Introduction:
KFC Corporation, has its headquarters in Louisville,
Kentucky. It is the world's most popular chicken
restaurant chain, specializing in Original Recipe®,
Extra Crispy™, Twister® and Colonel's
Crispy Strips® chicken with homestyle side
offerings.
Every day, nearly eight million customers are
served around the world. KFC's menu includes Original
Recipe® chicken -- made with the same great
taste Colonel Harland Sanders created more than
a half-century ago. Customers around the globe
also enjoy more than 300 other products -- from
a Chunky Chicken Pot Pie in the United States
to a salmon sandwich in Japan to a fish fillet
sandwich in Pakistan. KFC is one the world’s
best known and loved brands today, but this would
not have been possible without its employees.
KFC’s HRM practices are the topic of discussion
for this paper, and emphasis will be placed on
the recruitment, selection and retention practices
at KFC (KFC Official Site, 2004).
Recruitment and Selection at KFC:
Part of KFC’s recruitment strategy is to
offer employees high-quality options such as potential
for advancement, company reputation, benefits
package and salary scale. When KFC was looking
for senior executives who could run a business,
for two years it scoured the management teams
across various industries and offered senior executives
of companies like Coca Cola attractive benefits
and a better salary scale to get them on the team.
These executives were promised quick advancement
on their jobs, and apparently given such incentives
to join that most of the people offered jobs joined
KFC even though they were told before hand that
at immediate present, no senior position was vacant.
Hence, KFC’s attractive salary and benefits
package is an effective lure for potential employees
(Rigdon, 1991).
For example, among the benefits package that KFC
offers, is a medical coverage and prescription
benefits, dental coverage, vision/hearing coverage,
life and disability insurance, a 410k plan (which
helps employees save for their future), stock
options, a management incentive plan (under which
everyone from assistant manager to senior executive
is rewarded for remarkable performance), adoption
assistance, tuition reimbursement plan, college-planning
assistance, employee discount, paid vacation and
a group legal plan. KFC also believes in promoting
from within, as it encourages employees to perform
well on their jobs, telling them that they in
fact can go from being just a team member to the
restaurant manager and later area or region coach
(KFC Official site).
As far as selection is concerned, KFC management
strongly believes that hiring young people and
later training them is the way to a successful
organization. Hence, the age factor is definitely
an issue of concern for recruiters at KFC. The
company also strongly believes in diversification.
According to Kyle Craig, president of Kentucky
Fried Chicken's U.S. operations, “We want
to bring in the best people but if there are two
equally qualified people, we'd clearly like to
have diversity.” From this, we can safely
assert that KFC believes in eliminating the glass
ceiling, and hiring and keeping female and minority-group
executives. This seems to be working for the company
and is an effective policy: where in 1989, not
even one of the company's 17 senior U.S. managers
were minority or female, the situation has improved
today, with there being numerous managers either
female or part of a minority group. KFC admits
that it actively tries to recruit and promote
women and minority members in middle and top management
ranks (Rigdon, 1991).
Retention Practice at KFC:
KFC is a client of the O.C. Tanner Company, which
specializes in helping companies motivate employees
through comprehensive recognition solutions. According
to its director, marketing and corporate communications,
“KFC has the lowest turnover rate in the
fast food industry because it is a fun place to
work.” The company ensures that coming to
work is not something employees dread by making
the day as enjoyable for its workers as possible.
Employees have been given the autonomy to have
fun on the job: they can start standing ovations
for themselves whenever they want, can sing songs
for birthdays etc. (Kufahl & Agoglia, 2003).
Staff retention should be a major concern for
employers because it has been proven time and
again that if the company is ever in a financial
mess, it has to deal with the added loss of employees
resigning and leaving the company, right when
their energy and work is needed the most. KFC
is one of those companis which realizes this factor.
It has incorporated a lot of recognition programs
in its culture, like Floppy Chicken, or KFC President
Charles Rawley's Bulldog Award to motivate employees
and keep them happy (Serving up a bucket of recognition,
2001).
Recommendations:
The recommendations that I would offer KFC is
to maintain its current low turnover rates and
incorporate even more practices in its culture
which provide recognition to employees and make
them feel valued. As for selection and recruitment
practices, age should not be a bias factor and
the principle of promotion from within should
be adhered to. This is because for companies like
KFC, it is very important to promote a certain
employee culture, hence, it is better to promote
older employees rather than hiring people from
external sources.
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