While the role of human resources management has been under constant study in recent years, practitioners and academics agree that effective HRM has never been more important than at the present time.The significance of planning and control system is even more noticeable in the context of human resource management because planning and control refers to classic HR administrative functions and the assessment and recognition of human resources requirements for meeting organizational goals.
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Core Business – McDonalds Auckland, New Zealand
McDonald’s is the world’s leading foodservice retailer, with more than 33,000 local restaurants serving over 64 million people in 119 countries every day. Similarly, McDonald’s New Zealand opened its first restaurant in 1976 in Porirua. Today there are 152 McDonald’s restaurants across New Zealand, with around one million people visiting their restaurants every week. In New Zealand, 80 per cent of McDonald’s restaurants are franchised by local business people who own and operate their restaurants as independent businesses (McDonald’s Restaurant (NZ) Ltd, 2012). Hence, the serious focus of this report is on planning and control systems of McDonald’s HR based on work ethics and social responsibility with an understanding of the external and internal environment.
Planning Process
Fayol’s (1949) theory outlines five elements of management that depicts the different types of behaviour managers should engage in so that the goals and objectives of an organization are effectively met. However, the very first element included is planning where, creating a plan of action for future and determining the stages of the plan and technology necessary for implementing. In management theory, there are three basic levels of planning such as top level/strategic, second level/tactical and third level/operational planning’s. Strategic planning is done by the top management and it encompasses the long range objectives and policies and is concerned with corporate result rather than sectional objectives. As stated in the beginning of this report that to maintain a competitive advantage, McDonald’s top management decided to adopt workforce diversity and developed a HR objective. Therefore, McDonald’s HR objective is to further a high performance culture that is supported by their talented and engaged people and organizational resources essential for sustaining superior business performance. This is achieved by designing processes, providing tools and transferring knowledge to the leaders required for developing and continuously improving such a culture (Mcdonald’s Corporation, 2009).
Second level/Tactical planning is done by middle managers and it deals with the development of the resources with the best advantage. Therefore, the middle managers developed a HR strategy to achieve their HR objective. Hence, McDonald’s HR strategy for healthy employment experience is to provide a positive employment experience through respectful employment treatment and compliance with labour and employment law to achieve employee commitment. Third level/Operational planning is the concern of the department managers and is confined to put into effect the tactical plans. McDonald’s HR team developed well in the first two levels but the third level had problems and created gaps because there was no training or development carried out at this level. The only tool they had was the McDonald’s work policy which stated workplace diversity. The actual experiences of employees were discovered through questionnaires and interviews at one of the McDonald’s restaurant in Auckland, New Zealand where the employees had negative experience of the workplace diversity during their employment. The problem is not visible at the surface level but as you go below that then one will be able to see the real nature of employment experience.
Workplace diversity is recognizing many different persons at work, each one with a unique set of uniqueness, talents, gifts, skills, personality traits, physical abilities, background, appearances, thoughts, feelings, beliefs and viewpoints. It is the variety of those differences that make the workplace a diverse place.
According to the research conducted, McDonalds restaurant depicts a clear picture of workplace diversity as a problem where, staffs were bullied and ill-treated because they belonged to a different race. Negative and racist comments were given and poor means of communication aroused with situations where employees were getting yelled out or replied rudely with a negative comment in their native language. This resulted as the staffs started doing no shows and looking for a better opportunity elsewhere. HR diversity change strategies that bring in many new hires of different backgrounds may have negative ramifications for social functioning in groups . This situation was created because of poor planning at operational level and nothing much was manifested through the middle managers to the floor managers.
Barriers refer to those manageable influences that can typically derail best intentions with regards to group planning process development. There are ten barriers to planning but the two barriers which easily fits in this McDonald’s scenario are lack of in-depth analysis and lack of knowledge and skills. Diversity is the inclusion of things, people, and places that are different and there are two level of diversity. Surface level diversity can be defined as differences among group members in overt, biological characteristics that are typically reflected in physical features which include age, sex, and race/ethnicity. Whereas, deep level diversity includes differences among members’ attitudes, beliefs, and values and information about these factors is communicated through verbal and nonverbal behaviour patterns. McDonald’s restaurant and its core basis of workplace diversity problems relates to deep level diversity because they have been ignored either because of lack of in-depth analysis or lack of knowledge and skills. Negative attitudes and behaviours such as prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination are some barriers to workplace diversity because they can harm working relationships and damage morale and work productivity
Control
According to Fayol (1949) control is the final element of the management which involves the comparison of the activities of the people to the plan of action and also known as the evacuation component of management. The function of management control includes carrying out the plans necessary for ensuring that the strategies are fulfilled as envisaged. Although planning and control are at times described as separate procedures, both contribute to the management control function.Control ensures that the right things are happening in the right way at the right time. Control cycle or process consists of four main steps such as establish objectives and standards, measure actual performance, compare results with objectives and standards and take corrective actions as needed.
Step one – establish objectives and standards where output standards are measured by performance result in terms of quantity, quality, cost or time and the input standards are measured as efforts in terms of amount of work expended in the task performance. In the McDonald’s scenario the management defined the objectives clearly but less effort was given to the output/input standards because they failed to continuously monitor the diversity at the actual workplace at various locations. Management only adopted workplace diversity, clearly defined it and poor implemented it in the system with no or less communication. Step two – measure actual performance is where effective control requires measurement. Goal is accurate measurement of actual results on output and input standards. Hence, McDonald’s HR goal is to diversify their workplace through hiring over time to increase productivity and decrease labour turnover cost. But the conducted research shows the opposite of what McDonald’s define as their HR strategy or goal. Again the management failed to monitor workplace diversity by not gaining employee feedback. Employee feedback should have parallel established with the adoption of workplace diversity to accomplish the HR strategy and goal. The financial team should have easily identified the problem with workplace diversity with the increased labour turnover cost but because of poor control system the management failed to monitor.
Step three – compare results with objectives and standards is benchmarking by using different comparison methods. The need for this action reflects the difference between desired performance and the actual performance where historical, relative and engineering comparisons are considered. In this McDonald’s scenario no or effort less approach to any monitoring and then comparing and analyzing of situation was conducted. It clearly showed that to gain advantage over their competitors and to stay in line with the current trend McDonald’s adopted workplace diversity but no thorough control system was implemented. The management simply assumed that things were moving perfect but ignored the fact that employees hardly raise voices because of job insecurity and the management’s lengthy process time. Step four – take corrective actions as needed is where taking actions when discrepancies exist between desired and actual performance. Management by exception in gives priority attention to problem and opportunity situations showing the greatest need for actions. Hence, the McDonald’s research conducted did not show any sort of management involvement in dealing with the workplace diversity problems until it reached to a level where the labour department was involved. Management had no or less interest of employees’ working environment and it was never analyzed or observed. A quarterly feedback system was implemented where employee can provide their feedback on their working environment but negative feedbacks were very less auctioned. Barriers to the control process can be a lot but some common ones in this scenario are less knowledge, poor communication, poor feedback system, poor monitoring process, poor implementing process which leads to less interests by management or lack of funds available for the process.
Recommendations by Planning and Control
McDonald’s HR team should put due emphasis on three important aspects in order to take control of the situation and plan precautions so that such problems are not repeated in any other restaurant.
Revised HR strategies implementing channel
Improving leadership qualities
Create workplace diversity awareness
Revised HR implementing channel will place a central focus on behind the scene of the case study. Most workplaces are made up of diverse cultures therefore; HR needs to plan and learn how to adapt to be successful. HR practices are an important component in the success of organization because effective HR strategies systematically coordinate all individual HR measures and implement them so as to directly influence employee attitude and behaviour in a way that help a business to achieve its operational goal (Wang & Shyu, 2008). Baum et al. (2007) explains the issues related to harassment and racism in the workplace could be reduced if appropriate human resource policies and procedures are in place and communicated to all staff (local or migrant) in order to deal with workplace diversity.Therefore, it is very important to revise the HR implementing channel. Wharton (1992) research also supports this his argues that HR practitioners should focus on how HR change strategies relate to the joint alignment of the group members multiple characteristics for example demographics hierarchical status and task in work groups to examine group contextual influences. Once the HR implementing channels are improved then the HR can help in improving the manager’s leading capabilities by providing training and support with needed knowledge.
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HR department and managers within business must incorporate diversity policies into every aspect of the organization’s functions and purpose. HR should focus on outstanding leadership characteristics where they can train and place the right leader at the right time and place (Mumford, Antes, Caughron, & Friedrich, 2008). These characteristics should have respect, empathy and being genuine such as accurately understanding employee’s feelings and genuinely valuing and supporting without patronizing. Managers manage change, but best leaders create change by inspiring their employees and they believe diversity as an important goal, and the responsibility for diversity does not belong to HR but belongs to the on duty managers. In McDonald’s scenario HR should explain and provide continuous training to the managers regarding benefits, costs and barriers of workplace diversity and the financial and non-financial consequences such as employee turnover costs, laws and legislations associated. This restaurant is need of a leader who can set a good example by teaching others what they expect from them and this can be easily achieve recognizing the many talents and understanding the richness of diversity. For example, in this scenario if a person complains regarding someone attitude, then handle the manager should handle the complaint very critically. He can encourage the complainer for reporting the matter but also explain the person about the unique value the other person brings to the workplace. They can teach people to look for the positive traits of others and not for the differences and this is only possible if they can be a role model for respect and dignity. Once the HR implementing channel and leadership are aligned with each other then the focus moves on employee to create workplace diversity awareness.
Creating workplace diversity awareness lies in the continuous improvement of the integration and social acceptance of people from different backgrounds. The overall perception of employees seems to be a very important factor in understanding their behaviours at the workplace because they are exposed to diverse HR practices rather than exclusively to a single practice (Chang, 2005). Management tools in a diverse workforce should be used to educate everyone about diversity and its issues, including laws and regulations (Green et al., 2012). Management should organize social gatherings and business meetings where the employees are given a chance to speak and listen. This type of eemployee involvement and feedback are necessary components in achieving successful workplace diversity. Managers should continuously monitor the work environment and act as agents of positive workplace diversity to eliminate any sign of negative barrier arising. If needed then employees should never be denied necessary, constructive, critical feedback for learning about mistakes and successes. Importance to business goals and targets should be given but not on the cost workplace diversity problems. Boxall & Purcell (2011) suggests that best practices should be aligned with best fit to maintain a sustainable business environment and gain a competitive advantage over rivals. In this scenario, imagine if the workplace diversity problems continue then the quality of service will drop which will slowly affect the business. Therefore workplace diversity should be everyone’s business starting from senior management, HR department, managers and employees.
Conclusion
The future of workplace diversity cannot be predicted with any level of clarity. This is because McDonald’s is a global leader in fast food industry and their HR has won many awards in the last decade. Therefore, being at such a strong position in the global market and has a restaurant which ignores the importance of workplace diversity. This report has explored a few areas of practical and theoretical development of HRM planning and controlling. It also explains around the levels, cycles process, objective and approaches of planning and controlling and uses the recommendations to control the gaps and plan a bridge between the practice and theory.
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