Manager Interview
Introduction
Managerial practices are very crucial in helping an organization to develop a particular hierarchy of strategic intent thus aid it in meeting its goals and core values. In hiring, most companies look for ideal managers as laid out in the book. People should not that there is an ideal person and the real person for the job therefore they should do the best to get the best person possible for the job. This paper seeks to analyze managerial practice by comparing what the text states as ideal management practice versus what the real action of the interviewed managers. The managers interviewed are; An Assistant Manager in Stores and Supplies, Customer Service Manager and Food and Beverage Manager in the context of a corporation run Mac Donald Restaurant. The history, size, and management philosophy was analyzed.
Managers Interviewed
Assistant Manager in Stores and Supplies in Starbucks Outlet
The management level is first level. He or she heads the department of stores and supplies. He reports directly to the Manager of Stores and Supplies. He or she plays a great role in ordering for supplies, handling damaged products, knowing the prices, delivery and reception of products. He develops his team and solves problems involved in supplies. He manages the safety and security of the products. All the employees working in the stores report directly to him.
Customer Service Manager at Corporation ran Mac Donald’s Restaurant
The management level is first level in the Customer Care Department. He is in charge of customer care employees. He oversees customer service in the whole outlet and ensures that excellence is maintained. He trains customer service employees and recognizes sale opportunities. In addition to that, he has to endure that the ratings for the restaurant go up, put customers first, and create a positive image of the branch.
Assistant Food and Beverage Manager at Corporation run Mac Donald’s Restaurant
The management level is first level in the Department of Food and Beverages. He directly reports to the general manager of the restaurant. He is responsible for customer satisfaction and managing all the staff who prepare food and beverages. In general, he oversees the running of the restaurant. He hires and trains staff with excellent information about the current details of food and soft drinks.
History of Mac Donald
Size of Mac Donald
McDonald’s Corporation is a global leader in fast food restaurants. It is found in 120 countries has approximately 40, 000 outlets serving more than 50 million customers daily. Mac Donald’s sells a variety of fast foods and soft drinks. They include ice cream, chicken, burgers, and fries. Some outlets have a playfield for children while others have an aura of comfort with comfortable sofas, tables, and chairs. Other modernized outlets have fireplaces, and lounge areas.
Every Mac Donald Restaurant is run by a franchisee, the corporation itself or an affiliate. The corporation earns revenues from royalties, fees and rent paid by the franchises in addition to revenue got from company operated restaurants. Currently, the MacDonald revenue is approximated at about $35 billion.
Brothers Dick and Mac McDonald started the business in 1940 in San Bernardino, California. In 1948, they introduced a “Speedee Service System” which was based on the principles of a modernized fast food restaurant. Originally, the corporation had a mascot called “Speedee” but was swapped with Ronald Mac Donald in 1963. In 1955, Ray Kroc opened the first franchisee store in Des Plaines, Illinois. Kroc was the first person to buy the companies’ equities and led to its global expansion. It was first listed on the stock markets for the public in 1965. This company has taken globalization to higher levels although it is criticized for its corporate ethics, obesity, and consumer responsibility.
Management Philosophy
The management philosophy of Mac Donald is attaining and delivering the highest quality, consistent value, innovation, and continual growth coupled with essential promotional operations and adaptability to a variety of local environments. The philosophy that has kept Mac Donald’s Restaurants ahead of the other competitors like 711, WEN among others.
Organizational Context of Mac Donald’s Restaurant
Mac Donald’s work culture is very dependent on the specific line manager. This means that interpersonal, informational, and decisional skills are very crucial. At some point, an individual may tend to think that any manager leading a line can use his power and a dictatorial style of leadership because those reporting to him are inexperienced. A close study of most branches reveled that, some managers run their operations like treadmill especially at peak hours while some of them are relatively at ease almost like their employees. Some managers use a selling approach where they have a high readiness for the team.
They do not give orders, but accept what their employees have to say and offer alternatives to their decisions. This implies that their relevant teams are very comfortable outside their predefined responsibilities. Managers tried to exert their decisions, but did not impose any powerful barriers between them and their employees. They displayed care and concern for the interest and emotions of their employees, which was very rare in consideration with the Mac Donald’s environment. The managers understand that motivation, leading and organizing is a key factor in having a high turnover. In addition to that, most managers believe that if the employees are happy and work with high spirits, then the customer turnover is likely to be very high.
Management runs through a variety of functions; these are leading, organizing, planning, controlling. Planning is defined as deciding what needs to happen in future and create plan or plans for execution for the organization. In the context of management, the future can be today, tomorrow, next week, next year, or over the next 7 years. Organizing is also known as implementation. This is defined as making a maximum use of the resources needed to enable a successful outcome of all the plans and goals.
Leading or directing can be defined as determining what needs to be done in a specific situation and motivating persons to do it. A manager coordinates and motivates his or her employees to cooperate to achieve the organizational goals.
Controlling or monitoring is the checking of the real progress of the organization against the drafted plan of operation. As one move from the top to the lower hierarchy in management, so do the number of responsibilities. Organizing, planning, and monitoring reduce down the management hierarchy while leading increases.
Similarities between the managers of The Mac Donald’s Restaurant
Both managers are first-level managers whose main activity is to manage a line of operation on a daily basis. They supervise workers to ensure that the services and products of Mac Donald Restaurants are offered. These managers rarely have a strong influence on setting the goals of the company since they operate the core of the business. They interact with employees on a day-to-day basis. If the managers lose motivation and perform badly, then the employees do the same or may leave the organization.
According to Organizational Theory, the organizational structure at Mac Donald’s Restaurants is one where several parts of the company are interrelated through a close-knit relationship. The managers have a horizontal hierarchy of leadership to ensure that information flow is fast (Northouse, 2007). The organization systems are open and greatly rely on their environment for support. Integration and differentiation of activities is conducted according to hierarchy. However, at peak hours, the managers seem to be integrating with both the staff and the guests. This implies that the structures are organic (more adaptive). This is what has made Mac Donald’s to be very flexible.
The external environment is a representation of forces that span out of the control of the organization. They influence the direction and activities of a company, its structure, and internal procedures. These set of factors that tend to influence Mac Donald are operating environment, remote and industrial environment. The managers try to manage all these factors in the external environment to get the best outcome for the company (Northouse, 2007).
Both managers like encouraging and motivating their workers. In the hospitality industry, it is a people business and the ways the employees and managers relate to the guests determine the time needed for a turn back and the rate of turnover. The Herzberg’s Two-factor theory is highly applied in Mac Donald. People are valued, recognized and motivated thus many of them are satisfied with their positions. Both managers tried to motivate underperforming employees for a certain period. They try to use the support of others to reinforce and motivate the weak person. As a result, the flaws of the weaker person are somehow covered. However, if the weaker party’s blunders stand out, they are let off the hook because the lines are very clear that they cannot deliver irrespective of the amount of motivation.
Mac Donald has a laid back-working environment and the jobs are not laden with stress. During peak hours, the employees are relaxed and less anxious. Whenever it is low peak, they clean tables, take a drink, and relax. This is an environment where the workers do not fear the manager. This implies that trust and effective communication has eliminated the theme of fear and stress. Mac Donald restaurants employ even high school students because students can relax, work to earn their keep without being stressed. This environment is also desirable for the elderly employees who may not be in a position to handle many hard responsibilities.
Another important motivator presented at Mac Donald is the social opportunity. Employees especially high school students have an ideal place where they can work, socialize, and share their experiences. The management encourages employees to develop friendships amongst themselves and their clients. Communication is the most regarded tool at the outlets.
At the leadership level, Mac Donald managers use Participative Theories to lead the employees. They usually take the input of other employees into account. They motivate their workers to participate and contribute in the decision-making plan (Northouse, 2007). This makes a majority of the employees to feel important, relevant, and committal. It is wise to note that, according to the organizational structure at Mac Donald’s Restaurants, the leader still has the right to accept the input of other people.
In a restaurant business, it is possible to have highly efficient workers who want the customers served within the shortest time possible. These people meet their goals and at a certain point, they demand for more or greater responsibilities. In such situations, the Mac Donald managers use the collaborative styles of solving any conflict that may come up due to the employee’s demand. In the context of Mac Donald’s organizational approach, a win-lose system will be very detrimental to the organization (Hume, 2007). The manager and the highly competitive worker collaborate to seek a win-win situation. Through this approach, a novel solution is found thus neither the manager nor the clients get to suffer due to emotions of a content employee. In such scenarios, the managers re-frame the challenge; create a bigger room and space that can accommodate everyone’s ideas. This is done through ensuring that trust and consensus is built to ensure that all ideas are synthesized in real terms.
The leadership behaviors depicted by the Mac Donald managers reflect a work oriented style. In the context of the Path-Goal Theory, activities that are characterized as unchallenging and repetitive make group members to be unsatisfied and thus the need of a human touch and affiliation. Therefore, the best kind of leadership required by both Mac Donald’s and Starbucks is supportive because it helps to nurture and make tasks to be enjoyable for staff (Hume, 2007).
Differences between the Managers
The organizational culture at Starbucks is very different from that of Mac Donald’s. At Starbucks, the manager’s responses elicit a strict code of organizational policies, regulations, and rules that have to be adhered to the letter. The board is under constant guidance on how to operate the company under well-set guidelines. This structure is far from that used in Mac Donald. If a person does not meet the target, they are fired because the rules do not entertain under-performance. According to the Herzberg Two Factor motivation theory, the employees are not highly motivated. They have to follow the strict guidelines unlike Mac Donald. In a typical day, a manager can ask an employer who cleans tables what he or she thinks of a weekend off. They work like a close-knit family. Such issues have not been set in the original guidelines in Mac Donald’s organizational culture. It is the effort of a manager to ensure that the employees are motivated and happy.
According to the Critical Theory of analyzing organizational culture, the Starbucks is seen as a domination site. The board members meet and independently make decisions. They use their power, hegemony, and concertive control over their junior employees who are less experienced (Northouse, 2007). In the light of leadership theories, the board members use situational theory that states that, leaders have the best decision because they are up in the hierarchy. Through their power and hegemony, their decision is final and should be implemented or imposed.
In this case, power can be defined as the possibility of forcing ones’ will upon the conduct of other people. In Starbucks, the manager has very a very little space for imposing his or her decision. The decision of the company is final since it has already been set by company rules. Board members are highly placed and therefore have hegemony or are predominant over their junior members. Any individual in such a position is capable of making and imposing a decision on who they consider as “powerless.” The internal environment at Starbucks is greatly controlled. In this case, the internal environment consists of the employees and the decision-making process, which is the complete opposite of Mac Donald. This is an exhibition of concertive control. Concertive control is defined as strict adherence to the socially set values and norms that have been developed by the organizational members in an attempt to organize the environment. According to the Critical Theory, employees at Starbucks are a stressed lot because any fall out with a set regulation has its own code of punishment. It is also evident that negotiating oneself out of mistakes is very hard.
The managers of Mac Donald show a people and work-oriented kind of behavior unlike the Starbucks manager who showed a task-oriented behavior. In most times, when an organization is result oriented, the workers tend to be depressed. The lines of communication were clear for the Mac Donald was very clear and every situation is handled with a lot of expediency (Hume, 2007). Their response showed that they were little concerned with their employers as they focused on quality, production, and excellent service. There were little significant conflicts of interest between the employees and their leaders showing that there was a state of balance at the outlet. The employees have a feeling of independence; therefore, they are more responsible and dedicated to their work. However, this may be a disadvantage especially when employees have to answer to different departments. This may result to employee confusion in the tasks they perform, and this has a direct effect on the attainment of company goals and objectives. This is because confusion affects work efficiency and effectiveness (Schultz & Yang, 1997).
The responses to the interviews have shown that different organizations are operated in accordance to specific theories. Critical and Organizational theory use communication but they are very divergent as seen in the results. However, it is important to note that, many organizations highly prefer the Organizational Theory in the managerial practice to the Critical Theory. Motivation culture ensures that workers are motivated and thus an outlet is able to get very high outlets.
