This mentality certainly supports the manner in which the restaurant functions. The fact that McDonald's does not have serious problems with its staff is Russia is supported by other elements as well. One of them is represented by the policy according to which all the McDonald's restaurants must function in the same manner and provide the same quality products and services, no matter the country they are located in.

This means that the people who are recruited in order to manage these restaurants must know more or less the same things and have more or less the same attitude to business. The company achieves this by sending its managers to the same universities in order to study and acquire the needed experience in this area. Such was the case with the four people selected to be managers at McDonald's Russia, who were sent to the McDonald's Institute of Hamburgerology in Canada in order to study there for a period of five months.

The lack of serious problems with the staff members derives from the efficient Human Resources policy that is in use. One of the most important aspects regarding this policy is represented by motivation. And McDonald's has found an extremely important way of motivating its employees through very big wages. The financial motivation has always been important, regardless of the geographical and cultural location of the people. Earning almost three times more than the average salary is a big thing, especially in a post communist country.

Therefore, people working for McDonald's receive all sorts of stimulants, staring with the basic and highly important one represented by money. This is not only a benefit, but also a responsibility because they know that they must perform their tasks at the highest standards in order to maintain their positions.

There several things that the Moscow Aerostar can do in order to improve its functioning and solve the issues it currently deals with. One of them is to use local mangers. Russian managers who have had previous experience in the hotel business (or any...

In this way they would all get at least a minimum of common knowledge and experience. Not taking in people who have been working in areas which have absolutely nothing to do with the hotel business may also be taken into consideration. Staff members could be recruited from among young people who, despite not having the required experience need only to be educated (unlike the others who need to be taught how to forget what they learned before).
Stimulating competition between the employees is another recommendation that the Moscow Eurostar could take into consideration. From this point-of-view, it could organize monthly competitions such as the "best employee." The hotel mangers could also try to make a team out of the personnel members. Reunions outside work, trips, matches and further competitions could be organized in order to keep them together, train them in an informal manner and educate them in the spirit of the organization's values.

What the hotel management members need to do is to try to overcome the cultural differences which they encounter. The difficulties don't come from the foreign language, but from the different concepts that the staff is accustomed to. This is why intensive training is needed and a proper communication, both formal and informal is more than essential.

Bibliography

Lane, Henry W., Shea, Christine, Moscow Aerostar

Puffer, Sheila, Vikhanski, Oleg, Management education and employee training at Moscow McDonald's, the European Management Journal, Vol. 11, No.1, pp. 102-107, 1993

Puffer, Sheila, McCarthy, Daniel, Zhuplev, Anatoly, Meeting of the Mindsets in a changing Russia