Author Archives: Mahir Khan

Retention assignment

What do you think is the most demotivating part of Harper’s job?

Answer: The part that has been demotivating Harper is that she had to take extra workload when her previous boss Jose left the company six months ago. She is now struggling to balance her work and personal life since she gets to spend much fewer time outside work. And she’s been doing this extra work without any form of recognition from her current boss, who doesn’t seem to give her the helping hand when Harper needs it. Her current boss is also not taking any action to relief Harper of her extra workload like filling in the empty position who can share workload with Harper or giving Harper promotion for taking extra responsibilities.

If you were an HR manager meeting with Harper’s supervisor, David, what advice would you give to help David re-engage Harper?

Answer: If I were an HR manager, I would tell Harper’s supervisor to fill in the empty position that Harpers previous boss left, with another employee who can relief Harper of the extra work burden, or he can give Harper a raise for taking up extra work responsibilities. He can also give Harper a promotion to the position her previous boss was in, since she has demonstrated that she can do his job. I would urge the supervisor to relief Harper of the extra workload so she can balance her work and personal life smoothly.

What would be the downside of losing Harper as an employee?

Answer: Harper has worked for the company for four years, so she has gained a lot of experience working for the company, so she knows how to finish the tasks efficiently. She has also showed that she can take in extra responsibilities, like working in a managerial position in the company. It will be a big loss for the company to loss an exceptionally hard working and an experienced employee like Harper, and it might take a long time to fill in that position with someone who has similar expertise like Harper. It will also be very costly to train that new employee for that position. Losing Harper might also demotivate other employees who had a close relationship with Harper, and who might not get along well with any new employee replacing Harper.

Founder Assignment

What makes Ray Kroc and the brothers different from each other?

Answer: Ray Kroc was more ambitious about expanding the original Mcdonalds company, whereas the brothers were reluctant to expand through franchising, because of concerns about the quality of the items being sold, since they already had tried franchising once, and the quality and the originality of the items, and the menus were altered significantly. The brothers were more concerned about preserving the quality, whereas Kroc wanted to prioritize profiting out of the brand.

Do you think the McDonald’s brothers did the right thing by selling out to Ray Kroc? Did Ray Kroc give the brothers a good deal?

Answer: The brothers actually made a very damaging deal with Ray Kroc, since Kroc ended up breaking the terms of the deal by opening up his own real estate company by naming it Mcdonalds, the name he stole from the Mc brothers, and leasing lands to franchisees where only he took a part of the profit of their sales, instead of giving it to the Mc brothers. This put the Mc brothers and their original Mcdonalds out of business, and they ended up selling their Mcdonalds to Kroc. But the contract did eventually serve the public in the sense that Mcdonalds and its unique recipes spread all over the U.S.A and to many parts of the world as franchises.

How did the local store franchisees make money?

Answer: The Local franchises made money from selling their items, and also adding new items to the original Mcdonalds menu. They also added cost saving ways of making some items such as milkshake, where powdered ingredients with vanilla or chocolate flavor were added instead of real milkshake.

How did Kroc make money? How was that different than the franchisees, running the local stores?

Answer: Kroc made money from the rental lease contracts he made with franchises, and also, he got a portion of the gross sale the local franchises made.

Does this film change your view of McDonald’s?

Answer: The film definitely changed my knowledge of Mcdonalds and how it expanded from its humble beginnings to the massive fast-food chain that it is today. I learnt of some sad episode in the History of Mcdonalds where the original entrepreneurs of Mcdonalds were put out of business by someone who plagiarized the concept of Mcdonalds. The film also showed me how persistence mixed with a bit of cleverness can help one succeed in achieving any project.

Ethics at Amazon

I would like to discuss about the ethics and social standards Amazon managers abide by, since I work at an Amazon fulfillment center. Having worked there for over a couple of years I have experienced how physically strenuous working conditions at amazon are, without providing any adequate accommodations to do such strenuous work. Employees need to be on their feet for 10 hours straight without any opportunity to rest their legs, except for two small breaks. Managers always provide unrealistic daily goals/rates that needs to met, otherwise employees get a right up for poor performance. And during peak season, around summer times and the few weeks before Christmas, employees are required to do mandatory overtime. Until recently Amazon had a policy called Tot, where employees where digitally tracked to see how long they’ve been off work, and if it is usually above 5 minutes, they would get a write up. Employees are daily forced to risk such harsh working conditions, otherwise they would get fired. Because of such harsh policies in place, Amazon has received huge criticism from its employees and also from various government and non-government agencies. Such harsh working conditions have forced Amazon employees to form the ALU or the Amazon labor union, which has promised to overturn such harsh policies through collective bargaining with Amazon management. But Amazon decided to appeal the decision of forming the ALU, in the court, so that it can continue to exercise its harsh policies upon its employees just to earn more and more profits at the expense of the wellbeing of its employees. It is high time the court rules in favor of the ALU so that employees can have a better working condition at Amazon.

https://www.businessinsider.com/work-at-amazon-jobs-performance-reviews-hiring-firing-interviews-warehouses-delivery-drivers

Mahir Khan

Hi my name is Mahir khan. I am majoring in small business/entrepreneurship. Hobbies are reading novels, watching history documentaries and visiting historical sites and museums. I mostly eat Indian cuisine.

My BMCC email is: mahir.khan@stu.bmcc.cuny.edu.