“It’s because of China’s strategic importance to McDonald’s that we have chosen to have our new Hamburger University in Shanghai,’’ Fenton said. “We have to get ahead of the people curve.’’
Foreign companies in China are focusing on developing local managers but face pressure to keep them as they move on for better opportunities.
Yesterday, the American Chamber of Commerce said a survey of 202 multinational companies found they are changing strategies to adapt to rising costs and high employee turnover.
Companies need to offer better opportunities to keep talented employees, said Joni Bessler, a partner at consulting firm Booz & Co., which helped to compile the survey. “Innovation is required to get people to stay for more than two years,’’ said Bessler.
Shanghai’s $250 million Hamburger U., the company’s seventh worldwide, has a statue of company symbol Ronald McDonald but will not teach how to make burgers and fries. The emphasis is on running businesses better.
McDonald’s, based in Oak Brook, Ill., has more than 60,000 employees in more than 1,100 restaurants in mainland China after 20 years in the country and plans to expand to 2,000 outlets in three to five years.
Since company policy requires that branches be headed by Hamburger U.-trained managers, it shifted its Hong Kong teaching facility to Shanghai.
The school, located in a nondescript office building in a suburban industrial park, aims to have 5,000 graduates over the next five years.
Hamburger U. Shanghai’s courses can be used in some cases to earn college credit, and the company says graduates use such schools as a springboard to pursue college degrees.
“We will do our best to be the Harvard for our industry,’’ said the school’s dean, Susanna Li.
Other companies also are trying to get more for their payroll spending.
Average earnings before interest and tax of the companies replying to the American Chamber of Commerce survey fell to 8.3 percent in 2009 from 15 percent the year before. Some are shifting production to lower-cost regions of China and elsewhere in Asia, especially India.
“The number one priority needs to be on educating and giving your employees opportunities for career growth,’’ said Edward Jones, regional general manager of machinery company Atlas Copco (Shanghai) Trading Co.
