McDonald's Encourages Employees to Blog

This article appeared in Brandweek

March 11, 2008

By Eric Newman

There is one channel that McDonald's restaurant employees and corporate team can all tune into: Station M.

Station M is an internal blog launched last week, geared at increasing interactions between crews at nearly 15,000 McDonald's locations across the U.S. and Canada. Station M also is meant for dialogues between the crews and the chain's Oakbrook, Ill., headquarters.

The No. 1 burger chain hopes blogging will help improve internal communications and help sustain strong sales. This week it announced that U.S. comp-store sales in February increased 8.3% over last year. The company attributed the increase to breakfast, coffee and "everyday value" offerings. Worldwide, February sales rose 11.7%.

Station M allows employees to post content and begin online discussions on a variety of topics, including new McDonald's products, promotions and operations, as well as general, nonbusiness related issues. Each post contains a "comments" section where users can insert their reaction to, or questions about, a given topic. Content is provided in English, Spanish and French to facilitate the greatest level of participation across the U.S. and Canadian markets.

In the past, McDonald's didn't have the capability of a communications channel, but new technologies made it possible, said Ben Stringfellow, senior director of U.S. communications at McDonald's. The Station M program was created following a long evaluation process with employees to determine the most efficient system for two-way dialogue.

"It provides us the opportunity to get information to the people who are interacting with our customers day to day," Stringfellow said. "And [it] provides us with a channel back to hear what's on the minds of our crew people, what they're excited about and what questions they have. We can use that information to better handle our future communications."