McDonald’s Japan Now Allows Hair Color Change

Last month, McDonald's announced that it would lift its hair color restrictions for employees, to attract more workers amid a labor shortage and to improve the working environment. Previously, the Japanese unit of McDonald's required employees' hair color to look "natural". 

The new policy was introduced on a trial basis at one restaurant in Osaka, and the restaurant chain decided it had a positive impact, with a threefold increase in recruits compared to the same time period the previous year. McDonald's changed its appearance policy in August 2021 to allow employees to grow a beard for various reasons, including religion. 

Before reading this in the news, I had no idea there were appearance restrictions at the fast food restaurant. This reminds me of high school restrictions that require all hair color of students to be black.  A few years ago this was a problem because one high school girl had natural brown hair and the school required her to dye her hair black, despite the rule against hair color. Many onsen/public baths do not allow bathers with tattoos. (Luckily for me, I have no tattoos.)

Have you ever worked anywhere that had a hair color or other appearance restriction?

Oldest Female McDonald's Worker

 

Recently Japan has been encouraging older people to re-enter the work force to make up for worker shortages. Legislation that came into effect in April 2021 allows companies to abolish their previous mandatory retirement age (typically at 60 years old) and raise the age of retirement to 70, or allow a subcontracting type of agreement. 

The latest government report shows the current number of Japanese people aged 65 and older working is the highest number ever, with 9.27 million people or 13.4 % of the labor force employed. 

McDonald's employee Tamiko Honda, age 90, has recently been featured in the news. She was born in 1933 in Kumamoto Prefecture and spent the majority of her career working in the nursing field until she reached the mandatory retirement age of 61.  After that she work as cleaning staff at a university until she was 67, which was the mandatory retirement age in that field. In 2000, she applied for a position at McDonald's after her only daughter told her McDonald's had no retirement age. Unfortunately, her daughter died of cancer at age 58, twelve years ago. Ms. Honda's longtime hobby of sewing is difficult do to her declining sight and many of her friends have passed away or are dealing with dementia, so her job at McDonald's is a welcome distraction. 

She travels 20 minutes by bus from her home to the McDonald's where she works, five days a week to work three hours a day, sweeping the interior of the store. She is adored by her co-workers and customers.  The store manager, at age 51, is the same generation as Ms. Honda's grandchildren. 

According to McDonald's Japan, while she is the oldest female employee in Japan's 3,000 restaurant location, she is not the oldest employee.  A 95 year old man is employed at a branch in Toyama Prefecture. Ms. Honda started work as an employee at McDonald's in 2000, so she has been working longer than Mr. Yabuta, who started in 2019.

McDonald's Japan World Cup Sandwiches

Yesterday one of my students told me about this year's three special FIFA World Cup tournament sandwiches at McDonald's.  Maybe McDonald's all over the world are serving these special sandwiches, I don't know.  I didn't even know the fast food restaurants in Japan were selling them. My students tell me many things I don't know about.

They are inspired by the 2002 Japan-Korea World Cup, the 2014 Brazil World Cup and this year's Qatar World Cup - the Koku Umami Karubi Mac, the Wild Beef Burger Onion Rings & Cheese, and the Kebab-style Chicken Burger. 

My student ate the Kebab Burger and the thing he liked best about it was that the bun was made to look like a soccer ball. The price of the burger is 440 yen, which he thought was expensive. 

Have you tried any of these World Cup specials?  What did you think? If you haven't, would you like to try them?