I believe one occupation where job satisfaction would be particularly low is a sales clerk/cashier job at a fast food restaurant, and the restaurant I will focus on specifically is the McDonald's company. A study on food industry manager resignations conducted in 2001 found that more than 25% of those surveyed were expected to leave their company fairly quickly. In capitalist America it is almost common knowledge that the turnover rate of fast food industry workers is disturbingly high due to impactful factors such as low wages that cannot provide enough money for an individual to support themselves, and benefits insignificant that do not help the individual, for example; health insurance. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayWe, as consumers and as residents of the United States, are numb to the industry, what it represents, and all of this information that I am currently presenting to you, however one factual article that I find quite compelling is that 20% of workers who say that they are "reasonably satisfied" with their job they say they intend to stay in the company only for a maximum of five years (Ghiselli, La Lopa, Bai 2001). What interests me is the reasoning behind the notoriously ever-growing and changing industry's high turnover rate, what is causing these disparities in mutual satisfaction between workers and business leaders, and ultimately, how we should act to reform this problem. Two reasons why It is important to increase motivation to work effectively for fast food workers both because they have to work well on behalf of the company and because they don't have a better option. Workers must work effectively because if they have a bad attitude or are inefficient, customers will notice and therefore view the company negatively. A good example of this would be the Chik-Fil-A at VCU student commons. They take steals on Saturdays and the line at Chik-Fil-A winds through all the common locations from opening time to closing. Every time I spent time on this line, my anxiety and stress levels skyrocketed. People are always loud, pushy, and rude, and the last thing I want is for the employee to take my order displaying obviously bad behavior and attitude, as if Chik-Fil-A is the last place they want to be . I realized how unemotional and negative the employees seemed and how long it took to receive the food after waiting in line for so long, much less I felt eager to support such a company that doesn't care the health and well-being of its employees. be, nor the level of satisfaction of their customers. I haven't been back to Chik-Fil-A since. Employee effectiveness and performance are critical to a busy company. These two aspects of job performance (or lack of performance) act like a domino effect. This means that if the employee does not perform up to standards, the company looks bad and terminates their employment. This goes along with my second reason why workers need to stay motivated, which is because they really have no other choice. Most workers in these fast food industries have a low level of education and it is difficult for them to find work elsewhere. Fast food industries allow their employees to work long hours to earn the maximum amount of money (even if it's not a lot of money) sothat they can maintain themselves in the best possible way. If an employee does not perform effectively, they put themselves at high risk of being fired and this would be viewed negatively by future employers. Skinner's reinforcement theory of motivation states that behavior is a function of stimulus, response, and reward, in that consecutive order. This theory may explain why this profession's group can experience low levels of motivation simply because they do not receive enough incentives. There are two rates of reinforcement in Skinner's theory; continuous and intermittent. The compensation that workers in the fast food industry receive is an ongoing reward. That ongoing reward would be their weekly or biweekly paycheck. Assuming the worker has mostly fixed working hours, he or she will receive a salary for the exact same amount of money every two weeks. This becomes quite repetitive and their motivation level would decrease due to the routine of non-stimulating tasks. Skinner demonstrated that intermittent rewards, meaning rewards are given only after some correct behaviors and not all, result in longer-lasting desired behaviors and higher levels of performance. Adam's equity theory explains how people look at the world of work by comparing entries and exits. In the fast food industry, a worker will compare what they are investing in their job and what they get out of the work performed. Ideally equity would result in an equal input/outcome ratio, however the employee may realize that they are only receiving the minimum wage and that their amount of earnings will not increase anytime soon because there are minimal promotions in this sector (unless you haven't worked with the industry for a long time). Once the worker realizes that he is able to do less work and receive the same amount of low pay, his level of motivation will decrease. Another aspect of Adam's fairness theory is the issue of comparison with others. Workers may compare themselves to other workers, but because they are all on the same playing field and are not expected to receive raises or incentives, there is no tension or increased level of excitement, resulting in low motivation. The improvement intervention that I think could be used to increase motivation in fast-food restaurants would be to add more attractive incentives to increase job performance and motivation. Some examples of incentives that can be added are supervisor positions, recognition and reward, and increased life satisfaction due to company “superiors” demonstrating that the employee is not just an object, but a person. Employers feel that their work is undervalued, that they feel too much pressure and are in an unfavorable atmosphere (Burn-Callander 2015). Because the work is quite routinized and the turnover rate is so high, workers do not feel like they are earning as much as they are worth (Leidner, pp.204-206). An incentive that would deplete the sense of helpfulness would be to provide an “employee of the month” reward. Stereotypically, the employee of the month is rewarded solely with your photo on the wall, however, some sort of bonus or personal recognition for the rewarded employee could be very helpful for their level of motivation and well-being. The employee of the month reward is an example of an intermittent reward according to Skinner's reinforcement theory. If an employee is directly told what they are doing correctly, rather than just being criticized, then they will have a sense of value and, in turn, have more positive associations with their workplace. Here.