Human Resource Management Practices at McDonald's: A Report

This report delves into the realm of Human Resource Management (HRM), providing a comprehensive overview of its meaning, objectives, and responsibilities within an organization. It distinguishes between hard and soft HRM practices, outlining their key features and impacts on employee management. The report then presents a case study on McDonald's, analyzing its HRM practices and classifying them as primarily hard HRM, while also acknowledging instances of soft HRM implementation. The analysis covers various aspects of McDonald's HRM, including recruitment, performance evaluation, work-life balance, and appraisal systems. Furthermore, the report discusses the advantages and disadvantages associated with the chosen HRM approach, providing recommendations for potential improvements, such as incorporating more soft HRM practices in areas like recruitment, selection, and training. The report concludes by emphasizing the situational nature of HRM practices and their influence on organizational effectiveness.

Running Head: Human Resource Management
Human Resource Management

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Contents
Meaning of Human Resource Management....................................................................................1
Objective of HRM.......................................................................................................................1
Responsibilities of HRM.............................................................................................................2
Hard and soft HRM practices..........................................................................................................3
Key feature of Hard HRM practices............................................................................................3
Key feature of Soft HRM practices.............................................................................................4
McDonald’s HRM practices............................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................8

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What does the term HRM mean to you? Give examples of “hard” and “soft” HRM Practices in
your organization or in an organization with which you are familiar.
Human resource is an employee who staffs a function within an organization. The HRM in the
company is important to manage the functions like hiring, motivating, and maintain the
workforce in the company. The practices maintained by the company include the hard and soft
HRM practices (Sparrow, Brewster, and Chung, 2016). The paper discusses the HRM practices
of the McDonald’s company which is the largest hamburger and the fast-food chain. The
company was established in the year 1940 and was operated by the Richard and Maurice
McDonald in California.
Meaning of Human Resource Management
Human resource management is the process of the management of human resource in the
company. In other words, the human resource management is a process of recruiting and
selecting the employee. According to me, this is the process that an organization undergoes to
manage people so that company will be able to achieve the goals and objectives (Armstrong, and
Taylor, 2014).
Objective of HRM
Each and every organization performs the business activity to achieve the profit. Similarly the
HRM of the company also works with the objective, the aim of the HRM management of the
company is to provide the knowledge, necessary tools, training, administrative services,
coaching, legal and management advice and the talent management in the company so that the
objective of the company will be fulfilled (Brewster, and Hegewisch, 2017).

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Many HR departments are liable for organization development that produces the culture of the
organization. The HR of the company knows that their responsibility is to ensure that the
organization inspires the employees and builds the team so that they will be able to work
collectively to achieve the objective of the company.
Responsibilities of HRM
The management of the Human resource in the company is one of the most crucial
responsibilities that are performed by the HRM of the organization. The first and the foremost
HRM responsibility include recruitment and selection of the right people for the business so that
company will be able to achieve the goals of the organization. The HR performs the activity of
the job analysis and attraction of the employees so that they will be able to find the best
candidate for the job vacancy (Marchington, Wilkinson, Donnelly, and Kynighou, 2016). Hiring
the people for the company is not a single responsibility of the company, the development of the
employees is important so that they can bring efficiency in their work.
The function of the training and organization development is also undertaken by the HRM
department. The HRM of the organization is responsible for the deciding the criteria for the
organization compensation system (Storey, 2014). The compensation consists of the financial
and the non-financial benefits. Compensation system of the company consists of the benefits,
paid leave, health insurance, personal or vacations leave and the satisfaction of the employees.
HR department is responsible for the health and safety regulations of the company. To
accomplish all the responsibility the HR of the company needs to form a relationship with
employees.

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Hard and soft HRM practices
The HRM of the company is divided into the soft and hard HRM practices. There is a difference
between both the practices some companies follow hard HRM practice while other follows soft
HRM practices (Veloso, Tzafrir, and Enosh, 2015). The hard approach to HRM focuses the
quantitative, calculative and business-strategic aspect of managing the talent in the organization.
In the hard approach, the company treats their human resource as like other resources. In the hard
practices, the focus of the HRM is on identifying workforce need to the business and accordingly
recruiting and managing the employees.
Key feature of Hard HRM practices
 In the hard HRM practices, the communication done from the top manager to the lower
management is minimal.
 According to the organization, the salary offered to the employees is enough to recruit the
employees and to retain them in the organization.
 There is very little empowerment or delegation in the organization, the appraisal system
only focuses on the judgment like good and bad considering the staff (Michael, 2017).
The soft model of the HRM traces its roots to the human relations, this HRM practice involves
treating employees as valuable assets. It is practice through which the organizations gain the
minds of the employees through involvement, communication and the other methods of
increasing the commitment and trust towards the organization. The each and every employee is
treated as an individual in the soft HRM practices (Bortolotti, Boscari, and Danese, 2015). The
focus of the HRM in the needs of the employees, their roles, rewards and motivation provided
for performing well in the organization.

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Key feature of Soft HRM practices
 The soft HRM practice adopted by the company focuses on the longer-term workforce
planning by the organization.
 The communication performed by the organization is strong and regular and a two-way
communication.
 The pay structure of the employee is competitive pay structure, they can be share options
or profit sharing along with the performance-related rewards is given to the employees.
 The employees in the organization are encouraged and empowered to search for
delegation and to take responsibility.
 The appraisal system of the company consider the employee's development as well as
training needs, basically, the main focus of the employees is on identifying and
addressing the needs of the employees and fulfilling those needs with the use of training
and development (Ibrahim, and Zulkafli, 2016).
The above discussion shows that there is a huge difference between the hard and soft HRM
practices; these HRM practices create an impact on the working of the managers of the company.
In hard HRM practices the organization makes use of the employees as a resource but on the
other hand in soft HRM practices, the employees get value for their work. There are many
multinational companies who are following the hard HRM practices and some are following soft
HRM practices. Out of these companies, McDonald’s is following the hard HRM practices.
McDonald’s HRM practices
The McDonald’s is performing the hard HRM practices because a company wants to evaluate the
value of workers or employees by calculating the total production of the organization comprising

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of the franchises (Moore, 2015). The HRM practices implemented by the company are discussed
below.
 Recruitment- Company performs the hard practice at the time of recruiting the
employees, McDonald’s hire the employees matching to the requirement of the job. The
hiring is done by the company with a specific salary that shows the company is cost-
effective. While hiring the HR of the company make sure that they pay fewer amounts to
the candidate. This is the reason the company hires to the employees having the lower
skills because the HRM of the company knows it very well that if they are going to hire
the employees have the experience and the skills they have to pay a huge amount but the
company is not willing to do so.
 Evaluation of the Performance- Evaluation of the employee’s performance is important
to analyze the efficiency of the employees towards the work. The focus of the company is
to evaluate the performance of the franchises so that company can check the profit earned
by the company (Kuutti, 2015).
 Work-life balance- The working life plays a vital role in the company, the working life
of the McDonald Company is hard because they don’t provide the flexibility in terms of
the working and the lifestyle. Over here, the work indicates to the career and ambition
and the life indicate health, leisure, family, and pleasure (Radha, 2015). The employees
need balance in the working life but working with McDonald employees will get the
limited balance.
 Appraisal- HRM of the company takes care of the practice of the appraisal in which they
reward the employees considering the performance of the employees (Qureshi, and

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Hassan, 2013). The hard practice of the McDonald does perform the activity on the
judgment (bad or good).
 Hiring, Moving and Firing- The hard HRM practice leads to the hiring moving and
firing the employees, hiring the right employees, movement of employees from one
department to the other department as this the cost-effective, company font have to pay
an extra amount to the employees of the company. The HR of the company can fire the
employees anytime if they find that the employee is not effective or not able to justify the
salary.
The company often perform the soft HRM practices which are discussed below: -
 Strategy in achieving organization goals- Company take the feedback from the
employees so that they can make the proper decision because employees are the one who
directly deals with the customers. This feedback is taken by the company so that they can
enhance the customer satisfaction (Warter, and Warter, 2017). On the other hand, the
employees feel that they are valued by the manager and they have value in the
organization because they are the one who deals with the customer on daily basis.
 Training- HRM make sure that they provide the training to the employees that guide the
employees how to perform the task in the right manner so that the employees will be able
to give the full efficiency and productive which generates the profit for the company.
The hard HRM practices followed by the company create the benefits for the McDonald’s
company but at the same time, it is creating the disadvantages for the company. These practices
provide the benefits of controlling the cost of the company, taking care of the performance
management of the company and strategy in achieving organizational goals of the company. The

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decision taken by the HR of the company is quick. The disadvantages faced by the McDonald’s
company are discussed below:-
 Demotivation among the employees, as the employees of the company, get to know that
they are not valuable in the company they get demotivated.
 The staff turnover of the employee will show a hike due to the less pay, lack of
motivation, lack of employee development and training, lack of compensation benefits,
no systematic appraisal plans, and lack of effective communication.
 While recruiting the employees the HR of the company wants to hire people having the
skills and knowledge that will help the business to achieve the objective of the company.
Though, The HR of the McDonald’s company is not able to do so because if they hire an
employee having the skills they have to pay a good amount to the candidate. The
company is cost-effective so they don't give the good pay this the reason the less
successful recruitment takes place. Another reason is, if in case the labor market gets to
know that the company is offering the low amount then a company will fail in attracting
the talented and knowledgeable employees.
Considering the hard and soft HRM practices, each practice has positive and negative aspects
which can create an impact on the working of the company. It totally depends on the situation
that the company is following hard or soft HRM practices. The McDonald’s company is
considering the hard HRM practices because they want to maximize the performance of the
franchises and want to be cost-effective but on the same time while making the strategies for the
company to achieve the organization goals company adopt the soft HRM practices. It is
recommended to the company to adopt the soft skills on some practices like recruiting, selecting
and training and development.

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References
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Bortolotti, T., Boscari, S. and Danese, P., 2015. Successful lean implementation: Organizational
culture and soft lean practices. International Journal of Production Economics, 160, pp.182-201.
Brewster, C. and Hegewisch, A. eds., 2017. Policy and Practice in European Human Resource
Management: The Price Waterhouse Cranfield Survey. Taylor & Francis.
Ibrahim, H.I. and Zulkafli, A.H., 2016. Corporate governance, HRM practices and organizational
performance. Socio-Economic Problems and the State.
Kuutti, S., 2015. Developing HRM-practices in growing Finnish SME’s: A strategic view.
Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A., Donnelly, R. and Kynighou, A., 2016. Human resource
management at work. Kogan Page Publishers.
Michael, F., 2017. Hard and Soft Human Resource Management Compensation Practices on
Employee Job Satisfaction. ORSEA JOURNAL, 5(1).
Moore, T.S., 2015. Supporting family-friendly work practices: cultural possibilities and
limitations.
Qureshi, A. and Hassan, M., 2013. Impact of performance management on the organisational
performance: An analytical investigation of the business model of McDonalds. International
Journal of Academic Research in Economics and Management Sciences, 2(5), p.54.
Radha, A., 2015. A Study of Work Life Balance of Female Teaching Professionals in
Coimbatore. Abhinav National Journal of Research in Commerce & Management, 4(4), pp.9-17.

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Sparrow, P., Brewster, C. and Chung, C., 2016. Globalizing human resource management.
Routledge.
Storey, J., 2014, New Perspectives on Human Resource Management (Routledge Revivals).
Routledge.
Veloso, A., Tzafrir, S. and Enosh, G., 2015. How employees perceive HRM practices:
Differences between public and private organizations. Human resource management challenges
and changes, pp.19-36.
Warter, I. and Warter, L., 2017. Cultural Due Diligence In M&A. Importance Of Soft Risks
Factors. Annals of Spiru Haret University, Economic Series, 17(2), pp.38-61.