An analysis of the impact of total quality management on employee performance in fast food industry 2(2)

AN ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF TOTAL
QUALITY MANAGEMENT ON EMPLOYEE
PERFORMANCE IN FAST FOOD
INDUSTRY, UK
A Case Study on Mc Donald’s
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Rationale of this Study...............................................................................................................4
1.2 Research Aims...........................................................................................................................4
1.3 Research objectives...................................................................................................................4
1.4 Research Question ....................................................................................................................4
2. Literature Review............................................................................................................................6
2.1 Total Quality Management ........................................................................................................6
2.2 Top Management Commitment .................................................................................................7
2.3 Customer Focus.........................................................................................................................7
2.4 Benchmarking...........................................................................................................................8
2.5 Training....................................................................................................................................8
2.6 Employee Focus ........................................................................................................................9
2.7 Employee Performance Improvement ........................................................................................9
2.11 Conceptual Framework..........................................................................................................10
3. Research Design and Methodology................................................................................................10
3.1 Type of Investigation...............................................................................................................11
3.2 Data Collection Method...........................................................................................................12
3.3 Sampling Method....................................................................................................................13
3.4 Accessibility Issues ..................................................................................................................13
3.5 Ethical Issues...........................................................................................................................14
3.6 Data Analysis Plan ...................................................................................................................14
3.6 Research Limitations ...............................................................................................................15
4. Timetable.....................................................................................................................................16
5. References ...................................................................................................................................17
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1. Introduction
Total Quality Management is the organizational strategy that aims at ensuring the overall quality
and quality awareness in every part of organizational processes and activities. This research will
examine the influence of TQM as a management strategy, on employee performance. The existing
trend of TQM practised in organizations has created the attention for this study. As said earlier,
the aim is to find the relation between TQM and employee performance based on the case of
McDonald’s, UK.
Currently one of the popular managerial strategies, the TQM was first introduced in the 1950 and
has been popularizing ever since. The total quality is related to the elements of a firm that attempts
to provide proper value to its customers (2012 Awards for Excellence, 2013). Its important for
both service and manufacturing companies. And as for fast food industry, like Mc Donald’s, which
is more involved in providing unique customer service value than just selling fast foods, TQM is
a major thing to consider. This research will show how TQM plays the role on employee
performance.
Before proceeding to further discussion, a short summary on McDonald’s might be helpful.
McDonald’s is the multinational fast food company originated in the USA in the1940 by Richard
and Maurice McDonald and Ray Kroc. McDonald’s had started its journey in the UK around 40
years ago. Even though UK is not the birth place of McDonald’s, but it definitely is a home for the
fast food giant. The Company has somewhat around 70 franchise restaurants, 150 franchise
partners in the UK. It employs more than 100000 people here. The management of the company,
UK, US or wherever, is dedicated in preserving the quality it provides. They are determined in
establishing the right strategies, implement the effective policies and ensure that the employees
comply with them. And it is said that it’s the strong system that is behind the tremendous success
of the company.
“It's not hamburgers. It's not the commercials. It's not massive corporate contracts with Disney
and Coke. It's systems.”

1.1 Rationale ofthis Study
TQM plays a significant role in creating customer loyalty towards the company. It is because the
matter of quality has always been a vital part in any industry (Anon, 2015). Reality is that the
quality, especially the service quality, creates the strong bridge between the customer and the
company. It motivates the customers and creates new loyal customers. The study will help to
understand the influence of TQM on employees’ performance in a real world scenario from the
perspective of the McDonald’s. This research ultimately will help the small industries particularly
the fast food ones to develop similar approaches in their own areas to become a market catcher. In
the study of business, it is important to know about TQM in the real life case. That is why the study
demands an attention and a research on this matter is very important for educational and practical
purposes.
1.2 ResearchAims
The aim of this research is to analyse the impact of TQM on the employee performance in the
McDonald’s, UK. This study will scrutinize how employees are delivering output to the system
and what impact it has on the ultimate revenue of the company and its productivity level
1.3 Researchobjectives
The objectives of this research are;
1. To assess the dimensions and components of total quality management,

2. To analyse different dimensions and aspects that needs to be considered for employee
performance,
3. To analyse the different roles played by Total Quality Management for employee
performance improvement based on the case of McDonalds as the representative of UK’s
fast food industry,
4. To recommend improvements or suggestions needed for the TQM approach for improving
employee performance.
1.4 ResearchQuestion
This research on TQM will study following questions-
1. What are the dimensions and components of TQM?
2. What are the dimensions and aspects for improving performances of the employees?
3. What are the roles played by TQM for improving performances of the employees?
4. What are the recommendations for the company regarding it’s TQM to improve employee
performance level?

2. Literature Review
2.1 Total Quality Management
TQM is the management strategy that aims at gaining long term success through increased
customer satisfaction. The system stands on the basis of principle of staff commitment to maintain
the high organizational and operational performance (Bader, 2006). The definition clearly states
that the approach benefits the firm, its staffs, its management and all others through customer
satisfaction. It is not just a mere process; it applies to the whole organization. The approach consists
of 8 principles;
 Customer focus
 Leadership
 Involvement of personnel
 Process approach
 System approach to management
 Continual Improvement
 Factual decision making approach
 Supplier relation based on mutual benefits
Why the approach is necessary for corporations like the McDonald’s; there are various reasons.
First better TQM would help McDonalds gain competitiveness in the fast food industry through
customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. Secondly, TQM creates a growth oriented culture
where employees would provide their best effort to make the organization successful and expanded

locally and globally. Thus, TQM creates a work environment successful and productive. Besides,
proper management of operations eliminates extra stress for both the management and staffs.
2.2 TopManagement Commitment
Top level management directly participating in important operations of the organization is termed
as the top management commitment. In a quality management approach this includes;
 Serving on and setting up a quality board.
 Designing and establishing policies that ensure quality,
 Supplying resources and training opportunities
 Controlling the whole process (Gil et al., 2013)
The research will investigate the weight of top management commitment in the Mc Donald’s.
2.3 Customer Focus
Customer focus follows the top management commitment. Because a committed management will
definitely aim at creating a customer focus organizational pattern. The organizational design to
serve its customers is termed as customer focus. A customer focused organization is half way to
success. And customers of a firm can only be satisfied if the staffs are motivated towards firm’s
goals. The firm must deploy a proper customer relationship which will be a long term commitment.
Through quality management, the firm can effectively implement a customer focused environment
(Mc Caffery, Burton and Richardson, 2009).
This research will study the customer focus aspect of McDonald’s and the effectiveness of the
program.

2.4 Benchmarking
When an organization wants to establish customer focused business strategy, it must establish
some benchmarks for the firm to strictly abide by. Benchmark is the firm’s operational, strategic
and overall quality compared with the previously agreed upon standards.
For example, the McDonald’s will establish certain benchmarks in regard that;
 What and where progress are required,
 To check on the performance of the competitors like KFC, Burger King etc.
 To use any new information available.
Without a proper benchmark, a disciplined development can never be made (O'Donnell, 2004). A
benchmark will also identify what the McDonald’s is expecting from its staffs and to what extent.
2.5 Training
Not just a benchmark will act upon itself; it requires proper actions from the management as well.
After setting up a standard, the management must make sure whether the staffs are in line with
them. If there are any deficiencies, they must be corrected (Roy, 2005). If the employees or the
staffs cannot reach the benchmark by default, then they must be provided with proper training.
Training will help them reach the target and provide better output to the firm. A firm may not
automatically get a group of required skilful staff, so it must create them.

2.6 Employee Focus
Training will fit the employees for the job, but may necessarily not motivate them providing the
firm with better output (Shishebori and Zeinal Hamadani, 2009). Nowadays companies like
McDonald’s are more employee friendly than ever. Because it is a known fact that a set of satisfied
and loyal employees will help create a set of loyal and satisfied customers, which will ultimately
lead to the greater good of the firm itself. Therefore the firms activities, policies, strategies and
such other matters should be employee focused (TQM Reviewers 2013 volume, 2013). The
interests of the staffs should not be deserted y the management. The research will also highlight
this discussion on employee focus strategies of Mc Donald’s as a matter influencing the employee
performance.
2.7 Employee Performance Improvement
And finally after all the above points are implemented, the firm then gets the assurance that the
employees performance will lead to effectiveness and efficiency in the business and operational
processes (Gitlow and Gitlow, 2005). When the firm, for example the McDonald’s has
implemented the total quality management effectively, the employees will themselves be driven
toward the organizational goal and earn more profit to the firm by the process of,
 Zero defects in the customer service,
 Business process improvement,
 Customer satisfaction.
And thus the whole research will step by step analyse the employee performance improvement
through an effective TQM approach on the context of the McDonald’s.

2.11 Conceptual Framework
The above points develop the following conceptual framework for the study;
Total Quality Management
Top Management
commitment
Customer Focus Benchmarking Training
Employee Focus
Employee
performance
Improvement
Process
Improvement

3. Research Design and Methodology
3.1 Type of Investigation
An effective research must not be chosen randomly. Appropriateness and application are
essentially considered. The diverse data collection source and wide range of data gives the study
an exploratory nature. The organizational performance based on employee involvement as
influenced by the total quality management of the company is investigated in this research. This
is a two dimensional managerial activity, one layer is responsible on implementation of TQM and
the other is inspecting and controlling employee performance. To get the whole point in a snapshot,
the research investigation would follow the given study methods;
Study Method Description
Correlation Will measure strength of relation between TQM and employee
performance
Experiment Analyzing the change in TQM process of Mc to see the effect on
employee performance
Interview To gain necessary info from managers and employees
Questionnaire
survey
How customer group and employee group perceives the effect of TQM
in the Mc.
Therefore, the type of investigation has to be of an exploratory type. Because an exploratory
interview incorporates the mentioned study methods.
Justification of investigation type

The variables that we are to analyze in this study are of such nature that more field or survey work
is required. The variables are not financial in nature nor are they entirely descriptive. Even though,
the investigation has to be based on several hypothesizes but they need to be accurate and related
to real life scenario. Thus, the investigation being exploratory is justified.
3.2 Data CollectionMethod
Data collection is very crucial and methods for data collection need to be appropriate. Quantitative
data in respect of company’s productivity level will be found in financial statements. For the study
both qualitative and quantitative data will be chosen from primary and secondary sources. Primary
sources will be direct interviews and questionnaires. An internet questionnaire will be provided to
the sample of employees. And as for secondary data the sources must be reliable, and only done
by the McDonald’s itself. The qualitative data will be scrutinized and thoroughly checked for
errors and biasness. Such data can be collected using an interpretive approach. After collecting the
data, they will be brought under statistical analysis. There are different correlation tools in statistics
to find relation between two sets of related data. Such analysis needs a strong skill, which must be
maintained for at least to a certain level. Questionnaires should be prepared using a proper mix of
open ended and close ended questions. Close ended questions will be non-restrictive to sufficient
data collection. And on the other hand, close ended questions will not be of an amount that will
bore the surveyees. A sit down talk with management will be done in order to get necessary
information about how productive and job involved the employees are and how the management
is implementing the TQM.
Justification of data collection procedure
The investigation being exploratory in type, the data collection will mostly include field works
like surveys, interviews; and there will be some financial data collection involved to get the
accurate picture of TQM and employee performance. But in case of collecting financial data,
there’s little scope to study annual reports as they do not include much related info. So, field works
are the only justifiable process for the data collection.

3.3 Sampling Method
Random sampling method will be used to ensure a variety in the sample size and neutrality of data.
Moreover, random sampling method would be a cost saving approach to data collection. Because
quality and employee performance of the McDonald’s is almost similar in all of its restaurants,
any complex sampling tool will be quite unnecessary. The samples will include 150 employees
and 150 customers as well. 10 restaurants will be chosen from separate locations. Timing and
neutrality will be considered choosing the samples.
Justification of sampling method
Random sampling is a sampling and most appropriate sampling method in cases where the
population does not contain extremes. When we are analysing employees for employee
performance and customers for total quality, there are very little issues of any side extreme. So
random sampling is the right process for the study.
Justification of sample size
When we are studying an entire industry and an entire customer population, 150*150 is a justified
sample size for not being too big or too small related to the subject matter of study.
3.4 Accessibility Issues
There are some accessibility issues regarding the investigation that bars from getting the whole
picture. The company, for very logical reasons, would not allow access to company’s internal files
or reports. To study the customers, the researcher might need government census which in fact the

researcher might hardly get due to various time and legal constraints. Other than these, the
researcher would have advantage in the accessibility issue because of the following reasons;
 McDonald’s will give required data on the total quality management of the company.
 McDonald’s will provide a report on employee performances.
 McDonald’s will allow interviewing the employees.
 McDonald’s will allow the access to necessary files.
 The company will arrange a ‘sit down’ with the management.
 Financial statements of last 10 years will be provided.
 McDonald’s will provide its assistance on the research work.
 Customer feedback reports will be provided.
A sample group of customers will be interviewed or given with a questionnaire.
3.5 Ethical Issues
When it comes to research using a company’s information, researchers need access to confidential,
non-confidential and different data to be collected and used. This creates an ethical binding on the
researcher, not to disclose or use the firm provided data otherwise. Or else, the firm will have full
authority to stop the study process. While collecting data, there might be some misunderstanding
or any negative scenario to be faced, to avoid them, the researcher must be careful and take
precautionary strategies s/he needs. Couple of other issues created in this aspect are that the
researcher would not work against the interest of Mc Donald’s. The findings or results or any
theory written will be shared with the company and never kept concealed from them. The
management should not be forced into answering any question that they want to keep it themselves.
3.6 Data Analysis Plan

After the data collection process the raw data will first be synchronized, tabulated, formatted, and
then the neat data will be processed through a sharp investigation. The findings will be analysed
with the help of chi-square and other statistical methods. For a clear understanding, different
graphical presentations will be made.
3.6 ResearchLimitations
 This research is mostly made on qualitative data and on few selected stores of Mc Donald's,
therefore may include wrong assumptions to some few extents.
 Biasness of the employees might hamper the actual finding.
 McDonald’s will not disclose some confidential information.
 Data collectors and the researcher might have some short comings.
 Time limitation may obstruct a complete investigation process.

4. Timetable
A schedule of the dissertation preparation has been made by using Gantt chart;
Stage of the dissertation
writing process
Wee
k 1
week
2
week
3
week
4
week
5
week
6
week
7
week
8
Reading and research into
chosen topic
Research Methodology
Research Analysis
Designing the data collection
method
Data analysis
Data collection
Data Presentation
Literature Review
Check for errors
Prepare for submission
Submit your dissertation
Justification of timetable
The study work is for academic purpose. Therefore, the learner must finish it within a justified
time frame. Here in this case, the learner finds that the study would require a total 8 weeks’ time
frame for completion. There are some analysis, surveys and interviews to be done for the research
purpose and 150*150 is a pretty big sample size to cover up.

5. References
Ali, J. (2009). P1132 The role of selective and emergency McDonalds encirclage in cervical
incompetence in preventing preterm birth. International Journal of Gynecology &
Obstetrics, 107, p.S531.
Al-Zoubi, M. (2012). Generating benchmarking indicators for employee job satisfaction. Total
Quality Management & Business Excellence, 23(1), pp.27-44.
Charantimath, P. (2011). Total quality management. New Delhi, India: Dorling KIndersley
(India).
Dahlgaard-Park, S. (2014). Enhancing quality and employee well-being. Total Quality
Management & Business Excellence, 25(11-12), pp.1207-1209.
Falcone, P. (2010). 101 sample write-ups for documenting employee performance problems.
New York: American Management Association/Society for Human Resource Management.
Gould, A. (2010). Working at McDonalds: some redeeming features of McJobs. Work,
Employment & Society, 24(4), pp.780-802.
Houldsworth, E. and Jirasinghe, D. (2006). Managing & measuring employee performance.
London: Kogan Page.
Kirkpatrick, D. and Kirkpatrick, D. (2006). Improving employee performance through appraisal
and coaching. New York: American Management Association.
Matzler, K. and Renzl, B. (2006). The Relationship between Interpersonal Trust, Employee
Satisfaction, and Employee Loyalty. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence,

17(10), pp.1261-1271.
Matzler, K. and Renzl, B. (2007). Personality Traits, Employee Satisfaction and Affective
Commitment. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 18(5), pp.589-598.
Mottram, A. (2011). â€œLike a trip to McDonaldsâ€•: A grounded theory study of patient
experiences of day surgery. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 48(2), pp.165-174.
Naidu, N., Babu, K. and Rajendra, G. (2006). Total quality management. New Delhi: New Age
International.
O'Donnell, M. (2004). McDonalds Education? My Experiences with Information Technology.
New Zealand Journal of Geography, 117(2), pp.10-13.
Qureshi, A. and Hassan, M. (2013). Impact of performance management on the organisational
performance: An analytical investigation of the business model of McDonalds. IJAREMS,
2(5).
Song, J. (2011). Team performance improvement: Mediating roles of employee job autonomy
and quality of team leader-member relations in supportive organizations in the Korean
business context. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 24(3), pp.55-76.

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