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Between 1880 and 1890 Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856 – 1917), the author of the theory of ‘Scientific Management’, came with the solution to inefficiency of work. He noticed that workers believed that if they worked faster and increased output then some of them would lose their job. And he found that working methods were poor are workers used inadequate tools. Consequently, the managers controlled and coordinated poorly.
Taylor thought that workers …show more content…
Other examples are factories manufacturing electronics, clothes or cars with assembly lines which set the speed of the workers. This essays focuses on a restaurant chain using these methods.
Subway is one of the fastest growing franchise chain in the world. By October 17th 2014 Subway has 42 808 restaurants in 108 countries and none of them is primarily managed by the Subway itself. Subway was primarily making submarine sandwiches. These days people coming to eat to Subway can enjoy fresh salads, tortillas or even soup but sandwiches are still the most popular.
Once a franchisee is trained he needs employees to open the restaurant. Training of them usually takes up to 35 hours and trainees are not paid for this as becoming an employee depends on how successful the training is. The training consists of learning all the procedures Subway have chosen as the best way of doing things. For example each kind of vegetable is cut by a different tool and all restaurants are provided with the same tools so the vegetable in the sandwich has the same shape in whatever restaurant a customer is. There are also time guides telling employees how much time they should spend on each task in the kitchen …show more content…
Creating a perfect sandwich is divided into small tasks – welcoming a customer and cutting bread, putting meat on a sandwich and baking it, putting vegetables and sauce, wrapping the sandwich, charging the customer and asking if he was happy with the service. At each stage a selected person stands and performs the task which is detailed prescribed.
Serving customers in such way guarantees that they know what to expect in restaurants around the world. Another advantage of using such methods is in speed it provides because tasks are small and easily learnt. Goals are clearly defined – all restaurants try to serve as many people as possible in the shortest time and at the same time they follow the standards. Employees are motivated in the form of one free meal every working day or bonus payment if mystery shopping is successful.
One the other hand, working in fast- food which follows scientific methods is very boring for employees. They have no option to change the way of doing tasks and so they become very repetitive. The goals are concerned with productivity and does not take in account people needs. Employees get minimum wage and they are not many chances to get higher as between the owner and employees in only one stage on the ladder – store manager who does not get much better wages. After some period people tend to leave this job and thus the employer have to find new employees