Recruitment and Selection Strategy Free Sample for Students

Questions: 1.How Would you Describe McDonalds Business Strategy? What are the Foundations of its Competitive Advantage ?2.How has McDonalds aligned its Business, Human Resource, and Staffing Strategies?3.What are some possible talent-related threats that could eat away at McDonalds Competitive Advantage? Would higher turnover or a tight Labor Market in which it is Difficult to find talented People be a Problem? What would you Recommend the Company should do to Maintain its Competitive Advantage over the next Five Years. Answers: 1.McDonalds business strategy: McDonalds business model is largely based on franchisees, suppliers and the employees working for the organization. The Fast Food Giant has always aligned its business strategy with the organizational people. McDonalds value their people, both consumers and the employees and believes in serving the best quality products to consumers. The Organization has always focused on satisfying the consumers (Joyce et al. 2015). The business strategy is inclined to work effectively and provide the best quality service to its consumers. People of McDonalds are focused towards achieving the same organizational goal. Among the three corporate strategies, treating the consumers rightly has been the most important corporate strategy undertaken by McDonalds. It has also been evident that the five people principles reflected by the human resource strategy of McDonalds include, respect and recognition, values and leadership behavior, competitive pay and benefits to the employees and staffs, continuous learning culture that automatically help in personal growth and development (Dundon and Wilkinson 2014). This particular business strategy can be regarded as the corporate strategy that helps the organization to gain competitive advantage in the market of operation. The foundations of McDonalds competitive advantage: There is no doubt that the foundation of McDonalds competitive advantage depends largely depends on how the organization value its consumers and employees. Other competitive advantage strategies used by McDonalds are cost leadership and business expansion strategies in the international market. Product and service standardization always lies in the cornerstone of the business strategy of McDonalds (Sardar and Talat 2015). The restaurant also offers a large variety of food comprising of hamburgers, cheeseburgers, Mac burgers and various other options ranging from chicken wraps, Chicken Nuggets and a large variety of desserts as well including sundaes, soft serve cones and other beverages. Other factors that add to the competitive advantage of the organization are: Cheap price of the food products. The Organization utilizes the economies of scale and the human resource of the organization to achieve the cost advantage (Miller 2016). McDonalds is true to its fast food format and is well known for its uncompromising fast delivery of food product to the consumers. The quality and taste of food is universally accepted (Leekha and Sharma 2014). The consistency in the taste of the product has eventually helped in creating customer loyalty towards the organization. 2.McDonalds alignment of its business strategies with human resource and staffing strategies Human resource: McDonalds believes that organizational effectiveness depends on having the right people assigned with the right job and responsibility. The service of the restaurant depends on serving people at the high pace. The Companys success is largely depended on the way the staffs treat the consumers (Leekha and Sharma 2014). Therefore, depending on the changing needs of business, the staffing approach should also change. McDonalds follows a learning culture as the organizational policy. A continuous trend of training and development is carried on in the organization to prepare the employees to meet with the dynamic demand of customers. McDonalds has identified people as one of the three corporate strategies, as the major component of the growth strategy. It has also been found that McDonalds has claimed to be the best employer in the community where it serves. The organization values the employees and considers their contribution is vital for the continuous growth of the organization even in the international market (Nadolny and Ryan 2015). McDonalds adopt the Five people principles as a part of their Human Resource Strategy. The human resource strategies include respect and recognition of the staff, values and leadership behavior, competitive pay and benefits and to be sure that the employees have enough resources to satisfy the needs of the customers (Kasperkevic 2016). Staffing strategy: If the case of recruitment and staffing is considered, it has been found that most of the employees at McDonalds are teenagers or they are in their early 20s. The Organization takes serious pride in hiring and employing the right people to serve the consumers right. In order to retain the employees, the business model emphasizes on the financial and the operational functions (Leekha and Sharma 2014). To ensure that the recruited staffs are efficient enough to serve the customers at its outlets, they undertake the strategy of hiring the local people. In addition to this, McDonalds also hire people from the job career fairs and other local hiring centers. The skills and behavior of the recruited employees are identified and the most eligible candidates are hired. The employees are trained to provide the quality service to the consumers. It has to be understood that the staffs of McDonalds are not only responsible for serving the customers but there are staffs for other purposes like cleaning and quick service. All these require to ensure the right recruitment and staffing strategy of the employees and the same is ensured from the organizations end as well (Nadolny and Ryan 2015). 3.Talent related threats for McDonalds The Organization takes great pride in its people and always try to focus on improving the condition of the people that they could serve the consumers well, but the in the recent labor market, the difficulty for the organization to attract the right talented group of people is inevitable. Threats related to minimum labor wage: It has been found that McDonalds has been facing challenges as the minimum wage for the employees has been found to increase. The alliance of the workers and labors has become a significant challenge for the management to carry out their organizational operational activities. Threats related to retention of employees: In addition to this, even with continuous approach to retain employees by the means of monetary incentives and bonuses, employee turnover is common (Neate 2016). Threats related to manned employees: The challenges have been recognized by the management and it has also been found that the managers have planned to include the service of robots instead of human in serving consumers in the outlet. However, with this approach the relevance of serving people will be lost (Kasperkevic 2016). The organizational strategy and culture is largely depended on treating the people of the organization and the consumers right but the organization might face challenges in meeting the demand of the people. Recommendations to maintain competitive advantage over next five years The organizational strategies are effective enough to meet the competitive challenges in the market. For instance, the organization has always focused on the pricing strategy and has made the price of its product, competitive enough to compete with its competitors like Burger King, KFC, Chipotle, Taco Bell and others. A number of recommendations can be made to meet the competitive advantage in the coming years: Proper dining outlets: The restaurant can come up with a number of outlets where the consumers can have proper dining options instead of self serving. This shall attract families and people in groups who opt for dining together (Kasperkevic 2016). The present outlet structure is more focused towards serving the burger hungry people. Availability of various options of food: The fast food giant might also come up with serving varieties of food and beverage options rather than limiting its menu to burger and other fast food items. Focusing on the cost strategy: The organization is well known for its cost strategy and this has to be the prime focus of the management to maintain the competition in the market. It is expected that if McDonalds focuses on these strategies, the organization can easily overcome the challenges that might occur in future. References: Dundon, T. and Wilkinson, A.J., 2014.Case Studies in Global Management: Strategy, Innovation and People Management. Tilde Publishing and Distribution. Joyce, M.L., Krentler, K.A. and Lambert, D.R., 2015. Recruitment Without Responsibility: The Problem of Sojourner Adaptation. InProceedings of the 1994 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference(pp. 245-249). Springer International Publishing. Kasperkevic, J., 2016 Ex-McDonald's CEO suggests replacing employees with robots amid protests Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/25/former-mcdonalds-ceo-threatens-replace-employees-robots [Accessed on: 2-4-2017] Leekha Chhabra, N. and Sharma, S., 2014. Employer branding: strategy for improving employer attractiveness.International Journal of Organizational Analysis,22(1), pp.48-60. Miller, C.J., 2016. Would Opening a Satellite Office in or near a Major Metropolitan City Be Beneficial in the Successful Recruitment and Retention of High Potential Young Employees?. Nadolny, A. and Ryan, S., 2015. McUniversities revisited: a comparison of university and McDonald's casual employee experiences in Australia.Studies in Higher Education,40(1), pp.142-157. Neate, R., 2016 McDonald's in crisis: can it fight off the Five Guys threat? Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/02/steve-easterbrook-mcdonalds-fast-food-big-league-burgers-shake-shack [Accessed on: 2-4-2017] Sardar, R. and Talat, M.A., 2015.What managers believe as important while recruitment in fast food industry within Norway: A case study of Burger King and McDonalds(Master's thesis, University of Stavanger, Norway).