Chick Fil A Theory

WHAT IS CHICK FIL A?
Chick Fil A is an American fast food chain which specializes in chicken sandwiches. It was founded by late Truett Cathy in May 1946 and is headquartered in College Park, Georgia. It operates more than 2,200 restaurants, primarily in the United States, where one of the locations is in 3704 Call Field Rd, Wichita Falls and another operating inside Midwestern State University. An innovator from the start, Chick-fil-A was the first restaurant to pair shopping and eating by opening its first restaurant in an Atlanta-area mall.
CORPORATE CULTURE
Truett Cathy was a devout Southern Baptist; his religious beliefs had a major impact on the company. Chick Fil A’s corporate purpose is “To glorify God by being a Faithful Steward of

all that is entrusted to us. To have a Positive Influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A”. Many of the company's values are influenced by the religious beliefs of its late founder. Most notably, all Chick-fil-A restaurants are closed for business on Sundays, as well as on Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Chick Fil A also operates on five core values. They are, customers first, personal excellence, continuous improvement, working together, and stewardship. From the five they are more focused on influence and stewardship. Influence is known, according to an employee, as “relationships with our fellow team members and our customers and being constantly cheerful is one behavioral characteristic that contributes towards having a positive influence”.

Also stewardship was described as “How we manage the opportunity of operations; our products, service, and cleanliness”. Apart from the core values, Chick-fil-A embraces the core four in their organization as traits they expect employees to role model. According to the Chick Fil A manager in Midwestern State University the core four are:
• Eye contact: Making eye contact with a customer or a fellow co-worker shows that you are trying to communicate. If no eye contact, there is no connection and it might seem rude to the customer.
• Smile: A student once asked an employee from Chick Fil A about why they always keep smiling and look so cheerful. The answer to that is that Chick Fil A thinks that a smile can make someone’s day in ways that we cannot imagine and it is a big part of their employee criteria.
• Enthusiastic communication: Speaking enthusiastically is a wonderful way to communicate joy, happiness, and a genuine interest in the customer by the tone of voice, body language, and facial expressions.
• Staying connected: This really means is that Chick-fil-A is not only about selling chicken sandwiches but also values the relationships and the positive influence with their customers.
Chick-fil-A’s culture isn’t just felt and lived by Chick-fil-A employees. Chick-fil-A guests also experience the company’s compelling culture. It’s understood that every single person who walks through the doors of a Chick-fil-A restaurant anywhere in the country can expect to be treated with honor, dignity, and respect.

CHICK FIL A ON LEADERSHIP
“At Chick-fil-A every Team Member learns about Leadership. At its beginning, leadership is first about leading oneself in attitude and action. Someone who has the reputation of being cheerful and productive is well equipped to begin leading others. For many, Chick-fil-A is an opportunity to develop character and skills that last a lifetime. Leaders are learners. Consider Chick-fil-A as Your Opportunity to learn and lead.” The Chick-Fil-A organization has developed a culture derived from the Spiritual Leadership Theory whose purpose is to create vision and congruence in values across individuals, teams and organizations.

EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT WITHIN CHICK FIL A
Beyond the empowerment during employees shifts, Chick-Fil-A also empowers employees through there $1,000 scholarship program. This program allows employees to create a future for themselves in school. Reviews about the company also show that there pay is above minimum wage, and co-workers and managers care about one and other. This trust factor helps employees become empowered. This empowerment that hourly workers are given, ultimately leads to lower turnover for the company. In the fast food industry, it is hard to have low turnover within a company, but Chick-Fil-A’s methods of empowerment allow for this low rate. Empowerment has many benefits, if used correctly, and can completely change the culture of an organization.

HOW DOES CHICK FIL A DEALWITH EMPLOYEE STRESS?
Unlike certain fast food chains, there is never down time for Chick-Fil-A employees. This creates a lot of pressure for employees to preform quickly, without any loss in quality. Seeing lines out the door can create stress for employees. The stressor of long lines would cause the average employee to quit and give up. Understanding stress allows Chick-Fil-A to save money as well. Knowing what amount of good stress employees can handle will make it easier to see how many employees Chick-Fil-A must have on the clock during busy hours. That way Chick-Fil-A will not have employees bored, but rather employees that are maximizing their performance.

MOTIVATION OF EMPLOYEES WITHIN THE COMPANY
Chick-Fil-A understands that in order to get the most out of your employees, you must motivate them effectively, so they want to work.

Positive motivation allows employees to be happy while working and also be the most effective worker possible. Hourly employees also have the ability to receive a $1,000 scholarship towards further education. This incentive for lower level workers makes everyone feel valued. Fairness is a part of Chick-Fil-A’s organization and brand. The equity theory shows that people are motivated by fairness. This scholarship equals out the playing field and motivates all workers, regardless of their social status and income. Operators will learn important skills, to improve their abilities while enjoying the get a way. The feeling around the organization is that everyone within the organization is family. This family feel makes all employees motivated towards one common purpose; making Chick-Fil-A the best it can be.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHART OF CHICK FIL A

Chick-fil-A’s organizational structure can be described as a type of department, or functional, organizational structure, where the Founder/Chairman/ Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is at the top of the organization, followed by a President/Chief Operating Officer (COO) and several Vice Presidents (VP) of functional areas, such as the “Dwarf House,” finance, marketing, design and construction, and operations. In the Midwestern University location of Chick Fil A, the organizational chart looks like

this:

As this is a family-owned business, all of the top management is a family member working towards maintaining the core values and traditions created by the late founder Truett Carthy.
In my opinion, this organizational structure is effective as they have traditional guidelines to stick to when managing the employees in the lower management and I think they are doing a terrific job at it up to this day which is why Chick Fil A is one of the leading fast food chains in USA.

CONCLUSION
The secret of Chick Fil A being one of the highly success businesses in the USA is not purely from the delicious sandwich products they serve. The combination of excellent customer service from their training -which includes teaching them the purpose and the goals of the company-, the happy employees because of the motivation provided to them, the corporate culture and the overall organizational behavior driven through by the management plays a major part on making Chick Fil A what it is today.