What Are The Management Functions At Mcdonald’s?

Since McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in the UK in October 1974, the Golden Arches have become a familiar symbol, now seen on high streets, alongside major roads, on cross channel ferries, in leisure and retail parks and at airports. During 2000, the company bought young people from communities all over the UK to perform on stage at the Dome in Greenwich as part of McDonald’s Our Town Story. This explains the History of McDonalds.

By the end of 2000, there were 1,116 McDonald’s restaurant operating in the UK, representing a total investment in property and equipment of over ï1.5 billion. The company employed just fewer than 50,000 people and 18,000 were employed by McDonald’s franchises. Today, more than 2.5 million people in this country place their trust in McDonalds every day – trusting the Company to provide them with food of a high standard, quick service and value for money.

CLEARLY IDENTIFYING MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS AND THEIR APLLICATION TO THE BUSINESS

A restaurant manager makes sure that customers can come into the restaurant and enjoy the quality food and service they have come to expect from McDonald’s. This takes in everything from the welfare of staff through to the performance of the restaurant itself.

Just some of the manager’s areas of responsibility are recruitment, health and safety issues, management, training and motivation of the restaurant team, and local marketing and community. Then there’s the finance aspect – budgeting, profit and loss targets and stock control – and making sure their core values of Quality, Service, Cleanliness & Value (QSC&V) are followed day in, day out. Not forgetting, of course, ensuring that the premises and the equipment are in perfect working order raising initiatives.

It’s clearly not a career for the faint-hearted – it’s hard work and takes real commitment. But if you like plenty of responsibility, you’ll find that McDonald’s is your kind of company.

In return for the commitment you bring, McDonald’s will put you through a thorough training programme, renowned throughout the world as the best in the business. To join McDonald’s as a Trainee Business Manager you’ll need to be over 21 years of age with excellent people skills and plenty of drive and ambition.

What are the Management functions at McDonald’s include:

Forecasting

Forecasting is the process of predicting what will happen in the future i.e. predict the amount of staff needed for the following day, week etc, the amount of stock needed over certain period i.e. Christmas. It is vital to use the success of McDonald’s that it has an accurate picture of future events in order to make the right decisions when responding to change. A Sales forecast, for example, would use past sales data to identify patterns and trends. On the basis of these, managers will use their knowledge of the market to identify future trends.

Communicating

Being a good communicator is probably the most important ability needed by a modern manager. Good Communications involves understanding and being understood by many groups. A manager will need to negotiate with subordinates, superiors, colleagues, trade unions, government official and outside agencies.

Planning

This is the means by which a forecast is acted upon. A plan is a detailed scheme, method or procedure for achieving an organization’s goals. McDonald’s plan carefully to ensure that they have the right number of employees for their needs.

Motivating

This is the action of getting people to do something because they want to rather than because they are forced to. It may seem obvious that staff should be motivated: however, from the point of human resources management this is only true if motivation leads to improvements in the work – such as better quality products or more efficient production. In general it has become accepted that, although a workforce that is not motivated will work, the quality and efficiency of work improves with motivation. It is therefore the role of human resources management to understand what motivates.

Innovation

This practical refinement and development of an original invention into a usable technique or product, is called innovation. It can be lengthy and expensive process but is nonetheless an important means of improving an organisation’s market performance, for example for McDonald’s reducing the costs or improving quality. Innovation is also a key contributor to a nation’s economic growth.

Developing

The manager’s role may involve developing people either by direct ‘on-the-job’ training or ‘off-the-job’ training at college or elsewhere. Many organisations require their managers to be involved with succession planning, that is, managers should positively train people so that they are eventually able to take over the managers jobs. Beside these training functions, managers also have a role to play in developing personality.

Delegating

This is the process of giving authority to lower level manager’s to make specific decisions. It is necessary because each manager cannot do all tasks that need o be done. The senior manager needs to ensure that the subordinate can do the work and that the work and that the work gets done. Senior managers remain responsible for all delegated work; they ‘carry the can’.

Management Skills in Mc Donald’s

Management in Mc Donald’s concentrates on building management skills. There are three basic management skills in Mc Donald’s: technical, human and conceptual. A technical skill is the ability to use tools, techniques, and specialized knowledge to carry out a method, process, or procedure. Much of the technology that Mc Donald’s know and can use so well comes under this management skill. Human skills are used to build positive interpersonal relationships, solve human relations problems, build acceptance of one’s co-workers, and relate to them in a way that their behaviour is consistent with the needs of the organization. Conceptual skills involve the ability to see the organization as a whole and to solve problems in a way that benefits the entire organization Analytical; creative and intuitive talents make up the manager’s conceptual skills.

Introductory Management in Mc Donald’s programs (Managing for Success) pay little attention to technical skills. Most managers in Mc Donald’s attendance have developed these skills far beyond their human and conceptual skills. In some advanced Management Mc Donald’s programs, e.g., financial management, the emphasis is on integration of technical, human and conceptual skills rather than on a more traditional technical approach.

The relative importance of conceptual, human and technical skills changes as a person progresses from lower, to middle, to top management in Mc Donald’s Although all three management skills are important at all three levels of management in Mc Donald’s , conceptual skills become relatively more important at the top level of management. The consistently high level of importance of human skills helps Mc Donald’s to understand why people problems are so often cited as a core cause of business failure.

The finance department is responsible for all flows of money into and out of the company. In this department they keep financial records as well as information for the managers in the company. Finance have many tasks to accomplish, they consist of,

• Monetary planning; McDonalds has to make a monetary forecast for the up and coming year to ensure that they can meet all their obligations and continue in business.
• Adverting management; is very important at McDonalds as raising the finance is very necessary. This enable staff to identify any short falls in cash flow, by identifying the short falls this department can advise other department on how much finance they would have to raise.
• Financial control; the main aim in this department is to control the cash flow and cost. The staffs monitors the cash flow and cost levels by checking actual flows against planned flows. In this department the budge provides a forecast for the business, with the business revenue and the expense all of these aspects will help plan and monitor the cash flow at McDonalds.

This department helps McDonalds by producing financial forecasts to help show future problems that McDonalds will have in the future to stop McDonalds losing money. This will help McDonalds be more aware of their problems as well as show them were their mistake were and when they should expect problems.

Finance basically controls the cash flow as well as the records, monitoring and preparing plan as well as reports.

The finance function in MC Donald’s also deals with functions such as:

• The money going out the company to their suppliers, to the staff for their wages and salaries and to keep the business running such as their Outflows.
• The money coming into the business from their customers (Inflow).
• Keep all the important documents for a limited amount of time.
• To have records on the performances of their staff.
• Manage levels of debt in the business.
• Advise senior members of staff suggestions on how to help or improve the business.
• To check on whether all other functions are sticking to their budgets.
• Prepare accounts as required by the law.
• Obtain additional finance when required.

The finance department helps McDonalds to achieve it objectives as they analyze the money coming in and out the business by looking at the cash flow forecast. If they know that the business is making a huge sum of income they can plan to invest in expanding McDonalds. The finance department in Mcdonalds helps as it tell the company if they are going to be in a loss or their profit rates will be acceptible for the companies Production management; This department is responsible for planning and monitoring the out put of the Company. This department purchases materials and equipment for the production process to take place however this must be brought at the right price. This department also decides on the transport, delivery and storage.

With in the production process there is an aspect that takes place, which is called added value. This is the product with added value, by this I mean they may customise it to a customers liking this is why value is added which mean a higher price for example “Big Mac” another burger, more salad, added cheese all of these aspect adds value to the product.

This helps McDonalds be more efficient with their production line. Fewer mistake are made with less problems. The function of the production department is to make goods for the right quality, in the right quantity and at the least cost. To do this McDonalds requires careful planning, monitoring and control.

The staffs at McDonalds in this section need to know a number of things. They are always thinking about some set objectives to meet their consumer demand. They are:

• How much should be produced and by when
• The best method of production to use
• What raw materials or components are needed
• How much land or factory space is needed
• What machinery and other equipment is needed
• How many workers are required and what skills they need
• The level of automation in production
• How the product will be packaged and packed for shipment.

The Production function helps McDonalds to achieve it objectives as one of McDonald’s objectives are to meet their customer needs and wants. Production helps as they are producing the goods and services. It also helps McDonalds to meet their objectives by providing the product to the customer at the right time at the right time . The production human resources are well trained so they use their time well which means that they would get the work done on time and this will make McDonalds to get their product ready for them on time to sell it to their consumers.

Marketing management; McDonalds marketing is carefully looked over every 3 months. McDonalds tries to inform the customers that there is a new product on sale, on the other hand they also try and pursued the customer to buy it by using added value e.g. happy meal {get a free toy} this is a perfect example of added value ‘this attracts kids so they buy it.

At McDonalds customer service is another department as they aim to satisfy all their customers as well as they can so they will get repeat business. At McDonalds advertising is a big department as they have a very high budget. McDonalds spends a great amount of money for adverts on TV however it works; this is a fact as every 3 days a new McDonalds restaurant is opened.

Marketing knows what the customers needs and how to improve on it. McDonalds have to keep researching the market for their business to continue or improve. Marketing is considered to be a lot more then just a separate function it means that everybody in that department is concentrating on what the customer needs. McDonalds knows what customers want because the do market research which includes customers doing questionnaires. A true marketing-orientated company always tries to be one step ahead of the customers and its competitors by researching what customers want then fulfilling them. The function of organization members who carry out marketing is to identify what customers will be willing to buy and then to encourage them to buy the product at a price that will earn the organization a profit.

There are four main functions of a marketing department in a business, they are:

• Market research,
• Advertising,
• Promotions
•  Public relations.

The Marketing function helps McDonald’s to achieve it objectives as they find out from market research what the customer wants and needs and how McDonald’s will make a profit. Marketing also helps McDonald’s meets its objectives as this function attracts the customers as they deal with advertising etc. It is important to McDonald’s because they would need to advertise at the right place to get more customers and meet all the customer satisfaction. And also McDonald’s do its best to make their product, price, place and promotion the best they could be. This helps the McDonald’s to make more profits and will have much higher sales.

Administration function

This function can be referred to as help, as this function helps support all the other departments in McDonalds. As McDonalds grow the administration department and systems will grow as well, the bigger the firm become the bigger the support must be. All administrative functions follow a basic route.

1.  Input- internal or external information.
2.  Process- the way the information is handled, modified or used.
3.  Output- what response is produced to the original input.

Example:

• A delivery received {input}
• The delivery is being seen and they would like to send one back {process}
• The delivery is forwarded {output}

The purpose of the administrations function is to make sure the organisation runs as efficiently as possible by performing a wide range of support activities correctly. An administration helps to run the business and plays a big role in keeping the business together. A type of administrative system is used in all departments. The staffs at McDonalds in the administrative department are concerned about information handling- the creation, storage, retrieval and transmission of documents, receipts, safe storage and monitoring all of the documents received by McDonald’s.

1. Making arrangements- from booking parking spaces for visitors to organising a foreign trip for a senior manager, from preparing a small meeting to organise a large conference.
2. Communications- sending and receiving messages, email, fax, dealing with other customers, colleagues and other visitors.
3. Obtaining resources- providing stationary stock and other basic office items.

At McDonalds there are 3 main activities of the administrations department are:

• Clerical work, which includes mail handling, record keeping, document production, organising meetings, dealing with enquiries etc.
• Cleaning and maintenance.
• Security.

If the administrative systems aren’t good in the business this means that there may possibly orders getting lost, or important documents getting lost, or important invoices getting misplaced, or important dates getting lost etc. this all effects McDonalds in bad ways.

The control to the company comes from the top of the hierarchical structure, which would be the chairman. But he is not likely to make all the decisions himself, that’s where the board of directors come in. They would probably try and agree on the mater in hand; if this proved to be unsuccessful they are more likely to vote between them, and whatever the chairman votes would be the final decision. This management style is used so that every member of staff, no matter what their position in their organisation structure, can have their views and opinions aired.

Management styles is all about making sure that all staff are achieving to their maximum capacity. It is important in any business because it helps determine how effective staffs are in achieving their targets. It can also help indicate how well motivated staff are and what the business can do to improve levels of motivation. The motivation theories I am going to discuss are Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, Macgregor’s Theory X & Y, Hertzberg’s 2 factor theories and Taylor’s Theory Scientific Management.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs tells us the different levels of need depending on what you have satisfied in the past. For example, the physiological and security needs are primary needs which everyone has to satisfy before they progress to the secondary needs (social. Esteem and self-actualisation). Physiological needs include shelter, food and warmth – the things most of us take for granted. Security needs include health and safety.

The secondary needs are what most of us address on a day-to-day basis. For example social needs include the need to feel loved, to be part of a group and so on. Many organisations provide this by offering sporting and social facilities for staff. McDonald’s runs trips and outings which staff can opt into. Esteem needs relate to status and the need to be respected. McDonald’s offer this through promotion and opportunities. Self-actualisation needs relate the need to fulfil your potential. This can be at work by being promoted to the highest possible level and outside work by pursuing higher education or play sport to a high level.

Taylor’s Theory of Scientific Management

Taylor’s believed that all workers are economic beings, which means that they are motivated by money. He said the more you pay someone the more they will produce. He conducted an experiment in America where he offered to pay a worker $5.00 a day to increase the amount of iron loaded onto a lorry. The experiment worked and the lorry was loaded much faster than before. Taylor concluded that people will look harder if they are paid more money and therefore money is a main motivator.

McDonald’s usually takes the ‘Theory Y’ of McGregor or the view that staff should participate in decision making. This is reflected in their system of performance appraisal: this is the name given to the formal and recorded interview held between staff and their managers once or twice a year.

This would make McDonald’s a democratic style; these managers take great care to involve all members of the team in discussion. It is a ‘We need to find out what everyone thinks’ approach. Although the style can work well with a small, highly motivated team, it can fail when the group cannot make a decision and needs real guidance and direction.

OUTLINE THE MANAGEMENT SKILLS & STATE HOW THEY ARE APPLIED TO SPECIFIC MANAGEMENT TASKS

There are many skills involved for every manager in every organisation, this could be as follows;

• Communicating – The ability to convey and receive information clearly both verbally and in writing.
• Decision Making – The ability to arrive at a resolution after consideration.
• Information Gathering – The ability to gather all necessary information from a wide variety of source.
• Evaluating – The ability to assess amount, value or significance after careful appraisal and study.
• Analysing – The ability to identify and examine the components of a situation or structure
• Motivating – The ability to generate a willingness to work, to achieve goals and satisfy needs.
• Negotiating – The ability to consult and bargain to achieve agreement or compromise.
• Listening – The ability to integrate the physical, emotional and intellectual messages received in search for understanding and meaning.
• Delegating – The ability to entrust a task/ responsibility to someone and provide the person with the necessary guidelines and information to carry out the task/ responsibility.
• Taking Responsibility – The ability to assume accountability for your own, and sometimes other people’s actions.
• Organising – The ability to structure, arrange and allocate work effectively.
• Planning – The ability to formulate or organise a method by which something is done.
• Prioritising – The ability to assess comparative levels of importance or urgency.

Decision Making

Managers are continuously making decisions about what to purchase and where, how much to sell, and so on. The type of decisions that managers are allowed to make often depends on which rung of the management ladder they are on. Decision-making is an integral part of management and occurs in every function and at all levels. Naturally the types of decision taken vary enormously but all decisions makers have to go through a similar process. All of them must decide by some means to choose the outcome or outcomes which are considered necessary or desirable to them and to do so after some form of appraisal of the situation.

James Mitchell, a leading authority on management decision making for McDonald’s, considers that decision making comprises four principal phases: finding occasions for making decisions, finding possible courses of action (i.e. alternatives), choosing among courses of action, and evaluating past choices.

Delegating

Delegation is an important concept, and very much related to the organisational structure. If we look at McDonald’s organisational structure, we seem the seemingly all power managing director at the top, but we must quickly realise that he or she can take all the decisions and do all the work: that is what the managers are for. However, subordinates cannot do what is required of them without the necessary authority and power to act.

Delegation, then, is where one person, A, gives someone else, B, the power and authority to perform work or to give orders to others on behalf of A. B accepts the power and authority, but in return also accepts the need to justify his or her stewardship, to ‘be countable’ to A in due course. Delegation is usually downwards.

Taking Responsibility

Taking authority and responsibility must go hand in hand. A fair system demands that every manager or supervisors should be answerable for his or her actions. People given authority without accountability can become either ruthless dictator, acting on unchallenged whims, or lazy and uncaring in their work. Conversely, people give responsibilities without authority either do nothing, or assume authority they do not have. Both situations are obviously unsatisfactory. Just because a manager delegates a job to someone else, it does not mean the manager cases to be accountable for the carrying out of the job.

Motivation in the organisation

For our purpose motivation can be explained as the driving force or commitment people have for doing things. A motive is a need or desire within a person to achieve some goal or objective and understanding human motivations is a complex matter within is a complex matter with no precise answers. Although the causes of motivations are imperfectly understood, the results of having motivated people in an organisation are obvious and highly beneficial. As a consequence managers have to try to understand the conditions and influences that motivate people so that they can manage, organise activities and create an organisational atmosphere that encourages positive encourages positive motivational effects. Early management theory took a somewhat mechanist view of human motivation assuming that:

• individual goals were consistent with, or sublimated to, organisational goals.
• Individuals responded positively to authority, and
• That people were motivated solely by monetary reward.

Experience and behavioural research has shown that these early views are incomplete and simplistic and that people are much more complex than suggested by the early management theorists. Numerous theories have been advanced to explain motivation and how and why people are motivated.

Organising

An important part of organising, concerned with the organisation structure itself. Mc Donald’s recon that organising is the process and being responsible for the work or jobs done by individuals to achieve the organisation’s goals and objectives. People can be organised into teams or work groups to perform specific tasks.

ROLE OF ENTERPRISE AND INNOVATION IN MCDONALD’S

What is Innovation? Innovation is the ability to develop new ideas to products or services and bringing this idea to the marketplace or thinking of new ways of satisfying customers’ needs. McDonalds was a company which was the first to explore the fast food industry. They are the world’s biggest franchise and fast food outlets.

McDonald’s has been recognized for its many contributions in the following areas:

• Top 25 Companies for People with Disabilities
• Best Employer for Asians
• Top 50 Places for Hispanic Women to Work
• Fortune Magazine – Top Places for Minorities to Work
• Working Mother Magazine – Top 10 Diversity Champions
• Hispanic Magazine – Top 50 Corporate Women in America
• McDonald’s is committed to recognizing the talents and job performance of all employees and values the contributions that come from people with different backgrounds and perspectives.

McDonald was the first fast food outlet to offer free toys like Ronald to children. This was a huge hit which brought McDonalds enormous increase in profits. By the end of 1987 McDonalds had served 20 million people a day in nearly 10,000 restaurants in 47 countries.

The 1990’s would prove to be a booming year for McDonalds. McDonalds was announced as the Official Restaurant for the Atlanta Olympics. The first Ronald McDonald House was opened in Paris. TV, Inc. and McDonalds would produce a new line called Teeny Beanies that would turn out to be McDonalds hottest promotion ever! McDonalds has made some ground braking innovations like:

• Finding ways to cook food within seconds, in the early days McDonald’s could make a burger in less than 1 minute.
• Drive trough restaurants.

A DESCRIPTION OF THE INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CONSTRAINTS ON MANAGEMENT

Managers deal with a range of internal and external factors that influence how well the manager functions can be carried out in the business. Managers face a lot of internal constraints to be able to fulfil their management skills. The main internal constraints are conflict interest, limited management skills, and financial constraints e.t.c.

Internal Constraints

Managers could have conflicts of interest or role conflict, this could occur through the lack of communication or clarification of the organisations objectives and their own role. Conflicts of interest could see the organisations mangers concentrating on their own personal skills development, instead of aiming for the company’s goals. When managers are looking at internal constraints, first they look at the financial constraints.

On the legal constraints, they check out what laws is affecting the business to see if they need to make any changes in the business to move further and make plans for the company. Both organisations have to look at the health and safety standards because it is dealing with food. When it comes to the constraints on conflict in the business, because there are different departments and different level of managers, there is likely effect on conflict between the managers agreeing to the same opinions or ideas.

Different managers will want to do their own things and that will results to conflict which can lead to disagreement and that might lead to conflict between the management. Role conflict can occur when a particular person holds a position of authority within the organisation, but the manner in which they behave may not be suited to the role that they have in the organisation. Role incompatibility would be the conflict issue.

Communication is another constraint on management. This happens if there is not enough means of communication going on between the management. There will be constraints if information is not passed correctly between members of the management and to their employees. Lack of communication or limitation of it could be the ‘breakdown’ of communication within the management.

Barriers would lead to the organisation being less productive because they would know very little or nothing about what the organisation wants to achieve. Financial limitations could have a knock-on effect on people and production constraints. Financial limitations could mean that the business has cash-flow problems that would effect management decisions and objectives making them restricted. Cash flow issues could see the demand for labour not being filled because of limited amounts of money not being able to cover the wages of extra staff.

This could put pressure on the staff that is already working for the organisation, because if there is not enough staff to do the work, extra work will be put on the rest of the workforce on top of their own duties. This will definitely put more pressure on staff and could lead to a high employee turnover or high absentee rate due to the amount of pressure put on them.

Production constraints are another factor that could stem from financial constraints. The production or innovation or products could be held back by the lack of cash flow, leaving the organisation behind in their existing market because everything changes and if the organisation hasn’t got the finances to back changes that need to be made, the company will get left behind.

McDonalds is a big business and this is why managers make sure they deal with the internal constraints carefully. Employee constraints are always an issue in management. Managers check to see if they have the right number of staffs to cover the departments when they are require to and if they don’t that will be a constraints on the managers because they could loose money if there are no staffs to serve the customer.

Having limited management can lead to internal constraints because if they don’t have the skills to be a proper manager, they will not be able to function properly to conduct good services to their employees, customers and to the business.

External Constraints

External constraints on management are employment law, economic changes, pressure group, competitors, technological changes e.t.c. Management are always looking out for the external constraint that affect the business to give them the chance to correct them. Constraints on competitors every management worries.

They are always competitors around every successful business and this is a constraint to managers because to them it feels like they always have to work to their best to be on top of their competitors in terms of products and services. Employment law, If there are changes in employment, it could be a constraint on management because that means they will have to follow that rule of the law to meet the legal rights of employees.

Certain legislation like the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 and much more could restrict the way managers will run/organise their business. Financial Institutions e.g. banks could limit organisations from expanding by either building other stores or diversifying their products, this could happen if they needed some financial backing (loan) from the bank, but couldn’t get the go ahead.

Competition is fierce in the retail trade so large companies like Selfridges and Boots have to have a competitive edge, which makes their service distinguished from all the rest. Competition is not necessarily a negative factor, it can help businesses continually update/improve their products, service and customer convenience. This would mean that they would concentrate on what the customer wants and needs, providing a better service all-round.

The state of the economy would generally affect the amount of income an organisation like Selfridges or Boots would generate in a certain period.

Depending on whether the economy is either in a slump or boom period will determine whether or not the business will have a surplus or just enough to see them through.

Companies like Selfridges, Oxford St rely on certain amount of revenue from tourists. If the pound is high against certain currency, the amount of money they will get to the pound will be low, depending on how strong the pound is. Tourists will have less to spend on luxury goods in places like Selfridges, so sales would probably be affected. All these factors will have an effect on the organisation and future decisions made by managers.

Economy; McDonald’s has to know if the country where it is operating is in boom or recession. If the country is in boom McDonald’s will know that they can make some money and will introduce new products. But if the company is recession McDonald’s would need to lower the prices.

Forecasting is the process of predicting what will happen in the future and tries to secure sae future for the business. Forecasting also helps McDonald’s to achieve some of its objectives. The forecasting is very important for McDonalds as the customers are becoming aware that the food which McDonald’s sells is not healthy for them. They need to predict what customers want when they come McDonald’s to eat in the future. They need to know which products should be cancelled as they would become unprofitable. Whenever search data is collected it will be necessary for management team to use its knowledge and expertise to analyse it.

Managers inside McDonald’s need to forecast sales and by doing this they would be looking into the future and this would help company to have better results and increase sales which would make higher profits which helps to achieve their objectives.

Communicating

Being a good communicator is probably the most important ability needed by a modern manager. If McDonald’s managers know how to communicate with their superiors and the subordinates then this will contribute greatly toward the objectives. If manger understands understand each other then it will be clear to him what he needs to do. This will also help to create website, website is a way of communicating with your customers over the web where they can find all information’s about McDonald’s and maybe order their goods which they acquire. Managers inside McDonald’s have to communicate with hundreds of their outlets and many other head offices situated in other countries and because of this it’s very important that managers are good communicators. A manager will need to negotiate with subordinates, superiors, colleagues, trade unions, government officials and outside agencies.

Planning

McDonald’s setting objectives and also their strategies, policies, programmes and procedures for achieving them. Is concerned with the future impact of decisions made within the company today.

Through planning objectives and targets can be set. This could be company goals and/or objectives, departmental or individual. The characteristics of management vary depending on the level of management, but no matter what the level management is conducted, strategic planning is crucial.

• Strategic planning is used for a particular type of planning.
• Strategies are plans that are used to help the organisation meet their major objectives and goals.

Motivation

Every company needs motivation. Motivation is the force which leads people to behave in a certain way. Theories of motivation have been used to by managers and employers in an attempt to produce a more efficient workforce.

The question ‘What Motivates Staff?’ is a crucial one for management to consider. Over the years a number of management theories have been put forward in an attempt to explain the nature of motivation and suggests ways in which it may be improved. If the manager motivates their staff then they could achieve their objectives a lot quicker.

Innovation

This is where new ideas come into the business (i.e. drive through), new routine, new methods of work and new products (i.e. Mc Flurry) Managers innovate whenever they change any of these. In recent years the human resources department managers have introduced quality circles, performance- related pay and empowerment (giving employees more responsibility). Quality circles is a gathering with 4-10 people (staff) getting together having a meeting during working hours.

Developing

The manager’s role may involve developing people either by direct ‘on-the-job’ training or ‘off-the-job’ training at college or elsewhere. Many organisations require their managers to be involved with succession planning, that is, managers should positively train people so that they are eventually able to take over the managers jobs. Beside these training functions, managers also have a role to play in developing personality.

Delegating

This is the process of giving authority to lower level manager’s to make specific decisions. It is necessary because each manager cannot do all tasks that need o be done. The senior manager needs to ensure that the subordinate can do the work and that the work and that the work gets done. Senior managers remain responsible for all delegated work; they ‘carry the can’.

Controlling

This function contributes greatly towards the achieving business objectives as it can save McDonald’s money, managers have to control their budget limit. McDonald’s has to control its production department as in the past few decades they have been accused of using low quality cheap meat and having low hygiene inside production department. They are inspecting and regulating every aspect of their production department. Controlling would help managers inside McDonald production to achieve higher quality standards and this would increase quality of McDonald’s products which would be extremely good for McDonald’s.