The administration department relates to all of the aims and objectives because they make sure that they are completed.
Job Roles within a business
Board Of Directors= The board is responsible for planning this includes identifying goals, objectives, methods, resources needed to carry out methods, responsibilities and dates for completion of tasks. The board of directors also are responsible for leading the business this includes setting the direction for the organization, groups and individuals and also influence people to follow that direction e.g. the directors at McDonalds might decide to expand to a new country next year
Managers= The managers are responsible for working towards the organization’s goals using its resources in an effective and efficient manner.
Each McDonald’s restaurant will have a manager and his job is to make sure the restaurant is decorated how the board of directors want it.
Supervisors= Supervisors typically are responsible for their direct reports progress and productivity in the organization. Supervision often includes conducting basic management skills (decision making, problem solving, planning, delegation and meeting management), organizing teams, noticing the need for and designing new job roles in the group e.g. supervisors will stand in the kitchen to make sure that the kitchen staff are doing there job properly.
Staff= It’s the staffs responsibility to work and get the jobs done, in McDonalds’s case to cook and sell food products.
Employment & Law
Introduction
The Employment laws have been introduced to protect employees against being treated unfairly because of sex, race, or because they have a disability.
The Employment Rights Act 1996
- When you get employed at McDonalds you are entitled to a contract for proof of agreement and for a sense of security. Stating your duties, pay and days and times of work.
- Employees are entitled to pay for the work they do, Even if the employer takes you on and then after a week says he doesn’t want you anymore you must get paid for the week of work you have done.
- Employees have the right to join a union. The union represents staff, making sure you are being treated under good conditions.
- The employee has the right to know his/her start and finish dates if the employer is only employing you for Christmas or for a certain amount of time.
- Employees are entitled to protection against unfair dismissals, e.g. if you went into work and told you are fired because of you leaving rubbish on the floor that would be an unfair dismissal because you did not receive any warnings.
Sex Discrimination Act 1975
- Meaning both men and women must be entitled to equal opportunities.
- All Employees are entitled to equal training opportunities
- All Employees on the same level in the job are entitled to the same pay.
- All employees are entitled to promotion.
Race Relations Act 1976
- Employees have the right to equal opportunities whether they are English, African or Asian etc.
- Employers can’t say I’m not taking you on because you’re Chinese or I’m not paying you, as much because you’re Asian, all employees must have equal opportunities.
Disability Discrimination Act 1995
- All employers must also give equal opportunities to People with disabilities as long as the employee can do the job without endangering their self or anyone else
- Like a person in a wheelchair can’t be an airhostess because they would not be able to go up and down the stairs and if there was an emergency they would not be able to help the passengers.
How the Acts Can Affect the Behaviour of Employees and Employers at Work
Employment rights act 1996
One example of this act is an employee kept coming in to work late and being rude to the customers, so the employer decided to give the employee an immediate dismissal. So the employee took McDonalds to court for a case of unfair dismissal. The employee won the Case because of the Employment Rights Act 1996 the employer could not sack the employee straight away because of unfair dismissal and instead the employer would have had to give a number of warnings to the employee. A verbal Warning, then a written warning then the employee is allowed to be sacked.
How this affects the employer and employee:
Employer: This affects the employer because the employer will now have to deal with a rude employee, which may make customers go to another fast food restaurant leading to loss of customers. Also the employer can’t sack him/her straight away because the employee would take McDonalds to court, which could lead to bad reputation and being fined.
Employee: This affects the employee because they either listen to the warnings and start coming in on time and stop being rude to the customers or ending up losing their job.
The Sex Discrimination Act 1975
One example is Neil Walkingshaw had worked full-time for the John Martin Group in East Lothian for over eight years when his son was born. Mrs Walkingshaw was also a full-time worker. During her maternity leave the couple decided that Mr Walkingshaw should be the one to go part-time at the end of her maternity leave. But when Mr Walkingshaw discussed this with his managers he was told that the proposal was 'too messy'. He considered that they had dismissed his idea without really considering it - despite allowing four women workers in the same company to reduce their hours after having children. http://www.hrmguide.co.uk/diversity/male_mechanic.htm
How this affects the employer and employee:
Employer: In a McDonald’s case this affects the employer because the employee may take McDonalds to court for sex discrimination, which would lead to fining and bad reputation for the business.
Employee: The employee might get upset and get some sort of trauma.
Race Relations Act 1976
One example of a law case is a former financial analyst for Warner Bros. filed a $5 million lawsuit against the company and a senior executive, claiming the official made racially derogatory comments. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Superior Court, alleged that Gardiner often said "my favourite subject, slavery" with the intention of degrading blacks.
Employer: The Company would go to court and the employer would have the press all over him and everyone would think of him as a racist.
Employee: The Employee would feel upset and may not want to work again.
Disability Discrimination Act 1995
One example of a law case is a healthcare worker:
The writ says that on May 11, Kwok's mother developed fever and was initially diagnosed to have an upper respiratory tract infection. The next day, she was admitted to the hospital and confirmed to have contracted SARS.
On the evening of the same day, Kwok called a colleague, Eva Wu, to tell that her mother was a SARS victim and that she herself had to be quarantined from May 13 to 22 during which she could not work.
The writ says that on May 13, Mac called Kwok on the telephone and accused her of being selfish by not letting the company know of her mother's illness on May 11 itself.
Mac then hung up the phone and ended the conversation "in an abrupt manner", it says.
In an email on May 21, Kwok received a letter dated May 20 issued by her company's lawyers and learned that she was summarily dismissed on May 19. No reason was given in the letter. Kwok had been employed by Hip Wall since September 19, 2001. The writ says that on the same day the email was received, Kwok called the company's personnel department to ask for the reason for dismissal. A Ms Chan of the department told the plaintiff that it was because she failed to report her mother's fever on May 11, and as a result, the company was affected.
Kwok was told, "due to her misconduct, she would not be entitled to any termination payments", the writ says.
The writ alleges that by sacking Kwok under the described circumstances, the defendants had breached the Disability Discrimination Ordinance and caused the plaintiff to suffer "extreme hurt and anguish in an already very difficult and stressful time".
Employer: The employer would be affected because the company would be taken to court, which would make the employer look bad and may end up in losing the company a lot of money and his/her job.
Employee: The employee would be affected because Kwok would be reduced to tears whenever she was asked about or referred to this incident.
And the plaintiff is claiming, among others, damages for injury to her feelings, loss of income and an order from the court that Hip Wall and Mac apologize to her.
Communications within a business
Introduction
Communication in a business is basically talking to another department or just to an individual employee within that business and also between the business and people outside the business. Communication is essential. Communication is needed for the company to run properly: without communications the business would not run. Whether they use paper based communication like letters or company reports or whether its ICT communications like E-mail or Fax, Whether they use Video Communication like Video Conferencing etc. or whether they use oral communications like telephone, Meetings or Mobile Phones but communication is vital for the success of the business.
Communication via Letter
Is a written communication for example the finance department might write a letter to the board of directors about profits and losses and what can be done about it! This is called an upward message where the message is passed up through the hierarchy.
Telephone Communication
Is an Oral Communication for example, McDonalds might telephone another department or the managers might telephone the supervisors telling them to get someone to put new advertisements up in the restaurant window. McDonalds’s staff might be rung being told to go for a meeting at a certain time. Or McDonalds’s managers mainly would do telephone conferencing this is like a meeting except listening on the phone to a number of people instead.
Communication via E-mail
Using ICT Communication includes Email which is the same as writing a letter to someone except it’s a lot quick it arrives within a few seconds and it’s cheaper and more efficient, you could say that letters though are more reliable because of the fact that the businesses network may go down but some may argue the other way and say that letters can get lost in the post so they both have their down points.
Fax Communication
Faxing is another type of ICT communication a mix of email and written mail allowing McDonalds to write or sent a document to another department by putting the paper with the message on into a machine, type in their fax number and what it does is it makes a copy of the letter or document and turns it into electronically stored data, then when it gets to the other department it prints itself back on to a piece of paper.
Communication via Advertisement
Advertisements are a type of written communication outside of the business usually set up by the marketing department telling customers to buy this new tasty cheeseburger or a new McFlurry. It can also be used to advertise dates of special offers or something.
Telephone Conferencing
Telephone conferencing is basically the same as a meeting except you would be on the phone with about ten different people talking at the same time instead of all sitting in one room.
How Effective Communications are helping the business to meet its aims and objectives
Effective communications help businesses in different ways. For example if McDonalds for example wants to contact their supplier to order something they don’t want getting the order wrong and products come wrong which makes the company costs go up because they will have to reorder again which costs more money. So if they get it right the first time by using effective communication it will cause the companies profits to go up rather than down. Advertising for example will want to make more customers come to McDonalds to try this new tasty burger advertised. More customers= Growth of company which= increase in profits. Effective communication can also be used for example:
- Confidentiality if a manager wanted to tell a pacific worker that he’s getting a pay rise without telling everyone else in the company, to keep their morale up and keep them happy then they might use a private letter or memo.
- Speed e.g. a phone call telling the restaurants to cook a new kind of burger before other companies get in their which leads to profits and keeps McDonalds as the leading competitor.
- Security If McDonalds for example comes up with a new plan for McDonald’s restaurants then you don’t want other companies reading the confidential plans so you will need a security password etc.
Organisational structure within a business
Introduction
All businesses including McDonalds have structures but different businesses have different structures the two main types of structures are the Hierarchical structure and flat structures. Larger Businesses seem to have hierarchical structures, and more of the smaller businesses seem to have flat structures. There is a different structure called the matrix structure.
Hierarchical Structure
This is an example of a hierarchical structure you can see that it has four levels in the chain of command with the Board of the directors at the top. The Managers of each department for example a finance manager would be on the second level of command. Then on the third level would be the supervisors etc. Then on the fourth level of command would be the workers. Hierarchical structures usually exist in bigger companies. McDonalds has a hierarchical structure for the whole of the McDonalds cooperation.
Flat Structure
This is an example of a flat structure because as you can see has only three levels of command. Flat structures are usually used in smaller businesses or branches, for example McDonalds has a flat structure for all its restaurants. At the top of the flat structure would be the restaurant manager, on the second level would be the supervisors and at the bottom of the flat structure would be the workers.
Matrix Structure
This isn’t a brilliant example of a matrix structure but it will do. Basically matrix structures are used in a number of companies mostly software companies and what happens is two workers from each section of the company e.g. Digital computers two workers from programming, two from project planning and two from client services are picked by managers to work on a project. Matrix structures are quite simple and less complicated than they sound.
Structure of McDonalds
The McDonald's restaurants all have a flat structure. There is one manager who is in control of the other assistants and employees. He takes all the decisions and he is in charge of the main functions. This makes it simple for the staff because all they have to do is selling. This way they can pay more attention to the customers. But the McDonald's corporation has a hierarchical structure. This is a huge company with lots of different departments which has to be organized very well, because if the employees aren't directed in the right way they won't do their jobs right. So this way it is all ordered and the people can work undisturbed, this saves time and money for the business.
Structure of Digital Computers
Digital Computers are a big computer company in the USA. They also have an organization here in the UK in Basingstoke. The company Digital Computers has a matrix structure. The idea of a matrix structure is to get specialists from the relevant departments in teams to work on projects the matrix structure was developed to try to overcome some of the constraints associated with more formal structures that may be much more bureaucratic. This should hopefully improve productivity and motivate people much more.
Overall Differences between a Hierarchical and a flat structure
A hierarchical structure is a series of levels of people, each level controlled by the level above it. Large organizations like limited companies may have thousands of employees. They have a more complex and 'taller' organisational structure, which includes a number of levels of hierarchy and division into functional areas such as sales, finance and human resources. In the example you see the structure of a manufacturing company. But a Flat structure is very different from the complex hierarchical structure. In this kind of structure the diagram is flat in shape; there's only one level of command but has a wide span of control.
Evaluation Of Strengths & Weaknesses within McDonalds
Introduction
McDonalds has two structures: The hierarchical structure, which is used for the main McDonalds cooperation and a flat structure, which is used for all the McDonalds’s restaurants.
Strengths & Weaknesses Of McDonalds’s hierarchical structure
The Strengths of McDonalds’s hierarchical structure are that its clear to all the employees were they stand therefore if there is a problem the employee will clearly know who to report too, there is an easier chance of getting promoted to and because of the narrow span of control its easy for the workers to communicate to the supervisors etc. The weaknesses of the structure is if someone at the top of the structure, so therefore if for example the board of directors needs to get a message to the workers then it will take a very long time to reach the bottom of the structure so the workers or supervisor may miss out on an opportunity, it could also be like Chinese whispers the person at the top could say something and then when it gets to the bottom t might be completely different making employees confused.
Strengths & Weaknesses Of McDonalds’s Flat structure
The strengths are that the flat structure has only a few layers in the chain of command which means that it won’t take long to get to the workers which means staff won’t miss out on opportunities and employees won’t get confused. The weaknesses of McDonalds’s flat structure are that it’s got a wide span of control so its not easy to communicate with the supervisor, because the supervisor has to see a lot more people which also means that because there is more employees on the same level its pretty hard to get promoted.
