Managerial Performance of Fast-Food Restaurant Managers in the Philippines: Basis for Capability Enhancement Program

The study generally assessed the management skills, work values, and job performance of the fast-food restaurant managers in the Philippines as a basis for developing managerial capability enhancement program. Specifically, it aims to determine the profile; the level of the management skills, work values, and job performance as assessed by the managers and of their staff; and the relationship that exists among the variables: profile and management skills, profile and work values, profile and job performance, management skills and job performance, and work values and job performance. The results revealed that most managers ages 25 and below and with bachelor's degree; they mostly served as a manager for only five years and below; had attended five and below the number of trainings relative to their position; and have an average monthly income of P15,000 and below. Managers are excellent in management skills, work values, and job performance as assessed by themselves and their staff. Results also showed that the average monthly income was found to have a significant relationship with management skills, work values, and job performance. Further, management skills and work values are highly significant to the fast-food restaurant managers' job performance.


1Background, Motivation, and Objectives
Fast-food restaurant is a particular type of restaurant characterized by its fast-food cuisine and minimal table service (allfoodbusiness, 2012). The industry term for the fast-food establishment is Quick-Service Restaurant or QSR (Celentano, 2019). The quick-service restaurant industry is a significant and growing aspect of the overall restaurant industry (Mason, Jones, Benefield & Walton, 2016). Just like in other countries, this restaurant industry had flourished very well in the Philippines. Filipinos love to eat, which is why lots of restaurants and fast-food restaurants, are scattered in the cities (Campuscrosswalk.org, n.d.). In recent years, more and more fast-food restaurants are sprouting and grabbing shares in the market, particularly in the city of TreceMartires. There are currently seven out of 10 present in the city listed in the ten best and most popular Philippine fastfoods. According to Bermosa (2015), the ten best and most popular Philippine fast foods are Jollibee, McDonald's, Chowking, Greenwich, Pizzahut, MangInasal, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Max's Fried Chicken, Tokyo-Tokyo, and Kenny Rogers. These fast-food restaurants compete not only in delivering excellent and preeminent products and services to the customers they serve but also in retaining and attracting more and more customers.
Today, managing a fast-food restaurant is not as easy as it is. It is a difficult task, signifying huge responsibilities (Milicevic, n.d.) and challenges for every manager. Campbell (2017) specified that managing a restaurant is like watching over a complicated machine's gears. Confined with the typical managerial concerns of employees and customers and dealing with food service and the unique baggage that comes. Consequently, the restaurant industry's overall success lies in the sound and outstanding management of the restaurant managers (Cagurangan, 2017). Whereas poor management skills carry long-term effects that might infect the entire organization (Lavoie, 2016). As such, it is imperative to the management to ensure that they have the managers that possess exemplary management skills, work values, and job performance and that an assessment should be regularly done as a basis for continuous improvement.
Management skills are what the manager uses to assist the organization in accomplishing its goals. Specifically, a manager will use his or her abilities, knowledge base, experiences, and perspectives to increase the productivity of those with whom they manage (Hartzell, 2019).On the other hand, strong work ethics and values play an essential role in the workplace (Reddy, 2016). Further, Lin, Shen, andHsu (2015) asserted that understanding employees' work values had become a key concern or issue for organizations that aim to achieve higher performances.

Research Article Research Article Research Article
Workplace values are the guiding principles that are most important to an individual the way they work, and they can use these deeply held principles to choose between right and wrong ways of working (Mindtools, n.d.). Along this line, a company's success is directly affected by the performance of the employees within the organization. Businesses that clearly understand the impact of their employees' perform ance can better manage employee output and productivity. Subsequently, proper management of employee performance helps any business to increase profits (Rodriguez, 2017).
This study was conducted to assess the level of management skills, work values, and job performance of the fastfood restaurant managers in TreceMartires City, Cavite, Philippines, as a basis for designing a managerial capability enhancement program for continuous improvement.

Statement of contribution and methods
In a fast-growing organization, an assessment of the management skills, work values, and job performance of the restaurant managers overtime is highly essential for designing capability enhancement programs for continuous improvement. Top management and the human resources management department, must assess their employees' performance periodically to ensure that they deliver an exceptional contribution to the organization. This research undertaking corroborates the relationship of profile variables considered in the study to the management skills, work values, and job performance of the fast-food restaurant managers. The study likewise validates the relationship between management skills and work values to the fast restaurant managers' job performance. This study will be beneficial for strategic decision-making of the top management and human resources department of the fastfood restaurants in designing the managerial capacity enhancement programs for the continuous improvement of the fastfood restaurant managers.
The study will further divulge valuable information to business enthusiasts who plan to engage in a fast-food restaurant business. Additionally, the results generated can also be used as a reference and supplement for more extensive research related to the topic.
This study's research design was a descriptive-research method, which includes the data gathering using survey questionnaires and analysis of the results using statistical tools.
All managers and staff of the quick service restaurants in TreceMartires City, Cavite, Philippines that belong to the ten best and most popular in the Philippines, as cited by Bermosa (2015) and who voluntarily responded to the request, were considered respondents of the study. An approval from the management of each fast-food restaurants were first sought, and when permissions were granted, surveys were subsequently conducted.
Survey questionnaires used were designed for the fast-food restaurant managers and staff to answer.
Part I of the questionnaire covers the gathering of information about the managers' profile in terms of age, educational attainment, number of years in service, number of training attended, and average monthly income.
Part II of the questionnaire was designed to gather information about management skills on how managers and staffs view it among fast-food restaurants. These were assessed based on the ten skills that manager needs to master to stay on top of their performance and become an effective leader by Smuin (2017).
On the other hand, Part III was constructed to gather information about the level of work values on how the managers and staff respondents view it among fast-food restaurants. These were assessed based on the top ten work values that the employers look for their employees and are good indicators for success by Loretto (2018).
Lastly, part IV covers to gather information about the job performance on how it is viewed by the managers and staff participants among fast-food restaurants. The instrument used in this part was patterned on the SPSU Job Performance Evaluation Form (pdffiller.com, n.d.).
A pilot survey was carried out from randomly selected participants to ensure the instrument's validity and reliability. Content validity was determined by the managers and staff of the fast-food restaurants not included in the study. Their comments were considered in the preparation of the instrument's final copy.
Statistical tools such as frequency count and percentage were utilized to describe the fast-food restaurant managers' profile. At the same time, mean was used to summarize, describe and analyze the data on the level of management skills, work values, and job performance as assessed by the managers themselves and their staff. Moreover, the Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient was employed to investigate the relationship of profile and management skills, profile and work values, and profile and job performance. Lastly, Pearson's r was used to determine the relationship between management skills and job performance, and work values and job performance.  (Table I). This findings support the fact that most fast-food restaurants encouraged fresh graduate applicants with experience as a service crew to apply as a manager. They are usually young and seemingly be classified as with less experience. Many agree that people benefit from the increased experience of age (kingworldnews.com, n.d.). According to Wildes (2008), age factor was significant in the foodservice industry. The key to success in the restaurant industry is education (Milicevic, n.d). Moreover, Simon (2019) affirmed that leadership and management courses are essential for imparting practical skills to manage teams effectively. These are ideal for current managers who want to improve their skills and desiring or new managers to enhance their managerial skills. While various restaurant managers have on the job training, a post-secondary degree or college coursework is becoming a preference of employers (study.com, n.d.).

Profile of the Fast Food Restaurant Managers in Cavite
These infer that exposure to a higher level of education and professional development means having better management skills and work values, vital for effective and efficient job performance. In terms of the number of years in service as managers, the data revealed that most respondents have served as managers for only five years and below (Table III). It supports the article of Lazzari (2018) that the fastfood industry has exceptionally high turnover rates. It also supports why most of the managers have a relatively low number of years of service.  (Table IV).
According to Ukandu and Ukpere (2013), fast food employers rely on workers' skills, knowledge, and abilities to deliver customer services, which makes it essential for employees to be trained and developed to achieve a better work performance. Additionally, a well-trained workforce saves restaurant resources, particularly time and money, and creates higher profitability; hence the managers must receive comprehensive and continuous training to stay outstanding in the highly competitive industry (Carey, n.d.).
Hughes (2020) similarly cited that training and development are necessary notwithstanding what industry the company is into, but it is essential to service-oriented businesses such as the hospitality industry. It is for the reason that it adds value to the experience the employees provide to their customers. Also, ample learning opportunities for the employees is always an investment worth doing.
Hence, it can be deduced that the management must design and offer various capacity enhancement training for continuous improvement of the managerial skills of the restaurant managers since most of the managers had only five and below numbers of training. Average monthly income. The result revealed that most of the respondents, 17 (48.57%), have an average monthly income of P15,000.00 and below (Table V). It can be attributed to the fact that most of the respondents are young and had served as a manager for five years and below only. This salary range can be considered low for a managerial position in the Philippines. The management must therefore create a more attractive compensation/salary scale for managers commensurable to their qualifications. Tables VI and VII show that managers are excellent in management skills, work values, and job performance as assessed by themselves with an overall mean of 4.52, 4.62, and 4.55, respectively. It is also assessed by their staff with an average mean of 4.48, 4.52, and 4.51. Though the results were interpreted as excellent, still monitoring performance and various capacity enhancement programs are essential for continuous improvement of their managerial performance. The correlation analysis indicates that there is a significant relationship between the income and management skills of the fast-food restaurant managers with a coefficient of .376 (P-value > 0.0261) (Table VIII).  Table IX illustrates a significant relationship between the income and work values of the fast-food restaurant managers with a coefficient .339 (P-value > 0.0261). It can be gleaned from table X that there is a high significant relationship between the fast-food restaurant managers' income and job performance with a coefficient of .384 (P-value > 0.0261).

Spearman's Correlation Coefficient Test of Significant relationship Between the Profile of the Managers and their Management Skills, Work Values, and Job Performance
Generally, among the profile variables considered, only the average monthly income was found to have a significant relationship with the managers' management skills, work values, and job performance (Table 8-10). Boitnott (2018) divulged that by paying employees above-average salaries essentially mean expecting an average work. Pay and benefits may not often be the key motivator for employees. They help, and the reality is that the higher the salaries are likely to incentivize high output culture.
Chron.com (2020) cited that people are often motivated by money. The salary of a worker from his employer can significantly influence his performance in the administration.
These essentially suggest that income plays a crucial role in exhibiting management skills, work values, and the fast-food restaurant managers' job performance.
The following hypotheses were developed: H 1 : There is a positive correlation between income and management skills.
H 2 : There is a positive correlation between income and work values.
H 3 : There is a positive correlation between income and job performance. The result revealed that management skills are highly significant with job performance with a coefficient of .858(P-value>0.05), which leads to the rejection of the null hypothesis (Table XI).

Pearson's r Test of Significant Relationship Between Job Performance of the Managers and their Management Skills
According to Simon (2019), managers in every organization are responsible for implementing and advancing the company's vision and mission. Hence, managers with excellent leadership and management skills are significant in achieving every business organization's goals. Besides, honing these skills and can impact job performance and opportunities (Career Builder, 2020).
Further, Lavoie (2016) cited that strong leaders with good management skills favorably impact a company in various ways, such as reducing turnover, increasing morale, and empowering employees to be more productive. Moreover, the management must lead by example and initiate a positive working environment to perform at their best capacity.On the contrary, weak management skills have long-term adverse effects and may infect the organization's overall operations.
It is ascertained the significant relationship between the management skills and job performance of fast food restaurant managers. It indicates further that the success of the fast-food restaurant lies in the sound and outstanding management and vice versa, and the following hypothesis was developed: H 4 : There is a positive correlation between the fast restaurant managers' management skills and job performance. Values are essential guiding behavior and enhancing work motivation (Cennamo&Gardners, 2008). Strong work values play an indispensable role in the workplace. It improves performance (Reddy, 2016). Liao, Lu Huang, and Chiang (2012) likewise inferred that work values influence the employees' job performance.

Pearson's r Test of Significant Relationship Between Job Performance of the Managers and their Work Values
It implies that work values are positively related to job performance, and the following hypothesis was developed: H 5 : There is a positive correlation between the work values and job performance of fast restaurant managers.

Conclusions
Fast food restaurant management must therefore consider designing an attractive and competitive compensation scheme commensurable to the position of the fast-food restaurant managers as it is notably related to management skills, work values, and job performance. Conducting an assessment to monitor management skills, work values, and job performance is a worthwhile basis for planning, creating, and implementing managerial capability enhancement programs since both management skills and work values are highly significant to job performance.

Authors Profile
Jessie Anne T. Demetillois a graduate of Doctor of Philosophy in Business Management at Philippine Christian University, Philippines. She has been engaged in conducting and writing researches related to her field and currently designated as a research services coordinator of Cavite State University -TreceMartires City Campus to where she also works as a professor for more than 10 years now. She is also affiliated with several professional organizations and had presented researches in local and international conferences.
Rosario B. Gumbanis a graduate of Doctor of Philosophy in Business Management at Philippine Christian University. She has been into writing and mentoring researches and presented in local and international conferences. She is a professor in Business Management and Graduate School Open Learning College at Cavite State University. She is also affiliated with numerous professional organizationsnational and international.
Liane Vina G. Ocampo is a graduate of Doctor of Philosophy in business management at Philippine Christian University. She is a professor in statistics, business and economics at Cavite State University open University College. She had international publication in a peer-reviewed journal in the field of econometrics and presented several research journals in local and international conferences. She is also affiliated with several academic and professional organizations