McDonald’s ties part of executives’ bonuses to diversity push

The fast-food giant’s diversity track record is mixed. McDonald’s has won praise for championing Black business ownership, but some Black franchisees recently filed suit, saying they were steered toward crime-ridden neighbourhoods and set up to fail.

McDonald’s Corp. said it is tying 15% of executives’ bonuses to meeting targets including diversity and inclusion and began disclosing data on the racial makeup of its workforce, major steps by one of the largest U.S. companies to better reflect the population. Among the information McDonald’s is releasing for the first time is a full breakdown of U.S. employees by race, ethnicity and gender, a victory for transparency advocates and investors increasingly pressing companies to do more to address the country’s deeply rooted social inequality. In addition to publicly releasing its worker demographics — contained on a form known as EEO-1 that corporations are required to give to the U.S. government — the fast-food giant laid out a plan to increase the number of people of color in its U.S. management ranks and to achieve gender parity worldwide, according to a filing Thursday.