The McJob concept was first coined as early as 1986, and was popularized in 1991 by Douglas Coupland’s in cult novel Generation X which described first as “a low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low benefit, no-future job in the service sector” this term comes from the fast-food giant restaurant McDonald’s, It became a problem facing the HRM especially the hard HRM which mostly seek for the organizational goals not employees’ needs, it’s the job that requires few skills, simple techniques, much working with low pay, and it offers very little chance of intracompany advancement. It applies to any low-status job where little training is required and workers’ activities are tightly regulated by managers. Most perceived McJobs are in the service industry, particularly fast food, copy shops, and retail sales, where the HRM is focusing mainly on the company’s objectives. McJobs are associated with low-trust and cost-cutting work contexts, which results low wages for the heavy effort with little responsibility, therefore many fast-food workers (McDonald’s) who are considered one of the main service sectors reported negative res and conditions while they work according to being them weak roles players, little influence on the company they work in, little attention is presented to them, that led to defaults or lack in their job satisfaction.
What does empower people to work effectively, efficiently, with their organizations, other words what gives us the ability and spirit to work, As HRM main aspects as motivation is essentially taken in our consideration, motivation affect mainly on productivities and manufacturing in all sectors, Intrinsic and Extrinsic are the two forms of motivation, the intrinsic (self) motivation is one’s internal craving, wish, to be fulfilled, accomplished, being taken to achieve self-satisfaction, appreciation, related to psychological intangible rewards, it’s a kind of sense, the extrinsic motivation comes from outside the performer, environmental motivator, money, threat of punishment, crowd cheering, tangible rewards. Douglas McGregor, an American social psychologist (1906-1964), conducted two fundamentally different views of human nature, those who are motivated by themselves called Y workers (Theory Y), employees are working properly with their own desire, enjoy being in this career, carry confidently the responsibility, and those who are motivated by other people called X workers (Theory X), where the employees directed and controlled by managers or supervisors, motivated by money, coercion, and threats of punishment which lead employees to dislike work, avoiding responsibilities if it’s possible, close to McJob concept where the employees need to be pushed to accomplish the organizational goals, at work, (as McJob manager) should consider what mostly offend my employees, their salary, the way they are treated, their ambitions and future, promises, rewards, harmony in work effort and responsibilities, directions, qualified trainers, aims, duties specifications, this how a manager improve his employees, turn to Y workers manager.
Abraham Maslow an American psychologist (1908-1970), whose motivation model is built upon human needs, consists five level of needs lower and higher needs, predetermined in order of importance, the lower needs usually met before the higher, Physiological and Safety needs are the lower needs, Social, Esteem, and Self-actualisation are the higher needs, usually the lower needs being satisfied externally, and the higher needs being satisfied internally.
Maslow assumed that it is not necessary to completely satisfy one need before another need emerges, and once the need satisfied can’t be a motivator particularly in higher need otherwise the employees would turn their striving to anything else, probable mental health is a result of meeting these needs, in order to motivate employees (McJob) by Maslow’s motivation theory, take in our consideration what they in need of to be motivated, and at what levels this needs belong, or which level of their needs hierarchy that has lack, and so let the managers work on it and have it met whatever it was physiological like rest, safety like secure environment, social like relations at work, or even lack in advanced area as well as self-esteem like belief of important role player, it’s very rare to find a McJob at self-actualization because it’s the level of fullest the best the person can reach.
Job design is the process of how a career is defined and created by specifying particular tasks to certain individual or group, and how it’s organized and recognized to satisfy the employees’ needs with achieving organizational objectives, it’s the job title, major organizational processes are related to job design such as recruitment, annual performance appraisal, selection, motivation, dismissal, training and development. Any job should be described by Job design, as the McJob is descried in job design as it’s actually different, other words the McJob is known as low responsibility, low prestige, no future, has no experience, little payment, little ambition, this what people believe away from the real job description, which illustrates that there’s a salary being increased from time to time, respective career, certain tasks are specified, require skills, discipline, standardization and efficiency are required in order to minimize the effort and maximize the productivity, McJob manager should work on many approaches to have their employees well-directed such as increasing the outputs of the one worker, performance appraisals, separating up the tasks into small to be clear and specified sub-tasks, reducing the deliberate logical and understandable responsibilities, establishing authorities hierarchically, harmony environment goes around.
Job characteristics is defined as what obligations and requirements are associated with a specific job, other words it’s the tasks that give a job an identification or where this job belongs to, Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics model is one famous well-known job characteristics model which is built upon the relationship between employees’ psychological conditions and outcomes rate, Positive psychological states create positive work outcomes, it’s summarized in five core job characteristics; skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feed back from the job, from McJob concept employees believe that they are not skilled enough, weak or neglect profession’s title, belief of no impact on other people inside or outside the organization, few opportunities in being independent, little performance feedback by supervisors or manager, this all have to be taken into action by any McJob manager to avoid this problem and increase the outcomes of the firm.
Job satisfaction is one of the major HRM aspects, it’s a one’s emotion regarding to the work either positive or negative about a various aspects of a one job, there’s five certified factors affect on job satisfaction; individual, social, cultural, organizational and environmental, McJob has a lot of defaults related to job satisfaction like being the majority under 21 of age, interactions and relations at work are weak formally and informally, the values are little, usually X managers types, no flexibility at work, hard working conditions, little financial return if it’s compared with effort, so there’s absolutely no job satisfactions in McJob, which may lead to retirement, dismissal, threats of punishment, or hard time, so McJob lacks must be considered by management in order to remediate it by fulfilling the organizational success.
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· http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/may/24/anewmcdefinition
· http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/leisure/article1832122.ece
Fast-food restaurant chain McDonald’s is offering a new, more positive definition of the term ‘McJob’. Against this, the OED responds that its job is merely to record popular usage; in other words, it is not the job of a dictionary to alter the meanings of words to reflect how certain interested parties would like the world to appear.
McDonald’s is in danger of creating a wave of new additions to the dictionary to sit alongside the now infamous “McJob”; words such as McPedant, McKilljoy and McSense-of-humour-failure.
The term McJob has become shorthand for low inspirational jobs in every sector, but the fast food giant’s UK arm is fighting to distance its brand from the image of poorly paid burger flippers. Today McDonald’s will begin a campaign calling for the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Collins, the publisher, to change their definitions.
The OED, which has carried the word McJob on its online dictionary since March 2001, said: “We monitor changes in the language and reflect these in our definitions, according to the evidence we find.”
McJob concept is getting weaker day after day, the OED definition not any more used officially because of the fights that been taken by McDonalds restaurants, and also several studies have been conducted in order to face this critical significant issue which collapsed a lot of youths’ lives, McJob these days almost vanished.
Ref.
1. Website (www.spiritus-temporis.com/mcjob)
Accessed on 18 mar, at 11:42 am
2. Book (An introduction to human resources management in business, 2006, pp10-11-12-21-22-23-24-25-26-)
