PERFECT PIZZERIAPIZZERIA Perfect Pizzeria of Southville, Illinois, is a franchise of a large chain which isheadquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. Although the business is prospering, it hasemployee and managerial problems.Each operation has one manager, an assistant manager, and from two to five nightmanagers. The managers of each pizzeria work under an area supervisor. There are nosystematic criteria for being a manager or becoming an manager-trainee. Thefranchise has no formalized training period for the manager. No college education isrequired. The managers for whom the case observer worked during a four-year periodwere relatively young (ages 24-27) and only one had completed college. They camefrom the ranks of night managers or assistant managers, or both. The night managerswere chosen for their ability to perform the duties of the regular employees. Theassistant managers worked a two-hour shift during the luncheon period five days aweek to gain knowledge about bookkeeping and management. Those becomingmanagers remained at that level unless they expressed interest in investing in thebusiness.The employees were mostly college students, with a few high school studentsperforming the less challenging jobs. Since Perfect Pizzeria was located in an areawith few job opportunities, it had a relatively easy task of filling its employee quotas.All the employees, with the exception of the manager and the assistant manager, wereemployed part-time. Consequently, they worked for relatively low wages.The Perfect Pizzeria system is devised so that food and beverage costs and profits areset up according to a standard percentage. If the percentage of food unsold ordamaged is very low, the manager gets a bonus. If the percentage is high, the managerdoes not receive a bonus.There are many ways in which the percentage can fluctuate. Since the manager cannotbe in the store all the time, some employees make up for their paychecks by helpingthemselves to the food. When a friend comes in to order a pizza, extra ingredients arefrequently put on the pizza. Occasional nibbles by 18 to 20 employees throughout theday also raises the percentage figure. An occasional bucket of sauce may be spilled or a pizza accidentally burned. Sometimes the wrong size of pizza may be made.In the event of an employee mistake or a burned pizza by the oven operator, themistake is to be reported to the manager. The expense of subsequent mistakes issupposed to come from the employee, but because of peer pressure, the nightmanagers usually don’t record the mistake. Instead, the store takes the loss and theerror goes unnoticed until the end of the month when the manager finds out that thecost percentage is high, and that there will be no bonus.In the present instance, the manager took retaliatory measures. Previously, eachemployee was entitled to a free pizza, salad, and all the soft drinks s/he could drink foreach 6 hours of work. The manager raised this threshold figure from 6 to 12 hours ofwork, but the employees had received these 6-hour benefits for a long time. Therefore,they simply took advantage of the situation whenever the manager or assistantmanager wasn’t in the building. Though the night manager theoretically had completecontrol of the operation in the evenings, s/he did not command the respect that themanager or assistant manager did. Maybe this was because the night managers werepaid the same pay as regular employees, and maybe it was because they were thesame age, or in some cases, even younger than the other employees.Thus, apathy grew within the pizzeria. There seemed to be a further separationbetween the manager and his workers, who started out as a closely knit group. Themanager made no attempt to alleviate the problem, because he felt the problem wouldiron itself out. Either the employees that were dissatisfied would quit, or they wouldbe content to put up with the new requirements. As it turned out, there was a rash ofemployee dismissals. The manager had no problem in filling the vacancies with newworkers, but the loss of personnel was costly to the business.With the large turnover, the manager found he had to spend more time in the building,supervising and sometimes taking the place of inexperienced workers. This was indirect violation of the franchise regulation, which stated that a manager would act as asupervisor and at no time take part in the actual food preparation. Employees were notplaced under strict supervision with the manager working alongside them. Theoperation no longer worked smoothly because of differences between the remainingexperienced workers and the manager concerning the way in which a particularfunction should be performed. Within a two month period, the manager was again freeto go back to his office and leave his subordinates in charge of the entire operation.During this two-month period, the percentage had again returned to the previous low level, and the manager was again receiving a bonus each month. The manager felt thathis problems had been resolved and that conditions would remain the same, since thenew personnel had been properly trained.It didn’t take long for the new employees to become influenced by the otheremployees. Immediately after the manager had returned to his supervisory role, thepercentage began to rise. This time the manager took a bolder step by cutting out allfree food benefits–no free pizzas, salads or drinks. With the job market at an evenlower ebb than usual, most employees were forced to stay. The appointment of a newarea supervisor made it impossible for the manager to “work behind the counter,”since the supervisor was centrally located in Southville.The manager tried still another approach to alleviate the rising percentage problemand retain his bonus. He placed a notice on the bulletin board stating that if thepercentage remained at a high level, a lie-detector test would be given to allemployees. All those found guilty of taking or purposely wasting food or drinkswould be immediately terminated. This did not have the desired effect on theemployees, and several workers quit very soon thereafter.Even before the following month’s percentage was calculated, the manager knew itwould be high. He had evidently received information from one of the night managersthat the employees were very upset about the notice. What he did not expect was thatthe percentage would reach an all-time high. This is the state of affairs at the presenttime.
