Strategies to Employ for Specific Learning Needs - Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company - Assignment Example

Human Resource Development Name: Course: Tutor: Institution: City and state: Date: Abstract Human resource management involves the management of an organization’s human resources. This management is responsible for attracting, selecting, training and assessing its workforce. Its main aim is to oversee a leadership culture by ensuring that all employees comply with the labor laws that have been legislated. The human resource serves as a primary liaison with employees’ representatives. This is done through a labor union. This paper is a report that addresses the three issues that have been shown in the case study that was given. This paper is going to show how Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company can assess the development needs of their staff, the strategies that this company can use for the specific learning needs and it will also show how the company can evaluate the effectiveness of the learning strategies or interventions that can be used. This report will also provide some recommendations for the issues that have been raised. Table of Contents Abstract 2 Introduction 4 Assessing Development Needs of Staff 4 Strategies to Employ for Specific Learning Needs 6 Evaluation of Effectiveness of Learning Strategies 11 Recommendation 12 Conclusion 12 References 13 Introduction A work force which is strong not only save money for the company but also improves the overall performance of an organization. It should be a continuous process for the management to assess employees’ progress as well as communicate their findings to the employees. Employees feel as part of an organization if they are effectively developed. This improves the employees’ morale and to successfully engage the employees in the development process five areas which need to be focused on are: Coaching, Counseling, Mentoring, Teaching and training bearing in mind the current and future needs for development. The management should however understand that investing in people is not similar to investing in machinery or equipment. Equipment cost is depreciable but development cost is incurred in the current year and it tends to be expensive to invest in employee development than investment in equipment. Evaluation of employee development is measured by how the employees reacted and how they think about the process, how much they have learnt as facts and techniques, how their performance if affected as well as the obtained results after the process and how the process impacts the set organizational objectives. Assessing Development Needs of Staff In order to assess the development needs of the staff from Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, a training needs assessment survey needs to be carried out so that the needs of the employees can be determined. Training needs assessment is process through which data is collected and gathered to determine the training needs of workers so that training can be geared towards improving the effectiveness of workers. This in the long run will help Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company to meet its business objectives. The reason for conducting a training needs assessment is to identify problem areas in the hotel company that require training so that these problems can be addressed to facilitate development. Another reason for this assessment is to gain support from the management by ensuring that the training contributes to the improvement of employees’ performance. Data will also be developed for evaluating the success of the training program upon completion of training. This will enable the management to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the training needs assessment. This is because costs are incurred in providing training to employees and costs are also incurred when the needs of the employees are not met (Royse 2009, p. 21). The main advantage of conducting a training needs assessment is that the gap existing between the skills required for excellent job performance and the skills that employee’s posses are identified. Another advantage is that performance problems which are not training needs are identified. This is because performance by employees is based on skills knowledge and motivation since not all performance problems can be solved through training. Through training needs assessment, the incentives or practices of Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company that contribute to lack of motivation in employees can be identified. To conduct a training needs assessment, a training needs survey is done. For instance, a survey can be done whereby employees pair up and one employee takes the role of a subordinate and the other takes the role of a manager. In the role of the employee, one is supposed to help the manager in identifying their training needs in their current job (Choi-wa 2009, p. 219). The employee playing the managerial role must interview the other person in order to identify their training needs (Altschuld et al 2010, p. 320). The survey must provide a list of management skills to aid the pairs of employees by giving the ideas for the type of questions to be asked in the manager’s role. The manager must note down the skills, knowledge and abilities that have been identified by the employee as challenging and come up with possible solutions. A training needs assessment worksheet is used to note down all this data. It is divided into two columns. The first column consists of skills, abilities and knowledge. The other is the training need. A leader observation system is used in the survey to describe behaviors of employees based on the areas of interest. Strategies to Employ for Specific Learning Needs These areas of interest include; planning and coordination, introduction of new staff, customer service, decision making and problem solving, exchanging routine information, motivation and reinforcement, monitoring and control of performance, interpersonal skills, development of team skills, development of leadership skills and managing conflict (Harris and Hyde 2009, p 450). However, these categories are put in the leader observation system depending on the type of organization where the survey is being carried out. Each of these categories in the leader observation system has behavioral descriptors which describe how each category can be improved (Offen 2008, p. 81). In Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, the critical areas for learning interventions include introduction of new staff, customer service, interpersonal skills and the development of team and leadership skills. When it comes to introduction of new staff in Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, the learning strategy that will be employed will focus on the development of job descriptions of vacant positions or openings, review of applications, interviewing applicant for job openings, hiring new personnel and contacting of applicant to inform them of their application status (Montoro-Sánchez & Domingo 2011, p.8). The recruitment staff will be trained on how to best advertise the position and the best channels for advertising. The job description of the vacant position must be given and it must document the duties of that position. The salary of the person who will occupy that position must be included and it must state whether it is negotiable or fixed. A deadline for submitting the applications must be provided in the advertisement together with the required educational qualifications and years of experience in that particular job position (Kamoche and Mueller 2010, p.1050). The recruitment personnel are trained on how to sieve through the applications for a specific position in order to shortlist candidates. They are then trained on the necessary steps to take in short listing the applicant’s further (Royse 2009, p. 33). This can be through the use of interview or aptitude tests prior to the oral interview. Sometimes a practical interview is conducted before the oral interview to determine how well the applicant uses their knowledge, skills and abilities in accomplishing tasks. For positions such as accountants or cashiers in Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, aptitude tests such as numerical reasoning tests are a requirement for shoplifting candidates who had applied for that position (Keating and Thompson 2008, p. 611) For food handlers, they would be required to go through practical tests that examine how well they handle food and whether they use good sanitary practices. For waiters and other positions that require communication with customers, the applicants’ communication skills and ability to create good rapport with others is examined in an oral interview (Altschuld et al 2010, p. 335). For an open position as a manager, the employees are trained to evaluate the applicants’ against the traits of successful leaders. Some of these traits include creativeness, good problem solving skills, intelligent, democratic, expert knowledge, innovativeness and a risk taker. The recruitment staffs are trained on how to identify and look out for performance dimensions in applicants for job vacancies. Some of these performance dimensions include; initiative, emotional stability, social relations, security, leadership, effective intelligence, energy and motivation (Gannon et al 2009, p.535). The recruitment personnel are trained on what questions to ask applicants during interviews that will set them apart from other applicants. For instance, a person may be asked by the interviewing panelists where they see themselves in the next five years career wise or their reasons for applying for that position and how they will be beneficial to the company. In the competitive hotel businesses of today, hotel managers have gone back to customer service basics. It is detrimentally important to create good first impressions by providing excellent services to customers who go to Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. The creation of good relationships with customers has become difficult with the advent of the internet and social networking sites (Cai and Kleiner 2012, p.95). Hotels are now advertising their products and services via their web pages instead of interpersonal communication. Therefore, whenever there is a chance to talk face to face with customers, they must ensure that they create good rapport for the customers to come back again after being satisfied with the services (Lin et al 2012, p.160). To do this, the hotel staff must be well trained on how to interact with clientele. The hotel staff must be trained to be careful, culturally sensitive to international customers and courteous. The main area for creation of a good first impression in customers is focused on the use of body language. All hotel staff must be taught how to be friendly and open towards customers at all times. In order to improve customer service in Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, the hotel staff must be trained to have receptive attitudes which are cordial. They must learn to maintain their professionalism when confronted by arrogant customers (Offen 2008, p. 73). The staff must always smile to the customers and maintain eye contact. While interacting with the customers, getting to know the customer’s name makes them feel important and this significantly increases their chances of coming back (Patricia and Lytras 2008, 53). The staffs are also trained on interpersonal skills that include relationships between themselves. This is very important for conflict resolution and prevention of conflicts between workers in the hotel. They are taught how to cope with other peoples differences and how to resolve disputes between themselves without affecting how the hotel business runs (Offen 2008, p. 54). Sometimes the development of team skills can be very uncomfortable. Research has shown that by working together, employees can overcome obstacles and their surface-level differences (Bacon and Blyton 2010, p.1450). Through teamwork they are able to develop mutual trust, cooperation and respect. It is important that the hotel staff undergo teambuilding activities because this is an important characteristic of high quality customer service. Teambuilding initiatives that are properly administered lead to positive outcomes which range from increased profits to boosted morale of employees. Teambuilding exercises that are effective should be employed in order to foster improved communication, solidarity and cooperation among staff members and the managers in Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. These variables are meant for the exact purpose of promoting an interdependent organization culture and working environment to generate excellent customer service (Altschuld et al 2010, p. 324). To prevent inadequacy in teambuilding and promote positive changes, the exercise that will be in the teambuilding practice will be linked to the problems, concerns and challenges that are present in Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Instead of only focusing on staff-level employees in the hotel, this teambuilding exercise will represent a cross-section of the company. This will range from the waiters, chefs, accountants and managers. During the exercise, a leader will be selected to facilitate dialogue between all the participants. They will all discuss the significance of the activity they are engaged in. in the discussion, they must all agree that they will follow up and reinforce what they have learnt by converting what they have learnt into action to obtain positive results. The main elements of the teambuilding exercise will include the use of simple directions which are easy to explain and understand. The activity will use little or no equipments and it will be aimed at using the least amount of time to set up the scenario (Afiouni 2011, p.126). The exercise carried out will be slightly difficult to accomplish alone but easier as a team for it to be interesting. After the exercise, the discussion allows the members to be debriefed to tell others the reason why they conducted a particular exercise. The strategy that will be used to develop leadership skills involves the development of inspirational leadership within Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Management involves the handling of resources, money, people and time (Seyed-Mahmoud 2008, p.25). Leadership is therefore a journey that involves taking a person from one position to another that is higher than the previous one (Daley et al 2013, p. 370). The most inspirational hospitality leaders and managers in Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company will be interviewed to seek their opinions on some leadership issues that they have come across in that hotel. We will ask them to tell us whether there is a difference between leading and managing people. Generally, leadership is the shared ownership from people who have been inspired through the same vision while management is the control of people and process to obtain required results (Altschuld et al 2010, p. 314). Instead of developing great manager, great leadership will be developed by recognizing talent and building that talent towards making a better employee to do the leadership tasks required (Allred 2012, p. 441). Evaluation of Effectiveness of Learning Strategies Inspirational leadership will be considered through all the levels of Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company including the chefs, cleaning staff, caretakers, managers, waiters, receptionists and room service staff. A well structured system for measuring the effectiveness will be developed to see whether the objectives of the hotel were met after the training was conducted. The evaluation system will be able to identify whether the training programme was an investment to the hotel or not (Chitakornkijsil 2011, p.381). In the evaluation, Kirkpatrick’s levels of evaluation will be used. There are four levels in this type of evaluation. Each level is set out to determine whether the objectives at a particular level in the hotel were met. If the objectives at that level will not be met, then the training will be considered ineffective (Guerra-López 2008, p. 212). Level one mainly deals with the degree to which the participants of the training reacted favorably to the learning process. Level two shows the degree to which the participants of the training programme acquired the expected knowledge, attitudes and skills after the learning process. Level three will show the degree to which participants will apply the knowledge, attitude and skills learnt when they are done with the training and are back on their jobs. Eventually, level four will show the extent to which the targeted outcomes have occurred after training and reinforcement (Guerra-López 2008, p. 226). Each level will have its own specific objectives which will be determined by the challenges that exist in different job sectors of Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Recommendation My recommendation would be that Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company should continuously engage in team building activities on a regular basis whenever possible in order to continuously build on the talents and skill of its employees to develop inspirational leaders instead of managers. I would also recommend that the progress of employees after training be continuously monitored against standard expectations to identify areas that need improvement. Conclusion After Ritz-Carlton Hotel defined the gap between what an employee is doing and what they are supposed to do or a discrepancy then a personal development plan system is rolled out ensuring that the principle of entitlement and access of all staff to meaningful training and education becomes a reality. This will ensure that there is increased capacity to achieve Ritz organization goals. 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