SHANGHAI — Zhou Xiaobu runs from one end of a table to another, grasping a piece of a puzzle she and her team are assembling as part of a leadership-training exercise for McDonald’s managers.
“Go, go, go,” yells their Taiwanese teacher, exhorting them to be first to build the company’s trademark Golden Arches. Above their heads is a sign that reads: “Learning today, leading tomorrow.” The thick green binders stuffed with paperwork on each of the 31 students’ desks indicate that the next activity may not be as rousing.
This is McDonald’s Hamburger University in China, and it can be harder to get into than Harvard.
“I’m thrilled and proud to attend Hamburger University,” said Zhou, who in 2007 started as a management trainee in the central Chinese city of Changsha, a job for which she and seven others were among 1,000 applicants. That’s a selection rate of less than 1 percent, lower than Harvard University’s record-low acceptance rate last year of about 7 percent, according to the school’s official newspaper.
McDonald’s set up its first Hamburger University in Elk Grove Village, Ill., in 1961 to train managers as well as franchise owners. Bloomberg News
