Research Paper

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Experienced Change Process

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Experienced Change Process

The change experience experienced was during my first occupation as an employee for our local McDonald’s outlet. As a follower, the change was initiated due to corporate employee regulation change. The change the outlets were to experience was a reduction of overtime allowed per employee. The objective was to ensure that safety was maintained within the franchise. Though overtime was the main means that employees would have a reasonable income, the change was stipulated due to increased work injuries and consumer complaints. Additionally, in the outlet where I worked, the number of employee injuries had significantly increased as most of the staff worked long hours in other occupations. From a personal perspective, the change was stipulated to primarily ascertain employee safety that promoted customer safety and satisfaction.

Geography

The outlet was located in Salina, KS, the culture of the region was mostly sparsely populated farmland. However, the town has a long history with farming, thus the population is mostly the white race. The population is slightly over 50,000 with numerous families residing in the region. Due to the crossroad nature of Salina, Kansas, it experiences an abundance of cultural intermixing resulting in various recreational activities. With the geographical information, the outlet mostly served families and the elderly, individuals over the age of 60 years. The local culture mostly comprises live theatres, public art. Thus, the value of family and respect was important to the local population, the outcome was high consumer service satisfaction coupled with numerous positive feedbacks.

Organization Mission

McDonald’s mission statement is “To make delicious feel-good moments easy for everyone” which identifies that the company’s objective to nurture and cultivate communities through the production of delicious fast foods (Owens et al., 2017). The organization has grown from its initial outlet in 1940 serving only fast food lunches and snacks. Today, the company has expanded its menu to also include breakfasts, desserts, and other meals and drinks thus supporting its objective of delicious foods regardless of financial position (Owens et al., 2017).

Other than quality and delicious foods, the company focused its development on consumer relations thereby promoting a feel-good experience in every outlet (Michaelis et al., 2018). In other words, McDonald’s has invested in consumer relations emphasizing a personalized experience to meet industry standards. Lastly, as previously mentioned, the company focuses on supporting entire communities, regardless of financial position (Michaelis et al., 2018). The organization has developed itself to be0 among the largest fast-food chains globally and has allowed it to refine its menu allowing for consumers to buy quality products cheaply.

While McDonald’s mission statement focused on the consumers, it also focused on employee development by making numerous changes that supported all communities (Michaelis et al., 2018). For example, the company has environmental, racial, gender disparity, and inclusion policies that form the core of its internal operation. The organization ensures all employees are adequately trained to effectively operate machinery and interact with consumers (McDonald, 2018). The involvement has allowed the company to have a high demand as an employer as it also offers scholarships or grants to employees. Overall, as identified in the mission statement, McDonald’s is invested in supporting the community which is inclusive of its employees.

Change Process

Considering that the company has significantly invested in its brand through its products and employee service it is necessary to sustain the status quo. However, with the rising number of employee injuries due to fatigue resulting in poor consumer experience, the corporate management mandated a reduction of allowed overtime. The initiative was enforced by the outlet manager after a public notice was delivered to all outlet employees of the franchise. The manager received a two-month training session that was later enforced through a staff meeting. The manager started the meeting with a record of reduction of quality of services coupled with increased employee incidents and injuries.

Moreover, it was identified that the overtime had significantly increased and thus top management initiated the changes. Through the meeting, it was identified that all employees including management would have reduced over time with caps instated to ensure adherence. The goal of the change was to ensure the company was able to sustain and develop its mission and vision statements. Through employee consideration and development constant patterns of improvement in the overall mission and vision development are attained. The result is positive results on quality and consumer satisfaction. The enforced team culture has allowed the company to continue flourishing for the past eight decades resulting in diversity, development of skills, effective communication, intrapersonal skill, and responsibility development, and lastly, effective leadership skills. Therefore, the culture needs to be sustained by enforcing secure working conditions.

Conclusion

The change process was initially opposed as it was viewed as a means of top management increasing their profits. However, during the monthly staff performance review, it was identified that the consumer satisfaction rates had increased significantly. Moreover, employee injuries decreased. Therefore, the predicted outcome of the change process was achieved.

Reference

McDonald, A. (2018). Enacting a Vision in a Faith School: Putting Word into Action. Islamic Schooling In The West, 151-167. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73612-9_8

Michaelis, T., Aladin, R., & Pollack, J. (2018). Innovation culture and the performance of new product launches: A global study. Journal Of Business Venturing Insights, 9, 116-127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbvi.2018.04.001

Owens, K., Eggers, J., Keller, S., & McDonald, A. (2017). The imperative of culture: a quantitative analysis of the impact of culture on workforce engagement, patient experience, physician engagement, value-based purchasing, and turnover. Journal Of Healthcare Leadership, Volume 9, 25-31. https://doi.org/10.2147/jhl.s126381