Burger King marketing & Employee Motivation Strategy Essay

INTRODUCTION This research deals that how Burger King (BK) following the procedures to motivate the Employees, how these procedures helps in achieving the objectives of Burger King and influences the objectives. Hamburger is a parent company of Burger King and it is operating worldwide. Headquarter of Burger King is situated in Florida, U.S.A. It was first established as Insta Burger King in 1953. Due to tough external environment of Insta Burger King, it faces financial problems and in 1954 its franchises were sold and its name was changed as Burger King. At the end of 2013 it was reported by Burger King that it has over 13000 franchises operating in 79 countries out of which large amount of franchises operating in United States, almost 66% in United States. Burger King has almost 40 subsidiaries that are operating under the management of different countries, their operations, financial matters and production are controlled by the management of those Countries. (Burger King Corporation, 2013). Franchises of Burger King are mostly privately owned by the businessman and they followed the SOPs given by the Burger King Company (Christina, 2011). A holders of Burger King franchises has to follow the strict obligations and duties given by the Burger King; it includes designs of a company, internal and external appearance, brand standards, quality and serving of food, training programs and employee compensation plans (Jonathan, 2011). Burger King is giving license to the operators and administrators of stores to run the franchises of Burger King in North America (Elizabeth, 2006). Now Burger King is working in many countries. It is using many promotional techniques as well. It has fan page on a social media called Facebook. Moreover it has an account on twitter as well. Burger King has a large variety in its menu  including burgers, fries, pan cakes, shakes etc. Burger King says that their employees are the vital part of their organization. Employees are the main assets of a company because they face the customers, deals with them and provide services and products to the customers. To get good results of this employee and customer relationship, Burger King has set rules to give Professional training to the employees so that employees should use their abilities to get the desired goals of Burger King. Not only trainings but Burger King is also investing on career development of employees by giving them a chance to work in different departments and giving a chance to the employees to polish their skills and competencies by attending different seminars. Feedback from employees is very important in bringing the positive changes in the Company, Burger King also follows this rule and they encourage their employees to do open communication with the top management. In this way satisfaction of employees increases and they are free to use any mode of communication, which includes videos calls, meetings, Emails, voice mails etc. Burger King motivates its employees with different rewards to engage them in the progress of the organization. When staff works hard and continuously makes a positive difference to the company. Employee achievement awards given to the employees working with the Burger King more than five years and these awards are given to the employees after every five years and reached up to fifty years. There are other programs and awards as well that are given to the employees at both management and lower level to motivate the employees. RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY The research purpose is to see how motivation of workers is being maintained by the organization. For this purpose Burger King is selected. This research will help in starting new studies in this field so that the new researchers will investigate that how the motivation of employees results in the success of company, company’s growth and progress in future. Organizations have to made good motivational programs for employees to get good performance from  them. If employees are motivated then they perform better, they feel satisfied with their job, so they are committed to their organization as well. This research will encourage organizations to motivate their employees and understand the things that motivate them. BUSINESS RESEACH QUESTION â€Å"What are the contributing features, plans and programs of the company that motivate employees? To understand the phenomenon of employee motivation of Burger King, given below questions of research should be kept in mind to make a base of this research. The current benefits that employees are getting? How the motivation of employees is maintained by the organization? What are the organizations current and future strategies to motivate their workers? RESEARCH OBJECTIVES Motivation is the challenging issue to manage and work, because of the individual behavior or attitudes. As every individual is different from each other, their behaviors, attitudes and needs are also different. For every individual the motivating factors could be different according to their circumstances as well as their priorities. Another factor could be that an employee is not fit for the job he is doing or he has no interest in that work. So such resources and encouragement should be provided to him so he can develop interest. This research assignment will results in understanding the motivation of  employees given by the Burger King and which leads to overall better and good performance. LITERATURE REVIEW PRELIMINARY Literature review is a process of studying published or unpublished work given in the journals, magazines, newspaper, thesis and online information to get references. These references will help in getting knowledge of the other people’s work and will also help in providing support to our arguments and judgments. In organization’s point of view â€Å"motivation† means the drive force which creates interest in employee to work hard. A motivated employee will have capacity to work hard and give good results. It also determines the employee’s effort and level of persistence (Bernie, 2012). Organizations need motivated employees to work. Motivated employees help organizations in their survival. Motivated employees are more productive as they know when they will be productive they will get reward for it (Bowen & Radhakrishna, 1991). Motivated employees are also quality oriented. They find different good ways to do the job. There are many factors that could help in motivating employees. The first and most important factor is job design. Good job design will surely results in creating the positive motivation of employees. The design of job can have a significance impact on employee motivation. If a job is challenging and different interesting tasks are involved in it then employee could be motivated enough to do it. Job design approaches are four in number: job enlargement, job simplification, job enrichment and job rotation (Bernie, 2012). Standardization and specialization of the work is known as job simplification. Job simplification results in motivating the employees because they have clearly identified tasks. But sometimes Job simplification does not helps in creating motivation for the employees because it may result in boring of employee by doing the same task again and again. A large  variety of different tasks to perform by the employees, so that employee can have interest in the job and may result in motivation of employees, this phenomenon is known as Job Enlargement. Job rotation helps to move workers to different tasks and departments after a specific period of time to maintain their interest and motivation to work. Job enrichment aims to enhance the actual job by introducing different motivational factors (Bernie, 2012). Large numbers of studies are conducted to see the impact of job design techniques to motivate employees. Job design questionnaire was used to study the impact of Job design in motivating the employees by Campion and Thayer (1985) and the result of their study has shown that jobs having proper Job design will lead to motivate the employees and employees will have less problem in performing the work needed for a job and less health complaints. Hackman (1980) conducted a study and results shown that redesigning a job will surely leads in providing good productivity, increase the quantity of work and motivation in employees. Job Enlargement or Job Enrichment is the main tool to do this. This is a human nature that he always motivated when he knows that his work is valuable and worthy. Motivation also comes from the sense of acknowledgement and respect. Rewards are another type of motivation. Intrinsic reward and extrinsic reward are main two types of rewards. Rewards that are internal like feeling good about doing something, sense of accomplishment is known as intrinsic rewards. Extrinsic rewards are external like incentives, bonuses, increments etc. (Fair & Silvestri, 1992). When specific goals are set for employees then they also produce good performance and feel motivated as they feel themselves an important asset of organization. Many researchers have worked to investigate the effectiveness of reward on the motivation of employees. Pierce, Cameron, Banko and So (2003) researchers have arranged a research to get the exact idea that how extrinsic rewards given by the company creates an impact on employee’s motivation. They found that people who got rewards for their performance  were motivated intrinsically and those who do not get rewards were not motivated at all. Another study on the same topic was conducted by Wiersma (1992). He found that extrinsic rewards are important and they increase motivation. Dobre (2013) argued that empowerment and recognition are the factors that increase motivation of employee. Employees are motivated on getting empowerment and appreciation which results in good performance of employees. Organizations should try to give empowerment and appreciation to the employees so that they can perform well. Bartol and Martin (1998) studied that motivation is a powerful tool to get good performance from the employees. Kalimullah (2010) argued that a motivated employee puts his efforts for the progress of organization. Sara et al. (2004) suggested that good salaries are the most important factor in motivating employees. Employees are also motivated through good leadership (Baldoni, 2005). Working environment is also another important factor for employee motivation. If organization provides a good working environment to their employees then the employees feel motivated and happy to work in that organization. Many Psychological theories also talks about motivation. Most important theory is Maslow’s need based theory (1954) that suggests that there are different levels of needs and on each level when need is fulfilled the person is motivated. The levels in the hierarchy of Maslow are physiological needs, safety needs, belongings needs, self-esteem needs and self-actualization needs. Alderfer (1972) suggested that there are three need levels, existence, relatedness and growth. He said that fulfillment of these needs makes a person motivated. Herzberg (2003) further worked on Maslow’s theory and modified it by saying that there are two areas of need that motivates employees. Hygiene and motivators are two need areas. Hygiene’s are considered as motivators of low level which includes policy of a company, compensation plan, working environment and employee-employer relationship. The motivation has a high level in factors. These factors include achievement, responsibility, growth  and advancement. If managers want to be effective and need progress in organization, then the manager should know the basics of motivation and the different ways to motivate the employees. With the help of these they can be able to make different motivational strategies to keep their employees engaged in work and motivate them to work even better. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Research methodology is process or way through which a research is being conducted. There are different types of methods for research. The method is being selected by the researcher according to the topic and feasibility to collect data as well. Success of a research is directly proportional to the methodology selected to conduct a research. Types of methodologies are given below: QUANTITATIVE METHOD It mainly deals with the numerical data or empirical investigation by using statistical or mathematical tools of research. Main objective of quantitative method is to use mathematical models to get results. It is a large and random selected process. Collection of data can be done with the help of questionnaires, telephone conversation, mail, interview, experiment, and surveys. QUALITATIVE METHOD Qualitative research is about the strong knowing of a specific company or occasion, rather than surface information of a population having a large sample. It further helps in getting information related to human groups in natural or social environment. Collection of data is totally different in qualitative method, because in qualitative method data is more subjective than quantitative and human behaviors are kept in consideration while collecting the data. Every emotions and behaviors of human should be  recorded so that researcher may get the exact answer of respondent. Techniques mostly used in collecting the data are interviews, focus group, case studies, individual interview, objects and images. MIXED METHOD OR COMBINED METHOD It is a mixture of both quantitative and qualitative methods. It is the best approach in investigating the critical issues because researchers can apply both methods to get better results. Mixed method provides analysis of how the organizations maintain the motivation of their employees. For this purpose Burger King Company is being selected. Implementing or providing motivation to the employees is not an easy work, in the same way to do research on it a large amount of information is required. RESEARCH TECHNIQUES Research technique is known as a guideline to complete the research. Research technique has several steps and they are given below: Research design and method. Sampling. Data collection. Data analysis. Outcome of research. In mixed method researcher uses both qualitative and quantitative method for getting more accurate result. The process of research will go through the given steps. Researcher will require the consent of the concerned authority as well as of participants that they are willing to participate in the research. SAMPLING Sampling is the process in which researcher finalize which will be the sample of the research, or who will be the participants. Sampling is process or technique of suitable sample or information collection for research work. There are a lot of types of sampling like simple random selection, snowball sampling, convenient sampling, systematic sampling, quota sampling etc. In the present study simple random sampling technique is being used as it is the best way of sampling in which every individual has an equal chance of selection. With the help of it we can get data full of reliability but it needs more money to carry out the process. DATA COLLECTION Data collection is the process in which information is being collected from the sample. The Process of data collection starts when you decide your sample. It mainly deals with the preparation and collection of data from different pool of knowledge and sources. It is the major element for research work. Data should be collected from reliable sources and from those people who are willing to give information. Those who are not willing to provide information and forcefully do it then the data could be faked. Mainly there are two types of data: Primary data and Secondary data. PRIMARY DATA: It is a collection of data directly from the people in the field and known as first hand data. This data is always fresh and reliable as well as it provides an accurate information needed to collect from the sample. This type of data collection needs a large amount of investment and time, researcher may use both methods to collect the data including qualitative and quantitative. SECONDARY DATA: It is a collection of data from books, journals, newspaper, annual reports, and internet or through some other sources etc. and it is not first hand data. It can be archival data that is already present and you are using that. This type of data collection is less expensive and less time consuming but mostly it does not gives accurate information needed for the  research. In this research, primary data will be collected which will comprise of both qualitative and quantitative technique. EXECUTION OF THE PROJECT After completing and observing data collection, a request letters for specialist to authenticate the devices are sent to them. Results were cross checked by researcher. In analyzing the test consequences the researcher sought the help of a statistics person to check that data is properly calculated and evaluated or not. DATA ANALYSIS DATA ANALYSIS IS VERY IMPORTANT AND CRITICAL PROCESS OF RESEARCH, BECAUSE IT CONSISTS OF WHOLE PROCESS OF CHECKING, CLEANING THE DATA AND ANALYSING THE DATA. DATA SHOULD BE ANALYSED PROPERLY, IF THE DATA LACK OF THIS PROPERLY ANALYSED PROCESS THEN IT WILL AFFECT THE RESULTS OF RESEARCH AND THE OBJECTIVE OF RESEARCH WILL NOT BE OBTAINED. SOME OF THE DATA ANALYSING TECHNIQUES ARE: FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION, DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS, COMPARING MEANS, CORRELATIONS AND LINEAR REGRESSIONS. To get the best result of this research both Statistical and qualitative techniques will be used. To test the null theory of the research statistical technique will be used and the standard deviation, mean will be used where needed. BARRIERS AND LIMITATIONS OF THE PROPOSED RESEARCH This research deals with the employee’s motivation and employees should perform for the betterment of an organization. This research is a mixture of many different aspects and subjects which are Psychology, human nature and Sociology. So it is necessary that the correlation between all these aspects and subjects should be aligned to each other and should be according to rightful definition. It may cause some barriers due to tough routine of employees, problems in timings and other external factors. They all should  be remove with the help of experts and thesis should be defended with the help of good and reliable sources. SUGGESTED FURTHER RESEARCH ACTIVITY Further studies can be carried out to find out the Impact of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards on motivation. Furthermore the relationship between performance of job and organizational commitment by conducting interviews of management level as well as official level.