Essay on Hardee's: Employee Development Challenges and Performance Struggles

Introduction

Hardee's Food System is a fast food restaurant founded in 1960 and has establishments in the Midwestern and Southern United States (Hardee's). Currently, it is operated by CKE Restaurants Holdings. Though the company is one of the most ousting food restaurants in the country, it has experienced issues with employee development (Droege et al.). This has had the consequence of demotivating them as well as workplace performance. The ever-increasing workload and the repetitive nature of the tasks with no motivation from the management have had an overall impact on the employee's output as well as the performance.

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The company employees a few strategies beneficial to them such as training employees on their tasks and roles. The company is stuck with the strategy which has left employees concerned that the company does not care about their development. This is mostly attributed to the profit-oriented nature of the company. It can, therefore, be seen that employees of Hardee's are in career stagnation besides being motivated. The company ought to come up with effective strategies to change the current situation.

The Corporate culture of Hardee's Restaurant

Corporate culture is the amalgamation of mission, vision, and values as well as the day to day aspects of communication, operational and interactional goals that create organization's atmosphere that pervades the way people work. Corporate culture is core to a company's ability to compete and innovate. Companies that have developed strong corporate cultures have had the employees' relationships strengthened. Hardee's corporate culture has failed to cultivate employee development and growth. The employees, in this case, have careers limited to their roles instead and only aim at fulfilling the sales target set by the company. Put differently, employee role is limited to the task they were trained to perform. For example, a cook is only limited to cooking and a waiter to only serving the customers. This kind of culture only serves to demotivate employees.

Areas of Weakness

The working environment at the restaurant is repetitive mature which creates boredom which ultimately demotivates employees. Moreover, several clients complaining of being emotionally harassed by employees. That shows the working environment has built up negative emotions in employees which they release on clients. The motivating strategy by the company is almost nonexistent with the focus only directed at profit making.

Solution

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence is the ability to control your emotions as well as the emotions of others, to differentiate between and label various emotions appropriately and use emotional information to guide your thinking and behavior (Caruso, 4). EI is mainly used in the interaction between co-workers. EI has also been cited as a critical factor that affects the different ways in which individuals perform at the workplace. EI underlies the dynamics of many features of modern organizations, and the purpose of EI should be taken into account while devising organizational processes, policies, and procedures.

One of the buildings of EI that I would use to impact employee performance and job satisfaction is the self-motivation block (Caruso, 5). Motivation develops through intrinsic and extrinsic means. The inherent means refer to the inner dialogues and enforcement within a person. Alongside confidence about one's strong points and ability to overcome are good indicators of self-motivation. Self-motivation from extrinsic agents arise from factors such as peer group and role model. Extrinsic means may not be depended upon since they are subject to availability and are prone to bias. Self-motivation will be helpful to management effort in motivating employees. This assertion arises from the fact that true professional derive the essence of motivation from within. Self-motivating factors include a healthy attitude, diligence, measuring timely performance, perfectionism, indomitable faith, self-dependence, and high self-esteem. Self-motivation will also impact management ability in job satisfaction in that employees remain optimistic, discover their interest, and have a sense of self-acknowledgment.

EI is crucial in that it helps in making decisions that are not swayed by one's current emotions. Emotions whether related to work or not have the same effect of poor judgment and decision making. EI requires that before making decisions, we be aware of our emotional state as well as the emotion of the other persons. EI effectively assists in decision making in that through self-awareness we can better understand the triggers and be in a position to manage automatic responses (Caruso, 12). Despite some people reacting quickly based on emotions, some take time and are fearful of initiating a response. EI intervenes by keeping the emotion at bay. You can then move from a state of indecision to a place where you are ready to move forward with confidence. Another important factor solved by EI is the tendency to involve emotions that are not related to the decision. Most employees carry with them emotion from home, relationship and other environments outside the workplace which can be detrimental in their decision making. EI solves this situation by discriminately removing the bad ideas from the too many non-constructive emotional influences involved. EI also aids in employee's response to opportunities. For example, when an employee is presented with a position which though does not pay much, offers him or her the necessary skills and the chance to travel and meet like professional and experts in the field. The employee should be in a position to see the immediate short term disadvantage which is a lower salary but the opportunity to network that the position offers him or her.

Team Work

The workplace environment is mostly characterized by projects and activities being carried out in teams. The core attributes of a capable team vary from communication to goals. An effective team is characterized by good communication. Group members communicate openly, share their thoughts, ideas, and opinions. Communication helps in that it helps keep track of the progress or tasks. Effective teams are also goal oriented. The teams set goals based on the expected outcomes rather than on the workload. Teams should also come up with a plan of how they are going to achieve these goals. Teams that are termed as being effective rarely fight over member's contribution. Each member contributes a fair share. Leadership is core to a team's performance. Teams are tasked with coordinating members and following up on progress. A leader can be thought of as the "glue" that binds the team together. Based on these attributes, I will come up with strategies that I will implement to develop team dynamics that I will benefit the organization. My approach will involve coming up with a plan and well-outlined goals. Moreover, I will encourage members to be transparent and open in their communication. Furthermore, I will cultivate a collaboration spirit. The team will focus on goals and results. Though members contributing an equal share characterizes effective teams this move is ill-advised. Team members are diverse, and they are talented differently (Angouri, 141). This means that some are capable of handling workloads faster while others who might have a problem interpreting information will be slower. My strategy will involve able members taking up an extra workload. This is informed by the fact that some team members might take up the work and perform it poorly for the sake of finishing. As a team leader, I will strive to keep the team organized and well-coordinated.

Reward Systems

Reward system exists to motivate employees to work towards achieving strategic goals which are set by entities (Dosenovic, 107). According to Dosenovic reward systems seek to serve three distinct but related purposes which include attracting, motivating and retaining employees (108). In designing an effective rewards system, I will first begin by finding out what motivates the employees. This will involve uprightly asking them rather than using theoretical or hypothesized motivators (Mehmood, 66). A survey will be conducted to ascertain what motivates them and what rewards they feel will appropriately recognize their efforts depending on position or job objectives. The design for the reward system will require employees to submit their performance expectations which will be reviewed annually. The system will identify and take into account instances where employees exceeded employee performance expectations. Employees will also describe employees who impacted them positively in the course of their work. This will be done through a survey. I will also come up with the type 0f rewards to offer the employees. The award can include a certificate of achievement, bonus, promotion or an annual office party. Rewards system will also encompass enrichment program such as yoga instruction or monthly art to take them out of their work pattern.

Works Cited

Angouri, Jo. "Group identity, teamwork, and meeting talk." Culture, Discourse, and the Workplace, 2018, pp. 138-145.

Caruso, David R., et al. "Emotional Intelligence and Leadership." Conceptions of Leadership, 2018.

Dosenovic, Dragana. "Employee Reward Systems in Organizations." ECONOMICS, vol. 4, no. 1, 2016, pp. 107-118.

Droege, S., et al. "Hardee's Restaurants: Stuck in The Middle or Creating Competitive Advantage?" ProQuest, 2004, search.proquest.com/openview/0ac9391931a9bf149b34b968f30e3eea/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=38869.

Hardee's. "Find a Hardee's." Hardee's, 2019, www.hardees.com/locations.

Mehmood, Sufyan. "Managing Performance through Reward System." IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science, vol. 15, no. 2, 2013, pp. 64-67.