Employee Turnover At McDonald’s: Possible Reasons And Solutions

Research Aim

1.1 Formulate and record possible research project outline specifications

1.2 Identify the factors that contribute to the process of research project selection

1.3 Undertake a critical review of key references

1.4 Produce a research project specification

1.5 Provide an appropriate plan and procedures for the agreed research specification    

2.1 Match resources efficiently to the research question or hypothesis

2.2 Undertake the proposed research investigation in accordance with the agreed specification and procedures

2.3 Record and collate relevant data where appropriate    

3.1 Use appropriate research evaluation techniques

3.2 Interpret and analyse the results in terms of the original research specification

3.3 Make recommendations and justify areas for further consideration

4.1 Use an agreed format and appropriate media to present the outcomes of the research to an audience?

The food industry is believed to have the lowest moral and motivation level, and very few initiative are taken for correcting this situation, the reason being that the industry is as it is getting a good turnover. But the factor is affecting the employee turnover considerably.

This research proposal aims to discover the possible reasons which are responsible for high or low employee turnover at Mc Donald.

The organization’s business scenario is that there are certain factors which are affecting the employee turnover. Although the company has got a very high revenue generation, the sustainability of the employees has become a big question mark. This situation is the result of less implementation of employee motivation tools by the management.

To identify the factors those are responsible for low employee motivation

To assess the extent to which motivation tools will help in increasing the moral of employees

To recommend the implementation of the strategies for better motivation of employees and incline their moral

What are the factors causes low employee motivation?

To what extent Mc Donald can implement strategies for increasing the moral and motivate employees?

What are the improvements in the strategies that can be recommended for attaining long term employee sustainability?

New driver of employee engagement:

According to Kim (2012), it is a very well known fact that organization expects a level of performance from its employees; however the degree at which an employee feels connected to the organization is dependent on core factors like the extent of employees’ discretionary effort committed in order to achieve the goals at workplace. The ability of performing the given work by apt utilization of the resources within the organization and a choice of work environment which not only energizes the employee leading to high motivation but also gives a sense of achievement.

Gamification:

Gamification involves the introduction of game dynamics at the workplace for driving participation from the employees.  As per Jiang et al. (2012), gamification is responsible for increasing the motivation level and also the productivity of the employees, and also it involves the aligning of the employee expectation along with the objective of the organization. It is more like implementing game elements to non-game applications. The process involves simply rewarding points and badges but by influencing the behavior of the individual. The implementation of Gamification by the fast food giant Mc Donald was conducted on the customers in eighties, which increased the revenue generated by a huge amount (Kehoe  and Wright, 2013).

Rationale of the Study

Employee turnover:

Employee turn is something which has concerned many of the organization; however fast food sector has been infamous for its not so employee friendly working conditions (Hom et al. 2012). Because of the tedious work, it is becoming difficult o find employees who will sustain for a longer period of time. The cost of retaining employees and achieving a high employee turnover is not a cost efficient procedure for the company. However, management needs to get hold of the cause of low employee turnover and act accordingly for better employee managing (Hancock et al. 2013).

Hausknecht and Holwerda (2013) has found that mass production is factor which has caused the jobs in this industry as simple and very routine. Another major problem is very less amount of unionization in fast food sector. This has caused a communication gap in between the management and the employees, as there is no one for representing them and also gives protection from higher management when needed. But Mohr et al. (2012), also focuses on the positive perspective of the industry stating that here the level of social interaction is very high and employees tend to get engaged both with the peers as well as the customers (Tooksoon, 2011).

The research methodology deals with the procedure through which the researcher will be able to conduct the study in a systematic manner, within the context of the identified research objectives.

In order to gain the result of the research, it is crucial that the situation that triggered the concerned research has to be identified at the first place. For this, the rationale of the research is understood in accordance to the information gained from the secondary data. After that, the problems, related to the research study will undergo identification and analysis (Peretz and Fried, 2012). This will be accomplished by the secondary database source like the books, journals and the websites. The researcher will relate the findings of the study with the objectives. It will also be helpful in finding the answers to the research questions. Finally, the evaluation of the complete process will be carried out identifying the pros and cons and future scope of the research process. As it is a secondary research, this strategy would be appropriate for carrying out the study.

Sampling is a crucial part as it is very important in conducting the research, especially at the time of the collection of the primary data through conducted survey method (Marescaux et al. 2012). The researcher has considered convenience sampling which is a non-probability method by nature. It will be appropriate for conducting the research properly. This method of sampling is easier to conduct, as the respondents can be chosen in a convenient manner (Park and Shaw, 2013). In this case the convenience sampling method is chosen on the basis of the convenient accessibility and proximity to the researcher.

According to Jensen et al. (2013), it represents the number of the participants taken into account by the researcher, for carrying out the collection of the primary data with the use of questionnaire method. Therefore, the researcher has taken 60 employees and 4 managers of the organization. Employees are chosen for getting the quantitative data collection and the managers are chosen for gathering the qualitative data collection.

Research Objectives

An appropriate data collection method helps the researcher to conduct the study with the correct process, and get the appropriate expected results (Hesse-Biber, 2011). The researcher will develop a research questionnaire and distribute few of them and get the rest of the responses to be sent by email. Secondary data source will be internet, company websites, journals, articles and books (Ketchen and Bergh, 2011).

According to the secondary data collected by the researcher and presented in the literature review section, the analysis of the data will be conducted. The quantitative data is the one, which the researcher had collected from the employees, whereas, the qualitative data analysis will be based on the responses collected from the managers of the organization.

The researcher will attempt to handle the ethical issues related to the research study efficiently through considering the following aspects of the research that may cause hindrance in the research study:

The researcher will make sure that all the information used in the research study are collected from the authentic and authorized sources and the researcher will not be involved in any kind of plagiarism to gain the result of the research study (Hesse-Biber,  2011).

The researcher while analyzing the data will maintain the transparency of the data through the application of analytical tools.

The researcher will present the data collected from the secondary sources in a coherent and easily understandable manner (Crouch and Pearce, 2012).

From the study, the researcher will be able to carry out the identification of the factors responsible for low motivation and morale of the employees even after high turnover of the company. From the study conducted the employee can suggest ways for increasing employee motivation level and moral.

The detail of the timetable is provided in the (Appendix 1) in the form of a Gantt chart.

Conclusion:

The researcher will be able to highlight the factors which are responsible for low employee turnover at Mc Donald. The earlier study on the topic provides information on the strategies that help in the increasing the motivation level of the employees working in the industry. This research will recommend ways for increasing employee turnover.

References

Crouch, C. and Pearce, J. (2012) Doing Research in Design – Page 68, 2^nd ed. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Hancock, J. I., Allen, D. G., Bosco, F. A., McDaniel, K. R., and Pierce, C. A. (2013). Meta-analytic review of employee turnover as a predictor of firm performance. Journal of Management, 39(3), 573-603.

Hausknecht, J. P., and Holwerda, J. A. (2013). When does employee turnover matter? Dynamic member configurations, productive capacity, and collective performance. Organization Science, 24(1), 210-225.

Hesse-Biber, S. N (2011) Mixed Methods Research: Merging Theory With Practice, 3ed ed. New York: Guilford Publications

Hom, P. W., Mitchell, T. R., Lee, T. W., and Griffeth, R. W. (2012). Reviewing employee turnover: focusing on proximal withdrawal states and an expanded criterion. Psychological bulletin, 138(5), 831.

Jensen, J. M., Patel, P. C., and Messersmith, J. G. (2013). High-Performance Work Systems and Job Control Consequences for Anxiety, Role Overload, and Turnover Intentions. Journal of Management, 39(6), 1699-1724.

Jiang, K., Lepak, D. P., Han, K., Hong, Y., Kim, A., and Winkler, A. L. (2012). Clarifying the construct of human resource systems: Relating human resource management to employee performance. Human Resource Management Review, 22(2), 73-85.

Kehoe, R. R., and Wright, P. M. (2013). The impact of high-performance human resource practices on employees’ attitudes and behaviors. Journal of Management, 39(2), 366-391.

Ketchen, D. and Bergh, D. (2011). Research methodology in strategy and management. Amsterdam: Elsevier

Kim, S. (2012). The impact of human resource management on employee turnover intentions.  Personnel Management,41(2), 257-279

Marescaux, E., De Winne, S., and Sels, L. (2012). HR practices and HRM outcomes: The role of basic need satisfaction. Personnel Review, 42(1), 4-27

Mohr, D. C., Young, G. J., and Burgess Jr, J. F. (2012). Employee turnover and operational performance: the moderating effect of groupâ€Âoriented organisational culture. Human Resource Management Journal, 22(2), 216-233.

Park, T. Y., and Shaw, J. D. (2013). Turnover rates and organizational performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(2), 268.

Peretz, H., and Fried, Y. (2012). National cultures, performance appraisal practices, and organizational absenteeism and turnover: a study across 21 countries. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(2), 448.

Posthuma, R. A., Campion, M. C., Masimova, M., and Campion, M. A. (2013). A high performance work practices taxonomy integrating the literature and directing future research. Journal of Management, 0149206313478184

Tooksoon, H. M. P. (2011). Conceptual framework on the relationship between human resource management practices, job satisfaction, and turnover. Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, 2(2), 41-49.