Results in Numbers
Today, McDonald’s Georgia operates 28 restaurants and employs more than 2,500 people.
With an average of two new restaurants opening each year, the company creates 70-80 new jobs at every new location. Managing growth on this scale requires speed, flexibility, and streamlined operations. These needs led McDonald’s Georgia to make a strategic decision: digitize its administrative and HR processes.
With Signify, McDonald’s Georgia has transformed its HR documentation from a traditional, paper-based system into a modern digital workflow.
We spoke with Mariam Lazarashvili, Head of Human Resources at McDonald’s Georgia, about the company’s journey to digital transformation and the results it has achieved with Signify.
The Challenges Before Digitalization
As Mariam explains, several key factors drove the decision to digitize HR processes.
McDonald’s Georgia has a strong culture of internal promotion. Whenever a new restaurant opens, or an existing location expands, management positions are often filled by promoting employees from within the organization. This creates a constant flow of internal transfers and role changes.
At the same time, the company’s need to recruit new employees continues to grow, not only to staff new locations, but also to accommodate frequent changes in existing employees’ schedules and positions. Many employees are also students, making flexibility an essential part of workforce management.
As a result, the HR department handled a consistently high volume of documentation. Employment contracts, internal transfers, salary increases, and promotions all generated paperwork across the restaurant network on an ongoing basis.
Until then, the entire process relied on paper. Documents had to be printed in multiple copies, physically distributed, and signed. Sometimes, employees simply forgot to return the paperwork, causing further delays.
Transfers between restaurants created another challenge. When an employee moved from one location to another, their personnel file had to be physically transferred from one secure office to another.
Finding the Right Solution with Signify
Faced with these challenges, the HR team took its first step toward digital transformation by exploring electronic signatures.
A key priority was improving the employee experience. McDonald’s Georgia had already embraced innovative technology to enhance the customer journey, from self-service kiosks to its mobile app. The company wanted to bring that same modern, fast, and seamless experience to its employees.
Adopting Signify was a natural extension of its employer branding strategy.
The company had already implemented an innovative digital platform for employee scheduling, allowing work schedules to accommodate individual needs and providing greater flexibility. Introducing electronic signatures was the next step toward modernizing administrative routines, document review, and signing.
Implementation and Hands-On Testing
Before adopting Signify, McDonald’s Georgia had already built an extensive library of document templates on its internal intranet. However, these templates needed to be optimized for a fully digital workflow.
Signify’s Smart Fields feature made this process significantly easier. Information entered into a template once automatically populates the relevant fields throughout the document. Manual formatting and repeatedly entering the same information became a thing of the past.
The HR department then organized the updated templates by category and shared them with the relevant teams.
Next came a series of hands-on workshops. Working in groups of ten, restaurant directors and managers tested the system using real-life scenarios, experiencing the process from both sides, as the person initiating a document and as the recipient.
Once internal testing was complete, the team incorporated the feedback and refined the workflow further. On October 1, Signify officially went live, and all restaurants across the network transitioned to the platform.
The Results: Greater Efficiency and a Better Employee Experience
Employees responded positively to the change from the outset.
Given McDonald’s flexible working schedules, many employees work hours when administrative staff are not on-site. Previously, getting documents signed could be difficult under these circumstances. With Signify, that barrier has been removed.
Employees now receive documents electronically and can sign them whenever and wherever it suits them. They also have ongoing access to their employment contracts, so they can review their documents independently without contacting HR.
“Documentation has always been associated with routine and paperwork. Signify has made the process so fast and simple that the inconvenience employees once experienced has practically disappeared.”
The benefits extend beyond the employee experience. Administrative processes have become significantly faster, document oversight has improved, the need for physical archives has been eliminated, and the risk of human error has decreased.
The numbers speak for themselves: more than 1,000 documents are now processed and signed digitally through Signify every month.
What’s Next?
McDonald’s Georgia plans to gradually expand its use of Signify to other departments. Within HR, the remaining documents will also be moved into the digital environment over time.
By replacing paper-based administration with digital workflows, McDonald’s Georgia is making its processes more efficient while creating a smoother, more flexible experience for its employees.
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