In 1991 Douglas Coupland first coined the term ‘McJob’ in his novel Generation X. 16 years later the word has come to stand for ‘an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector.’ At the end of May this year, a petition was launched by McDonald’s on behalf of the service sector to change the definition of ‘McJob’ to better reflect the reality of the career progression and prospects in its restaurants and the sector.

The petition has so far been supported by business and skills leaders, an early day motion has been signed by 35 MPs and a ‘McJob’ petition tour has already visited 24 towns as it travels the length and breadth of Britain calling on individuals to sign up.

Are you one of those individuals? Do you think it’s right for certain jobs to have such a disparaging description? Perhaps you work in the service industry and would like to see this changed? Or are you unsure as to what all the fuss is about?

If you can answer “yes” to any of the above questions then join Clinton Manning, Business Editor of The Mirror and David Fairhurst from McDonald’s as they debate the pros and cons of changing the definition of the ‘McJob’ forever. Editor of Human Resources Magazine, Sian Harrington will be chairing the debate as well as taking your questions and comments.

Join them live on Thursday 26th July at 2:15 pm.

H: Murray Norton, host
C: Clinton Manning, Business Editor, The Mirror
D: David Fairhurst, McDonalds
S: Sian Harrington, Editor Human Resources magazine

H: Hello and welcome to the show, I'm Murray Norton. Now, when somebody says “the McJob” – what do you think about? What does it mean to you? Very interesting it went all the way back to 1991, Douglas Copeland, he was there writing a book called Generation X and he used the term McJob. Since then it's gone on to go onto common par ants, in fact it was picked up by the Oxford English Dictionary and since then there, and I quote, this is what they say about it “a McJob, an unstimulating, low paid job with a few prospects, especially one created by the expansion of the service sector.” Now what do you make of all of that, what do you think? Maybe you're someone that works in the service sector and you think that's a bit unjust. Maybe you're someone that works in the service sector and thinks it's just about right. Now you can have your say in just a few moments time. I'm joined in the studio by people that have, well differing views, let's just say that. I'm delighted to say we've got the business editor from the Mirror, and that's Clinton Manning, Clinton thanks very much indeed for coming in today

C: Pleasure

H: And we've also got from McDonalds we've got our man David Fairhurst there, thank you very much indeed for coming in. alongside me Sian Harrington as well is from the – editor of Human Resources magazine, Sian thanks for coming in

S: Thank you

H: Before we get started, what's all the fuss about here? Is this a real question?

S: Well some people might think it's a bit of a PR stunt and we can ask David about that later, but it is an issue really because McJob does make people think that you've got no prospects in a job and it's not really just about McDonalds, it's as you mentioned about the service sector generally, and at a time when the economy is very much based on the service sector, I think you know it is worthy of having a debate around this

H: Ok I should point out that a petition has been started by McDonalds, it was launched by McDonalds, it's been supported by the business sector, all sorts of people with all sorts of skill sets. I'm right in thinking that in fact 35 MPs have supported this, 24 towns and cities have already been visited and been asked to sign up to the petition already. So McDonalds are taking this pretty seriously?

D: Absolutely, I mean we think that McJob as a definition is out of date, it's completely out of touch with reality, and worst of all it's insulting to the 67,000 people we've got working in our business and also as you mentioned the 2 million people who serve us in restaurants, hotels and tourism on a day-to-day basis, so we think it's time to draw a line under that, and we're taking it very seriously

H: You're taking it very seriously, Clinton sitting I guess on the other side of the fence of this here, the McJob – is it fair?

C: I think the first thing I'd say is I'm not here to attack McDonalds, but I think they're taking it too seriously, not just seriously but too seriously. I think in a nutshell McJob is a handy shorthand term that's been coined and used, in newspapers like the Mirror – it's just a simple, snappy expression. We could have come up with something like the Tescoisation of the workforce, but it doesn't quite have the same ring to it, it's not quite as snappy and punchy. So it's not really an attack on McDonalds per say, it's just a convenient shorthand

H: It's just their fault for having a snappy name! Ok we'll come back and we'll talk some more about this in just a second. What do you think about it? Well you can have your say, all you need to do is fill in the little box at the bottom of the screen there, and press send, it'll come directly to us in the studio on the screen by the side of me here, and we'll put your question to our main debaters here in the studio. So all of that coming up, but we went out on the street to find out what the everyday person thinks about the McJob

Footage

“I could imagine people using it in an amusing way, I'm surprised that it's in the dictionary as describing certain – is it menial work? I think that's a bit sad, possibly.”

“Someone working in McDonalds maybe, low paid job, something that's not very sought after in society.”

“Low paid, low level type employment”

“I'd associate that with a career at McDonalds, someone who has been promoted, someone internally in the restaurant chain”

“A job where people can't really be asked to go to university”

“Well somebody working in McDonalds. I mean probably not paid very well. I wouldn't like to do it really. Would you?”

“I don't think it's fair that people lower in the scale are labelled with the title McJob no, because it's putting them into a category – I don't think that's fair because some people that is a job for them and why should they be labelled if that's all they can do? That probably sounded really bad doesn't it?

“I think that the McDonalds career path is high turnover, high attrition rate, low skilled, you know young people, so I think from that perspective then it's probably a really good description”

“But I don't think it should be in the dictionary, I don't think it's a dictionary-worthy name”

“I would say that's a really unfair term because, I mean people have different reasons for working in different lines of work, even if it's working off university fees or they didn't get all the qualifications they needed”

“Probably not, no. I think, but I think this whole country has an issue anyway with how it categorises jobs, I mean certainly things that everyone – you know we need people to do – some things are more monotonous but there may be sort of other benefits in terms of pay and time off and things that sort of acknowledge that they're a sort of necessary contribution to society and maybe should be respected a bit more. I mean certainly we don't respect a lot of professions or groups of people, you know so I think it's – it doesn't sound like a great term.”

H: Well as you can see a variety of responses there, so not really a surprise people have got their own image of what McJob means to them as well haven't they?

S: Yes I think the responses are quite interesting really because McDonalds is an easy target and I actually would have thought more people would have immediately said McJob, it is a demeaning job, you know it's fine to use that, so it surprised me quite a bit that a fair few people are saying you know it shouldn't be in the dictionary

H: Right. You obviously don't think it should be in the dictionary, isn't it difficult to get something removed once it's already in there? Isn‘t it difficult – and actually by putting a petition out aren't you just drawing attention to people that may not have heard it before?

D: I think there's no doubt that perception often lags behind reality, and I think that we don't expect to change the dictionary definition overnight, it will take some time, but what we hope to do and gain confidence in is by people around the country saying it's about time we drew a line under this and got more confidence and respect back into the sector, that we hope that the Oxford English Dictionary by the end of this year will actually have enough evidence and proof points to actually look at it and think you know what it's about time this changed

H: But there's no smoke without fire, I mean surely? People are not going to say McJob when it's a great, well-paid, fantastic job with wonderful prospects and everyone wants to work there are they?

D: Well the facts are the facts, and I think what we have is a strong history of development. 80% of our managers started off as crew, we have a good record relative to benefits, and so on and so forth, so we feel that clearly the McJob definition is not reflecting the reality of what we're offering. But the worst thing of all is it's undermining the investment that we do make in our people ,because as we spend £14 million a year on training our people, that's constantly eroded by the confidence hit that they get from the media, from their family and friends, so we're looking to readdress that, not for the population, but for those who work in our sector

H: Clinton, the media's fault – you're picking on people again, you know you're –

C: We always get the blame don't we?

H: Why use a word like that when you can actually you know, just say well actually people get well paid there, they do a good job, they get promoted?

C: Well I think there's a couple of different issues, I mean the dictionary definition is one thing, and that's a word that people by and large don't use, and I think the point you made in the introduction is absolutely spot on, by having a debate like this in affect you're giving it the oxygen of publicity, people by and large you don't hear using that phrase in the street, it's in the dictionary, there are lots of words in the dictionary which most people never use and I think if you just let it – left it that probably would have remained the case. We don't use it in the Mirror anymore, it's almost seen as a cliché now, we have used it in the past and I don't make any excuse for that, and it's a convenient, shorthand, but the more serious point I think, you said earlier that you think it's insulting and demeaning to the workforce, I think that's a bit of an unfortunate thing to – yo9u're confusing things there, I think the point is it's a description of the job, not a description of the people doing that job, and I think to divorce those two things I think is really important

H: But surely everyone has a bit of kudos in their job don't they? They like to say “hey I do this – I'm a journalist for the Mirror” – it's a nice

C: No kudos attached to that I can assure you. People do jobs for all sorts of different reasons don't they? An awful lot of people that work in McDonalds are students for example while they're studying at university – their ambition is clearly to do something better with their life, to do something more stimulating, higher paid. That's not to say it doesn't serve a purpose for them at that time, but to say that job defines them as people is clearly wrong, but that description does describe what they're doing day to day which is repetitive, dull, low-paid work

S: Sorry I was going to say I think the issue here though is if you keep using words like McJob for the whole service sector, what you're doing is you're saying to those university people only come and do this as a part-time job to pay of your debt –

C: As a stepping stone

S: I mean I did it when I was –

C: I did it too

S: Well not in McDonalds, I was in retail when I was a student and it was – I never really considered retail as a career, and yet the service economy, that's the growth, you know there's lots of opportunities, you know global opportunities which you don't get in a lot of traditional other companies, and we're sort of giving the definition – don't now think of McDonalds, or don't now think of Tesco when you come back from university as a place you can start your career in

H: Isn't it endemic of the whole service sector though that the service sector is desperately difficult to get started in the service sector to start off with, and there's a whole issue of –

C: And even more difficult to keep them which tells its own story I think

H: Staff retention yes, and why is that, is it just that people see this as a short-term gap to earn a bit of money when they're a student? I mean we've got a – can I just bring a question in from James, James is in Leicester, James Holmes thank you for your question, he wants to know, he's just finished his A Levels, he's decided he doesn't want to go back to college and do any more at the moment, what opportunities could McDonalds offer for him at 17?

D: Well first of all half a million people a year apply to us as an organisation; apply to work in McDonalds in the UK. We take on about 30,000 people, so we hire people on their attitude rather than their aptitude. We bring people in who have got an interest in service customers, and if the person whose just sent a question is interested in serving customers and has the right attitude towards delivering in our sector, then he would be welcomed into our organisation. He can apply as half a million people a year do, and what he'll see when he comes inside the organisation is that we've got some development opportunities, a corporate university and some benefits that are innovative, that are modern, that are progressive, that are second to none, and he'd have a good time with us. I think it's true to say, just coming back to your other point, that people apply to us for different reasons, and at different stages in their life. For 30,000 people a year we are their first experience of employment and with that comes a huge accountability that we take very seriously. A lot of them become increasingly more employable as they work with us. For others they're students, for others they're older workers, so I think it's not one size fits all, we're an employer that has an appeal against a wide variety of motives, attitudes, and need states if you like as to why people work with us, and it's about providing some value to the people who work with us, and the mutuality of a relationship. We're good for them and hopefully they're good for us

H: Do you – I mean is this message getting across to people who are going for their summer job though?

S: Well I don't think, but partly that's because they're going for their summer job, so they're not –

H: They're not thinking of it long term

S: Seeing themselves as – ys in a career, and it's just a question of getting some money in their pocket at the end of the day. But you know there are some interesting points David's made there, for example the corporate university. One role that people like McDonalds and other sort of retailers do play, is they've almost become sort of a secondary education system. They're investing in teaching people English and helping skills on maths and things that, you know they should be coming out of education with, but we all know there's a big issue there, so in actual fact it's wrong to think that there isn't – another role these people are playing. My only issue would be is it a bit, you know are you making a bit too much of the thing about McJob and why now when it has been around for a while, perhaps?

D: I think what –

H: That's a good question – why now?

D: Well we have to go on what our staff tell us, and what our staff tell us is that they constantly watching TV, they're watching Pop Idol and these talent shows and they hear the Sharon Osbournes of this world saying you're no use, you've no talent, you should work at McDonalds and get a McJob, so whilst it's ok to say are we making a big thing of it, the fact is it's out there, it's used, it's used in humour against people on the TV constantly, it's used by parents, it's used by friends in a demeaning way, and that confidence is eroding, you know people who are serving us and I think that's what we're trying to address, so it's a real issue, it happens day in day out, we all know it's used as a source of humour, and that's what we're trying to address

H: Ok, we'll come back to a question that's rather interesting on the use of McJob in just a second. Before I do, just a comment about the questions, we have had an awful lot of questions coming in so far, most of them have been relevant, there are a few that haven't been relevant to the discussion we're having now, however if you would like to ask those questions there is another website you can go to and put those questions, that is makeyourownmindup.co.uk, a lot of food-related questions there which aren't specifically what we're talking about, the McJob at the moment, so makeyourownmindup.co.uk is the website to go for those. Back to the questions we've had in so far, Nick Degaress wants to know “if you don't want a “McJob”, should you not be doing something to discourage this, then you should be changing the image rather than the word.” I don't think I've read that completely right, but should you be discouraging people using it by changing the image? It's an image problem really, it's nothing to do with the word, it's the image that people have got. People have got that image for a reason, obviously.

D: Yes I think what we want to be judged on is what we're actually delivering for people. Not actually about PR or image, and we want to be known as a modern, progressive employer, delivering good benefits and so on and so forth, so what we're keen to do is open our doors and be more transparent, so people can see inside our organisation, see what strengths we are, we talked about English and maths qualifications, we have sitting today 1800 people studying NVQs in English and maths, so there's lots of benefits in the system for people working, and we want to be judged on that, we want people to see that, so it's not about image, it's not about PR, it's about what we deliver

H: But isn't it that it's not the people that are going for the jobs and gaining the NVQs that are getting this, I mean Clinton this is the case really isn't it, what we're seeing here is, the image that we get when we go in to get the McMuffin breakfast or whatever we're going to get in the morning, is we see someone behind there saying “do you want fries with this” and not looking particularly – maybe they are inspired, they may not be looking, but you can imagine them doing that all day and thinking maybe that's not the most stimulating of jobs in the world? And that's where I guess we get our image about McDonalds

C: Yes definitely and I think it's justified, I mean I think you're saying that there are career opportunities within the company which clearly there are for people to progress and bright people will progress, but the whole point is that they're moving on, they're no longer on the production line, putting the sauce in, picking out the fries, doing the dull, repetitive work which is what has earned this label, but I did say at the outset I'm not here to attack McDonalds, I don't think this label just applies to McDonalds, and I think there is a more serious, underlying issue here which is about employment in this country as a whole, and that's the erosion of full-time, well-paid, highly skilled jobs, particularly in manufacturing, that they've basically halved over the last 20 years, just gone under 3 million for the first time ever in this country, and those jobs by and large are being replaced by part time, low paid, semi skilled at best, work. Now it's not just, that doesn't apply to McDonalds, it's not McDonalds' fault, but it has quite widespread repercussions I think for society as a whole, not just for the people doing those jobs. You've got for example, lots of people now, you don't have one main breadwinner, both members of the family have to go out to work, and that's not great necessarily for childcare, bringing up kids at home, if mum's got to go out to work half the week because dad's only bringing in half what he used to earn, that's not great for family life.

H: This whole dynamic has changed hasn't it?

S: It has and what's interesting here is actually, and as a vegetarian you know, I hate to say it but McDonalds is probably a leader in this area whereas a lot of other companies in comparable sectors aren't, but to address one of the first things, you know in the old days what you've had is a factory line where somebody is just sort of putting something into a package, and that's just as monotonous, just as low paid, just as boring, we just didn't see the front face of that

H: Right

S: But in terms of the changing market, obviously as you said it's not McDonalds' fault, this is a global economy, the issue is that there's a lot of need for highly skilled people out there, in fact one of the biggest problems the country has got is what they call talent management, i.e. We don't have enough people with the right skills for the top jobs funnily enough, and so what's happening is for some reason there's something happening lower down in the education system I think which isn't inspiring people to go on, but also you know a lot of people do want to do a part time job because they want to stay on longer in their career but not have the hassle of like a full-time job, women in particular, they want to – we all know part time job is good for women, on the one hand it means that yes the pay is not as good, on the other hand they want the flexibility, so this is – both good and bad, I take your point totally, but it's –

D: Well we're making sweeping generalisations, I mean the point is, these are sweeping generalisations, the point is it suits some people. If they do it from choice, that's a different matter, if they're doing it because they have to in order to make up the lost income from their partner or their husband or wife, because they've lost a full time job, then that's a different matter altogether

S: I couldn't agree more but unfortunately that's the economy in the world

H: Ok, let's bring David in here because we started talking now about finances and supporting and about being a breadwinner here. The perception was not just, not very stimulating, and a job not going anywhere, but doesn't earn much money either, it's a low paid job – there's a minimum wage kicking around somewhere, so where does McDonalds fit in with that?

D: Ok if I could come back to that in one second, but the point I do want to make, just picking up on your comments about skills, let's not underestimate the amount of people coming out of school who are going to gain employability and skills working in a system like ours, handling money, dealing with customers, that's why in Australia Quantas guarantee an interview for people who have been trained at McDonalds, because they recognise that they've been dealing with customers, dealing with finances, so let's not put down the skills gain that people are going to get out of working in our system. But coming back to your latter question around minimum wage is it might surprise you to hear that less than 20% of our staff are actually anywhere near the minimum wage, and in fact if I take one group, the 16 year olds, we are on average a pound above the minimum wage today so we're not a minimum wage employer and it's not just about wage, it's also about all the other benefits that come with working –

H: Such as?

D: Well for example crew who have been with us for 3 years get PPP highest level of private healthcare. So that's important to young people and there are lots of other benefits, so it's not just about the basic wage but let's address that perception gap

H: Ok let's - reality check from Andy whose a businessman here, I love this one, he says “can we do a reality check here”, I'm reading this all out for you – “with competition as tight as it is and shareholders demanding that companies maximise their profits, how do people think that any business remains successful unless it uses a certain degree of low paid labour. You try running a business and paying everyone a fortune, and see how quickly you go bust.” Well that's the reality side of the other side of it, I mean if you're in business you're in business to make money, and I guess you're trying to pay a wage but you're not trying to pay a fortune because all your profits are going to go.

D: One of the tricks I think around wages, one of the things to think about is how we've linked development and performance to progression within the wage, so we have on average 3 pay increments linked to your development and your performance over an 18 month period, so what we do is we create an internal labour market that's really linked to the development that we're offering and we think that pays off. So you know you might be starting here, but it's the way in which you pull people up through the system, which then results in 80% of your managers starting off down here, have worked their way up here, and that's the trick that we found works for our business

H: So you're saying that someone can come in there, serving the fries and doing the bit at the front that we all see and we have the perception of, and can work their way up the company?

D: Absolutely and that's, you know that's what we've done, that's what the business over 30 years in the UK has proven, time and time again that it can pull people up through development, through progression, through the system

H: Clinton

C: Sounding like a bit of an own goal to me, saying pulling people up, pulling them through progression is exactly what I'm saying, there's this – we're making the mistake of falling into this distinction between are we describing the job or are we describing the person, because someone's doing a pretty mundane, routine dull job doesn't mean they're not capable of something better – clearly you do give people opportunity to do that and you know I said at the outset I'm not here to attack McDonalds, so that obviously happens but it doesn't change the fact that the job they start doing, I would say is pretty dull, monotonous, routine and pretty low paid and worthy of a McJob-type title

H: Which is where we come back to the question – David what's the staff take on there? You've got staff working for you all up and down the country, what do they make about the McJob, I mean you did say earlier on that you listen to your staff and this is why you're taking this up. I mean do you really get this; are you really getting people saying, “I'm not going to work here any more because people are laughing at me”?

D: Well we know what our staff tell us because as an executive team we're very close to the – we work a lot in the restaurants; we talk a lot to our people. Part of the petition is going round talking to people. We also know from our employee surveys, and I'll give you one interesting one that it's 92% of our staff think that the skills they're getting with us will create them to be attractive to other employers in the future, and 84% of our staff would recommend working with McDonalds to their friends. Now for us that's proof that we're doing some good, that they see some benefits in the system for them as individuals, it is true to say that the average crew member will be with us for 2 ˝ years but there's – if it's the best 2 ˝ years of their life, that's what we're aiming for

C: If it is heaven help them!

H: I was just thinking about that there and thinking if you – let me just digest all of that, if someone comes with a CV, you're in HR here, if they come with a CV they've got 2 ˝ years on their CV that says McDonalds and they've worked there – I mean does that stand out and make you go wow?

S: Well it would obviously depend what the job they're going for is

H: Sure

S: It's a bit of a difficult one to answer, but it is actually fairly highly regarded if you're going into a similar sort of type of role but higher up, a service sector, then I have to say that David was right, a lot of people will say you'll get through the door for an interview at least if you've got McDonalds because they do have a good training program, and so I think it's that. Obviously if they're trying to be an investment banker on the back of 2 ˝ years at McDonalds they're not going to get immediately in there, but if you're further up and it was your first move and you're now sort of 10 years in, it's not going to be you know prohibiting you from moving further

H: Ok, what do we all think about the fact that the service industry in America, there is a huge amount of pride, there's almost a badge of pride when you work in America, if you work as a waitress, if you work – flipping burgers, for want of a better expression in America, that's as good a job as any other and people tend to put a lot into that, the people themselves, as well as the people above them. Why is that different there to here, what's the attitude difference here?

C: I can't explain it, I mean I agree with you, I think it's a cultural thing, I think it's the same in Europe as well actually. You go to restaurants in France and Spain and Portugal, you get treated really well, service is really courteous and the people that are doing that job don't appear to be demeaned by it, don't appear to feel that, they feel that they're doing something worthwhile, and that conveys itself to you and actually invariably you as a customer probably have a better experience than you do a lot of the time when you go to restaurants, particularly in London, where you feel basically people – they give you the impression that they're doing you a favour by serving you your meal

H: Yes that's a separate program, however, in terms of that sort of ethos, that sort of mental barrier that we seem to have in this country, it just seems serving someone else is below us

S: Well we do seem to have that and it is ridiculous and it's causing – well it's the point of this debate really – but you know one of the big problems is, again, this is where all the growth is in the market and this is why we're having to look abroad and bring in so many people from – Eastern Europeans are obviously the biggest influx at the moment, but also Spanish, French – we've got quite a lot of French people coming into our workforce at the moment and if you look at any survey of where business leaders think the next 5 years, where they'll be looking for their workforce, it is again those countries. Part of the reason at the same time we've got the government saying we need people off of unemployment benefit, we need them of disability benefit, and what's happening there is there are people out there who could work in some of these jobs, but this attitude is almost prohibiting them. They'd rather, which seems extraordinary, rather sort of get some benefit than think they've got potential in somewhere like McDonalds.

H: Is that peer pressure as well isn't it?

S: I think a lot of it, and this is maybe where David does have a point, you know as I said before you might think he's taking it all a bit seriously but this is part of the point that that peer pressure is making people not do that, and of course if they did get a job in the service sector, they can quickly move up, they don't need to be serving burgers all their life. You know but they may like to do that, it is a big issue, we are bringing people in and it's causing other political issues

C: That peer pressure can't be that great though because you said you get more or less 10 or 20 times the applicants that you need or whatever the figure was, but hugely more than you actually need to recruit, so you can still be very selective.

D: Well I think as we increase in transparency people out there have seen the quality of the training, they're realising they've got structure, they're going to get good leadership, they're going to have a team around them, it might be a bit fun, variety of reasons, so I think they're starting to see some of the benefits of working as a result of that we've maintained our position as a graduate employer, outranking the top 100, and we've also maintained, you know for the first time ever this year we got in the Financial Times top 50 companies to work for which is you know the first time we've achieved that in the UK, so the third party endorsements almost given us more confidence to carry on with this petition

H: Can I give you another endorsement if I can? This is from Fiona in London, thank you very much indeed for your comment Fiona. She says she's worked at McDonalds for 2 years now despite the bad press that we receive. I know who that's having a go at. McDonald's has offered me a lot of security, I started on an hourly wage and then one year on I was promoted to restaurant manager, in fact did you know that 80% of the managers started out in the same way that I did? I think you mentioned that earlier on actually. Fiona thank you for your question there. That's, if you like your comment, endorsing what you were saying earlier on. Isn't there also the case that franchisees come from within McDonalds quite a lot

D: Yes one in five franchisees actually started off on the shop floor, and you know franchises are a really important part of our business because they're running often in the community where they grew up, they're running stores, numerous stores many of them. They're involved in their community, they've got marketing plans, they're employing local people, they've got connections with schools and so on and so forth, so they're a critical part of how we run our organisation, a very strong part of our organisation, and they've also been very active on the McJob petition in going out and talking to their local communities about, you know, what they're trying to do

H: Ok. Two questions here, where do you see this petition going, do you think it will work and what's the route on from here with the petition?

D: Well I hope we get as many signatures as possible. 67,000 staff I hope that all their families and friends come out, we've seen the MPs started to come out

H: Is there a restaurant manager standing over them saying you will –

D: Absolutely not, people will willingly sign in our system because we understand what it means to us, but the public are starting to come out and sign, and some restaurants I'm seeing significant numbers, so I don't know what it's going to get to yet in total numbers but I hope as many as possible and by the time we get to October I hope to be in a position to present a very strong body of evidence and support to show that it's about time that this definition was changed

H: Have they got a hope in hell?

C: No I don't think they have got a hope in hell of getting it out of the dictionary, the best they can hope for I would think would be a slight tinker with the definition

S: I actually wondered what you would like the definition to be?

H: That's a very good question, excellent question

S: Yes, because it's not about taking it out, it's about changing the definition so –

D: It's almost for our staff to define but if you're asking me personally I'd like it to be something about reward, something about opportunity, maybe something about flexibility, but definitely about skills and some of the skills that last a lifetime and I think that's one of the key strengths of this organisation, is that we are providing people with skills whether it be maths, English, management, finance or whatever it is that's going to stay with them for a long time and I think that's probably the most essential part of a new definition

H: Ok, we're almost out of time, once again the questions that weren't relevant to today's discussion you can go onto a different website and ask those questions, it is makeupyourownmind.co.uk, makeupyourownmind.co.uk, send your questions there for the ones that weren't relevant for this particular discussion, thank you for those all the same. One final question, this one's from Paul, what's the longest amount of time you've spent working behind the counter at McDonalds?” Well let's broaden that out, to the service sector – have we all here at one time or another done that, you know that service sector job, you know that waitressing job, that waiting job, whatever it might be – and so would you ever consider working on the frontline at McDonalds? So I think it was aimed at you David but we'll bring it round to everyone

D: Well I was brought up in a retail family so I've got a history of working behind a counter, and stacking shelves and doing all sorts of things but part of my induction I spent 2 weeks behind the counter at McDonalds and regularly we make the products as an executive team before we ask our staff to do it, so we're literally very active in the restaurants and very close to what we –

H: So back to the shop floor wouldn't frighten you?

D: Absolutely not and neither it would for me to recommend to my children to do the same

H: Alright

S: I've worked in retailing, John Lewis but also as part of a previous job I've done some back to the floor type of work, and it's actually quite fun but it's not something I obviously went into, so I was tainted by the idea that I didn't think there was so much career potential at the time

H: What about you Clinton?

C: Yes I have, I grew up in a different kind of retail environment actually, I was brought up in pubs and hotels

H: Right

C: And done a fair few stints behind the bar, and then while I was at university I actually worked in a burger bar as well, it wasn't McDonalds, but purely saw it as a way of keeping the old student debt down

H: Sure, alright well lady, gentlemen, thank you all very much indeed for joining us today, thanks indeed for your comments, and thank you very much indeed for your questions as well, and we'll see you next time. Bye bye

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