After short introduction about McDonald’s it’s time to write a little bit about Human Resources Management in this company.
Different types of organisations adopt different approaches to the control of their workforce, depending on how they compete. There are three main bases for competitive advantage-innovation, quality and cost-whereas strategies revolving around quality and innovation are usually associated with a committed workforce. For organisations where costs are the most important part of the question, ‘control’ is likely to be a more important factor than commitment. Although some level of consent is always necessary, control is high on the agenda at McDonald's. Control at McDonald's is not merely achieved by direct supervision, machines, the physical layout of the restaurant and the detailed prescription of rules and procedures but also through recruitment.
Even unskilled workers have some power to disrupt the efficiency of the operation by withdrawing co-operation from the production process, disrupting the process or by simply leaving the organisation. Employees may submit to the authority of the employer, but are always likely to retain a strong interest in the use of their labour. Employees and management are, therefore, to some extent interdependent; management cannot rely solely on coercion or even compliance to secure high performance, management also needs to secure active employee consent and co-operation.
When workers' efforts are extracted through an elaborate systems of rules, including rules about grounds for promotion and for punishment, employers arguably establish more control over workers' personalities and values than when their efforts are extracted through direct exhortation or force or through the design of equipment.
Questions of subjectivity are not separable from the analysis of actual work practices in interactive service work because employers actively manage workers' identities. Workers and customers vie with management in a three-way contest for control and satisfaction. Distress felt by workers subjected to organisational exploitation of their feelings and personalities; however not all workers resist the extension of standardisation to their inner-selves. Rather, many attempt to construct interpretations of their roles that do not damage their conceptions of themselves. In some situations service routines provide workers and customers with benefits which help account for their frequent acquiescence in managerial designs. However the routinisation of service work and the standardisation of personality are benign, nor do workers, customers and employers necessarily benefit from these processes in a happy congruence of interests. These manipulations are often invasive, demeaning and frustrating for the workers and sometimes for the customers who experience them.
The importance of emotional labour in interactive service work, even of the limited kind found at McDonald's, should not be underestimated. Employers who standardise the service interaction exert a cultural influence that extends beyond the workplace. For example when workers are estranged from their own smiles the company is laying claim not just to physical motions but also to their emotions. Their organisational control strategies reach deeply into the lives of workers, encouraging them to take an instrumental stance towards their own personalities and towards other people. McDonald's employees working on a till, for example, although only involved in limited service interactions, are expected to control themselves internally by being pleasant, cheerful, smiling and courteous to customers, even when customers are rude and offensive. This applies to all McDonald's workers and their relations with fellow workers and supervisors, with whom they are expected to show obvious pride in their work and employment.
When asked how they motivated employees, both UK and German managers at restaurant and senior management level stressed the importance of good communication. Managers are encouraged to apply and concentrate on 'motivators': 'achievement', 'responsibility', 'growth' and 'recognition'. This may take the form of 'employee of the month' awards, day trips and cash bonuses or of encouraging workers to strive for promotion and take on responsibility.
On the one hand, the striving for promotion locks managers' and employees' loyalty into the system; on the other, it may offer real opportunities for advancement which may be hard to come by for those with poor academic backgrounds. Managers are encouraged to discount the importance of 'hygiene' factors, such as pay and conditions of work. Managers have no control over these issues because they are dictated by the system. Training reinforces the view that pay and conditions do not really matter; what really does matter is their 'positive' management style and leadership. Job satisfaction is thus defined as a phenomenon determined through the area of psychological concepts, not through good pay and conditions. A good manager will therefore 'solve' the problem of resistance or discontent through good communication. Managers in the UK refer to the three Cs (in Germany, the three Ks), co-ordination, co-operation and communication, as the basis of the solutions to all problems.
Identification with the restaurant and other crew members is fostered through the creation of a new form of collective. If 'us and them' is still recognised, it is reinterpreted to mean 'us' as the management and crew and 'them' as the customer. Workers are encouraged to think of themselves as part of a team and managers are encouraged to equate restaurant management with coaching a team. The result of this form of 'teamwork' seems to be that individuals are often loath to be seen by their peers as making extra work for other people by not doing their share. Even the more resentful employees, who had what management saw as 'negative' attitudes, would still work hard to keep the respect of their peers. A typical feature of management style was the repeated use of certain kinds of language, with paternalistic expressions such as the 'McDonald's family'. Management and employees in both countries used the term to describe their work environment. Many responses reflected the strongly paternalistic nature of the employment relationship which management worked to foster.
There were examined the organisation and the nature of the work in the McDonald’s restaurants, the employment relationship and the characteristics of the workforce in various countries. The detailed study of the German and UK operations and additional evidence from other European countries suggests that virtually the same kind of restaurant hierarchy and organisation is in use in every country. Although there appeared to be some differences in the numbers of workers employed in restaurants in different countries and differences also in labour turnover, this could be explained by a broadly similar employment 'strategy'.
Various authors suggest that all of these workers have something in common; they are unlikely to resist or effectively oppose managerial control. In effect, McDonald's is able to take advantage of the weak and marginalised sectors of the labour market, in other words, young workers who lack the previous experience, maturity and confidence to challenge managerial authority and foreign workers who are very concerned about keeping their jobs. Furthermore, employees in all 'categories' may have no long-term interest in the company, in which case contesting management prerogative may simply 'not be worth the trouble'. Many of the foreign workers in Germany and Austria have a lot of previous work experience and come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and many have qualifications from their country of origin. However, these workers are effectively marginalised in the labour market and find it difficult to find other work elsewhere for several reasons: first, because of problems with language; second, because of problems with the recognition of their qualifications; third, because these labour markets are extremely competitive in terms of qualifications; and, fourth, because the number of foreign and other migrant workers in Germany and to some extent Austria is increasing and unemployment remains relatively high.
The work offered by McDonald's may have some positive elements, but workers are often choosing employment at McDonald's in the context of having few other attractive options. Almost regardless of what people think of the work itself, working at McDonald's could be said to offer advantages for some employees who want flexible hours and are engaged in other activities and responsibilities. For those marginalised in the labour market who have few chances of a job elsewhere, McDonald's offers much needed work.
However, the employees' dependence on McDonald's and/or their tendency to see their employment as a short-term strategy makes them vulnerable to management manipulation. Those with minimum interest simply leave if they do not like it, and this is clearly reflected in high labour turnover. Perhaps they are attracted by the combination of fairly secure employment, familiar 'family' surroundings created by a highly paternalistic approach to management and lots of employees of similar age or temperament. This may help to explain how the corporation sometimes retains individuals who could probably obtain better paid and more skilled work elsewhere.
The employment relationship at McDonald's is managed by a complete spectrum of controls, from simple, direct and bureaucratic controls to the management of subjectivity. At one end of the spectrum, restaurant managers are disciplined to accept tough work schedules and must prove themselves 'up to the challenge' of punishing schedules. Long hours and loyalty are locked in, with young managers being persuaded not only to accept as the norm many hours of unpaid work but also to gain a perverse satisfaction from surviving these tough and uncompromising work routines. In addition, young managers who may or may not get similar 'opportunities' elsewhere in the labour market are romanced by offers of promotion and career development. At the other end of the spectrum, more direct methods are used to maintain control. However, this still leaves unanswered the question of how the corporation has managed to sustain the uniformity of its employee relations practices despite major differences across societal cultures.
Advertisements which encouraged people to work in McDonald's:
And also from Polish media:
Different types of organisations adopt different approaches to the control of their workforce, depending on how they compete. There are three main bases for competitive advantage-innovation, quality and cost-whereas strategies revolving around quality and innovation are usually associated with a committed workforce. For organisations where costs are the most important part of the question, ‘control’ is likely to be a more important factor than commitment. Although some level of consent is always necessary, control is high on the agenda at McDonald's. Control at McDonald's is not merely achieved by direct supervision, machines, the physical layout of the restaurant and the detailed prescription of rules and procedures but also through recruitment.
Even unskilled workers have some power to disrupt the efficiency of the operation by withdrawing co-operation from the production process, disrupting the process or by simply leaving the organisation. Employees may submit to the authority of the employer, but are always likely to retain a strong interest in the use of their labour. Employees and management are, therefore, to some extent interdependent; management cannot rely solely on coercion or even compliance to secure high performance, management also needs to secure active employee consent and co-operation.
When workers' efforts are extracted through an elaborate systems of rules, including rules about grounds for promotion and for punishment, employers arguably establish more control over workers' personalities and values than when their efforts are extracted through direct exhortation or force or through the design of equipment.
Questions of subjectivity are not separable from the analysis of actual work practices in interactive service work because employers actively manage workers' identities. Workers and customers vie with management in a three-way contest for control and satisfaction. Distress felt by workers subjected to organisational exploitation of their feelings and personalities; however not all workers resist the extension of standardisation to their inner-selves. Rather, many attempt to construct interpretations of their roles that do not damage their conceptions of themselves. In some situations service routines provide workers and customers with benefits which help account for their frequent acquiescence in managerial designs. However the routinisation of service work and the standardisation of personality are benign, nor do workers, customers and employers necessarily benefit from these processes in a happy congruence of interests. These manipulations are often invasive, demeaning and frustrating for the workers and sometimes for the customers who experience them.
The importance of emotional labour in interactive service work, even of the limited kind found at McDonald's, should not be underestimated. Employers who standardise the service interaction exert a cultural influence that extends beyond the workplace. For example when workers are estranged from their own smiles the company is laying claim not just to physical motions but also to their emotions. Their organisational control strategies reach deeply into the lives of workers, encouraging them to take an instrumental stance towards their own personalities and towards other people. McDonald's employees working on a till, for example, although only involved in limited service interactions, are expected to control themselves internally by being pleasant, cheerful, smiling and courteous to customers, even when customers are rude and offensive. This applies to all McDonald's workers and their relations with fellow workers and supervisors, with whom they are expected to show obvious pride in their work and employment.
When asked how they motivated employees, both UK and German managers at restaurant and senior management level stressed the importance of good communication. Managers are encouraged to apply and concentrate on 'motivators': 'achievement', 'responsibility', 'growth' and 'recognition'. This may take the form of 'employee of the month' awards, day trips and cash bonuses or of encouraging workers to strive for promotion and take on responsibility.
On the one hand, the striving for promotion locks managers' and employees' loyalty into the system; on the other, it may offer real opportunities for advancement which may be hard to come by for those with poor academic backgrounds. Managers are encouraged to discount the importance of 'hygiene' factors, such as pay and conditions of work. Managers have no control over these issues because they are dictated by the system. Training reinforces the view that pay and conditions do not really matter; what really does matter is their 'positive' management style and leadership. Job satisfaction is thus defined as a phenomenon determined through the area of psychological concepts, not through good pay and conditions. A good manager will therefore 'solve' the problem of resistance or discontent through good communication. Managers in the UK refer to the three Cs (in Germany, the three Ks), co-ordination, co-operation and communication, as the basis of the solutions to all problems.
Identification with the restaurant and other crew members is fostered through the creation of a new form of collective. If 'us and them' is still recognised, it is reinterpreted to mean 'us' as the management and crew and 'them' as the customer. Workers are encouraged to think of themselves as part of a team and managers are encouraged to equate restaurant management with coaching a team. The result of this form of 'teamwork' seems to be that individuals are often loath to be seen by their peers as making extra work for other people by not doing their share. Even the more resentful employees, who had what management saw as 'negative' attitudes, would still work hard to keep the respect of their peers. A typical feature of management style was the repeated use of certain kinds of language, with paternalistic expressions such as the 'McDonald's family'. Management and employees in both countries used the term to describe their work environment. Many responses reflected the strongly paternalistic nature of the employment relationship which management worked to foster.
There were examined the organisation and the nature of the work in the McDonald’s restaurants, the employment relationship and the characteristics of the workforce in various countries. The detailed study of the German and UK operations and additional evidence from other European countries suggests that virtually the same kind of restaurant hierarchy and organisation is in use in every country. Although there appeared to be some differences in the numbers of workers employed in restaurants in different countries and differences also in labour turnover, this could be explained by a broadly similar employment 'strategy'.
Various authors suggest that all of these workers have something in common; they are unlikely to resist or effectively oppose managerial control. In effect, McDonald's is able to take advantage of the weak and marginalised sectors of the labour market, in other words, young workers who lack the previous experience, maturity and confidence to challenge managerial authority and foreign workers who are very concerned about keeping their jobs. Furthermore, employees in all 'categories' may have no long-term interest in the company, in which case contesting management prerogative may simply 'not be worth the trouble'. Many of the foreign workers in Germany and Austria have a lot of previous work experience and come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and many have qualifications from their country of origin. However, these workers are effectively marginalised in the labour market and find it difficult to find other work elsewhere for several reasons: first, because of problems with language; second, because of problems with the recognition of their qualifications; third, because these labour markets are extremely competitive in terms of qualifications; and, fourth, because the number of foreign and other migrant workers in Germany and to some extent Austria is increasing and unemployment remains relatively high.
The work offered by McDonald's may have some positive elements, but workers are often choosing employment at McDonald's in the context of having few other attractive options. Almost regardless of what people think of the work itself, working at McDonald's could be said to offer advantages for some employees who want flexible hours and are engaged in other activities and responsibilities. For those marginalised in the labour market who have few chances of a job elsewhere, McDonald's offers much needed work.
However, the employees' dependence on McDonald's and/or their tendency to see their employment as a short-term strategy makes them vulnerable to management manipulation. Those with minimum interest simply leave if they do not like it, and this is clearly reflected in high labour turnover. Perhaps they are attracted by the combination of fairly secure employment, familiar 'family' surroundings created by a highly paternalistic approach to management and lots of employees of similar age or temperament. This may help to explain how the corporation sometimes retains individuals who could probably obtain better paid and more skilled work elsewhere.
The employment relationship at McDonald's is managed by a complete spectrum of controls, from simple, direct and bureaucratic controls to the management of subjectivity. At one end of the spectrum, restaurant managers are disciplined to accept tough work schedules and must prove themselves 'up to the challenge' of punishing schedules. Long hours and loyalty are locked in, with young managers being persuaded not only to accept as the norm many hours of unpaid work but also to gain a perverse satisfaction from surviving these tough and uncompromising work routines. In addition, young managers who may or may not get similar 'opportunities' elsewhere in the labour market are romanced by offers of promotion and career development. At the other end of the spectrum, more direct methods are used to maintain control. However, this still leaves unanswered the question of how the corporation has managed to sustain the uniformity of its employee relations practices despite major differences across societal cultures.
Advertisements which encouraged people to work in McDonald's:
And also from Polish media:
REFERNECES:
http://www.mcdonaldsjob.net/
http://www.mcdonaldspraca.pl/
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/companyprofiles/p/mcdonalds.htm
http://gazetapraca.pl/gazetapraca/1,90439,3567161.html
http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/career/crew-page/crew-page.shtml
http://jpkc.szpt.edu.cn/english/article/Human%20Resource%20Management.htm
