PCA Human Resources Analysis

Cameron Hendricks

OGL 481

09/30/2021

 Situation Restatement

The organization I chose for my Personal Case Analysis was Chick-Fil-A. I used to be a

Team Leader at the largest Chick-Fil-A in the Tampa market. When the pandemic hit at the start

of 2020, the entire restaurant industry took a huge nose dive. Due to people staying indoors more

and employees leaving. Employees were leaving due to fear of getting sick, better pay from

unemployment and the emended stress of working while extremely understaffed. Being a Team

Leader I could see how this was affecting our productivity at the ground level. It was hard to

communicate these issues with the higher up management and for a long time things got worse

and worse with no lifeline. I tried to implement some changes myself, to the best of my ability

but it was hard to make true progress. After an emended amount of time, the management was

forced to take action and took out much of the stress on the workers. Which did not help the

situation. In the end, they were forced to ask some of the Team Leaders what we think would

help on the ground level. They implemented some of our changes and we did see real change.

But it took too long. There are still some people working there to this day, but many have moved

on. It was really a rollercoaster of stress and no communication.

Human Resources Influence

Chick-Fil-A is known for their excellent service and employees who care about the

experience of the customer. This is actually pretty true and most of the employees worked there

because of that reason. It is a great company to work under, even if it is just fast food.

The restaurant and owner I was under was very successful, which I think led and caused

some issues in the long run. Almost like he thought his store could never have any issues due to

 how successful it was. When the pandemic hit and we started to have more stresses on our plate.

The morale dropped dramatically, especially in the back of house. With people leaving and more

on our plate, we needed the push to do better than we ever have. But it felt like we were thrown

out to rot. Any concerns we had got basically ignored or never reached anyone who could make

real change. So it begun to spiral out of control. According to Bolman and Deal (2017)

“employees are encouraged to think like owners, to do whatever is possible to improve numbers”

(p. 145). Which is the exact opposite that was happening and I would argue, would be even

worse consider our owner was doing nothing to help us. But overall the team did want to

improve the situation and the “numbers” of the store. After months of not much change, basically

all of the original staff left, some managers stayed but it was basically a brand new crew. To

prevent this from happening again, they had to meet with the leaders, but it took way too long.

The connection we felt as a team to the store was basically non existent at that point.

Course of Action Recommendation

For any organization, people should feel connected and respected by the members and

management of their team. In this situation, we were not connected to the organization or the

upper management of the team. In a tough and unpredictable situation of the pandemic, the upper

management should reach out and ensure that they are here to make things are smooth as

possible for us. So that we can continue to do the best work we possibly can, especially since we

are the largest store in the Tampa market. Chick-Fil-A is known for the best customer experience

and caring about their “guests”. Well they needed to extend that hand out to the workers as well.

Our textbook stated perfect examples of how to fix these issues, that would have transferred

 perfectly in my situation. Organizations can fix human resource issues by “strengthening the

bond from within” and “paying well, offering job security [and] promoting from within” (p.

156). These are some of the options we offered upper management to no avail originally. Those

options would ave made us feel more connected to the organization and team. Which could have

prevented employee turnover dramatically.

Do Different Reflection

I do think most team members want the best for team as well as themselves. It feels nice

to be a part of something and to be of value to a team. Understanding the Human Resource frame

can ensure that this is done. I think it is interesting that some ideas we had on the ground level

are some of the examples that are effective in our textbook. It makes me wonder how much

different everything would have been if there was a clear communication channel from the start.

It also shows that sometimes the members can think like the owners, like the book said, and

make decisions which could be better than the current owner’s decision.

 References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership
(6 th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass