Welcome to
ASSIGNMENT PART 1
WORKING TITLE: UNDERCOVER BOSS – FATBURGER S4EP12
1.0 Summary of the episodes
Undercover Boss, Andy Weber Horton, goes from an inmate to the chief executive officer (CEO) of Fatburger, one of the world's fastest-growing hamburger chains. He decided to go undercover as Myron, where his staffs believe he's on a reality show trying to win money to start a new life. He approached the team as an ordinary person because he wanted honest truths on how the businesses were doing and the underlying problems that may lead certain businesses under Fatburger to decrease productivity. The first Fatburger restaurant that Andy went was in Sherman Oaks, California, where this restaurant has been for more than 30 years. Andy was placed in the assembly station in which his job was to assemble the burgers. Myron(Andy) met Val, the manager who has been working with Fatburger for 29 years, and she taught him how to complete the burgers one by one in the assembly station and wrapping the burgers. When Andy messed up the burger several times, Val, instead of scolding him, reassured him and gave him some time to get used to the arrangements.
However, Val had a good memory of how the CEO looked like, and Any could help no longer hide. He seized the chance to talk to Val, gave practical suggestions, and explained that they should have a centralized maintenance list to increase the restaurant's efficiency. The most fascinating about Val is she recognized other employees' work and appreciates their effort by giving free meals and a weekend holiday a month. Next, Andy went as Myron to be trained as a shift leader in another restaurant in Nevada. Andy approached Lisa, the shift leader of the restaurant, because he was informed that the business was underperforming and was almost at its point of failing. Lisa's job was to ensure the restaurant received enough supplies, yet the restaurant was always out of main ingredients such as meat for the burgers and items like a paper bag. Hence, the restaurant was not able to retain any regular customers. This is because no one in the restaurant does the paperwork on ordering enough supplies for the restaurant. His third visitation to Puritan Bakery to meet the technicians there in California, Andy, in his undercover as Myron, wanted to learn about the consistency in the product they generate to make sure that every bun looked perfectly the same. He met Ramon Gonzalez, the supervisor, and led Andy to experience every section involved in the production. In learning about the work, Andy also learnt about the employees and Ramon's perseverance. He has been struggling with his wife's legal status, a terrifying experience with his wife and their legal status. It reminded him of his ties in prison and the feeling of separation from his family, yet Ramon showed endless commitment and positivity to both his family and job. His last destination to one of the oldest franchises of the Fatburger business in Arizona, he wanted to find why the restaurant had been underperformed and unable to attract many customers. Manager Angelica mentioned that the pieces of equipment were not functioning well to the point where it affected efficiency and makes the job frustrating to the employees. Angelica had plans for her education and career, but she could not realize her dreams as she had to manage the restaurant. In the mid-way of the conversation, Angelica raised the issues on employee appreciation. It appears that the franchise owner never cared about the employees' wellbeing and took lightly on the problems they faced at their workplace. She also shared about the payroll issue where the employees had to struggle without paychecks.
To summarize the episode, Andy learns that flipping burgers are not as easy as it seems and that not everyone thinks a fat burger is a fast-food paradise. He also found out that some of the employees' problems were not handled properly. The right procedures must be formed immediately to ensure their wellbeing is protected while increasing production.
Group Assignment PDF
2.0 Indicate TWO (2) themes related to organizational learning your group observe. Discuss these main points and support your arguments from relevant sources, e.g. books, other related articles highlighting advantages/strengths or disadvantages/weaknesses of the learning processes.
2.1 Different Middle Management Engagement Styles with Workers
All leaders, be it officially appointed or being chosen by co-workers, bring impacts to the work satisfaction among the employees when everyone is to work together to meet the organization's goals. In the programme named Undercover Boss, Fatburger is an organization in the food industry with franchises across America and is still wanting to expand its business throughout the world. The franchises included in the programme have proven that work arrangement and motivation come from the managers and supervisors of the respective franchise. For example, the line workers in the franchise at Sherman Oaks, California, have their shop manager, Val to arrange and remind them of what they need to do after receiving an order. The workers were all very motivated and happy to work with Val because she knows what to do, gives clear orders, and prioritized the employees' welfare. The strengths of having a manager like Val who can manage and lead the workers at the same time have surely created a conducive working atmosphere for the workers, which decreases the tendency of turnover because they are happy to work and got attached to the workplace. According to Surji (2014), organizations require good leaders who can deal with organizational cultural factors and various employees and become the mediator in ensuring the organization operations run effectively. However, when the managers or supervisors have more tasks than stated in their job requirements, they may miss some of the important details of the other workers as they continue to work. Burnout and frustration may happen among the employees if the managers fail to give immediate attention to their needs.
2.2 Lack of Support from Top Management
In every franchise mentioned in the Undercover Boss programme, all of them have similar issues. The employees' recognition is not a culture in which the business and food ingredients were insufficient, leading to fewer customers and less profit in some franchises. A shift leader by the name of Lisa mentioned that due to the problems faced among employees with the lack of ingredients and motivation to work, the business faced underperforming issues as it did not generate enough profit to meet the main franchisor's standard. Recognition of the employees' work is not well-addressed by the franchise owners, or business administrators not only show that they are not caring for the employees but also the business. Due to the lack of support from the franchise owner, a franchise manager-managed by an assistant manager, Angelica had to mediate the workers because the equipment was not functioning well. They were not receiving the salary they deserved. When the workplace is not meeting the needs of their job, employees' productivity will below. A case study done by Awan and Tahir (2015) depicted that factors like management support, collegial relationship, training and development activities, incentives, and recognition plans are equally important to increase the workers' productivity. Since they are the major contributors to the business' profits, it is crucial to create a workplace where everyone is happy to work. However, the good impact of such an incident is the managers, and other workers know the problems. They can give better suggestions on improving the business as Val, the manager, Lisa, the shift leader, Ramon Gonzalez, the bakery technician supervisor, and Angelica, the assistant manager, had suggested to their CEO when he went undercover at their stores.
3.0 Explain TWO (2) important implications that your group think will have on learning activities and practices in the organization you observe.
An important implication that we think will have on learning activities and practices in Fatburger restaurant is the engagement style of middle management with their workers. This can be observed in the Sherman Oaks, California franchise, where Manager Val mentored Andy, the CEO of Fatburger restaurant, who pretended to become a new line worker in preparing the burgers. She did not scold Andy when he mistakenly added the wrong toppings on the burger. Rather she encouraged and guided him step by step on how to add the toppings correctly. She had good communication skills, particularly in giving clear orders and continuous reminders to her staff, which helped them improve their work performances and competencies. Besides that, Ramon, the supervisor of Puritan bakery in Carson, California, also showed how middle management engagement style could impact the learning activities and practices in the organization. Ramon noticed that Andy did not do well on the first task he had assigned him to do, where Andy could not arrange the buns quickly on the machine and, at the same time, ensure buns were in perfect shapes. Ramon then decided to change Andy's task to an easier task by which Andy was only asked to arrange the packed buns on the container racks. This proved that Ramon had delegation skills, whereby he recognized which tasks would work the best for his employees to work effectively and efficiently.
Another important implication that we must be considered while observing the learning activities and practices in Fatburger restaurant is the lack of top management support. Top management support plays a vital role in ensuring the success and profits gained in the organization and plays an essential role in taking care of the employees' wellbeing. Without proper support to the workers, employees' motivation and satisfaction to work in the organization will be affected. For example, Lisa, the shift leader from the Reno Nevada franchise, shared with Andy. They were deficient in ingredients as no one was supervising how much the amount of meat or patties they needed for a week caused them to run out of the ingredients and eventually lose their customers. Hence, the absence of top management support in overseeing the sufficiency of components led to low job satisfaction among the workers in the organization. Another example of lack of support shown by top management can be displayed in the Mesa Arizona franchise of Fatburger restaurant. Angelina, the assistant manager, informed Andy that the main problem they faced was a lack of employee appreciation in the workplace. She mentioned that their manager seldomly visits them unless he needed something from them. He often neglected his worker's welfare, such as abandoning the damaged or broken food pieces of equipment in restaurants and failing to pay their wages over time. Thus, these types of circumstances can influence workers to feel demotivated to work. In the end, it may cause employee turnover as they are undervalued and invisible to the manager.
REFERENCES
Awan, A. G., & Tahir, M. T. (2015). Impact of working environment on employee's productivity: A case study of banks and insurance companies in Pakistan. European Journal of Business and Management, 7(1), 329-345.
Chiao, C. (2013, April 1). Q&A with Fatburger CEO Andy Wiederhorn : undercover boss advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. LA Weekly. Retrieved form https://https://www.laweekly.com/q-a-with-fatburger-ceo-andy-wiederhorn-undercover-boss-advice-for-aspiring-entrepreneurs/
Greggu. (2019, October 8). Organizational learning strategies [video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/-M_7MeJoU-0
Surji, K. M. (2014). The positive affect of leadership on employee performance and its impact on improving workplace environment in addition to organizational culture. European Journal of Business and Management, 6(25), 150-161. https://doi.org/10.7176/ejbm/6-25-2014-02
4.0 Two (2) recommendation for action to achieve effective organizational learning practices, renewal and growth.
Andy Weber Horton took a good step or action when he, as CEO of a Fatburger organization, went down the field doing undercover to find out the problems in his organization. Throughout his disguise, Andy finds many issues in his organizations that this Fatburger organization is not running smoothly. Andy has done undercover in four branches of his organization, and he is self -trained by managers and leader in each of his undercover organizations. Andy also finds that everything he does during his undercover is not as easy as he thinks. Its managers have also stated various problems that occur in the organization. Among the issues that Andy knows to find is his manager Val state, Fatburger should have a centralized maintenance list to help the restaurant function efficiently. Another, Lisa told Andy that they always out of supplies and causing customers not to want to come to their restaurant anymore. Last, his manager Angelica showed Andy several pieces of equipment that would not work right. The serious problem Andy has to discover is employee appreciation. The owner only appears where there is a problem.
Throughout the undercover of Andy Weber Horton (CEO) in his organization, the Fatburger restaurant, Andy has been aware of every problem in the restaurant that is used as his place to disguise. As an HR professional, several steps or actions can be taken to overcome this problem from continuing to occur. Among them is implemented changes to help facilitate better employee or management communication. The best way to do this is to implement an employee feedback system where employees can get their ideas to the top. Through this system, employees will voice their views about problems that occur in restaurants, such as the Angelica problem where some equipment can not work efficiently. The quality of sales affects these employees to express their opinions either with an open identity or anonymity.
The second way is by doing an employee recognition program. This action should be taken or done to reward each employee who has done their best in their organization. For example, all of the managers who work with Andy are the oldest and most experienced people, so they are willing to neglect other things to contribute to the organization (the case of Angelica, who didn't have the opportunity to vacation because of work). Not only that, as an HR professional, it is a good action to appreciate all the staff who work under our organization. This is said because when employees feel valued, they will gain motivation within themselves to strive to do better in the future.