achieved, but we have no doubt that as
a brand we will continue to lead in this
strategic initiative. We will be doubling the
size of our Saudi workforce.”
Transforming the restaurant chain into an
attractive employer for Saudis involved
extensive collaboration with the Saudi
Arabian Ministry of Labor’s Human
Resources Development Fund. “They’ve been
very supportive of our business,” Prince
Mishaal confirms.
“We’ve cooperated with them in
developing local initiatives which we felt
served our purpose. We initially worked on
many initiatives in a trial-and-error phase. We
had zero Saudis working for us and we tried
a lot of unsuccessful things to attract them.”
Prince Mishaal formed an executive
committee to identify the obstacles
preventing Saudis working in the sector. He
headed up the committee himself. “We spent
a lot of time in developing strategies to
address every one of those obstacles,” he
recalls. “Then we began gradually
implementing them one by one.
“This process involved face-to-face
interviews with locals, questionnaires and
extensive market research exercises.”
Yet even this didn’t see local employment
numbers rise like Prince Mishaal had hoped.
In 2012, however, the company finally made
a breakthrough by appointing a specialised
global team to undertake even more
comprehensive research. This work found that
Saudi nationals sought flexibility in their
worksite and rostered hours, favoured
employers that would invest in their training
and development, and wanted more
competitive salary packages.
“For us, that was the game-changer,”
Prince Mishaal recalls. The influx of Saudi
employees picked up pace, and later that year
the company celebrated its thousandth local
employee. It was the first in the industry to
reach this milestone and celebrated with a
ceremony that was endorsed by the Ministry
of Labor. The painstaking work and patience
have paid off and McDonald’s Saudi Arabia is
now recognised as one of the leading local
employers not just in its industry, but across
the whole private sector. “We are one of the1/2 page advert
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