It may be a difficult task to talk about motivation in a world that is just recovering from
a global health crisis. When a majority of corporation employees were laid off for at least two
weeks due to Covid-19 - for some these layoffs turned into months or even years - and left them
with nothing but uncertainty, many felt like they were not valued by their employers.
McDonald's may have been one of the companies mentioned the most in class during this
marketing course. Throughout three years of work experience in the company, especially the
past 1 year as a Shift Manager, employee dissatisfaction has been a clear difficulty faced by the
management team. A reflection of that is the high turnover, and the people who remain on the
job are also unmotivated by the way things are. When asked, some might say that the only way
to overcome this lack of satisfaction would be to raise the pay, but McDonald’s Ireland currently
pays 11 euro an hour, 50 cent more than the minimum pay rate per hour (€10,50), so this should
not be pointed as the main factor that keeps employees unmotivated. A sense of belonging, to
feel part of something bigger or a simple gesture of appreciation can be rewarding and make
even a nearly minimum wage job more meaningful.