Assignment 2: Providing Quality Service

Dunkin’ Donuts Company Turnover Rate

Mario Parker

Strayer University

10/22/2018

Summary of the Industry

Dunkin' Donuts is an American multinational fast food service that provides foods and drinks to its customers. Its headquarters are located in Canton, Massachusetts in the US. The restaurant operates in thirty-six countries with 11,000 shops and 9,200 located in the US. Despite the food service success in reaching a broader global market, employees are consistently complaining of the high turnover rate in a company which is now at 150 percent. The employees are over and again accusing the managers of poor management practices that see many of them fired and replaced with other employees. The high turnover rate situation of the company has been there for over twenty-three years where little change has been seen over the recent years.

In most cases where employees are let go by the company is due to complaints from the customers which can be easily handled but the management blames it all to the employee who is later fired. In cases where employees are fired, the position is left vacant, and during this period other workers are made to do the task of the fired employee thus high workload on the working staff. Also, there is the hiring of unskilled labor to take in the vacant positions thus creating a lousy workplace for the existing staff and eventually depart the company.

There are four major categories of job positions at Dunkin Donuts company and include; upper managers, supervisors, chef, and front-end customer services. The high turnover rate profoundly affects these positions where these employees are fired often (Hoffmann, 2014). This has not only become a loss to the employee but also to the company where its reputation has been diminished thus a decrease in the number of sales due to low customer retention rate. In a workplace where the turnover rate is high, the employees feel insecure and thus are not motivated to achieve the goals of the company eventually reducing productivity. Also, a lot of time and resources when hiring new employees thus impacting negatively on the company.

Reasons for High Turnover Rate

The high turnover rate at Dunkin' Donuts is an issue that is affecting the employees and the reputation of the company. It is common that several reasons have heightened the percentage of employees leaving the company. One of the reasons that the employees have listed as the cause of high turnover rate is being underpaid. Compared to other companies such as Starbucks that strive to maintain consistent pays for its employees and starts them with high minimum wages, Dunkin pays its employee less minimum wages Hoffmann, 2014). Payment is crucial in improving the morale of employees, but with low pay, the employee tends to lack confidence which reciprocates to reduced productivity. Therefore more and more experienced and skilled employees tend to leave the company and look for greener pastures for them to earn a living.

Another primary reason that is causing the high turnover rate of the employees is poor management practices from the managers. The managers are the key to excelling a business by satisfying the employees using the right resources and motivation for them to align their efforts towards achieving the set objectives of the company. When complaints are made by the customers regarding the offering of services in the company, the management staff is quickly blaming the employees without proper consultations which could encourage a dialogue to solve the issue filed by the customer. Therefore, most employees are fired without adequate engagement of all parties to the problem. Some of the inefficiencies of employees in regards to their performance are due to lack of training that can help them work effectively and professionally (Anvari, JianFu & Chermahini, 2014). There is little training offered to employees by the managers on matters concerning customer service thus developing a bad workplace where collaboration and cooperation are minimal. This in turns to be a negative impact to the industry as with unskilled labor services is offered ineffectually thus reducing the number of customers coming back for the company’s service. When employees are fired, the vacancies remain unoccupied until a candidate is hired. The human resource management department then utilizes candidates who are less qualified for the position leading to poor performance at the workplace thus impacting negatively on employees are forced to leave due to lack of satisfaction.

The last cause of high turnover in the company is lack of employee satisfaction and high workload that cause exhaustion. When an employee is fired, he or she is scheduled to help with the job with little compensation. This not only discourages the employees but also reduced productivity as they feel wasted due to much consumption of their energy. The low rate of performance is not encouraged by the managers thus the only solution is firing the employee. Lack of motivation among employee is attributed to the little benefits that the full-time employees receive from the company. There are no vacations or bonuses for working during national holidays. It is even worse when the part-time workers receive no benefits at all. Lack of satisfaction among employees has significantly led to employees quitting their positions to advance on better one in other companies.

Recommendations to Solve High Turnover Rate

Employees leaving the company are a severe problem as it leads to the loss of experienced and skilled staff that can help in the improvement of performance and significantly increasing the sales for the company. One of the recommendations to the problem of being underpaid among the workers is coming up with a pay scale that suits the needs for both parties and ensuring that the wage is not below the minimum wage of the workers. There is a lot of experienced and skilled staff in the company who need to be preserved as they are the source of motivation for other workers through the transfer of skills. The managers should also encourage the employees to explain the issues they are facing regarding the pay and how they would like it solved. Encouraging negotiations implies that the managers care for their employees thus motivating them to work even harder (Anvari, JianFu & Chermahini, 2014).

The second recommendation on the issue of poor management practices from managers is hiring qualified and competitive managers with a good reputation of enhanced employee-managers relationship. The company can aim at hiring other managers who are experienced and know how to handle disputes with customers by updating the job requirement to fit those skills. Also, periodic training of the employees should be embraced to ensure that the workers remain competitive and their offering of services is correspondent to the customer’s needs (Anvari, JianFu & Chermahini, 2014). Training also encourages and motivates employees thus improving their productivity and resultantly increasing the sales of the food service.

The last recommendation that sees employees get satisfied by the work is reviewing the benefits of employees both long-term and part-time and other incentive procedures. The work of the employees needs to be recognized by the managers where they all employees should be rewarded with rewards in regards to their performance such as the best employee with the highest customer service. Benefits should be made available to all workers regardless of their job shits and schedule. Incentives improve the productivity of workers where factors such as engagement and cooperation are developed leading to better organizational efficiency (Kopytova, 2016). At the same time should match their profits with how much they are willing to reward employee to ensure they are not making losses also more resources should be channeled towards the training of employee to improve customer experience.

Method to Improve Job Satisfaction

One of the ways to improve employee satisfaction in the industry is the managers to allow employees to participate in the activities of the company fully. The employees should be involved in the decisions making process on matters regarding the wage and others that may affect the employee either directly or indirectly. The management should understand that workers are vital in achieving the goals of the company by aligning their efforts to fulfill the mission of the company thus their hard work should be highly considered and appreciated thus both parties will benefit. The management should also value the employees as they are the largest and the significant resources industry can have, therefore, training employee regularly and offering them incentive is a considerable achievement that any company can choose to pursue thus a recommended process for Dunkin' Donuts (Kopytova, 2016).

References

Anvari, R., JianFu, Z., & Chermahini, S. H. (2014). An effective strategy for solving the voluntary turnover problem among employees. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 129, 186-190.

Kopytova, A. (2016). Development of the Implementation Procedure for a Rational Incentive System. Procedia Engineering, 165, 1132-1140.

Hoffmann, A. (2014). Dunkin’Donuts: Global Expansion Through Franchising.