Would you like fries with the commentary?
People love to share experiences and thoughts with one another and blogging is arguably a very fast, cheap and simple way of doing that. Work is an especially popular subject for many people, partly because we spend so much time working and partly because it entails enough complexities, challenges and noteworthy events for us to describe, decry or inquire about. We especially like to share our joy and grief with others who are in a similar situation. That is one way how a community can come into existence.
However, if you’re a company employing such an ad-hoc community of unsanctioned employee bloggers, you might not be entirely enthusiastic about the whole thing. When the foot soldiers of multinational commerce speak their mind, the result isn’t always carefully-worded, balanced and diplomatic. But you can bet that it’s honest.
An excellent example for such an unofficial blog hub community is McDonald’s Talk, a non-sanctioned employee blog on LiveJournal. It contains gossip, rants, advice, criticism and anything else under the sun that the authors (most of them employed at McDonald’s) find relevant. It has effectively become a virtual water cooler for those toiling under the Golden Arches, with over 300 registered members in the McDonald’s Talk community and dozens of comments under some of the many posts.
While it’s clear that McDonald’s Talk is a place where frustrated employees can vent and disgruntled customers can complain (the slogan on the LiveJournal community account is We love to see (or rather, hear) you gripe) it may come as a surprise to some that there are also quite positive comments, for example about working with friendly colleagues or dressing up for Halloween.
Perhaps the most interesting dimension of the blog is how it very effectively provides information on virtually every aspect of working at a fast food restaurant. Anything from sauce dispensers to what treatment is appropriate for pregnant co-workers is debated and discussed. Interestingly enough, the focus is not really on McDonald’s as a corporate entity, but on those who work there and their every-day concerns.
It seems plausible that the corporate entity is keeping a watchful eye on McDonald’s Talk. Many of the bloggers provide enough information about themselves to allow identification and the site under the verbose banner I’m hatin’ it would probably prove quite vulnerable to a legal attack from the pundits’ employer.
Still, it demonstrates good instinct that the upper echelons of the company have not tried to suppress the blog. Not only is there no way to effectively stop your employees from complaining - ever -, but to gripe in the 21st century means to gripe on the Net, whether legal departments like it or not. Secondly, McDonald’s Talk is quite a lot less of a flamefest than one might assume and fairly little of the criticism is actually directly levelled at the company as such (impossible-to-please customers, annoying co-workers and arcane regulations are another thing). Instead, the blog is a valuable source of insider information and it no doubt plays an important role for the community that is flourishing around it.
How should companies deal with unauthorized blogs? Most importantly, they should be aware of their existence. Watch, observe and learn should be the motto - as I assume McDonald’s is doing. After all, the company has shown to value blogs as part of its communications strategy before.
More on McD Talk at Foodfacts and The Employee Factor.
