Diversity Management in Hospitality Management - Case Study Example

Diversity Management in Hospitality Management Topic: Strategy to Manage Culturally Diverse Workforce in order to gain a Competitive Advantage in Hilton Hotel Chain in UK 1. Introduction and Background Hilton Hotels Corporation is one of the largest and highly successful groups in the hospitality sector. It has maintained its reputation by managing thousands of hotels, resorts, and vacation services that are highly regarded. The company has its chains all over the world. Major brands such as Hampton Inn(R), Hilton Garden Inn(R), and Hilton Grand Vacations Club(R) come under this hospitality giant (Official Website, 2009). A major challenge to any hospitality group is to manage its diverse workforce. Hilton has always taken care of this issue which plays an important role in the functioning of the whole company. Matters like productivity, quality, co ordination and unity need to be given high preference in big firms because the workforce is multinational, includes people of different religions and castes. Even gender discrimination must be eradicated to achieve optimum performance of the company. At Hilton, the steps taken to manage their diverse workforce are commendable. Keeping in mind the sentiments, practices and beliefs of their people, all their policies and plans are accepted by its employees. In all sectors of the group be it promotion of brands, relationship with other organizations, all are under the principles made by the company. Though, in some regions of the world, managing diversity is tough, still Hilton has worked hard to maintain its policies. In the following scripts we will be discussing how Hilton manages diversity management. 2. How do they manage As suggested by Hofstede, culture is more often a source of divergence than of synergy, and cultural disparities can be both nuisance and disaster simultaneously (Hofstede, 2001). Hilton has a massive workforce that includes minorities and women. The need of diversity management comes when discrimination occurs. Companies in order to maintain standards or to optimise their fund utilization and profits do not care to manage the problems which in turn would help them yield more profits. Many issues related to caste, religion, and sex hinders the growth of an organisation. People of different religions have grudges against each others. People of middle class category don't want to work with poor employees. Women are regarded useful only until they are single. Once they get married social and family matters surround them, like pregnancy, kids and further social life. Hilton has to overcome all these problems. Hospitality sector of the UK does face many such problems. Even though major officials of the sector have tried their level best to manage diversity, no significant results have come out. Plans and strategies were to be framed and implemented in order to provide job equality and opportunities, but the attempts have failed and a mere number of organisations have taken this issue seriously. The surveys that were carried out gave unsatisfactory results. Few companies were not bothered, few said that we would look upon it in the future, and only a few agreed to take reformative steps. The problem is that large hotel groups do not understand how harmful this discrimination is to their sector. People due to their cultural or background tags are not given the opportunities they deserve. This way, the persons' name and his monetary condition is given worth, not his skill. Their salaries are not satisfactory, working conditions are not favourable, alienation, and many other issues come in front of these under privileged people and hence they keep themselves away from this business. They fear that they won't have a good future in this line and even if they adjust, no guarantee of promotion, and what they'll be left with once they exit their jobs. The problems continue with lack of information inside or among organisations. Even if a company does take steps to manage diversity and makes rules or publishes policies, the workforce needs to aware of it first so that the policies are implemented. But many a times, the workforce or even the senior officers are unaware of this. The reluctant or laid back attitude of senior authorities can be witnessed in many organisations. It is one of the major causes of discrimination in this sector. There are no responsible officials to take care of these problems. An organisation known as 'The Industrial Society' has carried out surveys in order to throw light over this topic. They have published guidelines in order to manage diversity effectively. They believe in seeing the result rather than just talking about it. If reformation has to take place then it has to take place from the start and should be consistent throughout. That is right from the chairman level till every employee of the industry. Hilton has taken many steps in order to have a well organised workforce. They have taken care of many problems that their employees face. They have provided education to poor employees and given equal preference to female workers. In their UK sector they have implemented all such polices which gave them huge benefits and hence their performance improved even more. They properly managed their culturally diverse employees and could see that with it they could serve their customers who are again culturally very diverse, in a more warm and efficient way. Human resources when comes in synchronisation with this sector, give enormous profits. The case for the management of diversity is powerful in speechifying terms and somewhat emergent in the practical terms as in the context of hotel sector. The diversity characteristics are prevalent and pervasive and are assessed in order to get managed thoroughly. Without a doubt, they are well developed, however, not recognized as managing the diversity quotient as unique from contemporary, established equal opportunities. Hilton has illustrated its commitment to establish a company which delineates the communities in which it performs. They've established a diverse work-force with an increased number of minority purveyors and franchise holders, thereby, making tremendous advances in introducing the diversity principles to all facets of their business operations which are inclusive of training, mentoring, advertising, marketing, community relations, and management performance measurements (News Release, 2008). 3. Why do they manage Interest and involvement in management of diversity has grown tremendously in recent years, chiefly, in the hospitality sector. From the preliminary curiousness in the notion and principles of managing diversity, the concentration of recent attention in the management of diversity trends to be on its organizational insinuations as well as advantages. In the hospitality sector, approaches to managing diversity are rationally well established and are intimately associated with the enhanced service quality. With reference to the nature of business in the new epoch, there is an increasing cognizance of the internationalization of both the businesses as well as their markets. When collaborated with increasing demographic alterations, it emphasizes on the transforming demographic attributes of customers (Kramer, 1998). As a result, the trend in the direction of more diverse work-forces reflects a trend to more diverse customer markets. All of these factors emphasize on the significance of assessing as well as improvising the ideas, policies, and practices on the facilitation of equality at work, so that the organizational confront of attaining service quality is taken account of. Precisely, the reason for managing diversity in Hilton is solely for the reason that it potentially puts forward a conspicuously new window of opportunity to improvise equality and service quality at the same time. Moreover, they believe that a managing diversity approach has been suggested as incorporating with a strategic perspective as it plays a vital role in making sure the economic as well as competitive success (Wilson, 1996). Also, it is delineated as being the responsibility of all employees, particularly, managers of the corporation. Hilton Corporation is entirely aware of the fact that managing diversity is predicted to become extensively dominant in general terms, which is followed by the widespread cognizance over standards of service quality in the tourism as well as hospitality sector, thereby, encouraging more employer interest in managing diversity. Furthermore, another reason for the Hilton Corporation to implement managing diversity lies in the conduct of its offering. With timely transformation in the society, the challenge of responding to the cultural diversity will surely reach apex in the hotel industry for the reason that the service offering is quite a social experience which is culturally associative and described. A diversified customer foundation construes to the fact that managing diversity can be introduced into hotels so as to facilitate customers with a quality service experience that, if not, then at least meets their hopes. As a result, a managing diversity approach may have the propensity to make a significant contribution to the increasing sales in the Hilton Corporation to what have usually be classified under the minority-groups. Also, with provision of the transforming nature of the demography of its customers, an adoption of a proper managing diversity approach may also have the calibre of augmenting the scope for greater thought into various populaces of customers, thereby, improvising the quality service from this perspective as well (Gardenswartz and Rowe, 1998). 4. Diversity at both Management and Operational Level The Hilton Hotels Corporation possesses a long history of being a diversity title holder in the lodging industry and its efforts are based upon the growing minority as well as female participation at both the management and operational levels (New York Times, 2009). They know it very well that it takes efficient leadership to make an organization work, and hence, their diversity comes from the highest levels of their organizations. As suggested by Gibeily and Aoun, the study of role of leaders in the management of diversity and the ways by means of which their employees is valued to their own merits, regardless of their differences with the others (Gibeily and Aoun, 2006). The corporation believes that cultural diversification of markets is not restrained to their own company. Globalization is propelling the key companies from many countries to address cultural difference effects amongst their customers. Hilton is competent enough in providing services to the most culturally heterogeneous populations of the world which represent a possible benefit in national competence. Moreover, it is significant for them to realize that merely the possession of diversity is not adequate in order to produce benefits. They must also be competent in managing it efficiently at both the management as well as operational stands (Cox and Blake, 1991). They strategy to attain such levels of diversity works upon the will of the human resources, strength, and culture of the organization. Here, managers efficiently understand the culture of their firm and then efficaciously implement diversity strategies in accordance to that culture (Hayes, 1999). Diversity has become a buzzword in corporate, political and legal circles and managing it at appropriate levels is one of the most challenging errands of the modern organizations. The demographic disparities such as sex and age were traditionally associated with team level outcomes and hence, managers with their organizations ought to understand, recognize, and manage this captivating behaviour of the diverse workforce. As a matter of fact, a comprehension associated with the history of diversity management at all levels provides an idea about the progression of the interest in a diverse work-force in elite organizations such as Hilton Hotels Corporation. 5. Suggested Strategy for Diversity The current business trends of globalization with increasing ethnic and gender diversity are twirling the attention of managers to the efficient management of cultural disparities. As Cox and Blake have put forward, organizations should value diversity in order to enhance organizational efficacy. Nevertheless, the particular inter-relation between managing diversity and organizational competitiveness is barely made overt and there are not many research data that support such an inter-relation (Cox and Blake, 1991). Valuing diversity in the work-place is about facilitating an environment which promotes congenial working relationships, thereby, valuing differences too. It is about the acceptance of best practice management styles, and hence, is required to commence with an organization's leader if it is meant to be successful (Article, 2001). Diversity calls for a kind of organizational culture in which each employee can trail their career aspirations without being restrained by gender, race, nationality, and other constraints that are immaterial to the performance (Bryan, 1999). In case of Hilton Hotels Corporation, managing diversity construes to enabling the diverse workforce to perform its entire potential in an equitable work environment where no commune has a lead or drawback. Hilton has a diverse work-force which makes it effectively comprehended, thereby, meeting the requirements of a swiftly growing base of minority customers. Individuals and groups in this organization have transcended stereotypes or prejudices of all kinds, thereby, recognizing the distinct and precious information which is capable of supporting group procedures as well as performances. Candidness to apparent similarity defines the receptivity to apparent differences of individual, community, or organizations (Henry and Evans, 2007). The Hilton organization responds to the recent hospitality trends with a valuing diversity approach and hence, they are in possession of a well-managed, diverse workforce which holds potential competitive advantage for them. On assessing Diversity as a competitive advantage, the social responsibility quotient is the only domain which avails the benefits from the management of diversity. Amongst the other areas where sound management can create a competitive advantage, cost and resource acquisition arguments are the foreseeable issues of diversity (Cox and Blake, 1991). Competitiveness is also affected by the 'requirement' to hire more women, minorities, and foreign nationals. Moreover, the marketing, creativity, problem-solving, and system flexibility argument are obtained from the 'value-in-diversity premise'. This also contributes to the fact that brings net-added value to organizational procedures (Cox and Blake, 1991). The Hilton Corporation has maximized its benefits and minimized the drawbacks of diversity, in terms of work-group consistency, inter-personal conflict, turnover, and unified action on key organizational goals, all by creating multicultural organizations (Cox and Blake, 1991). Where the quintessential organizations of the past have been either monolithic or plural, the Hilton Corporation has created multicultural organizations which comprises of members of non-conventional backgrounds, and as a result, can contribute to their total potential. The Hilton Corporation's ability to allure, retain, and motivate people from diverse cultural backdrops has led to competitive advantages in cost structures, and by means of maintaining the paramount quality of human resources. Supplementary capitalization on the potential advantages of cultural diversity in work communities, it has gained competitive advantage in creativity, problem solving, and supple edition to change (Cox and Blake, 1991). 6. Challenges in the Future We have efficaciously described above that managing diversity is capable of creating a competitive advantage. Moreover, potential benefits of this diversity are inclusive of better decision making, higher creativity and novelty, leading to greater success in marketing to overseas as well as domestic ethnic minority communities, thereby, resulting in a better dissemination of economic opportunity (Cox and Blake, 1991). The culturally diverse groups of the Hilton Corporation are associative to homogenous groups and as a result, are more efficacious in both the interaction procedures as well as job performances. For the reason that the corporation has maintained its diverse group for a long period of time, these benefits occur at a grand pace, making it as one of the leading hospitality corporations of the world. Amongst the peak challenges lined in the near future, Hilton Corporation can facilitate its customers with superior services so that they can better comprehend to the needs and requirements of their customers. They should continue hiring minorities, such as the disabled, which will help them to tap the niche markets and diversified market sectors. With rigorous shift of the economies from manufacturing to service, diversity issues are bound to gain significance. Hence, Hilton is expected to extend its effective interactions and communications with its people in order to attain success. Even though the performance of Hilton Corporation has been satisfactory, it should maintain its working environment that tends to make way for motivation, satisfaction, and commitment of diverse crowds. Hilton requires its performance standards to be objectively established and will have to recognize desirable as well as undesirable behavior which must be based upon performance discourses that are inclusive of a diverse work-force. Moreover, their strategy needs to be based upon the will of the human resources, strength, and culture of their organization. Also, managers are required to comprehend to their organization's culture and act accordingly (Hayes, 1999). 7. Conclusions and Recommendations The level to which the managers identify diversity and its potential benefits or advantages as well as disadvantages describes an organization's outlook towards managing the diversity (Alder et al, 1997). No organization in this world of globalization can sustain without work-force diversity, and it is the prerogative of the management to stringently assess the benefits of diversity in their organization. Moreover, the management ought to position the place conditions which have the propensity of enhancing the work-force diversity in their organizations, chiefly, in their strategy formulation on the diversity (Henry and Evans, 2007). As a result, with the diversity, the organization would be intrinsically and extrinsically competitive. Even though, the procedure of diversification of organizations comprises of various stages, in is considered that organizations should position efficacious strategies in order to enhance diversity. In case of organizational learning, organizations are still trapped on the issue of getting people to value diversity, when they lack the determination of ways to exploit and utilize it. As suggested by Adler et al, it is the approach to diversity and not the diversity itself which recognizes the actual positive and negative results (Adler et al, 2007). The prowess of Hilton to enchant, retain, and provoke people from diverse cultural backgrounds has led to competitive advantages in workforce with the help of its cost structures and by rigorous maintenance of the highest quality human resources. Additional capitalization on the potential advantages of cultural diversity in work groups of the organization can lead to competitive advantage in creativity, problem resolution, and flexible adaptation to transformation. Hilton Corporation has taken appropriate steps in identifying its organization which can take it towards accomplishing all this. Through the various initiatives in the field of efficacious diversity, Hilton has delineated its commitment in establishing an organization that mirrors the communities in which it provides services. They've built a diverse work-force, increased the number of minority suppliers and franchise holders, thereby, making great developments in introducing diversity doctrines into all the aspects of their business functions, including training as well as mentoring, marketing, community relations and management performance measurements (Official Website, 2009). References Adler, F. R. LeBrun, E. G. and Feener Jr. D. G. 2007, Maintaining Diversity in an Ant Community: Modeling, Extending, and Testing the Dominance-Discovery Trade-Off. The American Naturalist, 169:3. Article. 2001, UK bosses prioritise workplace diversity, but it's still more rhetoric than reality. Jun 2001 Vol. 33, Issue 3. Industrial and Commercial Training Journal. Bryan, J. H. 1999, The diversity imperative, Executive Excellence, pp.6. Cox, T. H. and Blake, S. 1991, Managing cultural diversity: Implications for Organizational Competitiveness. Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 5, No. 3. Hayes, E. 1999, Winning at diversity, Executive Excellence p. 9. Henry, O. and Evans, A. J. 2007, Critical Review of Literature on Workforce Diversity. African Journal of Business Management. University of Botswana, Botswana. Hofstede, G. 2001, Culture's Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviours, Institutions and Organizations across Nations. UK: Sage Publications. Gardenswartz, L. and Rowe, A. 1998, Why diversity matters, HR Focus, July, pp. s1-s3. Gibeily, T. and Aoun, G. 2006, Managing diversity in the workplace: the case of the Lebanese public sector, paper presented at the 12th International Forum of the International Association of Jesuit Business Schools. Kramer, R. 1998, Managing diversity: Beyond Affirmative action in Australia, Women in Management Review, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 133-42. News Release. 2008, Hilton Hotels Corporation Celebrates Its Industry-Leading Initiatives at Diversity Review 2005 Event. Hilton Hospitality, Inc. The New York Times. 2009, Leading with Diversity: ilton Hotels Corporation. adv., 30/10/2009. The New York Times. Official Website. 2009, Hilton Worldwide. [Online], < www.hiltonworldwide.com>. Wilson, E. 1996, Managing diversity and HRD, in Stewart, J. and McGoldrick, J. (Eds), HRD Perspectives, Strategies and Practice, Pitman, London. Read More