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 performance appraisal and improvement practices at the company. At KFC, a recognition culture is very much in practice. According to a restaurant manager, recognition is everybody’s responsibility. KFC has implemented large-scale recognition efforts in all its restaurants and Debbie Riggs is in charge of this program which spreads over both formal and informal ground.
There are service awards, performance programs and according to Riggs, “ We all work together! Recognition is not a program … it is really owned by everyone in the company.
” (Tanner Recognition Company) A company is after all only as good as its employees and KFC strongly believes that employees should be rewarded amply for putting in a large portion of their lives into the company. Regular performance appraisals are held and employees who have made significant contributions to the company are rewarded for their input. As an example, the Chicago-area Assistant Restaurant Manager Alvin Moore received a recognition award – a watch with a symbolic gold emblem featuring the KFC logo. In celebration of his accomplishment, Moore was granted the day off but he still stopped by the restaurant to see if he could be of help. The entire restaurant team got together to celebrate Moore’s achievement in recognition of his efforts.
As a matter of fact, all the companies that comprise Tricon (KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell) believe that recognition and applause is one of the prime ays to guarantee employee improvement as it boosts their morale and encourages them to perform even better. C. H. A. M. P.
S which stands for Cleanliness, Hospitality, Accuracy, Maintenance, Product, and Speed is an example of a successful recognition program in which any employee can give a C. H. A. M. P.
S. recognition card to another employee when they notice commendable behavior. Then, each week the restaurant manager draws from the completed C. H.
A. M. P. S. cards and offers the champion a low- or no-cost prize called Priceless Rewards. This could be a pair of movie tickets or a promise of the manager washing the employee’s car in the parking lot.
(Tanner Recognition Company) In today’s economy, a lot of industries have difficulty in retaining employees and the food industry is no exception to this fact. But KFC and Tricon are managing to retain their employees and their effective workforce development practices of performance appraisal and interviews just might be responsible for that. According to restaurant manager Adonis Chapel, “ What motivates people and keeps them here? As KFC’s advertising slogan goes, “ we do chicken right,” he says the secret is “ just the way you treat people. Treat them right! ” The HR department of KFC is definitely doing its job well as according to Kufahl & Agoglia (2003), the company has the lowest turnover rate in the fast food industry. However, when a company reaches the pinnacle of success with regards to any aspect, it has to try even harder to stay there and maintain its position.
Hence, KFC should try to keep up the good work and maintain the level of commendable workforce development practices.
