Case Study: Opening Your New Dunkin Donuts Locations
Lori Guiel
MGT330: Management for Organizations
Instructor: Lori Buckner
March 14, 2016

Dunkin Donuts is one of the most recognizable donut franchises throughout the United States. Hearing the name Dunkin Donuts can instantly bring the thought of delicious donuts to a person’s mind. To be promoted to District Manager for a Dunkin Donuts franchisee is a dream come true! The District Manager position also comes with a lot of responsibility. First and foremost is to uphold the goal of Dunkin Donuts which is to “make and serve the freshest, most delicious coffee and donuts quickly and courteously in modern, well-merchandises stores” (Dunkin Brands, 2014). In order to uphold this goal as District Manager, I must create a job design; determine the correct organizational design for the franchises; have solid recruiting and selection; and last but not least train employees properly and provide supreme performance appraisals.
JOB DESIGN Dunkin Donuts, as with any organization, relies heavily on great employees to deliver on the mission and goal of the organization. Job design thus becomes a very integral part of any organization’s success from top to bottom. “The standard approach to job design involves three steps: (a) job analysis, (b) job description, and (c) job specification.” (Baack, Reilly & Minnick, 2014). Job analysis is going to be a key component to making the five new locations successful. Company comparisons should be conducted even though success has been accomplished with the franchisee’s other 20 locations. Trends in geographic locations are not uniform, thus analysis needs to be conducted to see what adjustments need to be made for each of the five new locations. With the findings of company comparisons, the job descriptions and job specifications for each location can be set. While there is an advantage to having job descriptions and job specifications set throughout all 20 locations, these too will have to be adjusted to mirror the job analysis from the specific geographic locations. Dunkin Donuts employs from crew members all the way to restaurant managers (Dunkin Brands, 2014). This means that Dunkin Donuts employs unskilled blue collar workers, skilled blue collar workers, and front-line white collar workers. The five new locations may not have all of these types of workers, so that is why the job design will need to be adjusted accordingly.
ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN Now that the job design has been determined, as District Manager, I must choose which organizational design is best for the five new locations. Dunkin Donuts is a franchised operation. The basic organizational design of a franchise is the franchisees making all the decisions and the franchisor receiving money from the franchisees. This organizational design is considered traditional for franchises and just 20 years ago most franchise lawyers would have argued that this design was the most logical (Selden, 2000). However, organizational design for franchise operations is changing. “Franchise-based business organizations, to flourish in the long term, need a structure that delivers efficient, effective, and formal franchisee participation in system governance.” (Selden, 2000, page 28). With these changes in mind, the best organizational design for Dunkin Donuts is the departmentalization by geographic region. Geographic departmentalization is two-fold in why it is the best organizational design for Dunkin Donuts. This type of departmentalization is also known as parallel departmentalization where the managers of the organization perform the same duties but in different regions (Baack, Reilly & Minnick, 2014). Dunkin Donuts are fast food locations and the parallel departmentalization is a great model for these types of organizations. Also, the geographic departmentalization will allow for the tailoring of needs and products offered to the different geographical locations. This is important, as mentioned before, not all trends are the same in geographical locations. As a manger, being allowed to offer specific food items wanted in a region, in addition to the traditional Dunkin Donuts menu, will allow for organizational goals to be met and success earned.
RECRUITING AND SELECTION Job designs, as well as organizational design, have now been completed. The next steps in the process are critical. These steps are recruiting and selection. The human resources are the top asset for any organization. Recruiting strategies must be top notch in order to attract potential employees to the selection pool. What are the best ways to recruit? There is no right or wrong answer; it just depends on the job design and organizational goals. Traditional recruiting methods include advertisements, employment agencies, educational institutions, referrals both external and internal, and walk-in applicants (Baack, Reilly & Minnick, 2014). Dunkin Donuts does do traditional recruitment, but Dunkin Donuts leans more to strategic recruitment. According to Phillips & Gully (2015), “strategic recruitment refers to practices that are connected across levels of analysis and aligned with firm goals, strategies, context and characteristics.” Dunkin Donuts shows strategic recruitment in the first two steps of their four step recruiting process. The first step is the profile creation. The second step is the assessment tool which captures unique attributes that can then be best matched for a specific role and to fulfill culture values, consistency and objectivity. (Dunkin Brands, 2014). Strategic recruitment allows for organizations to fill the selection pool, as well as maintain the selection pool, in order to quickly fill any positions that may open. “Recruiting is difficult to emulate or substitute, making it a source of competitive advantage” (Phillips & Gully, 2015, page 1439). Benefits packages, incentive, and paid time off offered by an organization can be a huge recruiting tactic. This not only increases a competitive edge, but can inherently increase the pool of potential employees. This pool of potential employees is used for the selection process. The selection process for most organizations, Dunkin Donuts included, is very straight forward. Position announcement, application acceptance, initial screening, preliminary interviews, reference and employer contact, finalist selection, final interviews, selection and notification of all finalists are the standard steps for the selection process (Baack, Reilly & Minnick, 2014). Dunkin Donuts, in its four step recruiting process has an initial interview via video as the third step and an in-person interview as the final step (Dunkin Brands, 2014). Acceptance of the employment offer by the person selected is the ultimate last step in the selection process. If an offer is not accepted, the selection process either begins again or another finalist is offered the job. This all times time and energy on the part of the organization. Therefore, recruitment and selection are crucial.
TRAINING AND PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL Recruitment and selection has occurred, so now the formal training must begin. Training is imperative for a new hire to learn the job he or she has been selected for, but also to give the new hire the preparation needed to complete the job and feel comfortable in doing the job. Adult participants in training can also have the added beneficial effects of increasing quality of the communications process with superiors and colleagues, assuming new responsibilities, improving teamwork, improving the quality of the workplace, and increasing chances of promotion (Vuta & Farcas, 2015). Training can take place on-the-job or off-the-job. In today’s technology driven world, e-learning is becoming a method of training for quite a few organizations. Dunkin Donuts is an organization that does participate in e-learning. Dunkin Donuts has what is called Dunkin University. This allows for training to be accessed worldwide, to thousands at a time, and is available 24/7. (Training Done, 2016). E-learning is a very cost effective way to train new hires and to continue the education of all employees within the organization. Effective training of employees can also assist in performance appraisals. Training and its effectiveness will most certainly work into an employee’s performance appraisal. This occurs because performance appraisals take into consideration how a certain employee is performing his or her job. If training has not been effective, the employee may not be doing his or her job effectively. Training would fit into the objective appraisal. Objective appraisals depend on facts and are often numerical (Baack, Reilly, & Minnick, 2014). Performance appraisals must also be as unbiased as possible. Humans tend to interject personal opinions into performance appraisals. There are ways to control this and keep the appraisal unbiased. Seven key steps to eliminating bias are supervisor training, study the types of bias, review employee documents, obtain correct forms for the appraisal from HR, read performance standards and job descriptions, compare performance standards to actual work done, and draft the appraisal and attach documentation (Mayhew, n.d.). One other way to help eliminate bias is to ask colleagues of the employee for an appraisal as well as having the employee do an appraisal of himself or herself (Baack, Reilly & Minnick, 2014).
CONCLUSION
The District Manager position is the greatest opportunity for me and my career. The franchisee has put a lot of faith in my abilities to steer the five new locations in the right direction. In addition, I need to steer these locations to success of the goal of Dunkin Donuts. Job design, organizational design, recruitment and selection, training and performance appraisals are my road map to success for these five new locations. The complete autonomy given to me will help me guide my selections by the district that I will be managing. This allows for some flexibility in the marketplace while still adhering to the values and management style of Dunkin Donuts. This opportunity is not a task to be taken lightly, and I do not plan to take it lightly. I will incorporate all aspects of the steps laid out to ensure the continued success of my franchisee and my career.

REFERENCES
Baack, D., Reilly, M., & Minnick, C., & (2014). The five functions of effective management (2nd ed.). San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
Dunkin Brands. (2014). About us. Retrieved March 14, 2016 from http://www.dunkinbrands.com/about/donuts
Dunkin Brands. (2014). Our recruiting process. Retrieved March 14, 2016 from http://www.dunkinbrands.com/careers/our-recruiting-process
Mayhew, R. (n.d.). How to eliminate bias and error in performance appraisals. Retrieved March 10, 2016 from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/eliminate-bias-error-performance-appraisals-11187.html
Phillips, J.M. & Gully, S. M. (2015). Multilevel and Strategic Recruiting: Where Have We Been, Where Can We Go From Here?. Journal of Management, 41(5), 1416. doi: 10.177/0149206315582248
Selden, A.C.. (2000). Organization Design for Successful Franchising. Franchise Law Journal, 20(1), 1-33. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/29541871
Training Done. (2016). Dunkin Donuts Online University – A Dunkin Brands Skillport Website. Retrieved March 14, 2016 from http://trainingdone.com/dunkin-brands-online-university/
Vuta, D.R., & Farcas, A. (2015). The Role of Training in Organizational and Employee Development. Revista Academiei Fortelor Terestre, 20(3), 367-372.