Litter picking, feeding the homeless and providing a defibrillator to save lives is all part of the job for Laura Wilder, who is thought to be the youngest ever female McDonald’s franchisee in the UK. Laura said since taking over the McDonald's Fishponds branch, she has tried to put the local community at the heart of everything she does.
Serving 45,000 customers every month is no easy feat and Laura said with her team of 120 staff, it’s about making sure her customers have a great experience. A year ago, the branch had received negative complaints on Google reviews, which resulted in it being one of the lowest rated branches in Bristol.
Laura, 31, said: “We have focused on building a positive relationship with our community, I genuinely want to be part of the community and we recognised early on that litter was the number one complaint.” So shortly after taking over, she employed a litter picker who completes two litter pick walks daily, not only around McDonald's but around the wider Fishponds area.
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Over Easter, she also organised a Love Where You Live Litter Pick Event with a free breakfast and Easter egg for any volunteers who helped to pick up litter. She said: “we had a great turn-out with everyone in Easter fancy dress collecting over 15 bags of rubbish."
Laura also volunteers on a personal level with a Fishpond’s Community Church to help with the soup run for homeless people, as well as installing a defibrillator at the McDonalds branch, which was used within a week of installation. She also wants to support inclusivity, sponsoring Bristol Pride last year and will be supporting the Pride Festival this year as well.
She said that as part of the process to become a McDonald’s franchisee, she completed six months of rigorous training prior to acquiring her franchise. This included working as a crew member in a McDonald's restaurant right up to business manager.
“As a business owner and franchisee, it’s so important to understand every role and area of your business in order to fully understand and enhance the employee and customer experience. You will see me working on the floor most days, working shoulder to shoulder with my team and interacting with customers,” she said.
Laura said she always wanted her own business and with her origins in London and a background in operations and customer service, she moved to Bristol last year with her husband. She said: “I grew up as a child getting the McDonald's Happy Meal and feel I have a strong connection to the brand, which is one of the biggest brands globally.
“We are starting our journey in Bristol and we are loving it. It is such a vibrant, fun city, we had family come to stay and they said how cool is Bristol. I wish I had come here sooner.”
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