McDonalds is a very big chain worldwide and are very successful. Some of this success must be put down to the training policy that they run as staff are very well trained and are clear of what is required from them and deliver successfully.
Performance Management is something that is important to all businesses not just McDonalds. It allows senior members of staff to see if staff are working at a sufficient levels. There are different methods of Performance Management ranging from Appraisals to Target Setting.
Appraisals
These are used to highlight the effectiveness of an employee to the business they work for. Appraisals are likely to take place after the first few weeks of the employees contract to see how they are settling in and how they are developing. Whether there is anything that they need to work on or anything they should carry on doing. Objectives can be set for the employee as well to ensure they are always striving to improve their performance in all areas. McDonalds employees may be set targets after appraisals such as making service quicker and making sure that the high standards of food quality is maintained.
Self and Peer Evaluation
This takes place by a more experienced employed who works on the same level as the person being evaluated. It is another type of appraisal but is done by someone who is in close constant working relationship. This allows a more accurate evaluation to be drawn up as some companies may have one manager in charge of 100 people. It would be impossible to build up a good idea of every one of those people’s performances. This may not be suitable for McDonalds as staff levels are not as high as that. Also finding a more experienced employee may be difficult as the staff turnover at McDonalds is quite high.
Target Setting
Setting an employee targets and reviewing those targets set will probably occur on a yearly basis. It allows Managers to make sure employees do not become complacent and are always striving to improve their performance. The Targets set must require effort for them to be achieved but to higher targets in speed or quality of a good produce (in McDonalds case serving customers quicker) could mean the quality of the service or products produce could fall.
Measuring Output
This involves measuring the number of sales that have occurred in a certain period of time. Usually 1 month. It allows managers to see how the business has performed. Whether output has increased or decreased on the last month and any possible reasons for that increase/decrease. Measuring output can also be performed on a personal level and targets can be set to employees. Incentives can be offered to staff to try and make sure that output is at a sufficient level. Incentives offered to McDonalds staff are stars. McDonalds runs a five star system and each star shows that employees level of service. The star system can also mean that staff become competitive and try to earn more stars than fellow employees. This is positive for McDonalds service.
The problems with Performance Management are that it is very costly in terms of man-hours, which converts to money. The man-hours spent on seeing how employees are performing could be used to try and maximise production. Personal feeling must not get in the way of someone’s evaluation. This may be a problem is there are personal feelings between employees.
McDonalds uses a target setting performance method. It is usually done with a whole workforce and not on an individual basis. The main target for McDonalds is to reduce complaints and improve service.
