McDonald's workers say they hate all-day breakfast
McDonalds' FacebookWhile McDonald's executives are loving the sales boost from all-day breakfast, employees aren't nearly as positive.
All-day breakfast has "caused management turnover, and crew turnover out of frustration," a McDonald's franchisee responded to a January survey by Nomura analyst Mark Kalinowski. "Employee morale is down because of it."
Some of these annoyed employees are talking on the forum Reddit.
Earlier this week, Reddit user Jonzay asked McDonald's employees how they managed all-day breakfast without falling behind in the r/Australia subreddit. McDonald's only became available across Australia in early March, so the chain is clearly working through some issues.
Here are some of McDonald's employees' biggest complaints.
It's more work
One user said all-day breakfast "creates a lot more work for people out back in terms of preparation and cleaning but of course no more labour hours to compensate for that extra work. It sucks."
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Another had a more emphatic response:
I'm currently on my lunch break (while at maccas) and all day breakfast f------ sucks. After about 3 we do cook to order breakfast which takes up so much fucking time, I work at a new store that opened up 4 months ago so space isn't really an issue but cleaning the grills to put down sausage is a bitch. Plus sometimes you get lazy c--- that just cook a bunch of egg and then use that for the next 5 hours, IMO do NOT order all day breakfast after 3 because you don't know what you're going to get, some of my co-workers disgust me.
Also it's a massive pain in the ass.
There's not enough space
While some locations' kitchens easily fit the new equipment necessary for all-day breakfast, other employees are feeling the pinch.
Kate Taylor
"It is f------ tight with the egg cooker and muffin heater squished in with everything else," writes one employee.
Transitioning to lunch is hard
The transition from breakfast to all-day breakfast was identified as a problem for workers.
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"Basically it's a chaotic mess during change over," wrote one crew trainer. "The grills are already a nightmare with the CYT [Create Your Taste] burgers taking up two of our 5 grill platens so again, when we do food safety, it's an absolute nightmare."
Still, it's not as annoying as other McDonald's innovations
"Doing all day bfast is annoying, but nowhere near as disruptive as making [Create Your Taste] burgers," wrote an employee sick of McDonald's attempt at fast-casual service.
Ultimately, not every worker has hated the change
"Overall it hasn't been too bad changing to all day breakfast," reads a more positive comment, from an employee at a location that uses a new mini-grill for eggs.
In general, employees at stores with separate egg cookers seemed to have more positive experiences dealing with the demand for all-day breakfast.
"We have one grill with 3 platen for lunch, and a dedicated egg grill, so it's not that bad," says one Redditor. "We just have a small store, so we don't get as many breakfast orders, so generally we just cook breakfast to order, it's only a 3 minute wait."
And customers seem willing to wait. All-day breakfast has increased same-store sales in the US 5.7% in the most recent quarter.
McDonald's didn't immediately respond to request for comment.