Soon, it may no longer be accurate to refer to a low-wage gig without benefits as a "McJob."
Recently the company that inspired the sad term is now attributing its recent growth to — wait for it — higher wages and more generous employee benefits.
"The improvements we made to our compensation and benefits package to employees in U.S.-company operated restaurants, along with expanding [the tuition assistance program] Archways to Opportunity … have resulted in lower crew turnover and higher customer satisfaction scores," says McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook, according to Forbes.
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Last year, the fast-food giant announced it would raise the pay rate for its lowest-paid workers in company-owned restaurants to at least $1 over the locally mandated minimum wage. It also unveiled a benefits package for all full- and part-time employees that included paid vacation and a tuition assistance program.
Six months after McDonald's announcement, Wal-Mart, the largest employer in the country, similarly said it would be raising wages for more than 1 million employees at its ubiquitous stores.
The decision to move from the low-wage labor model and to make large-scale pay and benefit changes was largely driven by a number of factors.
The first is purely economical: With a national unemployment rate below 5 percent, employers find it harder to recruit and retain workers with low pay.
But the second potential factor is political. Large employers have undoubtedly been alarmed by the success of an increasingly strident union-backed movement to dramatically raise the minimum wage and hope that by raising pay on their own, they can stave off a major political confrontation over employee compensation.
While many Democratically controlled cities, counties and states have raced ahead to hike the minimum wage as high as $15, there are still many areas of the country operating under the federal minimum wage ($7.25). Large employers would certainly prefer to set their own wage rates in such places before local governments are convinced to impose a rate hike higher than the companies want to pay.
But finally, the new attitude might reflect a growing awareness of the effect of employee turnover or low worker morale on operations. The calls to abstain from fast food are only bound to grow louder in the coming years; if McDonald's hope to keep attracting customers, it will need to ensure that the experience of dining at their restaurants is as pleasant as possible.
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