McDonalds has identified the problem, which is an increased emphasis on academics and after school programs. So instead of seeing it as a problem, they should embrace it as an opportunity.
For example, one of the biggest practical problems facing academically minded teenagers today is how to pay for college.
But imagine if McDonalds created an aggressive growth mutual fund for employees. In that way, the franchises would still pay about the same wage for work right then, but those who stayed with the corporation for some years would start to get ballooning benefits, at no extra cost to the franchise.
Using the corporations liquidity, they could get some killer yields from such a fund.
That would mean that while the franchise would continue to pay the typical wage, their take home pay would include the dividends from the fund, or it could be used as reinvestment.
While teenagers might like to spend their paycheck now, if they could get their paycheck, plus say 15% compounded interest later, it might be well worth their while to have their pay deferred.
And McDonalds might come up with a bunch of other low cost, for them, ways of providing their employees even more money if it was set aside for tuition.
The end result being that employees who began at the minimum age of 16 (in the US), could have about 2 years work to build up a substantial offset to their college expenses. And if they continued to work at McDonalds through college, at 4 and 6 years employment, there might even be enough incentive for them to continue with the corporation as a career.
If that was the case, it would be very much to the advantage of McDonalds to offer continued support through selected post-graduate degrees, such as in business and accounting.
And for those who weren’t on the academic track, such a mutual fund would still boost their paycheck to much more than the minimum wage, but without stressing the franchises.
How loyal would their employees be if they were getting 50% more than minimum wage, far more than any comparable job would pay? It would start to drain employees from other restaurant chains.
Great idea, except most kids today can't spell "deferred", and if they could, they would accuse us adults of trying to spoil their fun by making them put something away for the future.
If the problem is an increased focus on school programs and academics, then McDonalds need to do something to make a job there look good on a college application. High school sports and after school clubs look much better to admissions than a job at McDonalds right now. The college bound kids are exactly what McDonalds would love to have for employees as well.
Of course, my first real job was a research assistant at the Naval Postgraduate School (at 16 years old). So I know I’m an exception.