Collapse Subdiscussion Paul Kelly Paul Kelly XXXXXXXXXXYesterday Aug 21 at 5:53pm Dear Marcus, I wonder what you think about the self-service menus and its contribution to higher profits for the...

Paul Kelly

Dear Marcus,

I wonder what you think about the self-service menus and its contribution to higher profits for the McDonalds stores? Even though this has been around for a while, I have not visited a McDonald's store since about 2008, when I worked there last. I know the soft drink self- service idea was long overdue because it helped take a lot of the burden off the frontline workers. Do you think these change initiatives helped McDonald's? As for culture, the less busy and less stress the work environment has, the better the attitude of the staff, right? I made my comments to another student’s post before I read yours and I think I was onto something just by my few years working at various Macs stores. I wished I took a better paycheck home to my family after working there full-time from 4:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Mon thru Friday. There was so much bossiness from both female and male workers. (with a thankless, grouchy flair) There was so much pressure to move fast, think fast- under pressure. There was the smell of grease that was all over your clothes and face that forced you to take a shower if you wanted to smell human after work. The low pay as a grill cook, no involvement in strategizing to meet customer demands or discussion of issues that may have come up during the week or problems discussed between conflicting workers. There were no team-building exercises. The change initiatives just implemented, that you mentioned, sound like the solution to most of my complaints. If you have the opportunity, can you be more specific about exactly what was done to improve benefits? You mentioned “cash and kind.” I assume this means simply, showing employees that they are valued more by increasing wages and adding benefits. Can you also tell me what was done regarding benefits? I am glad to hear the company fixed these issues. Working at this place is not easy. Don’t get me wrong, readers of this post. The procedure of flipping burgers and ringing in orders etc. is not very hard. However, maintaining a pleasant demeanor during lunch hour, when it gets busy and timing processes out so that orders are staged while throngs of hungry customers begin crowding the floor in front of the registers that's what takes stamina and a stable-minded person. This can be hard work and deserves a good wage. The equality issue must deal with diversity in staff. Is this true? McDonald's is smart to recognize change must occur in ethnic biases, especially if they exist widely in underprivileged areas. I like the attention they are paying to equality issues that you mentioned, Marcus. Our former classes, only five years ago were telling us by 2040 the distribution of Hispanics was going to be equal to whites if not slightly out-numbering whites in the US (Parrillo, 2011).

References

Parrillo, V. N. (2011).
Strangers to these shores. Tenth edition. Boston: Pearson