has has lived within the system, and you see, you know, around the system, but something that I would say, I'm perhaps most proud of is how we really do put people first and thinking
Chris Rainey 31:50
you should put it first in your values as
Emilee DeMartino 31:53
well. Exactly, yes, quite intentional. I would say I can imagine that
Chris Rainey 31:56
conversation with the team we got to actually, literally put it first. Yeah. Last question before I let you go, what advice would you give to your younger self? You know those HR leaders of tomorrow as well that will be sitting in your seat one day?
Emilee DeMartino 32:09
Yes, I It's a great question. Follow your curiosity and follow your passion. I feel so grateful that I've had the opportunity to do work that I love for the last 2020, plus years, and it's because I've been curious, it's because I've asked questions, it's because I have seen and leaned into opportunities, and raised my hand for, you know, opportunities that may have been hard or something that I haven't done before, but Lean in. Lean into the opportunities as they present themselves. And have fun. Don't beat yourself up, I would say, as well. Give yourself grace, yeah, and lean into the journey
Chris Rainey 32:50
amazing. Well, I appreciate you coming on the show. I can't believe you got to see each and we're probably, I'm going to see you again in Vegas, yes, yeah, in a few months as well. So I'll see you there soon. But thanks so much for coming on the show. Thank
Emilee DeMartino 32:59
you so much, Chris. You.
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Emilee DeMartino, CPO for International Markets at McDonald's.