Effective Control Systems

Effective Control Systems

Today, the management’s role in business is increasingly shifting towards developing strategies that focus on enhancing employee productivity. Employee productivity is crucial for the success of an organization. In simple terms, productivity in the workplace environment helps companies to increase and utilize the capacity of their human resources at their disposal. Managers employ performance systems to monitor and control the employee’s job (DuBrin, 2011). In modern times, human resource management has relentlessly transformed incredibly, especially in corporations that are going global because of the aggregate demand to hire and retain the industrious workforce.

Background of the Company

Since its inception in 1940, McDonald’s has expanded its scope of business to become the most valuable brand globally. The company operates franchised restaurants, whereby over 80 percent of these restaurants are owned and operated by independent franchisees. In its operations, the firm cultivates an organizational culture that fosters effective customer service delivery. Conversely, the firm’s activities are efficiently coordinated to ensure high-speed customer service. For example, the minimum time to provide a product to the consumer ranges from 1 to 5 minutes. In a bid to realize the objective of the customer service model, McDonald’s management has implemented effective performance and appraisal systems that aim at motivating the workforce towards achieving organizational objectives.

Over the years, McDonald has attracted and retained highly competent employees since it is a great place to work. The corporations are not only proud of its customers and animations, but also its employees. While it strives to offer its workforce with outstanding work experience, the company also embraces the fact that employee satisfaction minimizes staff turnover (Hamid, 2013). In other words, unsatisfied workers would quickly exit the company in pursuit of career development or better standards of employment in other firms. On the other hand, despite its global expansion over the years, McDonald’s continues to apply the same technique in having a concrete strategic objective of emphasizing on the need to broaden the scope of employees’ potential while motivating them.

Strategies McDonalds Implements to Control Employees’ Job

McDonald’s managers recognize the idea that performance management is essential to achieving employee appraisal and reward aspects. Savaneviciene & Stankeviciute (2012) affirm that performance management is all about developing a culture that ensures groups and individual employees embrace the responsibility for their behavior, contributions, and skills as well as the constant development of business procedures.  Moreover, McDonald’s aligns its basis of performance management with upholding and improving the quality of interrelationships among employees and between managers to build confidence and trust in the entire organization (Armstrong, 2012). Considerably, at McDonald’s, an employee’s appraisal is directly or indirectly relying on individual performance. The corporation guarantees that its employees receive formal performance appraisal on an annual basis. Besides, HR’s performance evaluation standard entails the valuation of employee behavior or attributes trustworthiness, punctuality, integrity, productivity, and apt execution of tasks and objectives, and productivity.

The company also embraces an efficient employee reward system that corresponds to Maslow’s motivational theory. According to Maslow’s theory of motivation, employees often desire to be promoted, complete a special responsibility, learn other duties and job descriptions or otherwise expand their proficiency in some way (DuBrin, 2011). Compensation and benefits are critical for the survival of any organization since they keep the workers motivated towards productivity. Human resource managers set wages for employees according to the job description (Zingheim et al., 2017).  From an employee’s perspective, the most appropriate meaning of compensation is a reward. This is because workers get motivated to improve their productivity from the rewards they receive (Balkin & Gomez‐Mejia, 2014). Moreover, they believe that the term “reward” is most appropriate since it affords them other benefits besides wages or salaries, including health coverage packages, insurance, sick-leave as well as vacation (Sadri and Bowen 2011).

Correspondingly, managers at McDonald’s incorporate into their organization various programs of employee-career development such as special duties, job enrichment, and cross-training as a means of satisfying the workers’ higher-level needs. These programs not only serve as a vital instrument to increase productivity, but also a mechanism through which the managers can evaluate the competency of their employees. The training and development programs at the firm are designed in a way that increases employees’ skills towards delivering customers with exemplary customer service. in essence, the compensation strategy at McDonald’s embraces a customer-centered approach. Similarly, McDonald’s focuses on customer satisfaction hence attract, motivates, and retain the best talent that understands a concierge approach to excellent customer service delivery.

Alongside an effective reward system, the managers use constructive feedback as a mechanism to control the employees’ jobs. Giving constructive feedback in the workplace is crucial for an organization to achieve effective performance management. It is a proactive strategy that ensures that workers are performing by the organizational objectives (Behera, 2019). When implemented appropriately, constructive feedback enhances team cohesion, high-level performance, and creates better morale, thus directing positive change among the employees (Bee et al., 2010). However, if not implemented correctly, it would lead to negative outcomes like reduced synergy, reduced quality, reduced productivity, false perception, higher turnover rates as well as absenteeism among the workers (DuBrin, 2011). Managers at McDonald’s use constructive feedback within the workplace setting by clarifying expectations, improving team relations, and assisting professional growth through enhanced performance. Consequently, constructive feedback at McDonald’s is crucial, especially in situations that require corrective guidance, follow up on mentoring discussions in addition to giving specific performance indicators.

Characteristics of Effective Control Systems

Control systems enable managers to make informed decisions since they generate accurate data that supports effective decision-making. In other words, having ineffective management systems will only divert management energies and efforts on problems that are non-existence or those of low priority (DuBrin, 2011). The nine characteristics of effective control systems include flexibility, accuracy, timeliness, acceptability, integration, economic feasibility, and emphasis on exception, corrective action in addition to strategic placement. Effective control systems at McDonald’s focus on planning employee tasks and other business operations, coordinating tasks, communicating information effectively as well as evaluating the status of employee performance.

McDonald’s managers employ effective performance management systems that align high-performance work systems with organizational objectives and operations. These control systems exemplify the principles of effective control systems. The company’s information systems ensure that the management receives accurate information to realize informed decision making. The control systems are effective in that they disseminate information about problems affecting the company’s operations and which require immediate management action, in real-time. In simple terms, the performance management systems at McDonald’s are efficient in ensuring that information reaches the managers when they require it to support meaningful responses. On the other hand, the control systems are flexible in adapting to the dynamic changes caused by the economic and business environment as well as technological factors. For instance, when the marketing department at the company shifted its marketing activities to digital marketing, the control systems at McDonald’s efficiently adjusted their mechanism towards ensuring that the new marketing strategy is aligned to the overall objectives of the company. Significantly, the control systems are integrated with the corporate culture and values. This integration has been crucial in ensuring that the systems work in harmony with the company’s policies, thus being easier to enforce. Essentially, the control systems have become an integral part of the corporate environment, which has made them effective at meeting organizational objectives.

Although the control systems have proven effective in fulfilling the company’s objectives, the analysis demonstrates the need for McDonald’s managers to determine the extent to which these systems are economically feasible and reasonable to operate. In simple words, the managers should ensure that the control systems at the firm are effective in reducing the high employee turnover rate. The workers at McDonald’s should be highly motivated and committed to increasing employee productivity in addition to improving their job satisfaction. In essence, job satisfaction represents a positive emotional or pleasurable state emanating from an employee’s appraisal of their work, while organizational commitment reflects the emotional responses that workers have towards their company (Hamid, 2013). This implies that, although employees might exemplify positive emotions towards the organizational objectives and values, they could still be unsatisfied with their job.

Conclusion

Employee productivity is crucial for the success of an organization. In simple terms, productivity in the workplace environment helps companies to increase and utilize the capacity of their human resources at their disposal. McDonald’s managers employ effective performance management systems that align high-performance work systems with organizational objectives and operations. However, despite the effectiveness of McDonald’s control systems, there is a need for the managers to align the systems with economic feasibility, like reducing the high employee turnover rate the company experiences.

References

Armstrong, M. (2012). Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management. 12th ed. London, UK: Kogan Page.

Balkin, D. B., & Gomez‐Mejia, L. R. (2014). Determinants of R and D compensation strategies in the high-tech industry. Personnel Psychology, 37(4), 635-650.

Behera, R. (2019). Performance Management: 7 Tips for Giving Constructive Feedback to your Employees. Reflektive Website.

DuBrin, A. J. (2011). Essentials of management. Cengage Learning.

Hamid, J. (2013). Strategic human resource management and performance: the universalistic approach-case of Tunisia. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(2), p.184.

Savaneviciene, A., and Stankeviciute, Z. (2012). Human resource management and performance: From practices towards sustainable competitive advantage. In Globalization-Education and Management Agendas. InTech.

Zingheim, P. K., Schuster, J. R., & Dertien, M. G. (2017). Compensation, reward, and retention practices in fast-growth companies. World at Work Journal, 18(2), 22-39.