Analysis of organisational behaviour and management within McDonalds

You are required to analyse your own organisation or one that you are familiar with in terms of the Organisational Behaviour issues. The assignments should use a variety of models and theories within the chosen topic as part of your analysis.

AIM

In this assignment It has been analysed and found out what kind of leadership theories and techniques and the skills of the group are in reality implemented or practiced by the McDonald’s workers. The field study It has been done entails by visiting the few McDonald’s restaurants in London at the at the different shifts starts from early morning to late night and also the HR office of the McDonald’s, London, located at the Notting Hill Gate, London. Throughout the every visit It has observed the attitude and the behaviour of the managers, staff and the customer’s interaction without any interference with normal operation. It has also observed the working culture and the motivating factors at the McDonald’s and also the team work. Due to the lack of the sample and the facts It was unable to cover the total spirit of the McDonald’s corporation. Still It was capable to narrate my studies outcome regarding to leadership and the theories of the organisation behaviour and also the some of the corporate values of the McDonald’s. In the course of the study and the business research It has been found that the McDonald’s worker and staff reveals the quality leadership and so on the corporations as whole puts the important efforts in working for and also motivating its employees.

COMPANY PROFILE

McDonald’s originated in California, USA, 1954. McDonald’s Corporation along with its affiliates operates as a food service retailer worldwide. The franchises of the McDonald’s operate the McDonald’s restaurants that offer a variety of food items, soft drink, coffee, and other food and beverages. According to a survey it shows that as of December 31, 2009 the company runs or operates 32,480 restaurants in 117 countries and out of them 26,215 were operated by the franchisees and 6,265 were operated by the company.

McDonald’s corporation franchises and operates its restaurants in the food service industry. McDonald’s supply the products to most of the McDonald’s restaurants where McDonald’s independently – owned and operates distribution centres, which is approved by the company. Where the employee and personnel of restaurants are trained very well in the storage, preparation and handling of products and in the delivering the good customer services. The company sold its interest in REDBOX AUTOMATED RETAIL, LLC. in February 2009. The franchises of McDonald’s operates McDonald’s restaurant in the food and service industry. These restaurants variety and yet limited value priced menu in more than 117 countries globally. Most of the restaurants are operated by the company or by the franchisees, under the franchise agreement franchisees are included and under license agreements foreign-affiliated markets and developmental licenses are included. McDonald’s has also developed many programmes and strategies for motivating its employees and also teaching the leadership.

THEORIES OF ORGANISATION BEHAVIOUR

Corporate and Work culture in McDonald’s

It is very essential to analyze the organisation’s work culture while studying the organisation’s leadership and team work and motivation skills and how these cultures are maintained. The McDonald’s work culture appears that they are highly dependent on the particular line manager in charge to any point of time. Some will think that the manager approximately every time use the power of the position and also use the speaking style of leadership whether the distinctive employee is inexperienced or young. Definitely few managers are analyzed as they are running the operation lie machine manner mostly at the time of peak business periods. Though in the most of the cases the manager comparatively relaxed and even sometimes is impossible to differentiate from the other workers.

Generally the manager would not try to put any hard straight up barriers between their workers and themselves. Managers regularly liked to show the real concern emotional interests and also the well being of the workers which is really not likely in some environment. For example some managers are analyzed asking the worker to clean the floor their kids and their weekends. They are seems to be legitimate hard works in respond to motivate the workers even at the level of the workers. Herzberg’s two factor theory explain that only the good working conditions go so far and that the workers needs the higher level of the fulfilment like motivation and recognition in command to satisfaction related to their position. Still in a less skill position less revenue is needed. In addition happy workers lead to happy consumer.

The management McDonald’s corporation believe in the training and the leadership at all the stages through university of hamburger. On the website of the Hamburger University they have quoted that the Ray Korc the founder of McDonald’s corporations training focused philosophy ”if we are going to go any where we have got the talent And that should be going to put the money in the talent”. This kind of philosophy indicates that the McDonald’s do not believe in its restaurants crew member’s part of the machine that can be replaced. It is so because the training is not just provided to managers or the executives. The McDonald’s is proficient to extend and strengthen the McDonald’s culture and values in all the directions just not towards down. McDonald’s corporate values and also having people as one of its pillars. The corporate policy of the McDonald’s explains that the workers must be paid at or more than the local market rate and also importance both i.e. the benefits and pay. By indicating workers higher needs by giving training they make workers feel valuable and important. The training also serves to strengthen the culture at all the stages with the help of the education and nurturing an employee’s positive image and value to the organisation.

Leadership in McDonald’s

According to the text book of Organizational Behaviour written by Stephen P. Robbins, 2001, 9th edition, there are several leadership theories can be use in an organization. In this assignment It has been studied Situation Leadership Theory exactness how Task Behaviour and Relationship Behaviour can be used in unlike situation and Path-Goal theory exactness how it can be used to control subordinate. This study adopts the theories that have been applied by McDonald’s and its leader in situation today.

Situation Leadership Theory (SLT)

SLT theory is developed by the Paul Hersey and ken Blanchard based on the thoughts that leader needs to change their behaviour which depends on main situational factor willingness of followers. It is a contingency theory which focuses on the follower’s willingness {Stephens P Robbins, 2001}. It focuses on two behaviour, task behaviour and relationship behaviour. Or.

Task Behaviour is the leader’s propensity to imply out duties and responsibilities of the group (Davidson and Griffin, 2003). And Relationship Behaviour is how much the leader uses two- way or multi-way communications, including listening, facilitating and supportive behaviours (Davidson and Griffin, 2003). To decide which arrangement of behaviours is the most appropriate for a given situation a leader must assess the keenness of the follower in using the Situation Leadership Theory; leaders decide the task areas they want to control, by judging the individual’s willingness stage and after that selecting the leadership style equivalent to that stage.

Situational Leadership Theory at McDonald’s:

Though McDonald’s has provided the equipments and materials to the management in their training, Jim Skinner has realized that it is lack of knowledge that people and the time has changed. To be a restaurant manager from the trainee business manager the Task behaviour is a practical. McDonald’ CEO Jim Skinner said that responsibilities & duties and emphasis what will be the outcomes. The problem was the question of retention management as the managers were getting more educated on what more can be done to progress condition and be a participant leader. No efforts were made to regulate the style of leadership to contain willingness of store manager.

Jim Skinner has said that the leaders in company have to contribute their vision. Particularly operating decisions even in store budgets, restaurants manager must make decisions regarding the store promotion and the local store marketing, they knew the business better than the department head because restaurant manager is more involved in the day to day operation of business. Though few of participating leadership theories are use by the restaurants manager and it was not every time privileged by the head of departments.

Jim Skinner feels that employees was trained by the restaurant manager for the store activities and yet limited on what can be delegated, like implementing decisions to improve responsibilities. The CEO Jim Skinner strongly emphasis the want for restaurant manager to implement more participant leadership style is significant for the development of the company in future. Leaders like consultants are required to understand that the work should be finished faster when restaurants mangers make the decision directly, instead of going through different channels. Jim Skinner believes that developing satisfaction of self involvement in business leads to happier followers.

Path-Goal Theory

House and Mitchell explain the Path-Goal theory as being leader behaviour that can manipulate the subordinates motivation and job satisfaction. Path-Goal Theory explains that leader’s behaviour is acceptable to subordinates insofar as they view it as a source of either immediate or future satisfaction (Stephen P. Robbins, 2001). This theory debates that the of subordinates observation is exaggerated by leader’s behaviours, directive, achievements, supportive, participative oriented. This flexibility gives the leaders the capability to believe the impact the leader behaviours on subordinates motivation, job satisfaction, and goal accomplishments.

Path-Goal Theory at McDonald’s:

A set goal with an incentive has close to every time like to be the way to have anyone completes work. But in this age it is not so. The CEO Jim Skinner realized that McDonald’s has a question ‘What else can we do to make the McDonald’s restaurants managers and the subordinates happier and work for the company’s goal? Compared to what kind of duties are required to be completed, the incentives given are not attractive any more but they were great.

The restaurants manager of McDonald’s is to be given directive leadership that is like to be quite winning style; Jim skinner has adopted this for long time. The reason to accomplish the task for manager is linked with the reward and the performance duty. Eagerness to increase reward expectancy and so did performance improvement. There is lot of change in the last ten years like change in thoughts of working and change in the lifestyle of the people. There must be some incentives provided to meet the individual need and realistic to achieve together with work load that does not influence the lifestyle of the individual. Sometimes the directive behaviour of the leaders are not attractive to subordinates.

Jim Skinner believes that to motivate satisfy the McDonald’s restaurant manager in today’s time is the achievements and participative leader behaviours. The involvement of the leader and the subordinates are required for the above behaviour. The involvement of both parties and encourages the suggestion and using these ideas in decision making. The participative behaviour increases the efforts of the restaurant manager’s performance and makes the reward like easy to achieve.

Jim Skinner thinks that McDonald’s have been lacked for achievement oriented leader for a long time. The capability of having high level of confidence against the subordinates is the leadership. Through the study It can be seen that the leadership of the Jim Skinner that store manager can make the decision at the store level, like what kind of goals are more significant to the store, next year budget, who should be promoted . Applying this kind of leadership style will not only increase the restaurants manager’s job satisfaction but also reduce the management turnover and long term employee. The adoption of Path goal theory by Jim Skinner has simplified the path so the subordinates know which way to go and also helped in removing the barriers and Jim Skinner have polish the path and also helped the subordinates to move the large blocks.

Team Work at McDonald’s

The success of the McDonald’s is not owned by the individual but by the team functionality. Where as all employees can not be superstar. Without the sufficient corporation and team work the McDonald’s can not or it is unable to deliver their product and services. McDonald’s is not having very highly integrated team work. The functional team will be the best example to describe the team on the floor of the McDonald’s restaurants. There is one area where the team members focus during their shift time. If one of the team member leave the post where he works the other line member will be unable to complete their job and the production line have to suffer. For example a customer comes in the restaurants and makes their order with the teller and the teller puts the order in the computer and the order displays in the kitchen side and as well in grill station. Workers at the grill side prepare the meat and after that place the burger on the bun. On other side the sandwich maker assembles the sandwich according to their type and the request made by the customer for their sandwich. Suppose the sandwich maker has left his post then the other employee has recover for him otherwise the whole delivery of the product process will be closed down. Therefore the McDonald’s restaurants team is consecutively interdependent. Unless the best motivation is provides good and fast quality services or everyone does not work together then there will be the failure of the team work. As a result if the one person loses the motivation and also fails in performing his duties effectively, the consumer will make complain and the business can be lost. Still the many workers are trained to perform numbers of job and the different stations and even they are not usually capable to all of these jobs at the same time.

The distinctive team is not self sufficient and vital steady directly contribution from the manager. It has been analyzed that some time when somebody’s morale starts to decline, only the manager is able to give a boost up the team and also to increase their efficiency. On the other hand It has been seen that if the manager has lost the motivation and exhausted and the team also quickly starts following the same. If the team member is facing any problem and they are helpless than the manager plays the vital role in helping and motivating the team member. Such kind of behaviour keeps the production line move effectively. The efficiency of the team is in straight line related to the efforts of the leadership of the manager. Consecutively to make sure that the both effectiveness and efficiency in team’s work can be completed when the needs of the employees is fulfilled and this is only possible by the efforts of the manager. This can be manifest as the straight help, the word of support, by not pushing the undesired attitude every time, or by giving a break and temporarily taking the employee’s responsibility. On the other hand the worker seems to be self sufficient and well trained only if the morale is at the sufficient stage. Most of the time the team is operated without speaking. From time to time the team member can scream or yell command to other member, however every member knows generally that what exactly they have to do without more conversation. Since the team does not need any kind of correction or the steady retraining, all these indicates that the staff is trained well and also been given the implements to perform their task or job effectively

Motivation at McDonald’s

The main and important resource of the company is the employees. These people make sure the interaction of the financial and other resources of the organisation which help in functioning of the organisation. Today some of the experienced managers thinks that the financial reward is not only the kind of encouragement for the employees. The need of the employees must be seen as a unit that may leads to the finding of the non-financial motives. There are many non-financial motives exists which are related to the satisfaction needs of the employees for example the employee recognition, participating in the decision making, personal growth and self-fulfilment and many more. McDonald’s corporation add on the due to the logical combination of the employees in the problem solving. McDonald’s follow its principle ‘the result is done by man’. In the field of the productivity and the quality McDonald’s tests its employees as the primary means of the growth. McDonald’s success is based on the motivation theories have been changed some features of them. McDonald’s follows the 4 simple rules which provides chance to its employees to increase the performance. Which are as follows :-

There must be the different system of the motivation in every department of the organisation.

The employees must have clear and achievable goals. One aim for one person is a better deal.

There must be change in aims: mangers should have 2 aims in the year.

The increase in salary should be practical for the workers.

There are three components of motivation system which is used by the McDonald’s are financial incentives, non-financial incentives and the social policies. All these factors explains the Maslow’s Theory of Motivation- Hierarchy of needs. This hierarchy covers the five level of needs of human being and each level must be fulfilled with purpose of moving to the next stage of the hierarchy level. The first level of the hierarchy is basically with the normal needs of physiological needs. Once the first level is completed the next level is safety needs in this stage employees feel financially and personally safe in purpose of moving towards next stage of this hierarchy that is social needs after fulfilling this need the esteem and the self-actualization level comes. But the Maslow explains that all levels of needs should be achieved one by one. The research on McDonald’s done says that McDonald’s corporation and its strategy and the structure demonstrates that only real time needs of the employee must be fulfilled and which results that there is increment in the performance of the employees. It also explains that it is not compulsory to satisfy all the needs of all stages. In every actual moment every employee has a sets of needs in reality.

At the time of research It has been analysed that McDonald’s also use or implements the two factor theory of |Frederick Herzberg that clearly discriminates the difference between satisfaction and dissatisfaction along with two factors motivation and hygiene factors. It is not necessary that only by improving the salary, status and security will motivate the workers. It just make the workers less dissatisfied by the means of their job or task and this will not at all help in increasing the productivity. If the organisation want to increase their productivity than it is necessary that mangers must give positive feedback to the workers and also motivate or encourage them to do the better the can. This demonstrate the worker that employees are being acknowledged for the work employee do, thus their motivation must be increase.

Conclusion and Recommendation:

As we know that McDonald’s is a multinational corporation and which is apparent as many different things to different people. Number of people perceive that McDonald’s is a civilized and quick and less expensive meals. And some of them may view the corporation series as a low quality restaurant that recruits untaught and unskilled persons. However McDonald’s has an optimistic corporate reflection that make itself proud on quality and hygiene, in addition to good food and good services. The corporation recruitment state-of-art knowledge to help McDonalds employee in their jobs and make the production process more rapidly, presence to the clients in a at the appointed time approach. In provisions of leadership McDonald’s make a strong commercial attempt to build up the leaders. We can see that there are many expansion opportunities inside the company for them who are enthusiastic to work enthusiastically and build up their leadership quality. There are enormous rising mobility for MacDonald’s workforce. From what It has been experienced in my field study that the work culture of the McDonald’s showed in the McDonald’s restaurants are associated with the firm’s company principles. After analysing the behaviour of the organisation. If we talk about the leadership styles used in McDonald’s, Jim Skinner and McDonald’s are habitual of using directive leadership style on its restaurant manager. Decision of participative leader was beneficial adopted by Jim Skinner. This was realized that the jobs were completed faster when decision was made by the restaurant manager rather than suggesting them and generating that contentment of self-involvement in the business which makes the happier follower. In few cases the path goal theory and the situation leadership theory was quite similar. The discussion was the perception of subordinates was affected by the leader’s behaviour, directive, participative, supportive and achievement oriented. Under the control of Jim Skinner today McDonald’s have large numbers of quality leaders in restaurants that someone is able inspire other to achieve the gaol of the company. McDonald’s is not late in implementing the changes and these kind of changes helped in developing the leadership style of the McDonald’s. the directive leadership behaviour must be replaced by the participative leadership style. It is really hard to find the quality of the earlier leaders. Therefore the path goal theory has been adopted which made the McDonald’s and Jim Skinner successful not only this the leadership style of Jim Skinner the achievement oriented leadership and participative leadership is considered as most successful in McDonald’s. with the above discussion I came to know that McDonald’s is really effective in motivating. And this displays that McDonald’s is implementing all motivation theories. The main reason of motivating the employee is to increase the productivity and I think that I have done this in my research. And such motivation will not show growth in productivity but also the improvement in the performance.