A written summary of the article .The Ordinary Heroes of Taj - Assignment Example

On November 26 2008, while guests were within the Taj Mumbai, gunmen attacked the hotel. At that moment, there was a dinner hosted by the Unilever Company, attended by top executives and their spouses. Midway into the dinner, the hotel’s staff realized that shots were being fired, and they quickly took control of the situation. According to Raina and Rohit (2), waiters directed guests to lie down, locked the doors and turned off the lights while trying to keep the guests calm. These groups of guests were safely evacuated the next morning by emergency teams who had rushed to the site.

Guests at the Japanese restaurant within the hotel were also caught up in the attack. They were instructed to hide beneath their tables, and the waiters formed a human shield between them and the attackers. Later, upon evacuation, the guests were allowed to leave first with the staff following close behind. The head waiter who was in charge, Thomas Varghese, did not make it out since the attackers shot him as he was the last one to leave the room.During the attack, 31 people lost their lives, 11 of whom were staff members at the hotel.

Most of the dead staff members had sacrificed their lives to protect their guests from getting hurt during the incident. There was wide acclaim over the dedication of the staff at the hotel due to the manner in which they conducted themselves; not only were they calm, but they also went out of their way to help their guests to safety (Raina and Rohit, 5).This level of commitment by employees had not seen before, given that there were no official policies that existed at the time to deal with such a scenario.

The human resource approach used at the hotel hires people based on devotion and integrity and trains them for 18 months; six more than the regular 12 months in other establishments. The result was a team of loyal employees who had the best interests of the customers at the core of all their actions.Works CitedRaina, Anjali, and Rohit Deshpande. "The Ordinary Heroes of the Taj." Harvard Business Review 1 Dec. 2011: 1-6. Print.