Learning to juggle orders behind restaurant counters and drive-through windows paved the way to success for many of this food service retailer’s top executives, and professional growth is still emphasized during job training today. For inspiration, current restaurant crews need only look at the ascendance of onetime frontline workers James Skinner (now CEO) and Jan Fields (now U.S. president). In the company’s corporate offices and its regional outposts, junior employees flock to the MCD Mentor program, which matches them with more experienced colleagues to help guide their growing careers. To give female employees a push, there’s the Women’s Career Development program, offered nationwide, which offers intensive classes and distance learning work and shows them how to advance by better navigating the organization. Moms benefit from the brand-new Working Mother’s Council at headquarters, which joins the company’s Women’s Leadership Network and similar groups in providing opportunities for them to form alliances and drive awareness of their concerns at the company. Full-time hourly workers can take advantage of flextime, compressed schedules and job-sharing, and nearly everyone can access the company’s concierge services, financial education, legal aid, fitness discounts and counseling sessions. Three medical plans serve anyone who works 20 hours per week or more—and there’s no cap on their benefits.

Hourly workers 90%

CEO James Skinner

Executive VP, HR Richard Floersch

Female hourly workers 63%

Work hours required for family health insurance 20

Job skills training during work hours for hourly workers Yes

Encourage breaks so nursing moms can breast-pump No

Average annual paid time off taken by hourly workers Not tracked

Minimum job-guaranteed maternity leave offered to hourly workers 12 weeks

Minimum paid maternity leave offered to hourly workers 12 weeks at partial pay