I have been working with McDonald’s franchises for nine years, first introducing iMA to a franchise group in 2017. Over the past 15 months, this work has accelerated through my partnership with Edge Restaurants, a McDonald’s franchise group operating 20 restaurants across North-West England. Their commitment to iMA has been exceptional, with the approach now embedded across every one of their restaurants.
A strong workplace culture is built by creating an environment where people understand themselves, understand each other, and are able to perform at their best. When employees are given the opportunity to work in roles that align with their natural strengths, confidence grows, communication improves and teams become more effective.
This is where iMA makes such a significant difference. Every successful hospitality operation depends on a combination of different people, skills and behaviours. The four iMA colour profiles – High Red, High Yellow, High Green and High Blue – each bring valuable strengths that contribute to a high-performing team. By helping people understand their own style, as well as those of their colleagues, iMA enables businesses to create stronger relationships, better teamwork and improved performance. The result is a workplace where people can play to their strengths, develop expertise in their roles and create a company culture where employees want to stay, develop and succeed.
Lovin’ It
McDonald’s lends itself perfectly to iMA. Their operating system is identical in every restaurant which means that every job within each McDonald’s restaurant is the same. As with every workplace, there are jobs which are iMA High Red, High Yellow, High Green and High Blue. Your business functions with high productivity when you have the right people in the right jobs.
The Benefits of Putting People in the Right Roles
- Everyone thrives when they are working in roles they enjoy and that align with their natural strengths.
- Individuals become more confident and capable in their roles, continually improving their performance and adding greater value to the business.
- Business owners and leaders can achieve better results by delegating tasks to team members with different iMA colours from their own, allowing everyone to play to their strengths and contribute in the areas where they perform best.
If a Job is Worth Doing …..
As time progresses, all of these team members create mastery in their roles and are then in a position to train new members of the team. The positive effect is that they love their jobs and will want to progress in the company. They are less likely to want to leave and more likely to provide top quality service to the customers. This helps the firm improve employee retention, retain valuable talent and build the experience needed for the business to grow. Underlying bottom line expenditure is reduced as there is a reduction in monies being paid out to recruit new staff as regularly as was once required. The real cost of high staff turnover and recruitment is not always so easy to calculate. Losing experienced, well-trained staff who have a solid relationship with both their colleagues and customers can force the business into retreat when you have to start afresh, recruiting (the entire process of advertising, long-listing; short-listing, interviewing, induction, uniform etc.) training and building rapport.
How iMA Improves Workplace Communication and Team Adaptability
What happens when someone needs to cover a break or an absence of someone with a different iMA colour? That is where my training comes in. The beauty of iMA is that it can be understood and enacted very easily and quickly. It isn’t a psychometric system and it focuses on understanding the people who are not like you and communicating and behaving in a way that they recognise, which is their natural style. Learning how to identify, Modify and Adapt to the person you are communicating with helps you understand everyone better and in addition helps you to understand the types of job that they are good at. While a team member is covering for a colleague (who is a different iMA colour and doing a job which matches their iMA colour and not that of the person covering for them), they will learn how to think and behave in the way the other person does for a period of time. As a warning there needs to be an agreed and reasonable time period after which time the cover person needs to be relieved and return to their area of strength.
In Perfect Harmony
I visited one of the McDonald’s restaurants last week, which sits in the Edge Restaurants franchise. iMA is alive and kicking, working well and bringing dividends and providing added energy to the entire operation. It was so satisfying to watch High Yellow’s executing High Yellow jobs; High Greens carrying out High Green jobs, High Blues doing High Blue jobs and High Reds delivering High Red jobs. There was a perfect symmetry to an already very highly impressive operation, which works at a remarkable pace in every McDonald’s in the world. The McDonalds operating system is mightily impressive and once you add in a team who know how to communicate with everyone else and can excel at roles most suited to them, the entire crew and all the customers benefit.
Each and every crew member has a coloured sticker on their name badge indicating what iMA colour they. This keeps iMA front and centre. The drive-thru booth has a reminder as to what all the four iMA colour styles are and this is repeated in the crew room and the business manager’s office. They are living iMA 24/7 (literally).
How iMA Improves Workplace Communication and Reduces Staff Turnover
Hurrah for Harry
During my visit I had the privilege of meeting Harry, a Crew Trainer. Harry is an iMA High Yellow. He has a complete handle on all the crew roles which he is very able to execute, he is a superstar when it comes to any of the customer service roles he carries out, especially when in charge of the drive-thru. The drive-thru is most certainly a High Yellow area and Harry has the whole process down to a fine art. He is welcoming, friendly, helpful, charming and appreciative. On two occasions when there was a customer issue to be dealt with, Harry went out of his way to help and prevented any customer dissatisfaction before there was any chance of that happening. Both his energy and his smile are contagious. The more people Harry served and interacted with the more energetic he became. That is how High Yellows carry themselves which is why having them in customer facing roles is essential. This process is then the same for roles perfectly suited to the other three iMA colours; each will become energised (in their own style) when working in the jobs they are doing.
Last Word
Watching iMA in action seeing it working for the crew, the mangers and the customers energised me further. There are an endless number of ways iMA can be enacted, in this case; allowing team members to play to their strengths, creating a positive working environment with all of the crew knowing each other’s iMA colour and how to communicate with them most effectively and providing customers with an excellent service. This all enhances the workplace and makes it a happy experience for all parties. This then makes it easier to recruit and easier to retain.
