Roles and Responsibilities

Sahal Ismail Unit 2

Store Manager

Roles & Responsibilities

The store manager at McDonald’s is mainly responsible for three main things human resources, business operations and product management.

Human resources;

The store manager is responsible for recruiting, hiring, training and developing his employees in order to achieve the aims and objectives. The management of their performances is also essential, in order to recognize the store’s status. This will help the manager observe his teams’ progression. Also the payrolls, health & safety and scheduling workplace at the local McDonald’s are also the responsibilities of the store manager. He has to organize them and structure the work in order to make things easier for the staff to follow orders. He also spreads the working hours equally between the staff and balancing things out fairly.

Business operations;

These are daily jobs of a manager at any store. The store manager of McDonalds for instance would be reviewing profit and loss accounts to see if they’re making any financial progress and what they’re next step could be in order to achieve/expand their aims and objectives. Facility management is also his responsibility, making sure that the right equipment is provided and that they will last for a long period of time.

Health and Safety, the store manager makes sure that the work place is safe enough to work by informing the staff with some of the business policies and providing them kit that will avoid any damages to them. He also has to check the health conditions of his employees, any unanimous health concerns etc. (this is usually established at the interviews)

Product management;

This stage product management involves providing the customers the right quality of their product/food. This is where the responsibility of the store manager becomes important; he has to check it daily and he has to make sure that the customers are getting what they have asked for. For example if they wanted a doughnut and they have run out, he has to make sure that it is back in stock at least the next day.

The ‘Gap Buster Scheme’: this is where an anonymous observer comes twice a month and observes the quality of the food and service, whether it meets the customers’ requirements. Therefore it the store manager’s responsibility to make sure things don’t go wrong and when they do to be under control and efficient. Because they also get observed on how they deal with problems. After the observation they receive feedback from the observer, and it is the manager’s job to take those feedbacks and make any improvements/alterations in order to enhance and become better. A good feedback from the Gap Buster Scheme usually leads to bonuses for the staff and managers.

Motivation

He has explained to us that he has a motivating character and that he is only satisfied with being number one and nothing less. However, he has admitted that he does receive bonuses for achieving certain objectives and that he is sometimes driven by the money. He also stated that you receive a company car courtesy by the business, this is to keep the employers happy and making sure they stay. A basic pay for a store manager at McDonald’s is 25.000 and a car, if the car is not preferred they get more pay.

Despite all the luxurious rewards he is receiving from the business, he explained that he is more privileged to see the staff that he has trained develop and become a manager of a store or floor as well.

I would say that this store manager is definitely influenced by Herzberg’s theory of motivation. The fact that he is motivated by his personal achievements and has a sense of personal growth; ultimately he is influenced by the Herzberg’s motivation theory.

Qualities

The qualities that are expected from a store a manager at McDonald’s are usually basic. The have to be inspiring, motivated, approachable, coaching skills and energetic. The restaurant is a non stop running service and therefore the manager would have to be able to combine their energy with their ideas and become flexible in doing so, also commitment to the job is important. The extras are having the talent for getting the most out of the day by delegating and organizing themselves and others around the store in order to become a great success to the business.

Training & Development

At McDonald’s they have training that will benefit the managers for example they offer courses to the applicants. For the first 18 weeks, they will build foundations for their entire career. Amongst other things, they will discover how to prepare food, master the equipment, develop their serving ability and learn how to motivate a team. When you done well enough they will graduate to 2nd assistant manager and receive more training and experience from other managers, helping them gain more information on how to run a store of their own.

As well as attending training courses, they will be asked to do some self-study and complete computer-based training programs, these will help them build knowledge about people development, cash control etc. once they have succeeded the program they will then move up to 1st assistant manager where they are able to run a store of their own.

There is a session where all the managers have to attend to it’s called the Nuts and Balls Integrations Teams ‘NABIT’. This is where they get informed about new products, new rules and new promotions; it is their responsibility to pass that information on to their staff back at their stores.

Shift Manager

Roles & Responsibilities

The responsibility of the shift manager is to operate the Quality Service Cleanliness & Value principles to the rest of the staff. The principles help the store to meet the requirements of the customers and therefore it is the shift manager’s job to explain them to the staff. He is also in charge of the shifts and giving the shifts to the employees, making sure that they have expertise in charge of each equipment. He also needs to rotate his crewmembers in order for them to experience each department; therefore they wouldn’t have to rely on an individual. He’s responsible for training the employees as well, McDonald’s use the ‘buddy system’, this system helps the employee understand how to use certain things by following orders from an experienced employee, hence the word ‘buddy’. It’s his responsibility to put untrained workers on a buddy system.

The shift manager is expected to handle the floor properly and spread the work within teams, giving the team leaders the orders on how/what to operate in the store. You could say that the shift manager is the right-hand man of the store manager because he is passing on a lot of delegation.

Motivation

The shift manager on our visit explained that he is mainly motivated by the fact that he is able to progress to become a 2nd assistant manager. You could say promotion is his essential motivating factor and McDonald’s therefore have training programmes in order to meet those needs. However, he has stated that money also plays a huge part in his motivation factors. He claims that bonuses, payroll increase etc motivates him as an individual. The shift manager at the McDonald’s has a lot of different motivating factors and one of them was money, which related back to the motivation theory of Taylor who suggested that money drives people working in a firm. However, he also claimed that he always looks forward to move up a position and enhance new skills and knowledge, which also could be related to theory of Maslow, who suggested the Hierarchy, meeting the needs of the employees by stages.

Qualities

As a shift manager, you would be expected to have certain amount of qualities including, flexibility, cooperative, experience, sympathetic, motivated, enthusiastic, optimistic, consistent and a sense of hospitality. These are very important qualities to have to gain the position at the store.

The important one is to be able to give commands to teams and being able to meet daily objectives and communicating with each team. Spreading out the stronger characters with the weaker ones and balancing the strengths of the teams. According to crewmembers I have caught up with, stated that they usually spread their workers and each team would have an experienced worker and some new workers.

Training and Development

The shift manager has training and it’s both on and off the job training. He follows a course provided by McDonald’s in order to enhance new skills and knowledge on how to run a business by their own. This will help them move up and open up a store of their own if success shows. They receive computer-based programs of training to take home and do some self-study; at the same time they receive training on the job where they get to experience some of the managerial work with other experienced managers.

Crew Member

Roles & Responsibilities

The roles and responsibilities of a crew member at McDonald’s are pretty simple and there isn’t any complexity. They’re responsible for providing food and service at a top quality and meeting the customers’ requirement. They also might be put into different sections on their job because there many areas that different crew members work at. For example you have the kitchen, tilt, fridge, security, floor, walkthrough and Quality, service and Cleanliness (QSC) sections at the restaurants. Each of those sections has their own policies and it’s their responsibility to follow those strategies and perform towards the aims and objectives of the business.

Motivation

They get motivated by money, vouchers, discounts, parties and many other things that the McDonald’s restaurant offers to their crewmembers. The crewmembers receive a booklet of vouchers for many different brand stores, they offer 17% discount for Apple products and 20% discount for the British School of Motoring. The crew members receive a discount card and they can get discounts on holidays, CDs and concert tickets etc. in spite of all of those rewards they also do Employee of the Year awards, in which the employee can win a holiday with sun, sea and sand. One of the crew members also explained to us that despite the financial discounts they receive, they also feel that the atmosphere of working in teams has also motivated them to work efficiently. You could relate these motivational factors to the theories of Herzberg and Mayo. As Herzberg suggested that workers are motivated by their sense of achievements and receiving bonuses or discounts. And Mayo suggested that workers are motivated by working in a team and spreading the work equally in both time and effort.

Qualities

It is important for the crewmembers to have common sense, to be flexible, willingness to work hard, willingness to rotate shifts if need be, punctual, enthusiastic and active. However, most of their workers might be on a full time course in education and therefore would need to combine the two, so it is important that one of their qualities is organized. They would also need to be able to work under pressure, calm and optimistic; even if the customer is giving them a hard job.

Training and Development

They have a training method which they call the ‘buddy system’ this is when the trainee is partnered with a trainer, who trains them and helps them get on with the job. The basically sit next to their ‘buddy’ and watch how it’s done. The also offer their crew members a course which is called the Floor Manager Development Program; this involves a teaching on how to manage a restaurant floor by yourself.

The training and development stage really encourages the crew members to stay at the job and not move on, because it helps them progress on to the next stage of the job. McDonald’s help their crew members develop into more responsible and organized individuals. They have also stated that half of their executive team all started of on the restaurant floor.

Interview Techniques

This is a preview of the whole essay

Interview Techniques

Interviews are always stressful - even for the interviewers themselves who go through thousands of applicants and then short listing the potential ones for an interview. The best way to reduce the stress is to be prepared with adequate questions and getting as much information as possible on the interviewee. Take the time to review the "standard" interview questions you will most likely ask. Also review sample answers to these typical interview questions.

Interview questions

On work history:

What were your duties/responsibilities?
What major challenges and problems did you face? How did you handle them?
Which was most rewarding thing you have ever done at work?
Why are you leaving your job?

Questions on personnel:

How would you describe the pace at which you work?
How do you handle stress and pressure?
What motivates you?
If the people who know you were asked why you should be hired, what would they say?
What type of work environment do you prefer?

Questions on the new job:

What interests you about this job?
Why should we hire you?
What do you know about this company?
Is there anything I haven't told you about the job or company that you would like to know?

Questions for the future:

What are your goals for the next five years / ten years?
How do you plan to achieve those goals?
What kind of role are you looking for as a career in the future?

PEST

It is important to acknowledge the external factors that could be affecting the recruitment decisions. Therefore it is essential for any business to identify their external factors using business analysis such as PEST.

The PEST analysis is a useful tool for understanding many things about the business e.g.: the position of the business, the potential, directions, growth etc. PEST is an acronym for Political, Economic, Social and Technological factors, which are used to assess the position/situation of a business or organization.

McDonald’s external factors that could possibly have an impact on their recruitment and influence the aspects of the job being offered.

Political

There are many political factors that could affect the recruitment for McDonald’s. Disability, gender, minimum wage, immigration (European legislation), future legislation and ageism.

Disability – McDonald’s are forced to ensure that their workplace is suitable for disabled people to work their. E.g. disabled toilets.

Minimum wage – the minimum wage policy is another factor that could affect their recruitment for new staff. At the moment McDonald’s pay is in line with the government policy. They’re paying their employees; from 16-17 up to ₤3.40, 18-21 up to ₤4.60 and 22+ up to ₤5.52 per hour. However this is an increase compare to what they used to pay their employees, as the minimum wage has increased in October 2007; this has definitely affect their aims and objectives. More staff might be applying for jobs at McDonald’s since the minimum wage has increased by 20 pence an hour and a pound a week. The disadvantage for McDonald’s is that they might struggle on their ‘Pound for Pound’ strategy. The ‘Pound for Pound’ strategy is when the restaurant will try to sell as much as possible, in order to be linear with the money spent on the employees. The minimum wage has increased so therefore they will find it more difficult to fulfil those desired pound for pound strategy and in result their staff might be unmotivated and they could leave.

For example:

Gender & Ageism – Gender and age have become crucial points in recruiting employees, especially for jobs like McDonald’s; where they usually target to employ young, enthusiastic, hospitalization and male or female staff. However with job positions such as managing directors where they usually desire a strong, powerful and intelligent male with experience over a female with the same characteristics.

However the problem is with the current law they are not allowed to put in those descriptive words in the job advertisement. Therefore their recruitment advertisement will be limited and it has to be open to everybody and it has to be applicable to everybody.

Immigration (EU) & Future Legislations – The members of the EU has expanded over time and this has affected the recruitment of McDonald’s. The EU took in 10 new members - Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Cyprus, Malta, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic - on 1 May, 2004. Here are some figures illustrating the effects after new members have joined the EU; about 130,000 applied to work in Britain between May and December 2004 and 123,000 successfully obtained work permits in the UK. Since then there has been many foreigners in the U.K applying for jobs at places like McDonald’s and obtaining them. With the population in U.K growing and more European countries trying to join the EU, will definitely have an effect on the recruitment of McDonald’s. It will affect the domestic people applying for a McDonald’s job because the foreigners will be chosen before them, as they might do the job for a lower cost.

The future legislation is another factor that could effect the recruitment of McDonald’s, as the government is preparing to raise the education leaving age in England to 18. This could have many affects on McDonald’s recruitment and their aims and objectives. The future law will disallow them to offer jobs to 16-17 year olds, therefore McDonald’s will make less money as the older aged employees earn more on minimum wage compared to the 16-17 year olds.

Working Hours & Retirement

Another EU law is the working hours and for certain ages you are only allowed to work for a certain amount of hours for the health and safety of the worker. A worker cannot work longer than 48 hours per week, however if they want to work longer they may do so but they cannot be influenced by anyone else. This is another factor that affects their recruitment and they will have to employee many people and spread their hours equally.

Lastly, the elder workers that are on to retirement can carry on working if they wish to and cannot be forced to retire. This will effect their recruitment as they will be forced to reduce their recruitment and work with their current (elder) workers. The current retirement age is 65 for both men and women and its set to rise to 68 by 2050; this could only reduce the rate of recruitment at McDonald’s.

Economical

There are many economical factors that could effect the recruitment of McDonald’s. One of them is competition; as the Shires is developing and more shops are being introduced to the public, the staff requirement is increasing at the same time. McDonald’s could face competition in payment; if other restaurants/stores are paying their employees higher, offering better bonuses and better training, this could mean that McDonald’s employees might leave for such offers. For example Aldi, a supermarket not that far away from the McDonald’s, pay their employees ₤9 per hour which is near enough double to what McDonald’s pay their staff.

Another factor is interest rates which have recently been decreased from 5.75% to 5.5%.

The decrease of interest rates means that the disposable income will increase which will lead to consumer confidence in purchasing non-essential products. However, if inflation occurs then McDonald’s will find it difficult to keep their staff happy because bonuses will be cut down.

I believe it could be their major fear if inflation occurs, as that will cause the prices to go up. Therefore McDonald’s costs will increase and their profits will eventually decrease, this could mean the staff pay might be cut down or staff could even resign.

Lastly, they could be affected by a low level of unemployment in the regional area as that would decrease their applicants for their recruitment at McDonald’s and this will narrow down their options. At the moment 1.2% of the population in the region is unemployed; this statistic could have an affect on them. In other words if it the figure was a high one then McDonald’s wouldn’t have any problems in employing people because they will be easier to find.

Social

The corporative image of McDonald’s as a restaurant is essential and it has to be all positive in order to attract employees. The feedback of current/other employees should be good and it has to match with the overall image of the restaurant. The manager of McDonald’s at our talk has explained to us that the atmosphere around the place is very friendly and optimistic. He described the working environment as a sociable place and everyone know each other’s names etc. This could have a positive affect on their recruitment as many staff would be attracted by the work environment and the openness of the restaurant.

However, with recent incidents such as bird flu affecting the country might have put off many potential employees of McDonald’s working for the restaurant. These are one of the negative factors that could affect the McDonald’s recruitment.

Religion is another factor as some people are not allowed to touch certain meat due to religious policies.

Technology

New technology and innovations can have a positive impact on McDonald’s. However, their recruitment will be effected as they will be looking to recruit employees who might have past experience with certain technology. They might be able to offer training for those employees who don’t have the experience but even though it will cost them money and that might be wasted if the employees decide to leave at the end.

For instance McDonald’s has recently introduced the Chip&Pin machine allowing the customers to pay by credit/debit card. With this new technology the restaurant will need to have expertise behind the tilt, therefore they would have to recruit the right people for the job.

New technology will have an effect on the recruitment of McDonald’s, as they will either have to get rid of people, train the staff or recruit employees that have experience or knowledge about certain technology. As technology leads to efficient gains in a business and it allows a business to reduce some of the staff, this allows them to make more profit as they will not be paying as much wages. However, they might be forced to employ an expertise or a higher skilled person to control the piece of technology and that will cost them a lot of money.

Recruitment Process

Job Description

Purpose:

The purpose of the job description is to inform the applicant what the job exactly requires and what the expectations are. For example it has sections such as; duties, purpose, aim, skills and qualities and job title.

The reason why we have a job description is to ensure that the applicants know what is expected from them at the job. So typical day to day routines will be on the job description including the purpose of those routines.

Structure:

The structure of the job description is simple and straightforward, its bullet pointed so the information is not too informative. The McDonald’s logo is on the right hand corner this time on the opposite side of as the rest of the documents.

Cover Letter

Purpose:

The purpose of the cover letter is to thank the applicant for showing interest in the company McDonald’s. Along this cover letter comes the recruitment package for them to fill in and return.

The letter is almost like an introduction letter to the company McDonald’s. However, our cover letter was quite simple and short with important details in the ‘body’ of our cover letter.

The information containing in our cover letter:

We put in the address of our restaurant. This will give them the opportunity to go to the restaurant itself and contact us face-to-face if required.

We also included our telephone number, for them to contact us if needed for any reasons.

Lastly, we thanked them for showing interests in our restaurant and offered them a recruitment pack and kindly asked to fill it in and send it back to us.

Structure:

The cover letter was very simply structured and very short as you would expect from the McDonald’s considering the job vacancy (crew-member). As you can see it contains a lot of logos and these logos represent the achievements of the restaurant. Domestic achievements such as: ‘Britain’s top Employers of the year 2007’, ‘The Times Top 50, where women would want to work’ and ‘Best places to work in hospitality’ etc.

It also contains a small picture of two crewmembers at McDonald’s holding their hands to their hearts illustrating their rewarding opportunities of the restaurant. The logo/image illustrates the hospitality of the restaurant and that everyone that works there is treated equally. Also the McDonald’s is again at the top left corner of the document as you would expect from most of your professional business documents.

Job Advert

Purpose:

The reason the job advert has been set out in that way is due to the law. For instance you’re not a loud to put words such as ‘energetic’, ‘enthusiastic’ or ‘school leavers’. This will break the Age discrimination act law.

The job description and person specification both illustrate the kind of candidate the restaurant is looking for. It also explains what the restaurant expects of their candidates e.g. commitment.

Our job advert was very carefully written and structured as ‘PEST’ factors could have affected us if we didn’t take it to account. For example the we had to be very cautious with what descriptive words to use in our job advert. We weren’t aloud to use words such as: energetic, active, enthusiastic or school leaver. Because these words show that they would be only interested in young employees and be discriminative to elders. This why it is important to leave out anything that is discriminative whether its age, sex, race or disability and make sure that the vacancy will be suitable to anyone with the right skills & qualifications, experience and personal qualities.

Structure:

The job advert is not difficult to read it doesn’t contain any elegant words or complicated structures. Its very simple minded job advert, it also contains a brief description of the job, ideal candidate and contact information on how to apply. The logos are there again to show positive attribution to employees e.g. the ‘positive about disabled people and ‘Investor in People’. Also the McDonald’s is again at the top left corner of the document as you would expect from most of your professional business documents. The picture of the crewmember at the top right hand corner illustrates the hospitality required at McDonald’s as it quotes “You’ll make hundreds of people a day feel special.”

Shortlisting Candidates

Purpose:

The purpose of the criteria form was to eliminate those who didn’t match the job description etc. this form also helped us choose the candidates who were suitable for the job and invite them for an interview.

The criteria form contained a rating box and it was used by the recruitment team to fill in those boxes.

Structure:

The structure of this document was standard and the information was put in a table to make things easier. The document had criteria, assessment, total score and a notes column. All of these were used to mark the judgement of the applicants, and either reject them or invite them for an interview.

Personal Specification

Purpose:

The purpose of a person specification is for McDonalds to choose the right and appropriate candidate and the requirements needed for the job description.

These also allow the interviewer compare between the applicants and choose the right one for the job. This tells the interviewer what sort of applicant McDonalds is looking for, and it also show the applicant what they want from them. The personal specification is there to make sure the level of understanding between the employer and the applicant is good.

The personal specification looks decent but I believe it could have done better. It doesn’t look that professional, however, considering that it’s only a personal specification I would say it’s satisfactory.

Structure:

The structure of the personal specification is appalling and it doesn’t look professional at all. It doesn’t look like it’s made from a multi-billion pounds running company. I think it could have done better, with a little bit of more effort. The structure is very basic as the information is put in a table and it explains the criteria, essential requirements and the desired requirements of the job. This information is quite important as it leads to job and it gives a brief requirement of the job.

Interview

The applicants that got shortlisted and invited to an interview feel deep inside that are literally a step away from getting the job. However, the interview plays a huge role of recruiting the best personnel for the job. In spite the fact that McDonald’s are recruiting for a crewmember, a job that doesn’t require many qualifications, the interview becomes a real handful in choosing the right person.

Setting up the interview is vital; you will need to be able to comfort your interviewee. You can do this by offering them a cup of coffee, tea or any cold/hot drink. The seating would have to be level as well, you don’t want to be the bigger person, therefore as a group we decided to eliminate the table and have a free-flowing interview face-to-face without barriers. In this sense we were hoping to get the best out of our applicants and get to know them better and why they would be the best personnel for the job.

The type of questions we asked were general questions such as:

What skills and qualities can you offer to McDonald’s? – This question allows the applicant to talk more about their personal skills and qualities they believe they can offer to McDonald’s. This question also helped us judge them on their working ability and other skills that were important.

How do you handle stress & pressure? – We felt as a group that this question was an essential and that we needed to put this question in. because we were bound to get so many different answers to it, and this way we could judge on the applicant’s procedures of handling stress & pressure.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years time? – We thought that this question was quite a tricky question as the applicant wouldn’t know as to why we would ask them this question. This was a question to find out whether the applicant had any interests in building up to become a management staff in McDonald’s in future time. And in this question it really helped us judge the applicants on whether they were futuristic or not.

Why should we hire you? – Lastly, this question was asked right through at the end of the interview, and it really put the stamina of the applicant to the test. This question helps us judge on whether them can answer it thorough and give us full detail on their strengths and weaknesses and their potential attributions to the job.

Psychometric Test

Purpose:

The purpose of the psychometric testing was to find out more about their personal qualities and about their personality as well. This test can really help us judge an applicant on how their capabilities could be used for the job we are recruiting for.

The test has 24 questions and they are marked out of 100 each question is rated out of 5.

Why it is essential to have a psychometric test in an interview is because you don’t want to be wasting your time on an applicant who is not even suitable for the job. For instance an applicant might be saying in the interview that they are very capable with working in teams and in the test it shows that they are not, and then you have a reason to reject them.

Structure:

The structure of this test was quite simple; the questions were all formatted in a table with the rating. The applicant just had to fill them in, by rating them out of 5. At the end the psychometric testing helped we find out more about our applicants and what other skills and qualities they may have but didn’t mention in the interview. The psychometric test was there to test their capability, personality, etiquette and their skills and qualities.

Selecting the candidate

For the selection of our candidates we had used the interview criteria document and the psychometric testing. Those two were the main resources on our finale decision and obviously the other documents that got them to the interview.

We got the results of our psychometric testing and put them in a graph to illustrate the candidates and clearly show which one is the most suitable for the job.

We had actually had four candidates invited for our interview but because one of the candidates couldn’t show up due to mutual consent. The three candidates were: Amish Macween, Kassam Haroon and Yagnesh Gola. Their psychometric test results are shown below.

Amish Macween: Kassam Harroon:

Yagnesh Gola:

As you can see on the graphs from the psychometric test that Kassam Harroon is the most suitable personnel for the job. And this is why we have chosen him for the job, as a group, not only has he scored high scores in the psychometric test he was also very early to his interview and scored very well in the interview criteria document.

Purpose:

The purpose of the interview criteria is ensuring that we as a recruitment team make no mistake when make judgements and finalizing our information for picking the personnel. This is why the interview criteria is important and has to be done in order to choose an applicant. You cannot make a judgement based on your personal believe, because that would be politically incorrect and it is also very important to keep a record on these things because on of the rejects could come back for an after-math.

Structure:

The interview criteria have vertical columns contain the structures/behaviours they have during the interview. For example were they concentrating, punctual, body language, appearance, listening skills and communicational skills. All of these are rated with the other columns on the left and the total score gets counted up at the end and the highest applicant simply gets the job.

Rejection Letter

Purpose:

It’s important to have a rejection letter and to send them out as soon as possible to the applicants who didn’t make the shortlisting. The reason for that is because you don’t want to bring their hopes up, however, in the letter we have informed them to visit the website and apply for different vacancies.

The rejection needs to simple and short and the important part of the letters need to be written in bold for instance the reference number, this is written in bold letter type. The reference number is the identification code of the applicant which is stored in the database of McDonald’s, this is for future reference, if the applicant decided to contact the company they would give out their reference number and then McDonald’s would know who they are talking to.

Structure:

The structure of the letter is very simple and not complicated as the important parts are written at the ‘body’ of the letter. The letter simply states that didn’t get the job and that they shouldn’t look down to much as there are plenty of different vacancies available on the McDonald’s website.

The Acceptance Letter

Purpose:

The reason why the acceptance letter is important is because at this point you are about to invite the applicant to an informal interview. This stage the applicants start to believe that they are literally a step away from getting the actual job. The interview is a very important procedure and it needs to be taken into account that everything about the interview needs to be professional; this also includes the invitation letter.

The letter included the logo, address, contact details, what they had to bring for the interview, the time of the interview and the notice-time they had to phone in for any cancellation.

Structure:

The structure of the interview letter is very basic but it does look very professional as the logos stand out. The whole point of this letter is to make sure that the applicant comes to interview and gets the right information across.

PEST Factors

We did come across some Political, Economical, Social and Technological (PEST) factors that had affected our recruitment process. We had to state in all of our documents in black and white print about the legal legislations, the McDonald’s Rules and Regulations, economical benefits for the employees, the technological changes and the social influences such as bird flu etc. There are many PEST factors that kept our conscience thoughts alert and we made sure that the recruitment documents were appropriate to the people.

Political – There were some minor things we had to adjust in order to come in line with the political laws and regulations in our recruitment document/process. In our job advert document we did have symbols that illustrated our positive attitude towards disability, age and other equal opportunities. Although, we did not have any disabled applicants we had less to adjust in our interview questions about their disability. We were forced to be very careful and cautious in our recruitment documents, we weren’t aloud to be bias, opinionated or personal about it. We mostly had to follow by the rulebook. For instance in our short listing process for the interview we had to almost eliminate the candidates for as ‘perfect’ reason and it had to be ‘politically’ correct. So we could not write-off anybody who was disabled, black/white, and an older applicant or simply had no experience working with food. The politically factors had affected our recruitment process it forced us to be more cautious about our statements etc.

Economical – As the latest statistics show that 1.2% of the regional where we are mainly recruiting is unemployed. We had to take to account that where we going to be advertising our advert had to be convenient enough to attract those 1.2% unemployed people, for example: newspapers, internet, TV, magazines, radio, in stores or at community centres. We also had to inform our applicants about the wages and that they were inline with the minimum wage. One of the things that affected our recruitment process was ‘competition’. Other stores in the shires could be recruiting and paying at a higher wage than McDonald’s, therefore they have come up with freebies such as free meals, free driving lessons, vouchers etc. The freebies are there to keep the employees and attract more employees.

Social - Despite the fact that we didn’t have a lot of social issues/factors that affected our recruitment process; however, McDonald’s do reward their employees by organizing theme parties giving the employees the opportunity to know one another. The media is another social factor that could affect the recruitment, with major incidents such as bird flu could affect the people’s view of working with meat. These kind of external factors are hard to deal with as you do not have control over them and these things just happened. Acknowledging the fact that we live in a cultural diversity regional with many different religion; we didn’t really com across anybody who had problems with working with meat etc. Or it could be the fact that we didn’t actually ask the applicant; how they would feel working with meat, whether it’s against their religion or not.

Technological - The only technological thing at McDonald’s was the tilts and the new Chip&Pin machine. There weren’t any issues around this area either; we didn’t have alter that much in our recruitment process, because the employees are going to get training for the technological side of their job. We did state that any tilt experience would be taken into consideration. In our interviews we didn’t really ask our candidates if they had any experience working behind a tilt, we should have anticipated upon this and at least asked them on the interview.

Evaluation

Recruitment process

The recruitment process was quite effective because it helped us do our assignment in order. The recruitment documents were put in order including the dates of their usage and a brief definition. The recruitment process helped us recruit in the right order, putting out the vacancy first, and then designing the advert, then the job description etc.

I thought the recruitment process went quite well, the designs of all the recruitment documents were done in time and given out on time. However, I do have to criticise some of the documents as they do not look professional enough and they have been designed with not sufficient effort. But the recruitment process went well, including the interview.

The recruitment process is the procedure to find the right staff for the business/company. Our recruitment process had many different procedures from job description to sending out the recruitment packs.

Recruitment Documents

To be honest I thought the person specification was a bit unprofessional and it didn’t look really that good. As you can read on the journal in the appendix (page 4) we were given the chance to re-edit our recruitment pack. However, I felt that some of the group members in my group didn’t use this opportunity at all, as you can see on the on some the recruitment documents.

I have made some mistakes in my document which was the job advert; I did use the opportunity to edit my work. The only thing that was missing in my job advert was the ‘positive disabled people’ and the ‘investor in people’ logos. I also changed the layout of my job advert because it didn’t look that professional at first and some of the wording was politically wrong. I remember I put the word ‘energetic’ in the suitable personnel, I had to change it or else I could have been breaking the law.

Letters – The letters had some contact details of the manager of the restaurant. We were forced to edit it and get rid of the manager’s details including his name. I thought the letters were quite good and it contained a lot of information. The important information was good and informative in all section of the letters.

Job advert – The job advert was at first not up to standard and we were given the opportunity to alter it as you can see it in my journal. We had to be very cautious in what we were going to write in our job advert. We weren’t aloud use words such as energetic, enthusiastic etc. the job advert had to be applicable to everybody; this is why we had to put in a positive disabled people logo.

Job description – the job description was probably one of the best recruitment documents but I thought it was too informative. It did however meet the needs, and got the information across. If I could alter I would have put the job description in a table. The reason why is because it’s much easier to read and follow.

Selection

The selection process was very good and we had used the following process to choose the best person:

Psychometric test – the psychometric test helped us judge our candidates on their personality etc. and on this test Kassam Harroon had scored the highest and this is one of the reasons why had chosen him for the job. The 2nd highest was Amish Macween, he was going to be our 2nd choice if anything had happened to our 1st choice.

Interview criteria – the interview criteria was a simple table that scored them on their performance in the interview then again, Kassam Harroon was the strongest candidate.

Interview

The interview went quite well as well, I had interview two candidates with my other group member ‘Rima’. We were supposed to interview three candidates on that day; however one of the candidates didn’t show up. This is why we had to continue with the two other candidates. Our first candidate was Kassam Harroon; this interview went very well, although we had to face with some distractions and interruptions during the interview. (Appendix: pg7)

On the 1st interview we were a bit nerve racking and a lot of us were nervous and not prepared enough. My spectators had observed me and they explained to me that they found me: my eye contact was excellent, poor body language, excellent probing as I was relating previous questions to the current question.

The second interview went better; we had interview candidate number 2 and that was Amish Macween. This candidate was very confident in his wording and this interview went quite well and we had fewer distractions to deal with. This interview went very smooth and the communication level was outstanding and free-flowing. We got a lot of information out of him and he sounded a very confident person, although he didn’t really have much experience working with fast food restaurant. Here my interview techniques became stronger and better, as my body language improved and I started nodding and shown some interest in the applicant.

Roles and Responsibilities

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