Ethical And Diversity Considerations For McDonalds Research Paper Samples

[Ethical and Diversity Considerations for McDonalds]

Introduction
McDonalds is one the leading fast food companies of the world that is growing and spreading steadily since the last three decades. The company is famous for its burgers and fries which it sells through 31,000 fast food restaurants in more than 110 countries of the world (McDonald’s Corporation, 2006). The company was established by two brothers Dick and Donald in 1950s. These two brothers presented a new style of eating by introducing this company. The company was later owned by Ray Kroc. Kroc transformed this simple burger cottage into business characterized by conformity and uniformity (Schlosser, 2004).

Current ethical and diversity conditions

Apparently McDonalds seems cheap and clean but there are many negative aspects of the business. Currently McDonalds facing many ethical and diversity challenges. We will address these challenges one by one under below sections.

Ethical issues in McDonalds

McDonald’s always tried to made substantial efforts to support the children having life threatening illnesses and diseases. But the diet offered by the company is known to be the largest agents for obesity, heart diseases, asthma and mad cow disease.

Environmental issue

The main ethical issue of the company is that its practices are environmentally questionable. Fresh ground beef burger must contain fresh beef from butcher shop but a typically fast food patty contains meat from more than one thousand different cattle’s raised in as many as five countries (Schlosser, 2004). The issue of using food from extreme distances is environmentally unsuitable. From medical perspective it is also causing difficult to trace the contaminated sources.

Labor issue

Besides health and environmental issue the company has some issues with its workers. The company is paying minimum wage to its workers in spite of the fact that company is now worth more than billion dollars. According to survey, corporation pays minimum amount to its assembly line, factory type workers. If the work done by burger manufacturers and drive-thru cashiers were reclassified as factory work that would “add about 3.5 million manufacturing jobs to the U.S. economy, at a time when such jobs are rapidly being exported overseas. Statistically it would make the U.S an industrial power again instead an aging super power facing the challenge from low cost competitors (Schlosser, 2004).

Diversity considerations

McDonalds Corporation is based upon the diversity commitments. The company is focusing on the fact that diversity is not an ethical or moral issue but also a business issue.

Demographic Diversity

One of the diversity considerations is to grow and meet the diversity challenge of Asian & Latin American countries. There is need to meet the demographic diversity of these new nations. Major mission of the McDonalds is continuing its diversity efforts by continuous learning and having knowledge about the diverse customer base.

Religious Inclusion

Inclusion is another consideration of the McDonalds. The issue of race, gender and religious inclusions are those that company formally does not take into account. The absence of these inclusion strategies makes the employees and minority groups that they are not formal part of the organization.

Importance of ethical and diversity considerations for SHR planning process

The term strategic business analysis and planning can be defined as (David, 2012),
“The process of evaluating the business environment which is required by an organization for its business operations and analysis of the organization too, as part of a process of formulating long-term objectives”

Strategic planning mainly corresponds to the evaluation of the exact business position by analyzing its internal and external environments.

The strategic planning considers the way for working of an organization for the betterment of its objectives and integrates its activities with the opportunities of the marketplace to accomplish its overall objectives.
Ethical and diversity considerations are vital to success of business organizations. It mainly involves thorough study of vision, mission and out of the box thinking. Following points indicate the importance of ethical and diversity considerations for strategic analysis for business organizations like McDonalds.

These mainly define the current position and performance of the company in the business world.

It is vital to the success of business organizations. Business organizations can enhance their performance, keeping in view the current ethical and diversity.

Strategic analysis helps to elaborate the company future perspectives.

It is also an ideal way to get hands on the understanding of business procedures.
It also helps the McDonalds to select the most suitable and efficient staff. Thus we can say diversity and ethical considerations are key for recruitment and retention of staff.
Company can use these considerations to cater the customers from diverse markets. These considerations provide the excellent management system for getting and retaining customers.

Recommendations for addressing the considerations

Recommended ways for addressing ethical considerations
Set processes:
There must be set processes for addressing ethical issues related to environmental degradation and health issues. McDonalds have been criticized for long for its lacking in set process for providing the healthy and nutritious food to its customers across the globe. This lack for set processes and raised the ethical issues for the organization.

Rationale for set processes:

There must be development and set processes for addressing the non - clinical problems. The processes for non-clinical policies should be clear and transparent. If these policies are absent there would be lack of framework. Policy makers and development authorities must make the set processes for making the policies with significant ethical content. There must be chair of ethics committee in every little outlet or franchise which has regular meetings with other members of quality resources and decision support services groups (Ells, 2006).

Recommended ways for addressing diversity considerations

There are some powerful points which must be considered by McDonalds while developing strong diversity programs. These have been elaborated below;

Involvement of leadership

There must be involvement of top leadership in diversity related programs. Mostly the diversity is considered as a responsibility of the specific department. But involvement of top leadership is very necessary for effective diversity campaigns. The success of this can be seen from the HP example. Hp implement this strategy into the company had gained effective and steady diversity growth into its workforce.

Complete cultural change

McDonalds was once into the complete clutches of severe diversity issues in mid 90s. The company managed to overcome this but strong cultural change in America. This is needed again to implement into all the countries where it is operating. There must be training and staff development related to diversity of the staff. This can generate efficient and diverse workforce for the company globally.

References

David, F. (2012). Strategic management concepts and cases. New Jersey, NJ: Prentice Hall Publishers. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Strategic-Management-Competitive-Advantage-Approach/dp/0132666219
Ells, C. (2006). “Healthcare ethics committees’ contribution to review of institutional policy”, HEC Forum 18: 265-275. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17650763
McDonald’s corporation. (2006). Market Line Business. Retrieved from http://store.marketline.com/Product/toc.aspx?productId=ML00001-040
Schlosser, E. (2002). Fast Food Nation. Penguin. Retrieved from http://www.penguin.co.uk/books/fast-food-nation/9780141006871/
Schlosser, E. (2004). Special report on slow food. In J. Johnson (Ed.), Global Issues, Local arguments. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Global-Issues-Local-Arguments-Edition/dp/0205886159
Smith, S. (2003). ‘McDonald’s’, America’s Greatest Brands II, 80-81. Retrieved from http://www.americasgreatestbrands.com/volume2/council/council.html
Sweeney, M. (2004). ‘McDonald’s axes Golden Arches for health focus’, Marketing. Retrieved from http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/224536/mcdonalds-axes-golden-arches-ads-health-focus
Tanner, L. (2006, December 4). Study finds allowing fast food in kid’ hospitals sends mixed message to families. Chicago. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/allowing-fast-food-in-kids-hospitals-sends-mixed-message-to-families-1.579054
Teather, D. (2004). ‘McDonald’s seeks to assuage critics’, The Guardian August. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/business/2004/aug/06/7