Impacts on employee motivation, and how to retain this workforce: a McDonald's case study

Abstract

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.