Performance and Motivation in ‘McDonalds’

Management Articles | March 17, 2007

People are the most important resources of an organisation. They

ensure the interaction of financial, industrial, and other resources so
that the organisation can function. Nowadays experienced managers
realize that he financial reward cannot stay the only kind of an
employee encouragement. The employees’ needs should be viewed as
an entity that leads to the search of non financial motives. There exist
many non financial motives that are connected with the employee’s
satisfaction of needs, such as his/her recognition, participation in the
decision-making, self-fulfillment, personal growth and others.

The practice shows that the full use of human resources of an

organisation is one of the most significant advantages, which allow companies to
occupy the leading positions in the world market. The ‘McDonalds’ company
flourishes owing to the logical integration of the staff into the problem solving.
The company adheres to the principle: ‘The result is done by a man’.
‘McDonalds’ examines its employees as the primary source of progress in the
field of quality and productivity. This organisation has based its success on the
motivation theories having altered only some aspects of them. ‘McDonalds’
adheres to four simple principles, which give the possibility to increase the
performance of its employees:

1. The company must elaborate different systems of motivation for every

department.

2. The personnel must have clear and attainable aims. It is better to have one
aim per a person.

3. The aims must change: managers should have one aim for half of a year. For
example, at first a manager examines the number of clients, then he/she
examines the number of returning clients; and then he/she should analyze the
increase in business sales. This method gives the possibility to find new abilities
of employees and to check new methods of work.

4. The rise of salary amount must be sensible for an employee.

The ‘McDonalds’ company applies three components of the motivation system:

financial encouragement, non financial encouragement, and social policy. All the
three factors are described in Maslow’s motivation theory. However, Maslow
states that all the needs must be fulfilled one after another. The research of the
‘McDonalds’ company, its strategy and structure shows that only a simultaneous
fulfilment of employee’s needs will increase an employee’s performance. It is not
necessary to fulfil all the needs of every level. In the reality an employee has a
set of needs in every concrete moment.

Summarising, the ‘McDonalds’ company has effective motivation system that

makes it possible to increase employees’ performance, and hence the company’s
productivity. The situational approach applied by ‘McDonalds’ administration staff
has turned out to be the most relevant to the current situation. The
administrators have used the specific techniques on the basis of motivation
theories. Having applied the procedure of assembly line in food preparation,
‘McDonalds’ has ensured the standard quality of the production and the high
performance. Besides, the company has implemented effective motivation
strategy that is based on the existing motivation theories. Consequently, on the
basis of the research we can say that every company has its own system of
behaviour explanation and every concrete case should be examined as the
‘McDonalds’ company case. Motivation theories , such as Maslow’s theory and
Self Determination Theory should serve as the basis for elaborating a strategy
which will direct manager’s forces towards the aim – employee satisfaction via
intrinsic motivation and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs model.