Executive Summary

The aim of current report is to highlight the human resource management practices of employee involvement and employee engagement in the context of McDonald’s. Along with this, the aspects of work place flexibility and job design are also been incorporated in the present study with relation to employee involvement and employee engagement. The report has completed in two sections. The first section has discussed the approach of McDonald’s regarding employee involvement and employee engagement and has shown that McDonald’s. The second section has reflected the association of flexibility and job design with involvement and engagement of employees in McDonald’s.

1.Introduction

The employee involvement and employee engagement are among the most preferable human resource management practices in contemporary organizations. The implementation of involvement and engagement practices define the effective of strategic human resource management. Being the competitive fast food chain restaurant, the McDonald’s has indicated its outgoingness for implementation of employee involvement practices and team based structure of company is empowering employees. Along with this, the McDonald’s has won awards for its significant employee benefits and motivation programs which have motivated the work force to get engage in work with their full potential and commitment. The aim of study is realized by following two sections’ structure. Firstly, the employee involvement and employee engagement practices of McDonald’s are detailed in the light of theoretical evidences gained from previous section of the report. Secondly, the concept of flexibility and job design are described and applied in McDonald’s for enhancing the level of employee involvement and employee engagement.

2.Employee Involvement and Engagement in McDonald’s

The McDonald’s is considered as a leading giant of fast food chain which has innovative culture. The company has effective human resource management system and practices of employee involvement and employee engagement are executed well by the company (Aguinis and Kraiger, 2009). The employee involvement in an approach of offering stake to human resources in decision making that are specifically relevant to their jobs (Boxall and Purcell, 2011). While the employee engagement is the extent to which employee agree with goals of their job and then show motivation and commitment to achieve those goals (Algera and Greuter, 2013).

It is evident that is some countries such as United Kingdom and China, the employees are having negative perceptions of McDonald’s as the company which is less supportive towards employees and does not offer enough discretion. The origin of negative employee perception dates back to 2008 when company offered flexible working hours and has generated pool of 300,000 employees in a year. Later the management of huge pool of employee become complicated and people management approaches of company in UK have fallen short of expectations, turning the term of “Mcjob” as derogatory with no dignity. However, the approach of staff value proposition approach was pursued by McDonald’s UK in 2009 having focus on three main aspects including; people and culture, flexibility and variety, and development and opportunity. Therefore, by energizing the working environment, the employees were offered with greater flexibility and developmental opportunity, which have revived the image of company.

The recent research reflects that McDonald’s has offered autonomy to its employees and they are being encouraged to make routine decisions regarding their jobs. The McDonald’s has implemented employee involvement programs with an aim of welcoming the input of employees for improvement of processes and procedures of organization. The McDonald’s has a relaxed hierarchical structure and each business unit is self-managed which has made the empowered structure of organization. Along with this, by being the customer focused organization, the emphasis of company is on enhancing the participation of employees for suggesting improvements in processes of satisfying customer’s needs.

McDonald’s is an empowered organization and employees and management are responsible to play the supporting role for satisfaction of customers. The employees are not just told about the activities they are responsible to perform, but they are involved in objective setting related to their performance and they are responsible for making routine decisions about their job (Daley, 2006). The culture of McDonald’s is enabling its employees to own their organization. The sense of ownership among employees is contributing at large in defining the higher levels of commitment among employees which is highly in favour of the organization (Moreland and Myaskovsky, 2000). Therefore, it can be considered that McDonald’s is preparing its human resource for fulfilling their responsibilities along with getting involved in decision making process.  Likewise, the McDonald’s has higher level of flexibility in classification of jobs and work rules which is enabling the company to adjust jobs to incorporate higher degree of employee involvement. Conclusively, the McDonald’s has significant level of employee’s involvement which is meeting the innovative requirements of the company and it is also helping the company to realize higher performance levels.

The McDonald’s has applied schemes which can significantly enhance the motivation level of its work force and increase engagement of employees as well. One of the significant initiative of McDonald’s is Road to Rio Initiative of 2014 which has offered the chance of winning the free trip to watch World Cup in Brazil  to highly engaged employees. The workers have worked harder and shown higher level of commitment towards their job with an aim of availing incentive. Along with this, the McDonald’s has also introduced bonus scheme for achieving desired behaviours of employees and engaging them in their jobs (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin and Cardy, 2004). The benefit schemes of McDonald’s to increase employee engagement are considered as significant and it has also won award for the most effective employee benefit schemes (HR Excellence Awards, 2011). Likewise, the McDonald’s is offering voluntary benefit packages to its human resources by offering them discretion to choose the benefits as per their requirements.

The McDonald’s has gained assistance of Lancaster University to get clarification on employee engagement and business growth and consequently, the company has established its engagement strategy (Harter, Schmidt and Hayes, 2002). The employees of McDonald’s have found the alignment between reward systems of the company with business strategy as highly motivating and evidently the engagement level of employees has significantly enhanced. The effective level of employee engagement has benefited the company in raising retention level of employees, which has made the business successful.

3.Role of Flexibility in Employee Involvement and Engagement

The importance of employee involvement and engagement has significantly realized by the contemporary organization who are competing in global market places (Laird, Holton and Naquin, 2003). The flexibility in work arrangements is considered as equally important for both employees and management. The progressive workplaces have successfully maintained flexible arrangements and among the Fortune Magazine’s best organizations, the flexible one have gained significant place (Kuvaas, 2006). One of the substantial aspect of work place flexibility is that it offers significant benefits to employees in the form of work life balance and it also contributes in enhanced performance and productivity of organizations. The innovative work arrangements are highly desired by employees around the globe and strategic human resource management is offering that flexible work places are the most heightened requirements of recent organizations (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin and Cardy, 2004). The flexibility not only helps in enhancing involvement and engagement of employees but it also helps the organizations in attracting and retaining highly skills workforce. Along with this, it also offers long terms advantages in the form of reducing absenteeism rate and reduce interruption in operations of organization. The flexibility in working environment motivates employees to increase their commitment level towards their job and improves their extra role behaviors as well (Dowling, 2008).

The work place flexibility offers greater control to employees over their jobs and enhances their awareness of how and when the work is done (Ramsay, Scholarios and Harley, 2000). The huge flexibility allows human resources to make daily decisions at their own which can increase the level of their involvement in organization. Along with this, the flexible organizations are based on self-managed teams and it helps in enhancing empowerment of employees (Datta, Guthrie and Wright, 2005). The participative decision making approach can also be applied in flexible organizations and employees are offered with greater sense of control. Along with this, the literature has depicted that high involvement work practices can be applied effectively in flexible organizations and it can also engage employees in participative work practices (Paul and Anantharaman, 2003). Therefore, the employees of flexible organizations indicate higher degree of employee’s contribution with wider span, which generates positive employees related outcomes.

The McDonald’s is showing high commitment to offer inclusive working environment to its human resources and inclusion is considered as an important aspect of McDonald’s culture. Among the restaurant chains, the human resources of McDonald’s are gaining significant attention of company in terms of motivation of employees. The reward managers of McDonald’s is the winner of employee’s benefits professional award 2014 and he has offered significant contribution to establish benefit programs for employees. According to the human resource management of McDonald’s, flexibility is considered as a significant factor in enhancing the engagement and involvement of employees. The McDonald’s has the ability to motivate employees in its DNA and it has established the concept of team work and collaboration into its business (HR Excellence Awards, 2011). The collaboration based working environment of the McDonald’s has enabled the flexibility within organization and there is no best way or best practice to perform given jobs. The self-managed teams can set directions for performance at their own and they are responsible for achieving given targets in an appropriate way.

The McDonald’s has recognized the need of employees regarding flexible working conditions and employees are allowed to choose their working hours as per their life routines. The discretion to choose flexible working hours has fostered work life balance and it has offered a significant opportunity for part time workers (Boxall and Purcell, 2011). The flex scheduling approach of McDonald’s has made employment very easy for work force and it has caused attraction and retention of highly skilled and competitive work force. Similarly, the working mothers has find it easy to adjust their routine by availing flex days and flex hours approach of McDonald’s (Datta, Guthrie and Wright, 2005). The flexibility of McDonald’s has not only enhanced the level of employee involvement but it has also enhanced motivation for employees to get engage in their jobs. Therefore, it can be argued that McDonald’s is highly flexible for its workers and it is engaging its workers by enhancing their commitment and it is also empowering employees to perform their jobs in the desired manner.

4.Role of Job Design in Employee Involvement and engagement

It has been highlighted by the researchers that while designing jobs, various characteristics are needed to be taken into account with an aim of enhancing benefits for both employees and organization (Seibert, Silver and Randolph, 2004). While analysing the jobs, the contemporary factors and requirements are needed to be taken into account by the organizations with an aim of matching job design with contingency variables. The modern organizations are relying heavily on aspects of employee empowerment and involvement and for attaining this goal, the jobs should be designed in the manner which has huge level of discretion to involve employees (Storey, 2007). In order to enhance the employee involvement and engagement in jobs, the most effective way is to carry out job enrichment. The job enrichment expands jobs vertically by adding more responsibilities and difficulty level. Along with this, the span of control of employees in enhanced and they are allowed to retain more authority with an aim of enhancing their involvement (Whitener, 2001).

The McDonald’s is highly involved in enriching its jobs by expanding responsibilities of employees and also enables them to exercise authority by controlling their own activities. When employees are offer authority and more responsibilities in their jobs, then their involvement in organizational activities increases and they feel empowered at their jobs (Algera and Greuter, 2013). Consequently, the engagement of human resources also increases and they feel more motivated to perform their responsibilities. Along with this, the McDonald’s is adding more autonomous jobs, and employees can make decisions regarding their job activities. The greater autonomy is jobs is also offering discretion of scheduling the work activities and employees are allowed to independently perform their job responsibilities (Harter, Schmidt and Hayes, 2002). The autonomous jobs are more empowered and they enhance commitment and motivation level of human resources, thus making them beneficial for the overall organization. Similarly, the McDonald’s has evidently redesigned its jobs to add new tasks which offer growth opportunities to employees. When the human resources gain chance of performing new tasks which has the potential to improve their learning, then their engagement in job can increase significantly (Saks, 2006). Along with this, the new tasks mostly come with wider span of control which is the way of involving employees in their jobs. Followed by this, the job enrichment at McDonald’s is also leading to assigning of individual tasks to employees which not only make them expert in their work but it also enables them to lead the way independently. Therefore, the higher level of empowerment is offer to employees and being solely responsible for the level of performance, the employees get more engaged in their jobs.

The job design theory has provided that when human resources receive information about their performance then they feel more motivated internally (Zacharatos, Barling and Iverson, 2005). The McDonald’s is actively offering performance related feedback to its employees. The greater knowledge about results of employee’s performance is contributing to increasing the level of employee engagement by triggering internal motivation (Fey, Björkman and Pavlovskaya, 2000). Likewise, the high realization of meaningfulness of outcomes enable the employees to exert extra efforts for achieving the desired level of performance and employees get well engaged in their jobs. Along with this, the McDonald’s has designed the jobs in way which are requiring different set of skills and offer opportunity of continuous improvement in skills level of employees. Therefore, the employees consider jobs as important for their development and their engagement level if enhanced in jobs.

The jobs of McDonald’s are based on employee empowerment perspective and employees are allowed to innovate the work activities with an aim of increasing performance level. The employees are allowed to initiate change and their participation in organizational activities is appreciated. Finally, the McDonald’s has employee involvement groups who have the discretion to participate in decision making process and their contribution is significantly appreciated and recognized by management (Charles Fombrun, Tichy and Devanna, 1984; Zacharatos, Barling and Iverson, 2005). The McDonald’s has quality circles as well, in which teams of employees are motivated to suggest improvements in procedures and operations of organization. Overall, the McDonald’s has higher level of inclusion for employee involvement and employee engagement in its job design. 

5.Conclusion

The McDonald’s has effectively followed the practices of employee involvement and employee engagement. The engagement strategy of McDonald’s has won the award of most significant strategy for employee benefits and workforce of McDonald’s is highly motivated to increase customer satisfaction. The employee involvement approach of McDonald’s has attracted and retained highly skilled human resources. The ability of McDonald’s to execute human resource management practices of employee involvement and employee engagement is well supplemented by the flexible working conditions and autonomous job design of the company. The human resources are offered with opportunities of flexible working hours and working days with an aim of increasing their commitment and engaging them at work. Along with this, being the flexible organization the McDonald’s can apply practices of employee involvement and employee engagement in effective way as the flexible organizations can make adjustments in strategies and procedures for entertaining employees.  Finally, the in McDonald’s the jobs are well enriched and employees are empowered to make decisions which is increasing level of their engagement.

References

Aguinis, H. and Kraiger, K., 2009. Benefits of training and development for individuals and teams, organizations, and society. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, pp.451-474.

Algera, J.A. and Greuter, M.A., 2013. Job analysis. A Handbook of Work and Organizational Psychology: Volume 3: Personnel Psychology, 3, p.141.

Boxall, P. and Purcell, J., 2011. Strategy and human resource management. Palgrave Macmillan.

Charles J.. Fombrun, Tichy, N.M. and Devanna, M.A., 1984. Strategic human resource management (pp. 403-419). New York: Wiley.

Daley, D.M., 2006. Strategic human resource management. Public Personnel Management. Current Concerns, Future Challenges, 5, pp.120-134.

Datta, D.K., Guthrie, J.P. and Wright, P.M., 2005. Human resource management and labor productivity: does industry matter?. Academy of Management Journal, 48(1), pp.135-145

Dowling, P., 2008. International human resource management: Managing people in a multinational context. Cengage Learning.

Fey, C.F., Björkman, I. and Pavlovskaya, A., 2000. The effect of human resource management practices on firm performance in Russia. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 11(1), pp.1-18.

Gomez-Mejia, L.R., Balkin, D.B. and Cardy, R.L., 2004. Managing human resources. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.

Harter, J.K., Schmidt, F.L. and Hayes, T.L., 2002. Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and business outcomes: a meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology,87(2), p.268.

HR Excellence Awards, 2011. Outstanding Employee Engagement Strategy: McDonald’s. [Online], Available at: http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/article-details/hr-excellence-awards-2011-outstanding-employee-engagement-strategy-mcdonalds.

Kuvaas, B., 2006. Performance appraisal satisfaction and employee outcomes: mediating and moderating roles of work motivation. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 17(3), pp.504-522.

Laird, D., Holton, E.F. and Naquin, S., 2003. Approaches to training and development: revised and updated. Basic Books.

Moreland, R.L. and Myaskovsky, L., 2000. Exploring the performance benefits of group training: Transactive memory or improved communication? Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 82(1), pp.117-133.

Paul, A.K. and Anantharaman, R.N., 2003. Impact of people management practices on organizational performance: analysis of a causal model. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 14(7), pp.1246-1266.

Ramsay, H., Scholarios, D. and Harley, B., 2000. Employees and high?performance work systems: testing inside the black box. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 38(4), pp.501-531.

Saks, A.M., 2006. Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21(7), pp.600-619.

Seibert, S.E., Silver, S.R. and Randolph, W.A., 2004. Taking empowerment to the next level: A multiple-level model of empowerment, performance, and satisfaction. Academy of Management Journal, 47(3), pp.332-349.

Storey, J., 2007. Human resource management: A critical text. Cengage Learning EMEA.

Whitener, E.M., 2001. Do “high commitment” human resource practices affect employee commitment? A cross-level analysis using hierarchical linear modeling. Journal of Management, 27(5), pp.515-535.

Zacharatos, A., Barling, J. and Iverson, R.D., 2005. High-performance work systems and occupational safety. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(1), p.77.

Summary

The aim of current report is to highlight the human resource management practices of employee involvement and employee engagement in the context of McDonald’s. Along with this, the aspects of work place flexibility and job design are also been incorporated in the present study with relation to employee involvement and employee engagement. The report has completed in two sections. The first section has discussed the approach of McDonald’s regarding employee involvement and employee engagement and has shown that McDonald’s. The second section has reflected the association of flexibility and job design with involvement and engagement of employees in McDonald’s.

1.Introduction

The employee involvement and employee engagement are among the most preferable human resource management practices in contemporary organizations. The implementation of involvement and engagement practices define the effective of strategic human resource management. Being the competitive fast food chain restaurant, the McDonald’s has indicated its outgoingness for implementation of employee involvement practices and team based structure of company is empowering employees. Along with this, the McDonald’s has won awards for its significant employee benefits and motivation programs which have motivated the work force to get engage in work with their full potential and commitment. The aim of study is realized by following two sections’ structure. Firstly, the employee involvement and employee engagement practices of McDonald’s are detailed in the light of theoretical evidences gained from previous section of the report. Secondly, the concept of flexibility and job design are described and applied in McDonald’s for enhancing the level of employee involvement and employee engagement.

2.Employee Involvement and Engagement in McDonald’s

The McDonald’s is considered as a leading giant of fast food chain which has innovative culture. The company has effective human resource management system and practices of employee involvement and employee engagement are executed well by the company (Aguinis and Kraiger, 2009). The employee involvement in an approach of offering stake to human resources in decision making that are specifically relevant to their jobs (Boxall and Purcell, 2011). While the employee engagement is the extent to which employee agree with goals of their job and then shown motivation and commitment to achieve those goals (Algera and Greuter, 2013). The McDonald’s has offered autonomy to its employees and they are being encouraged to make routine decisions regarding their jobs. The McDonald’s has implemented employee involvement programs with an aim of welcoming the input of employees for improvement of processes and procedures of organization. The McDonald’s has a relaxed hierarchical structure and each business unit is self-managed which has made the empowered structure of organization. Along with this, by being the customer focused organization, the emphasis of company is on enhancing the participation of employees for suggesting improvements in processes of satisfying customer’s needs.

The McDonald’s is an empowered organization and employees and management are responsible to play the supporting role for satisfaction of customers. The employees are not just told about the activities they are responsible to perform, but they are involved in objective setting related to their performance and they are responsible for making routine decisions about their job (Daley, 2006). The culture of McDonald’s is enabling its employees to own their organization. The sense of ownership among employees is contributing at large in defining the higher levels of commitment among employees which is highly in favour of the organization. Moreover, the employees are not just offered the responsibility but they are also given significant training to prepare them for accepting responsibility (Moreland and Myaskovsky, 2000). Therefore, it can be considered that McDonald’s is preparing its human resource for fulfilling their responsibilities along with getting involved in decision making process.  Likewise, the McDonald’s has higher level of flexibility in classification of jobs and work rules which is enabling the company to adjust jobs to incorporate higher degree of employee involvement. Conclusively, the McDonald’s has significant level of employee’s involvement which is meeting the innovative requirements of the company and it is also helping the company to realize higher performance levels.

The McDonald’s has applied schemes which can significantly enhance the motivation level of its work force and increase engagement of employees as well. One of the significant initiative of McDonald’s is Road to Rio Initiative of 2014 which has offered the chance of winning the free trip to watch World Cup in Brazil  to highly engaged employees. The workers have worked harder and shown higher level of commitment towards their job with an aim of availing incentive. Along with this, the McDonald’s has also introduced bonus scheme for achieving desired behaviours of employees and engaging them in their jobs (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin and Cardy, 2004). The benefit schemes of McDonald’s to increase employee engagement are considered as significant and it has also won award for the most effective employee benefit schemes (HR Excellence Awards, 2011). Likewise, the McDonald’s is offering voluntary benefit packages to its human resources by offering them discretion to choose the benefits as per their requirements.

The McDonald’s has gained assistance of Lancaster University to get clarification on employee engagement and business growth and consequently, the company has established its engagement strategy (Harter, Schmidt and Hayes, 2002). The employees of McDonald’s have found the alignment between reward systems of the company with business strategy as highly motivating and evidently the engagement level of employees has significantly enhanced. The effective level of employee engagement has benefited the company in raising retention level of employees, which has made the business successful.

3.Role of Flexibility in Employee Involvement and Engagement

The importance of employee involvement and engagement has significantly realized by the contemporary organization who are competing in global market places (Laird, Holton and Naquin, 2003). The flexibility in work arrangements is considered as equally important for both employees and management. The progressive workplaces have successfully maintained flexible arrangements and among the Fortune Magazine’s best organizations, the flexible one have gained significant place (Kuvaas, 2006). One of the substantial aspect of work place flexibility is that it offers significant benefits to employees in the form of work life balance and it also contributes in enhanced performance and productivity of organizations. The innovative work arrangements are highly desired by employees around the globe and strategic human resource management is offering that flexible work places are the most heightened requirements of recent organizations (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin and Cardy, 2004). The flexibility not only helps in enhancing involvement and engagement of employees but it also helps the organizations in attracting and retaining highly skills workforce. Along with this, it also offers long terms advantages in the form of reducing absenteeism rate and reduce interruption in operations of organization. The flexibility in working environment motivates employees to increase their commitment level towards their job and improves their extra role behaviors as well (Dowling, 2008).

The work place flexibility offers greater control to employees over their jobs and enhances their awareness of how and when the work is done (Ramsay, Scholarios and Harley, 2000). The huge flexibility allows human resources to make daily decisions at their own which can increase the level of their involvement in organization. Along with this, the flexible organizations are based on self-managed teams and it helps in enhancing empowerment of employees (Datta, Guthrie and Wright, 2005). The participative decision making approach can also be applied in flexible organizations and employees are offered with greater sense of control. Along with this, the literature has depicted that high involvement work practices can be applied effectively in flexible organizations and it can also engage employees in participative work practices (Paul and Anantharaman, 2003). Therefore, the employees of flexible organizations indicate higher degree of employee’s contribution with wider span, which generates positive employees related outcomes.

The McDonald’s is showing high commitment to offer inclusive working environment to its human resources and inclusion is considered as an important aspect of McDonald’s culture. Among the restaurant chains, the human resources of McDonald’s are gaining significant attention of company in terms of motivation of employees. The reward managers of McDonald’s is the winner of employee’s benefits professional award 2014 and he has offered significant contribution to establish benefit programs for employees. According to the human resource management of McDonald’s, flexibility is considered as a significant factor in enhancing the engagement and involvement of employees. The McDonald’s has the ability to motivate employees in its DNA and it has established the concept of team work and collaboration into its business (HR Excellence Awards, 2011). The collaboration based working environment of the McDonald’s has enabled the flexibility within organization and there is no best way or best practice to perform given jobs. The self-managed teams can set directions for performance at their own and they are responsible for achieving given targets in an appropriate way.

The McDonald’s has recognized the need of employees regarding flexible working conditions and employees are allowed to choose their working hours as per their life routines. The discretion to choose flexible working hours has fostered work life balance and it has offered a significant opportunity for part time workers (Boxall and Purcell, 2011). The flex scheduling approach of McDonald’s has made employment very easy for work force and it has caused attraction and retention of highly skilled and competitive work force. Similarly, the working mothers has find it easy to adjust their routine by availing flex days and flex hours approach of McDonald’s (Datta, Guthrie and Wright, 2005). The flexibility of McDonald’s has not only enhanced the level of employee involvement but it has also enhanced motivation for employees to get engage in their jobs. Therefore, it can be argued that McDonald’s is highly flexible for its workers and it is engaging its workers by enhancing their commitment and it is also empowering employees to perform their jobs in the desired manner.

4.Role of Job Design in Employee Involvement and engagement

It has been highlighted by the researchers that while designing jobs, various characteristics are needed to be taken into account with an aim of enhancing benefits for both employees and organization (Seibert, Silver and Randolph, 2004). While analysing the jobs, the contemporary factors and requirements are needed to be taken into account by the organizations with an aim of matching job design with contingency variables. The modern organizations are relying heavily on aspects of employee empowerment and involvement and for attaining this goal, the jobs should be designed in the manner which has huge level of discretion to involve employees (Storey, 2007). In order to enhance the employee involvement and engagement in jobs, the most effective way is to carry out job enrichment. The job enrichment expands jobs vertically by adding more responsibilities and difficulty level. Along with this, the span of control of employees in enhanced and they are allowed to retain more authority with an aim of enhancing their involvement (Whitener, 2001).

The McDonald’s is highly involved in enriching its jobs by expanding responsibilities of employees and also enables them to exercise authority by controlling their own activities. When employees are offer authority and more responsibilities in their jobs, then their involvement in organizational activities increases and they feel empowered at their jobs (Algera and Greuter, 2013). Consequently, the engagement of human resources also increases and they feel more motivated to perform their responsibilities. Along with this, the McDonald’s is adding more autonomous jobs, and employees can make decisions regarding their job activities. The greater autonomy is jobs is also offering discretion of scheduling the work activities and employees are allowed to independently perform their job responsibilities (Harter, Schmidt and Hayes, 2002). The autonomous jobs are more empowered and they enhance commitment and motivation level of human resources, thus making them beneficial for the overall organization. Similarly, the McDonald’s has evidently redesigned its jobs to add new tasks which offer growth opportunities to employees. When the human resources gain chance of performing new tasks which has the potential to improve their learning, then their engagement in job can increase significantly (Saks, 2006). Along with this, the new tasks mostly come with wider span of control which is the way of involving employees in their jobs. Followed by this, the job enrichment at McDonald’s is also leading to assigning of individual tasks to employees which not only make them expert in their work but it also enables them to lead the way independently. Therefore, the higher level of empowerment is offer to employees and being solely responsible for the level of performance, the employees get more engaged in their jobs.

The job design theory has provided that when human resources receive information about their performance then they feel more motivated internally (Zacharatos, Barling and Iverson, 2005). The McDonald’s is actively offering performance related feedback to its employees. The greater knowledge about results of employee’s performance is contributing to increasing the level of employee engagement by triggering internal motivation (Fey, Björkman and Pavlovskaya, 2000). Likewise, the high realization of meaningfulness of outcomes enable the employees to exert extra efforts for achieving the desired level of performance and employees get well engaged in their jobs. Along with this, the McDonald’s has designed the jobs in way which are requiring different set of skills and offer opportunity of continuous improvement in skills level of employees. Therefore, the employees consider jobs as important for their development and their engagement level if enhanced in jobs.

The jobs of McDonald’s are based on employee empowerment perspective and employees are allowed to innovate the work activities with an aim of increasing performance level. The employees are allowed to initiate change and their participation in organizational activities is appreciated. Finally, the McDonald’s has employee involvement groups who have the discretion to participate in decision making process and their contribution is significantly appreciated and recognized by management (Charles Fombrun, Tichy and Devanna, 1984; Zacharatos, Barling and Iverson, 2005). The McDonald’s has quality circles as well, in which teams of employees are motivated to suggest improvements in procedures and operations of organization. Overall, the McDonald’s has higher level of inclusion for employee involvement and employee engagement in its job design. 

5.Conclusion

The McDonald’s has effectively followed the practices of employee involvement and employee engagement. The engagement strategy of McDonald’s has won the award of most significant strategy for employee benefits and workforce of McDonald’s is highly motivated to increase customer satisfaction. The employee involvement approach of McDonald’s has attracted and retained highly skilled human resources. The ability of McDonald’s to execute human resource management practices of employee involvement and employee engagement is well supplemented by the flexible working conditions and autonomous job design of the company. The human resources are offered with opportunities of flexible working hours and working days with an aim of increasing their commitment and engaging them at work. Along with this, being the flexible organization the McDonald’s can apply practices of employee involvement and employee engagement in effective way as the flexible organizations can make adjustments in strategies and procedures for entertaining employees.  Finally, the in McDonald’s the jobs are well enriched and employees are empowered to make decisions which is increasing level of their engagement.

References

Aguinis, H. and Kraiger, K., 2009. Benefits of training and development for individuals and teams, organizations, and society. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, pp.451-474.

Algera, J.A. and Greuter, M.A., 2013. Job analysis. A Handbook of Work and Organizational Psychology: Volume 3: Personnel Psychology, 3, p.141.

Boxall, P. and Purcell, J., 2011. Strategy and human resource management. Palgrave Macmillan.

Charles J.. Fombrun, Tichy, N.M. and Devanna, M.A., 1984. Strategic human resource management (pp. 403-419). New York: Wiley.

Daley, D.M., 2006. Strategic human resource management. Public Personnel Management. Current Concerns, Future Challenges, 5, pp.120-134.

Datta, D.K., Guthrie, J.P. and Wright, P.M., 2005. Human resource management and labor productivity: does industry matter?. Academy of Management Journal, 48(1), pp.135-145

Dowling, P., 2008. International human resource management: Managing people in a multinational context. Cengage Learning.

Fey, C.F., Björkman, I. and Pavlovskaya, A., 2000. The effect of human resource management practices on firm performance in Russia. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 11(1), pp.1-18.

Gomez-Mejia, L.R., Balkin, D.B. and Cardy, R.L., 2004. Managing human resources. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.

Harter, J.K., Schmidt, F.L. and Hayes, T.L., 2002. Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and business outcomes: a meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology,87(2), p.268.

HR Excellence Awards, 2011. Outstanding Employee Engagement Strategy: McDonald’s. [Online], Available at: http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/article-details/hr-excellence-awards-2011-outstanding-employee-engagement-strategy-mcdonalds.

Kuvaas, B., 2006. Performance appraisal satisfaction and employee outcomes: mediating and moderating roles of work motivation. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 17(3), pp.504-522.

Laird, D., Holton, E.F. and Naquin, S., 2003. Approaches to training and development: revised and updated. Basic Books.

Moreland, R.L. and Myaskovsky, L., 2000. Exploring the performance benefits of group training: Transactive memory or improved communication? Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 82(1), pp.117-133.

Paul, A.K. and Anantharaman, R.N., 2003. Impact of people management practices on organizational performance: analysis of a causal model. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 14(7), pp.1246-1266.

Ramsay, H., Scholarios, D. and Harley, B., 2000. Employees and high?performance work systems: testing inside the black box. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 38(4), pp.501-531.

Saks, A.M., 2006. Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21(7), pp.600-619.

Seibert, S.E., Silver, S.R. and Randolph, W.A., 2004. Taking empowerment to the next level: A multiple-level model of empowerment, performance, and satisfaction. Academy of Management Journal, 47(3), pp.332-349.

Storey, J., 2007. Human resource management: A critical text. Cengage Learning EMEA.

Whitener, E.M., 2001. Do “high commitment” human resource practices affect employee commitment? A cross-level analysis using hierarchical linear modeling. Journal of Management, 27(5), pp.515-535.

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