Employee Recognition and Retention at McDonalds

Question: Discuss about theEmployee Recognition and Retention at McDonalds. Answer: Introduction Considering the increasing competitiveness in markets, attracting and retaining employees is one of the major concerns of any organisation. Although the competition may have abated following the financial crisis in some countries, in some other countries, the labour markets remain tight for some occupations, since there is a retention of workers. For instance, this is clearly depicted in the case of the McDonalds organisation. It uses the employer branding strategy in attracting the human capital, which is aimed at allowing the firm to achieve its bottom-line objectives. Organisational branding highly communicates the benefits of using McDonalds services to its consumers and employees among other vital factors that embed this organisation. Branding process happens through the creation of unique image or name of the services offered to the consumers through means of advertisement to the consumers. The branding process influences the beliefs of the consumers concerning the service. Con sequently, the beliefs become the part of the brand image in the organisation, which invokes its recognition. Recognition and Retention in Organisations In general, the concepts leading to employee attraction and recruitment framework, the value of organisations conveys to the potential employees belief that their needs will eventually be met. It means that just as the consumers depend on the branding phenomenon to differentiate their products, workers employ a similar technique in distinguishing between various employers to determine if a certain employer will help them to attain their personal objectives. In McDonalds it is the employers who control the industrys attraction and recruitment process which will eventually determine if the employees will choose to remain in their jobs. Another vital perspective that is useful while gauging that factor that attracts young people to jobs in the McDonalds organisation is the notion of building their career paths. An individual's career path is equivalent to their self-image ability, basic values, talents and career motives. In essence, to develop ones career helps an individual gain both work and profession experience which leads to making sound career decisions. The McDonalds culture helps in supporting the company to position itself and achieve its goals and objectives. McDonalds is the biggest player in the worldwide fast-food industry. It uses its culture as a tool to attract customers and the most qualified employees. Markedly, the organisation's culture tells more about the values and traditions that it uses to influence its employees behaviour. With the best behaviour of workers and good management, there is the likelihood of attracting customers and retaining them. To enhance business efficiency in regards to production and other services, McDonald's company culture calls for learning. Through learning, there is continued evolution of the firm reflecting on its effectiveness in applying its corporate culture to achieve the best levels of human resource. This condition clearly points to the importance of organisational culture as a factor to enhance success, particularly in international business (Saha and Theingi, 2009). Notably, the McDonalds cultures insist on the development of its human resource component, to enhance its efficiency. This is because it supports business growth and success. Markedly the organisation has four important characteristics prioritised by McDonalds as follows - people, individual learning, organisational learning, and the diversity and inclusion. Leaders should be in a position to understand employee recognition psychology to achieve the best out of their workers. For instance, if an employee provides the best services in their job, they should be recognised by the management. After getting such recognition, these employees are likely to work harder since they would like to continue being recognised. They also look forward to receiving gifts or another kind of appreciation. McDonald's achieves this imperative by recognising its employees at the monthly, quarterly and annual intervals. Moreover, the company also provides an outstanding achievers award. The recipient of this award is determined through a meticulous process, which entails the input of various managers. The winner also receives a $500 gift voucher. The employee recognition is the most important of all culture practices in the McDonalds organisation for the future leaders' program since it mediates the effects of workers retention. The quality of service is an astute mediator of the relationship between job satisfaction and the customer satisfaction. Consequently, to satisfy the customers, it is essential to ensure that the workers are themselves fully contented. Achieving this contentedness entails improving workers satisfaction, as this will lead to an improvement in the quality of services based on the theory of social exchange (Yee, Yeung, and Cheng, 2008). According to this theory, when individuals receive gifts, a feeling of gratitude ensues. Consequently, they yearn to reciprocate. In the context of McDonalds scheme, recognition encourages workers to provide the best input, which contributes to the realisation of the goals of the organisation. Employee encouragement can also be understood from the perspective of motivation, which is one of the tools that human resource managers commonly employ in their practice. One such theory is Abraham Maslows hierarchy of needs. This theory categorizes the needs of individuals into five classes, which are physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem and finally self-actualization. These needs may further be classified into lower level needs and higher level needs. The first three classes are the lower level needs while the two remaining classes constitute the higher level of needs. Maslow contended that if an individual becomes contented with a particular class of needs, then this class becomes less important. In their career description, McDonalds does not emphasise on the lower level of needs perhaps because the work in this firm is safe. However, the organisation puts more emphasis on the flexibility of working time and the experience that individuals acquire from their work (M illeta, 2008). The McDonald's company has a clear recognition of its employees needs, thereby choosing to focus primarily on the higher level of needs in the Maslow hierarchy. From this theory, while motivating employees or workers, it is important to clearly understand their needs. Another famous theory is Taylor's principles of scientific management. In his theory, Taylor assumes that money is the main motivator in an organisation. The theory tries to establish the means that is the most efficient for the performance of a task. Consequently, the theory recommends the piece rate mode of payment such that those employees who work fastest receive bonuses. In the McDonalds payment policy, this principle is implemented through a system of competitive wages. However, McDonalds does not regard wages as the only motivation since the organisation provides other benefits, which also act as motivators. One can also perceive aspects of Herzbergs motivator-hygiene theory. In this theory, there are two sets of factors that have an influence on employees, which are the motivator and hygiene factors. Motivators include the interest that an individual has as well as future opportunities that give workers job satisfaction while on the other hand, hygiene factors include the working environment, which can lead to the workers to becoming dissatisfied (Farndale et al., 2011). McDonalds portrays notions of a belief that the motivators in this theory can lead to the satisfaction of the employees. Therefore, the rewards got from excellent performance, and the chances of future development are used in motivating employees in McDonalds. The management of talents is an important area of focus in the workers' retention, but it lacks a clear definition. It mainly centres on the employee being a very vital and valuable resource with the capacity to providing a competitive advantage. The talent retention targets an entirely different set of individuals as opposed to employee retention (Schlosser, 2012). The talent management is only concerned with the retention of the most talented individuals whom the firm has recognised to having the ability to occupy the key position. One of the limiting factors in association with the retention policies is that they end up in the retention of the employees including those who have low performance. However, with the talent management, an organisation is able to focus both its efforts and resources on the employees who have potential in occupying the top positions. This theory is demonstrated clearly in McDonalds through its future leader's programs. The organisation is able to identif y and retain the most talented individuals by recognising them. The decision making for the nonprofit organisation is equally important just like the business organisations. Then it is important to note that the non-profit just like other organisations rely on their personnel in executing their strategies to advance their goals and objectives. For that reason, the non-profit firms needs to attend similar tasks as the business organisation that they partake when faced with the issue of establishing and maintaining a strong workforce. To achieve this, the Spastic Centre, which is a non-profit organisation, addresses the following personnel issues as delineated by the human resource management. They include assessing individuals needs, recruiting new ones, screening, selecting and hiring, orientation of the new one and finally deciding on the best method of compensation. A good manager in the non-profit organisation must ensure that they get more performance from the workers (Brown and Lam, 2008). This is because the human resource department entire ly determines the companys performance. It is for this reason that the management should make decisions on whom to hire and who to fire. In many non-profit organisations, including the Spastic Centre, publicising its existence is very important step that they should take when recruiting its staff and volunteers if they are to encourage and retain them in their firms (Clemmer, 2003). For many non-profit organisations, volunteers are countless since they attend the basic tasks. These organizations usually rely on two essential avenues for publicising their work that is their local media like newspapers and other or the community organisations. Contact with the non-profit group like churches or the public groups particularly rewards the non-profit organisations. The interviewing process for successful staff is essential for the non-profit organisation (Charan et al., 2011). This is because it holds truest volunteers, directors and other officers. Therefore, the non-profit organisation managers should ensure that they recognise the volunteers in the process of selection and staffing to enhance their performance. Non-profit organisations today face even dimmer prospects when it comes to the sourcing of a reliable and capable workforce. These dimming prospects can be attributed to a complex interplay of factors, as highlighted by Pauline (2011). Firstly, there is a shifting paradigm in the nature of the work-life interplay, which has severely hampered both the volume and capacity of potential volunteers. Specifically, individuals today have to contend with longer working hours as well as increased demands of everyday life, issues that limit their available free time. Secondly, there is also increased competition for the talents currently available in the market, due to increased competition amongst business organisations, as well as the emergence of new forms of non-profit institutions and other opportunities and events, which similarly rely on volunteers (Pauline, 2011). Given these factors, volunteer retention becomes an increasingly important consideration, yet one that is increasingly diff icult to attain. In light of the above factors, volunteer retention becomes an important strategy, which non-profits can employ to satisfy their labour needs. Pauline (2011) elaborates that retention may be even more significant in non-profits that in business organisations granted the nature of some of the events requiring volunteers, whereby they occur at particular intervals, say annually. Consequently, it is essential that they retain volunteers to reduce the amount of time involved in recruiting and training new volunteers. While training is a vital approach that leads to a successful non-profits organisation management (Allen, 2008), it is a rather expensive and time-consuming affair. Training is important in ensuring that volunteers have a proper understanding of what the organisation expects from them. In light of these aspects, the importance of retention for non-profits is further underscored by the scarcity of resources at their disposal in comparison with business organisations. One of th e key tactics that non-profits can then employ to retain volunteers is to ensure volunteer job satisfaction (Pauline, 2011; Warner, Newland and Green, 2011). Satisfaction essentially regards the difference between what volunteers expect and what they obtain from the job (Warner, Newland Green, 2011). Satisfied volunteers are more likely to be committed to the organisation, and to be willing to continue volunteering. Volunteer satisfaction can only be attained through an apt and precise understanding of volunteers motivations. When an organisation understands the motivations behind a volunteers voluntarism, it gains an understanding of the volunteers expectations and is thereby better placed to meet these expectations (Warner, Newland Green, 2011). Consequently, the direct use of tactics such as recognition may not necessarily work for non-profits, given that the main driver of satisfaction is volunteers expectations. For instance, Warner, Newland and Green (2011) report the finding that continuous nonsport volunteers were found to be indifferent to recognition. Recognition was, however, an attractive feature for other respondents in their study, whose sample included volunteers in both sport and nonsport organisations. On her part, Pauline (2011) reports that volunteers were least satisfied with the amount of recognition that they received in the organisations where they volunteered. It is wort hwhile to note that the sample in her study comprised of volunteers in sporting. Based on the above findings, it appears that the need for recognition varies based on the field within which a particular non-profit organisation is operating. Recognition seems to be an important issue for volunteers within the field of sports. Although it is not explicitly stated in the literature, one can perhaps attribute this finding to the competitive nature of sporting as a field, which often culminates in the recognition of individuals whose performance stand out. Nonetheless, the conclusion here is that an organisational audit, as well as a review of volunteers, is an important first step in satisfying employees, as it facilitates an understanding of their expectations. Conclusion Human capital is one of the most essential inputs in organisations, whether they be business organisations or non-profit institutions. Both levels of organisation face increasingly dim prospects due to an increasing shortage in both the volume and ability of available labour. This is due to increased competition as well as a shifting dynamic in the characteristics of the labour force, which means that organisations have to compete for a limited human resource base. Consequently, the retention of the current human resource base has gained increased prominence. McDonald's has found that employee recognition is a safe path towards the realisation of employee retention. The company has an elaborate training program, and regularly recognises employees for outstanding performance. A scrutiny of the practice reveals that it is underpinned by theories such as motivation, performance management and talent management. Recognition is an important way in which organisations can achieve employee job satisfaction, thereby increasing employees' commitment to their jobs and promoting employee retention. 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