McDonalds Cashier - Job Analysis - Research Proposal Example

Job analysis Name Institution Affiliation Job description Job Title: McDonald’s Cashier. A Cashier falls under crew member in the ranking of workers at McDonalds. They are supposed to work within the guidelines of McDonalds provided by the policies and procedure to deliver an outstanding experience for the customer. The primary responsibility of a crew member is to provide customer service to the highest degree possible. The services are offered in a clean and safe environment as stated by the McDonald’s policies and procedures. Other roles the employee in this position is supposed to play include acting as McDonalds brand ambassador all the time, offering fast, and friendly customer service to all clients visiting the stores, and also unpacking supplies after deliveries are made. Since crew members are in direct contact with the customers, they take customer’s orders and collect payments. The requirements for a crew member, include effective communication skills, both written and verbal, also team player in the attainment of both personal and organisational goals, and adjust to change. Other values to be observed by crew members include time management, good customer relations, and acting with fairness, honesty and integrity. McDonald’s crew members enjoy some benefits such as competitive wages, paid holidays, medical insurance and get a discount on food at the store. Promotions from entry level jobs into restaurant management are also common for high performers. Job analysis Job analysis involves the collection of vital information regarding a job position. An effective job analysis involves the determination of the roles of the employee, the responsibilities and the required competencies to aid in performing the tasks associated with the job (Groves, 2009). In carrying out a job analysis, an in-depth research regarding the job position and the traits possessed by the applicant that can aid in performing the job are assessed. To understand job analysis, two aspects are taken into consideration. They include a job description and job specification (Deb, 2006). Job description helps in understanding the content, and the context of the listed job. The content describes the duties and responsibilities associated with the position. Job context helps in understanding factors that affect the way the job is carried out. Such factors include situational factors and include the job location, working conditions and the expected hazards while performing various duties specified in the job (Groves, 2009). Job specification, on the other hand, focuses on the required skills and knowledge for a performance to be regarded as acceptable. To be able to maximize on outputs whereas minimizing on the cost of factors of production, organizations are integrating their human resource in management decisions. The trend is due to human resource being the easiest among the factors of production to manipulate (Groves, 2009). By providing accurate information about all aspects of a job position, job analysis is essential to all human resource activities. It helps in organizational and manpower planning through coordinating the activities and dividing the roles and responsibility among the labour force. To help achieve the organizational goal, it is important to share the responsibilities between the workers making sure that each worker is assigned the roles he/she qualifies best. The human resource management department in many organizations plays this role with the help of a job analysis. Human resource managers are responsible for recruitment and selection of new employees (Deb, 2006). Job analysis aids the managers in carrying out the task by indicating the required skills and knowledge for each task. Carrying out the analysis helps the human resources in hiring new employees and promotion based on achievement of the purpose the employee is supposed to play. Comparing the job context and content can also aid the human resource managers in making employee transfer necessary to boost the performance of the business. Salary and wages vary with the job performance. Other factors also influence in salary and wage determination such as hardship, risks and hazards involved in executing the job. An effective job analysis outlines these factors by indicating the job content, context and requirements. Job analysis is, therefore, important to human resource managers who have the responsibility of determining the pay of the employees as well as other allowances relating to risks and hazards associated with the job (Deb, 2006). As the business gets into new operations, additional positions are realized that require new skills and techniques. By carrying out a job analysis, the gaps in knowledge and new posts are identified. Employee training and development is necessary to fill the identified posts (Painter & Holmes, 2015). Job analysis plays a vital role in enabling employee training by detecting what specific knowledge and skills are required. With this, it provides human resource managers with the information regarding the necessary training and development programs. Employee motivation is a major factor in ensuring improved performance of businesses. To boost motivations, human resource managers can apply some techniques such as performance appraisal (Painter & Holmes, 2015). Job analysis helps in carrying out performance appraisal through identifying the roles an employee is supposed to play and comparing it with the actual contribution the employment has made. Data collection When collecting data to aid in job analysis, five common methods are frequently used. The methods include observation, interviews, job analysis questionnaire, diaries and critical incidents reports (Groves, 2009). The methods can be applied independently in an analysis and can also be combined to get broad information. The choice of the most appropriate method or the combination depends on the time available to carry out the analysis or the funds allocated to execute the analysis. Observation has been used for a long period as a method of data analysis and involves watching employees perform their duties and is commonly supplemented with interviews to gather a deeper insight (Groves, 2009). Critical incidents include the use of experts to give their view of a subject matter. The experts provide the key aspects in assessing employee performance that aid in job analysis. The use of diaries as a method of data collection in job analysis depends on employees listing the activities they have carried out over a specified period. Lastly, job analysis questionnaire involves the use of both open ended and close ended questionnaire that are administered to employees. Since every method is targeting at collecting the different type of information, depending on the view from which the data is collected, job analysis is considered effective when several data collection methods are used (Painter & Holmes, 2015). In analysing the job of a McDonald’s crew member, interviewing the employees and issuing them with questionnaire are practical and efficient ways. These methods pose many advantages in relationship to data being collected as compared with other data collection methods. The choice of the data collection methods to use is dependent on the convenient of the methods and the relevance the study. Observation method although facilitating collection of first-hand information is not appropriate to the topic as it provides limited knowledge. It also consumes a lot of time as gathering a huge load of information may require a long period of exposure so as to learn how the various roles crew members play (Groves, 2009). The information to be collected by this method is also limited as it can only collect only clear information. The different roles crew members play may also make it hard to observe as there is a lot of movement in the stores. Crew members also assist others in their duties when appropriate therefore observation may lead to the collection of the wrong and contradicting information. The use of diary entry to follow up employees activities also poses a challenge since not many employees keep daily diaries. The crew members are often busy and even when asked to keep daily diaries stating their activities; they may lack time to fill these entries. Trying to remember after work may be challenging as some roles may be forgotten thus leading to use of inaccurate information. Although the use of diary when accurate information is kept is very productive, it is not appropriate for this analysis. The other method of data collection that uses experts cannot be used to collect data necessary for job analysis. Although it gives a professional opinion regarding the rights of the workers, the content included in job analysis cannot be obtained by the method. Information such as the job content, context and the requirements for qualification for this job cannot be collected by use of an expert opinion (Groves, 2009). By evaluating the methods of data collection and their applicability to the study, two methods are found to be best suited for the job analysis. The interview Lot of preparation is done in advance of interviews to ensure its success. It involves preparing semi-structured questionnaires to be used while interviewing the employees. Compared to other methods of data collection, interviews are mostly used due to their role in giving first-hand information (Groves, 2009). By meeting the respondent face to face, they feel at ease while answering the questions as they are aware of who is using the information provided. The interaction between the interviewer and the respondent also aids in gathering more accurate information as further questions can be asked as the interview continues thus identifying the gaps in knowledge. Interviews also pose some challenges that need to be addressed. It is of critical importance to ensure that the environment that the interview is done is favourable for the employee to pass information that may be negative about the job without worry. Another area of concern while carrying out interviews is choosing the right time and venue to conduct the interview (Groves, 2009). It is important to choose time of interview that does not conflict with the schedule of the respondent. The venue also needs to be free of disruption and also convenient in enabling free communication of information. To ensure that information collected is included in the analysis, noting down key points is essential. The respondent is my relative and has been working at McDonalds as a Crew member for over a period of six months. Being a relative, providing me with information during the interview was not a challenge as I observed he was at ease. I interviewed the respondent individually without company creating a favourable environment for information gathering. The venue for the interview was outside the McDonalds at a café to ensure minimum disruption. Open structured questions were used in the interview specifically to give the respondent the freedom in answering the questions. The choice of these types of questions was due to their nature in allowing the respondent to give the level of response they think is appropriate for the question. I detected gaps in knowledge thus had to ask further questions gathering further insight into the subject. Some of the questions asked included the roles the crew members are supposed to play as well as the requirements to qualify for the job position. Other gaps in knowledge that were detected include the working conditions and the schedule of the employees. As the interview progressed, the employee realized that there were some omissions in roles they practice thus showing some challenges faced when using the interview as a method of data collection. The questionnaire The other method of data collection used in the job analysis was the questionnaire. It enables the respondents to answer the question in a short span of time. There are two types of questionnaires namely open-ended questionnaires and close-ended questionnaires. Each of the types is meant to address particular set of questions and allow the employee to respond in a given way. Open ended questionnaires grant more freedom to the respondent as they determine the level of the answer they are to give. Close-ended questionnaires, on the other hand, are more limiting to the respondents they demand a certain set of answer (Groves, 2009). The advantage of using questionnaires, both open-ended and close-ended in gathering more data is that it is less time consuming. Due to its nature, questionnaires allow respondents to use less time in answering questions thus enabling them to get back to their duties. They are also cheap as they can be carried out in large scale, unlike interviews where only one respondent at a time can be interviewed (Groves, 2009). By structuring questionnaire in a particular way, it becomes easier to choose the sampling method that can be best applied. One disadvantage associated with the use of questionnaires as a mean of obtaining data is that it is more likely to omit given information. Other cons associated with the administration of questionnaire are that it is limited when gathering information as it does not emphasize on specific aspects of job (Groves, 2009). Questionnaires are also limited in nature as additional information not listed in the questionnaire cannot be obtained. By using questionnaire, the respondent was able to list the factors included in data analysis that is job content, context and the requirements. The respondent was also happy with the method as it consumed less time where I just administered the questionnaire and asked them to fill them when they have sufficient time. Conclusion One method of data collection is limiting in the diversity of the data as it leads to bias. To remove the bias, it is recommended that several methods of data collection be used. In the job analysis, data collected from questionnaire was used in interviews to gain in-depth knowledge on the subject. It also helped in correcting possible errors that they may have done in the questionnaire. References Deb, T. (2006). Strategic approach to human resource management: Concept, tools and application. New Delhi: Atlantic. Groves, R. M., Fowler, F. J., Couper, M., Lepkowski, J. M., Singer, E., & Tourangeau, R. (2009). Survey methodology. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley. Painter, R. W., & Holmes, A. E. M. (2015). Cases and materials on employment law. Read More