Zack Bergamini

The following literature review is about how The Walt Disney World Company, one of the largest and best run companies in the world, treat their front line employees. These employees are treated like slaves while working. For the amount of work they actually have to do the pay and benefits are poor. There is a misconception of how Disney treats their employees and through the different readings in my research it will show what has been found out and there are plenty of ideas that are not shown.

Amount of Work: If you are working as a front line employee at Walt Disney World or any other Disney park across the world you are guaranteed to work at least 40 hours a week. They work you to the bone, they want everything out of you and you have to be in perfect guest service behavior the entire time (Kober, & Perlin). Also, many of the researchers agreed that working at Disney is complex, an employee will need not to work his or her own designated area, but is a performance they must put on as well (Shortsleeve, & Perlin). If the employees are supposed to do so much, then most researchers thought why work them so much. They also felt the pay give to the front line employees was low too. Their hourly wage, which is of minimum wage at $8, is deemed unfair for many of the scholars.

Walt Disneys Idealisms: Walts view on how employees should be at the parks is how the company bases their training and work ethics (Garcia & Bryman). Bryman suggested Walt was a totalitarian leader, his leadership style was give to the managers, and thus the employees were afraid. Garcia went on to say that most employees especially during the 1970s and 80s where Disney still was lead in a totalitarian state, employees could not even talk to each other while seen by guests. It was business only. Both thought that seemed irrational. However, once Michael Eisner took over the company, the managerial leadership was changed and the employees were give more freedom (Bryman & Prevot). Prevot understood this change he studied that the guest service went up even higher than it was before and more democratic leadership that was being used was a blessing for employees. He did go on to say that with times changing Disney has to make even more changes to the way they treat employees in order to keep a low turnover rate.

Conclusion: It is has been shown the amount of work and the way Walt Disney went about leading his managers thus managers leading his employees was unfair to the front line employees. Researchers have found out that change is necessary for employees to be treated fairly. Kober, Shortsleeve and Perlin examined that the way Disney works their employees may be too much for them to handle. Especially the pay they are not receiving. Bryman, Garcia, and Prevot studied Walt Disney leadership style and how change has helped employees greatly, but can still be changed for the

better. However, through this research they never talked about how Disney can change their outlook on frontline employees with better pay plans and benefits to not only increase better customer service, but to create an even better working environment where the employees actually are please with their pay. That is what I am going to accumulate through my research so if I do end up working at Disney World I can bring that up as suggestions.