The fast food industry gives many their first experience of paid work (Robinson, 1999: 4). McDonald’s is the largest firm in the sector. In Australia, where data for this study was collected, in 2007 it provided jobs for 56,000 people in its 730 stores.[1] Other Australian fast food industry firms have a combined national workforce of at least another 50,000 (Lyons, 1999: 4). They often adopt a McDonald’s-type approach to outlet operations, and aspects of labour management. Where practicable, multi-national fast food employers conduct operations similarly throughout the world (Love, 1995: 115). In certain countries, such as Germany and the United Kingdom, fast food workers may be older people who are drawn from the adult atypical labour market. Elsewhere, for example in Australia where this research was undertaken and in New Zealand, the majority of McDonald’s outlet workers are teenagers (Robinson, 1999: 4). In general, throughout the world including Australia, McDonald’s workers are not unionized. In this article, fast food restaurants will continue to be referred to as “outlets” and their non-management employees as “crew.”

There is conjecture in literature about who is suited to fast food employment (Kincheloe, 2002: 84). Some argue that those who thrive in the industry and/or show enthusiasm for their job are content with routine and simplicity, extraverted, compliant, and willing to do tasks uncritically (Royle, 2000: 67; Kincheloe, 2002: 84). They often do poorly at school, are shallow in their dealings with others, and are prone to engage in superficial conversations and relationships (Kincheloe, 2002: 84–85). By contrast, Schlosser (2002: 82) and Kincheloe (2002: 85) suggest that those who are “unsuitable” are disposed to question authority, analyze and discuss social issues and favour complexity and ambiguity over routine and simplicity. In the longer term, these crew are unlikely to be appointed to management positions at McDonald’s or to establish a career in the industry. This study analyzes the differences between teenagers who are suitable for fast food careers and those who are not. It identifies the characteristics of each group, considers how these develop, and proposes ways that current and prospective crew may be assessed as well matched for industry employment.

There are three reasons why it is important to gain a better appreciation of which individuals, amongst teenagers, may be suited to fast food work. First, such insight may assist outlet managers to improve appointment and promotion policy and practice. This is relevant because industry employers indicate that their principal employment relations concerns are high labour turnover and the possibility that many crew are de-motivated or unsuited to the work (McDonald’s, 1998: 2). Second, enhanced knowledge of who is suitable for fast food employment may assist prospective crew to better assess whether they will find a job in the sector fulfilling and worthwhile. This potentially allows teenagers to make decisions about how to allocate time and resources during a crucial phase of their social and educational development. Third, insofar as scholarship is concerned, the debate about suitability for fast food work is somewhat underdeveloped, rife with opinion and polemic, and, often not based on sufficient evidence, be it qualitative or quantitative. This project’s data and conclusions assist to remedy such problems.

One perspective of fast food crew suitability can be gleaned from considering two generic bodies of literature. The first addresses employee motivation and the second, non-standard/contingent work (Kalleberg, 2000: 341). Of the key contemporary ideas about motivation,[2] expectancy theory offers special insight into worker compatibility because it proposes individual difference in response to a job environment (House, Shapiro and Wahba, 1974: 481–506). Typically, this genre emphasizes that the potency of a desire to act in a certain way depends on the strength of an expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome, and the attractiveness of that outcome. Job suitability is a key component of this conceptualization because “outcome attractiveness” is somewhat dependent on idiosyncratic perceptions (Robbins, 1997: 57–58). Insofar as the fast food industry is concerned, application of an expectancy theory perspective is influenced by varied teenaged motivations for working. Because crew jobs are typically part-time/casual, worker conceptions of job-reward, performance-reward linkage, and effort-performance-linkage[3] are modulated by competing priorities and interests such as study, social and sporting engagements, and recreational pursuits.

Insofar as fast food specific literature is concerned, discussion about crew compatibility with their outlet environment is mostly embedded in commentary about the nature of the work itself. Broadly, there are two views on this matter: negative and positive. In the remainder of this section, I present key themes in each of these genres and emphasize what each indicates about suitability for fast food employment. By way of summary, literature that is classed as “negative” generally indicates either that no one is especially suited to fast food work or, implies that those who are have moral and/or intellectual limitations. On the other hand, literature that is “positive” typically does not highlight a distinction between industry compatible crew and others and therefore does not cast aspersions on the sophistication of the former group. Rather, positive commentary on fast food labour management practices often indicates that all or most teenagers would benefit from a stint as a crew person.

Industrial sociology literature mostly presents negative perspectives of fast food labour management practice. The idea of exploitation is prominent in this genre. Those who emphasize that the employment is exploitative typically view crew jobs through the prism of scientific management. Such authors suggest that fast food work organization is subject to criticism that is also directed towards production-line factory employers. In particular, crew jobs are viewed as repetitive, intellectually unchallenging, boring and tedious (Ritzer, 1993: 8). Because it involves teenagers, the work may also have longer-term social consequences. For example, it may contribute to class inequality because it distracts young people from school and study commitments and mostly does not lead to a career or useful skill acquisition (Schlosser, 2002: 80). Employers prefer to use teenagers as crew because such workers typically have had limited experience with paid employment and cannot adequately assess whether they are being treated fairly and reasonably (Robinson, 1999: 9). Generally, they are prepared to toil in ways that older and more experienced workers would find unacceptable (Royle, 2000: 67; Schlosser, 2002: 68). Another, exploitation-related, advantage of employing teenagers is that, in many jurisdictions, younger people receive lower wages than adults doing equivalent work (Allan, Bamber and Timo, 2002: 164).

Authors who view fast food work as exploitative speculate about crew reactions to their employment and outlet environments. For example, crew may resign from their job after a short time (Royle, 2000: 70). Schlosser (2002: 75) suggests that such turnover is, at least partly, contrived by managers to ensure that unions do not infiltrate the workplace. On the other hand, there are three categories of exploitation-type arguments that account for crew who do not resign. First, employers may burn out their workforce. In practice, this means that young people commence their job with an enthusiasm that compels them to continue. Eventually they come to dislike the work because they are tired, frustrated and/or believe that they have been duped and misled by managers who promise benefits, including promotion and advancement, which are not delivered. In these circumstances, teenagers become confused about the merits of their vocation and display anxiety/stress reactions. Second, crew believe that their jobs are somewhat exploitative but are convinced by their employer that fast food work is coveted and worthwhile (Garson, 1988: 12; Leidner, 1993: 44, 55; Royle, 2000: 59; Schlosser, 2002: 76–81). Such a conception has its origins in the Marxist idea of false-consciousness (Caplow, 1964: 199). Third, some people are content with routine and simplicity and are inclined to do tasks and work in ways that fit with a McDonald’s culture (Kincheloe, 2002: 85). By inference, such crew are, somewhat patronizingly, viewed as unable to assess their own interests.

According to the exploitation perspective, of the four possible reactions that crew may have towards their job—exit (turnover), burnout, indoctrination and compatibility—only the latter emphasizes a distinction between suitable and non-suitable crew. This distinction appears to be influenced by the views of Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, who favoured especially compliant workers. He believed that certain young people are inclined to be conformist, uninterested in higher education, shallow, uninformed and content to accept the surface meaning of things they encounter (Royle, 2000: 67; Kincheloe, 2002: 84). Crew at McDonald’s should “keep their noses clean”, “look straight ahead” and “not question the avalanche of corporate rules that all McDonald’s managers and executives must follow” (Kincheloe, 2002: 85). Elsewhere, it is argued that crew who do well are unfailingly pleasant, cheerful, smiling and courteous (Royle, 2000: 63–64; Solomon, 1997: 42–43). Kroc originally proposed the idea of the “McDonald’s man” or “the guy with ketchup in his veins” as an ideal fast food employee (Kroc, 1987: 98).

Another negative view of fast food employment, the stop-gap perspective, categorizes crew jobs as having features of scientific management but does not go so far as to label them exploitative. These arguments typically suggest that the work is the embodiment of a trade-off between repeatedly doing a few mundane tasks and one’s immediate material needs and wants. Stop-gap work is short term and unlikely to culminate in a career (Tannock, 2001: 4–10). Many crew do not rely on an income for a livelihood, have part-time or causal employment contracts, have multifaceted lives involving education sporting and social commitments and, are less likely than those in other industries to view their job as integral to a sense of identity or as a source of self-esteem (Mortimer et al., 1996: 1405; Smith and Wilson, 2002: 121; Tannock, 2001: 110). Some conceive of these types of employment arrangements as a “coincidence of needs” (Lucas and Curtis, 2001: 41). In practice, this means that if, in an employee’s judgment, work provides money and is not overly burdensome or disruptive to their lifestyle, they will indicate a short-term commitment to it. This view implies that labour turnover is higher when employment displays “stop-gap” characteristics. Commentary that takes a stop-gap perspective generally does not present a distinction between suitable and not suitable employees. Because the genre assumes that such work is short-term, at least insofar as it relates to teenagers, notions of organizational compatibility are less relevant.

In contrast to the negative view, authors emphasizing employer or commercial-development perspectives argue that all or most teenagers would benefit from a stint as a crew person. In this article, such literature is referred to as the positive view of industry jobs. For example, some argue that the opportunity to be employed at a fast food outlet can be a career advantage (Daniels, 2004: 137; Feder, 1995: 46; Smith and Wilson, 2002: 128). This reasoning has several themes. First, it is suggested that many teenagers find it difficult to access the job market other than through fast food employment (Allan, Bamber and Timo, 2002: 166). The Industry is comprised of large multinational employers and their employees might be in a position to observe cutting-edge management practice and possibly develop effective work habits and attitudes towards employment (Feder, 1995: 46; Morse, 1997: 19). Such a chance to see the way McDonald’s runs its outlets may have positive consequences for a teenager’s self-development and future employability (DiNome, 2001: 25; Goldeen, 2004: 2). Fast food employment may provide crew with career paths. For some, it is possible to commence employment in a menial role and rise through a hierarchy without conventional forms of education or a diverse work history (Cantalupo, 2003: 21). For example, the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of McDonald’s in North America, Charlie Bell, started his career as a 15 year old crew person in suburban Sydney. Although anecdotes of this kind make no explicit distinction between suitable and unsuitable crew, they do imply that those who thrive in the industry are self-motivated, career-orientated, positive thinking, and with good communication skills.

Positive-view literature about fast food labour management offers a different interpretation of crew turnover. Rather than being contrived by outlet managers, turnover is viewed by them as a key operational problem and as an incentive to make the work more attractive (McDonald’s, 1998: 14). This genre appears to be influenced by generic theory which portrays the phenomenon of untimely worker exit as an employer problem and as a manifestation of poor employee/organizational compatibility. For example, if an employer’s values, attitudes and aspirations are incongruent with those of an employee, the employee may engage in workplace withdrawal behaviour, including resignation (Fields, 2002: 89).

In this article, I present data that indicates that fast food employment suits certain teenagers more than others. I argue that most who work in the industry when they are in their early teens will experience, at least, a brief period of fondness for their job. For some, this will be sustained and associated with benefits. For others, it will be replaced by adverse perceptions and disadvantages. This phenomenon cannot be completely reconciled with negative view literature which often suggests that the industry generally, and in all or most cases, has a detrimental effect on its workforce. Rather, I propose an alternative conception. The research question is: How can one differentiate between those crew who are suitable for fast food employment and others who are not?

The study used a mix of qualitative and quantitative strategies. McDonald’s Australia gave the researcher permission to enter company-owned outlets, and to ask crew and managers to participate in focus groups and to complete questionnaires. McDonald’s had no editorial control over the project.

Data were collected from 812 crew and 55 outlets. Hypotheses were tested using results from the structured survey. The following hypotheses were established a priori:Hypothesis 1: Crew who want to have a career with McDonald’s can be distinguished from those who do not.Hypothesis 2: Crew who want to have a career with McDonald’s maintain enthusiasm for their employer whereas crew who do not want to have a career with McDonald’s show diminishing enthusiasm for their employer over time.

Focus groups and the participant observation exercise revealed that some crew are happy with aspects of their job. Often participants expressed a positive view of the way work is organized, and most indicated that they are treated well and have access to training and human resource-related advantages. The majority of those who are unhappy are older, about 18. Some of these less content crew indicated that their job was boring, overly rountinized and intellectually unchallenging. This group mostly believed that they were treated well by their employer. However, they often seemed engrossed in their schoolwork, concerned about future study goals or preoccupied with the next phase of their life.

In this discussion, I present a model of crew compatibility with McDonald’s-type work (Figure 4) and contrast this with a representation of negative-view industrial sociology literature (Figure 5). Each of these schematics establishes a different independent variable as crucial to understanding: the former emphasizes age and, the latter, length of service. Age is defined as a person’s chronological age. For analytic purposes, it typically means 14 through to 19 years old, measured in months. Length of service is the number of months a crew person has been employed. In the fast food industry, crew age and length of service typically have a low correlation.[18] This is because the sector is beset with high labour turnover and when a crew worker leaves, they may be replaced with an older person.

Some McDonald’s crew indicate that they want to work for the firm in the long term and others do not. Those in the former category typically manifest high levels of enthusiasm and positive sentiment towards their job when they are young and, as they become older, maintain such keenness. Crew not seeking a career in the fast food industry typically are content with their job when they are younger but, with age, become less so. In practice, this means that 14 or 15 year olds may indicate that they do not want to have a fast food career but mostly enjoy the experience of outlet work. However such crew, when they reach 17 or 18, are unlikely to judge their work as enhancing their lives but rather are inclined to see it as negative. On the other hand. those who are 17 or 18, and who indicate that they would like to have a fast food career, are typically content with aspects of their job. This pattern of findings about who enjoys McDonald’s-type work gives rise to the idea of divergence, depicted in Figure 4.

The divergence view of crew suitability emphasizes an employee’s age rather than their length of service. This means that a person in their late teens who has recently commenced at McDonald’s and does not want a career with the firm is as likely to indicate job dissatisfaction as someone who has been in the industry for several years and also does not want a fast food career. Such a phenomenon suggests development as a cause rather than, for example, attitude changes that are caused by learning. A mainstream psychological definition of learning is a permanent change in behaviour that comes as a consequence of experience (Vaughan and Hogg, 2002: 478). This is to be distinguished from developmental/maturational changes that are independent of a person’s experience.

This study’s findings are at odds with views that indicate that fast food crew attitudes and orientation towards employment are substantially influenced by the work environment. Certain of these learning-oriented perspectives, such as burnout and indoctrination, were referred to in the introduction as belonging to the negative view/exploitation genre of fast food work. Such views de-emphasize age as the reason crew change their perception of fast food work. Instead, they propose learning or the influence of experience as causing worker dissatisfaction. As noted in the literature review, burnout and indoctrination often downplay the role of individual differences and mostly conclude that McDonald’s work will disadvantage all crew. I have summarized the ideas of negative view/exploitation literature in Figure 5.

This study’s results cannot be reconciled with developmental change alone, but reflect a tendency for some people to be the “right type” for a crew person. Consistent with the view presented in Figure 5, I interpret findings through proposing that some possess an enduring set of “industry-suitable” characteristics. This implies an inherent difference between those who are well matched to fast food work and their peers who are not. Such a difference is not apparent in late childhood, but rather is evident in late adolescence.

The idea of developmental change in attitude and orientation is common in literature addressing aspects of adolescent psychology. A prominent theorist in this area is Erickson who uses the term psychosocial development to identify immutable life stages through which one passes. Each of these gives rise to a qualitatively different state with respect to interests, affiliations and psychological orientation (Erikson, 1963: 25). Erickson views adolescence as a time when teenagers struggle to form a sense of personal identity, in particular. This view allows for the possibility of individual difference, and accommodates the prospect of a spectrum of distinct ways of developing.

The study’s results have implications for fast food outlet managers. They suggest that, in a general sense, younger teenagers are more inclined to enjoy the experience of working in the industry. To the extent that satisfaction with one’s work leads to enhanced productivity,[19] this finding proposes that, 14 to 15 year olds will be more suited to the work than 17 or 18 year olds. This result alone can not be used to address labour turnover. Fifteen year olds, despite perhaps being satisfied with their job, will probably soon turn 16 and, when this happens, may start to lose interest in fast food employment. The outlet manager needs to know who, amongst 15 year olds, will remain committed and enthusiastic about their work. The study’s data provides an important insight here. A feature of the divergence model presented in Figure 4 is that, irrespective of an employee’s age, if a crew person says that they would like to be employed at McDonald’s in five years’ time, they are likely to be satisfied with the work and remain content. The regression analysis undertaken for hypothesis 1 supports this conclusion because, as previously noted, it indicates that age is not significant in predicting who wants to be employed at McDonald’s in five years’ time.

A more subtle management implication of this study’s findings concerns the reliability of asking young persons if they would like a career in the fast food industry or are interested in working at McDonald’s in five years’ time. Whilst working in an outlet, I found that many managers are skeptical about whether this would yield useful information. They thought that teenagers will either attempt to give an answer that makes a good impression, not have thought about the issue and make up an arbitrary response or, appear to be confused and non-committed. These perceptions of teenagers suggest that they are not capable of thinking strategically about their future or possibly not able to make thoughtful career choices. This project’s findings suggest a different view. In particular, regression modeling indicates that young people from their early teens appear to have insight into whether they will be suited for their fast food job in the long term. Whilst they are not necessarily inclined to say that, over the course of the next few years they will maintain or lose satisfaction with the job, they can reveal if they are compatible with the work.

This study presents two conclusions about crew compatibility with fast food work which add to what is known about crew compatibility with their outlet environment and employer’s approach to labour management. First, for each crew age group (within the teenaged years), there appears to be consistently a high proportion who do not want a fast food career and a lesser—but still large—minority who do. Second, teenaged views about this are not arbitrary but represent a good predictor of compatibility with the fast food approach. These insights suggest that young crew are capable of making sound career choices and their decisions will endure through time. Hence, whilst all or most younger teenagers may enjoy a fast food work experience, it is only those who want a career who manifest long-term compatibility with their employer’s approach.