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Organizational Reflection and Integration at McDonalds Corporation

1. Introduction

Beginning with Burgers in 1954, McDonalds corporation is one of biggest chain of fast food restaurants with its specialty of hamburger, operating in more than 58 (fifty eight) Million customer on daily basis (Mieth, H. 1999:3). Today, McDonald has more than 32,000 branches in more than 117 countries with more than 1.7 million of employees serving about sixty (60) million people (McDonald, 2011). With its unique symbol of the golden arches McDonalds operates through franchisee selected through very tough training procedure. Further, commencement of business in foreign environment, corporation has to focus on multiple dimension both in introducing its products and services and engages people to work for them.

2. Organizational Reflection: Recruitment, Selection and Retention Modals Employed at McDonalds

One of the major of reasons of such an enormous growth of McDonalds is that it has attracted reliable and competent people in every country. In its recruiting and selection process, McDonalds primarily focuses on engaging people with customer skills. Above all, with reliability and competency, McDonalds need peoples who could be friendly and accommodating with the customers in almost every situation.

i.

Critical Evaluation of Employee Hired at McDonalds

In general practise, peoples at McDonalds are hired at probationary basis whereby it is evaluated and accessed whether the person engaged is best fit to represent the brand value of McDonalds at all levels. Further, it is

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assessed whether such person would be able to work with other employees as a cohort.

For managerial post, McDonalds employs different evaluation processes. The foremost consideration of McDonalds while employing a person as store managers comprise skills of leadership, appropriate work expectations, and the ability to manage to fast paced environment of the store. Once such managerial applicant is passed through such critical screening and testing process, he or she is offered to work for a trial period of two (2) week generally. During this time period, both the corporation and the recruited have ample opportunity to see whether they are appropriate fit for each other. This is usually done when McDonalds begins its operation in a new country, thereafter, it keeps an ongoing process of selecting assisting managers to prepare them as future managers and internal promotion based on their respective performance.

ii.

Legal, Regulatory and Ethical Consideration

While operating across the globe, McDonalds has to face different and sometime quite difficult legal and regulatory regimes. Human resource management sector of McDonalds thus, adapts its menus and services according to the given legal, regulatory, political, cultural and economic arena. For instance, in much of the Middle Eastern economies, McDonalds has to comply with legal as well as ethical consideration of unique halls to eating for men and women. Before commencement of its operation in a country, McDonalds is reported to have conducted in depth surveys through its human resource department. This gives them idea how to handle the legal provisions and ethical consideration of a specific country. Further, legal norms of employment and all relevant factors are carefully studied and reported so as to handle any absurdity in future. Furthermore, corporate regulatory regime of the country is specifically studied and approvals are sought for operation. Once the aforesaid studies are complete and relevant approvals are confirmed in a new country, McDonalds looks for employment process (Dash & Aswathappa 2008:192).

3. The Process of Building Winning Teams through Integration at McDonalds

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Once recruitment process is done, and restaurant is adequately staffed, McDonald engages its employees in certain training courses to ensure the consistency in its level of service and quality across the globe.

i.

Evaluation of Knowledge, Skill and Experience of Employees

Based on critical evaluation of knowledge, skill and experience of employees, especially the trained staff, McDonalds develops training centers both from the trained employees and trainers engaged in leader and success management. Usually, such trainings are managed for higher hierarchy of employees like managers who are enabled further to conduct training of other employees at McDonalds (Dash & Aswathappa 2008:192). This way McDonalds also reaps the benefits of cost advantage in production, marketing and research and development activities overall.

ii.

Source of Motivation for Employees

The regional managers at McDonalds are endowed with a duty to select employees on trial basis for several trainings. These trainings are based on management style books and are aimed to equip the employees with less theory and more practical exposure in the workplace. This methodology assumes that employees shall be getting a real time experience, for instance, dealing with live stock control, managing people, health and safety, payroll, staff training, human resource management and so on (Roodhouse & Mumford, 2010:164). This way McDonald provides a worthy foundation edge for learners and further motivate them to pursue higher knowledge and expertise in their field of interests, while keeping their relation with the corporation intact.

Other source of motivation of McDonalds employee includes:

a)

In most of the countries, McDonalds provides for the provisions relating to health insurance which include:

Medical

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Vision supplement plan Dental Flexible spending accounts Short and long term disability Employee and dependent life insurance Accidental death & dismemberment (AD&D) Travel and business travel accident insurance

b)

As to Pay and Rewards McDonalds system basic compensations as well as recognition awards for outstanding performance, these include:

Base pay Incentive pay Company car program Recognition programs Corporation is

c)

Another lucrative feature of McDonalds investment in future of the employees through:

Profit Sharing and Savings Plan MCDirect Shares Mc$ave Credit union Financial planning services

d)

Last but not the least McDonalds help to balance the work and life of its people through:

Vacation Holidays Anniversary Splash Sabbatical program Summer Hours Leave of absence Alternative Work Approach Adoption assistance Child care discount Educational assistance Matching gifts program Employee Resource Connection Auto and home insurance group discount program International Fitness Club Network Beyond Work Internet discount program

Though McDonalds constantly pursue to expand the areas of its benefits and its valuable compelling packages, however, currently these benefit policies are for U.S. staff employee only. (McDonalds, Employee Benefits

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2011). 4. Organizations McDonalds Current SituationLeadership Perspectives at

Through its research and development mechanism, McDonalds constantly applies best practices in leader development and talent management in its borderless business. McDonald keeps on revising its leader programs and trainings related thereof. These include expanding participants mindset from local to regional to global, enhancing participants ability to maximize business performance through strengthening financial acumen and enhancing participants innovative out of boss thinking (Harkins, et al. 2006: 162).

i.

Leadership Management at McDonalds

The Global Leadership at McDonalds Program (LAMP) is a specifically designed program for development of new leadership for the future. From organization perspective of McDonalds Corporation the LAMP program aims to:

a. Building deeper benchmarks for key managerial and executive positions. b. Shortening the ramp-up time required for newly promoted officers and getting quicker business results. c. and Becoming more effective at develop and retaining top talent,

d. Continuing to improve the diversity profile at the officer level (Harkins, et al. 2006: 162).

This integrated acceleration of leadership management performance of employees and overall business results by:

improves

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Enhance participants knowledge at management. Providing deeper insights to the leaders to further development their abilities themselves. Development of strong peering among leaders across the globe and robust exchange of ideas.

Summarily, these work-based learning activities help the participants to have best support from tutors and mentors, from peer network, and from administration and other facilities specifically designed to understand and employ work-based learning methodologies and certain levels of commitments.

ii.

Communication and Delegation of Objectives within the Team and Role of Team Leader

One of most critical factor for the success of an organization is the effective ways of communication of necessary information. McDonalds team and role of the team leader are integrated system of development to utilize potential talent as the most appropriate. LAMP program is not just meant to develop leadership at individual level, but it also provides the most suitable platform to development the capabilities as team leader to run the teams members as well.

The corporate leadership strategy through LAMP also enables the managers to communicate and delegate their objectives better in the given set up. Communication at managerial level involves giving instructions, sending and receiving messages and responses respectively. Unlike other employees managers spend most of their time to control and management through effective communication (Achua, FC & Lussier, RN 2010:195).

iii.

Methods to Develop Leadership and Empowerment of Team

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At McDonald, production and services are correlative with the team effort. In such a scheme employer can not often judge output of a particular employer. So McDonalds employ Team Leader formula to assess the output each employee and evaluate their performance through interaction with customers. For instance, employees who provide personal services, such as, burger deliveries etc are better judged by customer as to their timelines and quality of services and interaction.

5. Analysis and Assessment of Employees Performance through Change Management

i.

Objective-setting Techniques at McDonalds

Being a symbol of American system, the history of McDonalds witnessed many interesting ups and downs. Though, American culture has its own unique glamour, however, in many parts of the world it is not likely to be accepted as elsewhere. There is most pertinent example worth mentioning:

a. In France, McDonald much hostility when in 1999 a mob literally dismantled nearly half constructed McDonalds to prevent it from undermining the local production with a semiotic theme and McDonalds symbolic perspectives.

b. In Arab and Muslim countries which form about __percentage of the world population McDonald was not apparently acceptable unless, the religious factor of Halal Meat was catered for.

c. India, one of the biggest market in the world was another big challenge to McDonald because of dietary preference in Hindu and Muslim cultures. As Hindus do not eat any kind of meat which is an essential part of hamburger of McDonalds. To keep in view cultural preferences of such a country, the management of McDonald introduced modified menus to cater to the preference of consumers. Thus, in India, McDonalds introduced Vegetarian as well as Nonvegetarian menus.

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Thus keeping in line with the basic aim of becoming the worlds largest chain of fast food restaurants, McDonalds kept on devising suitable strategies and objective settings suitable to other national needs as well. For this purpose keeping reliability of its quality, brand name, quality of service, McDonald introduced much affordable prices from country to country (Paul, J. 367). Further, to capture more and more of the local market, research and development network of McDonald kept on introduction innovative product with effective promotional campaigns. In this way, McDonald also keeps on innovative variations in its menu.

ii.

Quality of Performance of Employees

It is often proclaimed that people at McDonalds are the key source difference. More than 1.6 million employees across the globe, both McDonalds and its Franchisee are thought to be the brand ambassador McDonalds. Therefore, McDonald focuses on three key areas in relation its employees:

of at of to

a. b. c.

Dignity and inclusion, EVP: Employee Value Proposition, and Talent Management overall.

This approach of employees priority can be reflected as:

Appendix (I) This strategic human resource management at McDonalds has paved its ways into future with sustained growth.

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iii.

Procedures Employed to Deal with Performance Issues through Change Management

McDonald has show a commitment to inclusion of its people incorporating their diversity at all levels in comparison to other organization dealing in fast food chains. One of the most significant segment of handling with the problem at the end of staff, most pertinently, the performance issues, McDonalds put the problems in writing and set target timelines to cope with them, ultimately closing with disciplinary actions. However, to handle like this, the more important part to devise appropriate mechanism to diagnose poor performance, as it may to unwanted results.

One of the basic procedures of dealing with performance issues at McDonalds is customer has to follow are known as McRuels. These McRules are 43, but some of the most important rules are reproduced herein under for general consideration:

a. Don't confuse franchises! We don't Biggie size; we don't have onion rings or nachos, and no...You may not "Have it your way."

b. If you ordered a burger without pickles and they somehow ended up there anyway... just pick them off because that's all I'm going to do when you bring it back to me to "fix it."

c. Don't come into the lobby two minutes before we close. Chances are I've already cleaned, and it will only cause me to do unspeakable things to your (already stale) food.

d. Don't scream at me if I ask you to repeat your order... we're talking about cheeseburgers, not missiles... so calm down!

e. Does this look like Toys-R-Us? Who cares if your kid's got 10 of the same toy already? That's telling me you don't feed them at home enough!

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f. When I hand you your food and say "Have a nice day," you better respond with a smile, a "Thanks, you too," or at least acknowledge my existence. Its called being polite people

Thus, apart from taking the corrective or expulsion measures, McDonalds firstly tries to confront with the marginal performance of its employees by introducing certain rule for the customers as well which may include:

a. Family difficulties or personal troubles as well as issues as workplace.

b. Workers may be under unreasonable pressures or harassment by coworkers.

c. Other sensitive issue which may be quite personal to an employee, especially, at workplace.

d. Workers may be suffering from certain mental illness, curable, with general administration, for instance, psychological distress.

Therefore, very basic reason for this is that McDonald takes its employees not just worker bees but as its assets and future investment. Thus to avoid and eradicate the poor performing employees McDonald first focuses onto resolve the issues which are hindering the efficiency of a worker.

6. Conclusion

According to Rensi, Ed, former president of McDonalds USA McDonalds is built on a chassis of growth opportunities, business opportunities, systems, trust, and yes, fun (Genn, A. & Facella, P 2009:ix) In the year 2009, McDonald also introduced the concept of Global Best of Green a catalogue

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providing best environmental practices from across the McDonald System, as a source of innovation and sustainability of supply chains. The enormous accomplishments of McDonalds around the globe are mainly attributed to its ability to harmonize and fascinate the local business culture (Yu, L 52). Today, McDonald is in every big city across the globe. However, McDonald is not only a global fast food chain but also the corporation operates and supports many charitable causes (Mieth, H. 1993:12). However, it is suggested that every product, customer, and brand all around the world have their life cycle and there is a cut throat competition in the market. Keeping in view these contention McDonalds must keep on pursuing unique sets of performance measures (Ward, K 2004:321) and contemporary business environment. In these given set of variable, employee performance measures should be reviewed constantly and modified accordingly.

References:

1. Achua, FC & Lussier, RN. 2010. Leadership: theory, application, & skill development. South-Western Cengage Learning. USA.

2. Mieth, H. 1999. The History of McDonalds. Norderstedt, Germany.

3. Gilbert, S. The Story of McDonalds: built for success. Creative Education. USA.

4. Facella, P & Genn, A. 2009. Everything I Know About Business: I Learned at McDonald. McGraw Hills. USA.

5. Royle, T. 2000. Working for McDonalds in Europe: the unique struggle. Routledge, USA.

6. Harris, PS. 2009. None of Us is As Good As All of Us: How McDonalds Prospers by Embracing. John Willy & Sons, Inc. USA.

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7. Harkins, et al. 2006. Leading Global Work Force: best practices from Linkage, Inc. Linkage, Inc. USA.

8. Wasik, JF. 1997. Green Marketing & Management: a global perspective. Blackwell Publishers, Inc.

9. Mukerjee, K. 2009. Product Management: Text and Cases. PHI Learning Private Limited. India.

10.Paul, J. 2008. International Business. (4th Ed.) PHI Learning Private Limited. India.

11.Roodhouse, S. & Mumford, J. 2010. Undertaking Work Based Learning. Gower Publishing Limited. UK.

12.Yu, L. The International Hospitality Business: management and operations.

13.McEacham, WA. 2009. Microeconomics: Public Market. Southwest Cengage Learning. USA.

14.Dash, S. & Aswathappa, K. 2008. International Human Resource Management: Text and Cases. Tata McGraw-Hill. India

15.Ward, K. 2004. Marketing Finance: turning marketing strategies into shareholder value. Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann. UK.

16.McDonald. 2011. Our Company. Available at: http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/our_company.html accessed on 11 April 2011.

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