As vice president and national ombudsman for McDonald’s USA, Ron Hawkins’ job is to resolve issues with franchisees and employees before they blow up into conflicts that draw in senior leadership or lawyers. So far he’s been pretty successful at it. Less than 1 percent of the cases that come to him advance to the top executives at Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald’s Corp., and in the past five years, not a single case has slipped out of his office and into a courtroom. Hawkins, who started off with the fast-food chain as a teenage crew member 39 years ago, was recently named the 2008 Professional for the Year in Food/Mediation and Conflict Resolution by “Strathmore’s Who’s Who Worldwide” for outstanding achievements in his field.
What kind of cases does an ombudsman handle?
Some of the types of areas involve growth issues or store awards. If you’re an operator in an area that is pretty well-saturated and you want to grow, how do you deal with it? We may relocate an operator to a new area if they fit the criteria. Or there may be a situation where a new store is opening and three or four operators around it all want that store. How do you choose one of the four? You put all the facts together and criteria and communicate how the decision was made. When everyone understands, it makes them feel better.
You call your position an independent, internal third party, but can an internal party really be independent?
You have to build the credibility. When this position started [in 1976], I’m sure there was apprehension. If a person has an issue, we bring another operator in to provide feedback.
How do you build credibility?
It’s built up over time. But it’s one of the most important things. Are you going to be independent and not just think from a corporate perspective? You build credibility by building trust, and you build trust by doing the right thing. It’s not who’s right, it’s what’s right. And it’s not what’s done, but how it’s done.