6 ways McDonald’s internal comms is proving its value

Surveying internal communication at McDonald’s, you might think the global corporation has it all figured out.

Talk to the driving force behind the effort, however, and Rodney Jordan—who is senior director of global executive and internal communications at the fast-food colossus—describes his work as a journey toward an as yet unrealized goal.

Jordan’s team is on a journey toward connecting the performance of masses of individuals to the communications they consume. Did comms make them work harder, do things better, achieve results?

“We’ve been on a journey here to try and crack that code,” says Jordan. “I would not say we’ve cracked the code. I would say we’ve put a nice dent in it.”

A dapper man with a blue and white striped handkerchief in the breast pocket of his gray blazer, Jordan describes his journey with the passion of a Columbus trying to persuade Ferdinand and Isabella to back his journey to the New World.

We meet in McDonald’s spiffy new headquarters on Chicago’s bustling near West Loop, in a space that is a corporate meeting hall that also includes a McDonald’s restaurant. McDonald’s holds town halls here on the tiered seats facing multistory windows that look out on rooftops and high-rises.