Contemporary Human Resource Management - Cliffside Hotel - Example

Contemporary Human Resource Management In this case study a detailed analysis of different issues of The Cliffside Hotel has been discussed.This hotel is run by a charitable organization called Marybella Society. The hotel provides fooding and lodging facilities to guests and along with this the hotel is also involved in doing many charitable activities. This case study highlights different views of authors regarding different factors which have influenced the employees to improve their performance and engagement level. The hotel has faced many problems for which it has lost many customers. In this case study some recommended ways are suggested for improving the business condition of the hotel. The aim of the paper is to analyse the operating environment of the considered hotel. The discussion shall revolve around on how the environment has affected the human resource management of the hotel. The alternatives along with the advantages and the disadvantages will be focussed inside the paper. The importance for the hotel to perform better and the necessity of coaching and training of this process will be considered. How the hotel can manage stress and what would be the implications of it will also be concluded. Contents Introduction 4 Literature review 4 Methodology 7 Results 8 Discussion 8 References 13 Introduction The Cliffside Hotel is located in central Dundee. The hotel is located in one of the big historical buildings of Dundee. The building is more that 200 years old. At different times the building is used for different purpose. Originally the building of The Cliffside Hotel was built as town house for reputed doctors of Dundee. After that this building was used as school for some period of time. The building was then used as office. Finally in the present time the building is now used as Cliffside Hotel. Initially this hotel was owned by private owner. But in 2006 the owner of this hotel had sold it and to a charitable trust known as Marybella Society. This society looks after poor and needy people. The society is involved in supporting and assisting meaningful work. It helps the people to come out from bad backgrounds. Marybella Society is made up of 6 governors, administrators, general managers, 20 development workers. The governors are in the board of this charitable trust. Literature review As per the authors Kennerley and Neely business environment plays a vital role in changing the business process of a company. In the modern time some major changes are observed in business environment. This is because of the changing need, taste, preferences of the customers. These factors affect the entire business process of a company. As a result the company needs to change its different business process which are directly or indirectly associated with satisfying the customers. According to the authors the hotel industry is associated with providing comfort and luxurious facilities to people. Hotels provide different types of services to its guests for making their stay comfortable and memorable. Initially hotels were used only for fooding and lodging. But with the change in business operating environment the hotels are now a day compelled to provide high quality and many extra services for competing with each other. Other than fooding and lodging the guests expects something more from the hotels. For this reasons the hotels need to keep more employees and train their existing employees to improve their performances for satisfying and attracting customers (Kennerley and Neely, 2003). According to Lam and Han employees have a significant role in improving the performance of a company and also to deteriorate its work performance. So organizations need to select employees on the basis of their skills and capabilities. With the changing business environment the employees are required to change or improve their performances. If they are not capable to do so then the organization cannot survive in the competitive business environment. The companies involved in hotel industry also face the same issue. For this reason they improve their employee base continuously to satisfy its guests. As stated by the authors sometime the hotels are involved downsizing its employees for reducing extra costs or reducing the numbers of inefficient employees. To recruit efficient employees the organizations now a day follow the process of outsourcing employees. This process helps the company to recruit most appropriate candidates as per their business process (Lam and Han, 2005). As stated by the authors Luthans and Peterson, success of a company highly depend on the engagement of employees in its business or other organizational process. Employee engagement is very much important in service industry as in this industry employees are directly involved in satisfying and acquiring customers. Hotels also belong from services industry. The employees working in hotel have to serve the customers all time as per their needs and requirements. For this reason employees need to maintain high level of engagement with their work for delivering good performances. This helps them to know and understand the customers in a better way and as per this they assist the hotel in developing such services which will satisfy the desires and requirements of its guests. The authors also said that high level of employee engagement also helps to build good relationship with employees and employers. As result the employers are able to communicate with its staffs easily which will enhance company its success (Luthans and Peterson, 2002). According to the authors Thorpe and Beasley the organizations manage and evaluate the performance of its employees for achieving their goals and objectives. In the service industry, performance of the employees plays the most important role in enhancing the success of the company. Success in hotel industry is obtained by providing high quality of services. For this reason the companies involved in this industry focus more on managing the performance of employees. This helps the company to improve its service level and to bring more customers. The authors state that with the changing business environment the hotels are putting more emphasis on improving its service quality by motivating its employees to deliver high quality performance (Thorpe and Beasley, 2004). As per the authors Ellinger, Ellinger and Keller, performance of the employees are managed through coaching and mentoring. Both of these processes help the employees to overcome their problems which act as an obstruction for delivering good performances. Coaching and mentoring facilitate the employees to understand the performance they are required to deliver. These processes guide them to achieve their goal and objectives quickly (Ellinger, Ellinger and Keller, 2003). According to the authors Kim, Murrmann and Lee, for the increase in competition in business environment all the companies are facing high amount of stress. They always have to compete with each other for enhancing their position in the market. For this reason stress factor increases day by day. Organizations need to manage its stress factors properly for delivering its functions properly. If a company is incapable of managing stress then it will affect its business performance negatively can create bad impact on employees. The authors also state that in hotel industry employees stress factor affects the business more. In this industry employees directly interact with guests. If they show off their stress in front of customers then they won’t be satisfied with the service of the hotel (Kim, Murrmann and Lee, 2009). Methodology Qualitative and quantitative methods are used for conducting research and extracting information from research. Qualitative research focuses on the qualitative issues like behaviour, perception and other quality issues of the target audience on whom the research is conducted. Quantitative research method focuses on the use of various analytical tools which help to judge the target audience of research. In quantitative research mathematics, hypothesis and statistics play important role in analysing targeted audience. In this case study qualitative research method has been used to analyse the behaviour of the employees and the people associated with the business. There are two processes by which a researcher can collect data from the market. These processes are primary and secondary process. In primary research method data are collected directly from market by conducting interviews, surveys etc. In secondary research method data are collected indirectly from secondary sources like internet, books etc. In this project primary research method has been used. Case study method has been selected to analyse its target audience. In case study method information are taken from the case study which is being provided. In the case study information has been given about the hotel, its employees, administration etc. From these data different problems of the hotel has been discussed in detailed way. In this case study important data are extracted and analysed for improving the business condition of The Cliffside Hotel. Results Various factors of The Cliffside Hotel are evaluated and analysed in this case study for solving different problems of the hotel. The business environment in which the hotel is operating its business is explained in this case. By this process the importance of operating environment in the business operations of Cliffside Hotel is highlighted. From the research it has been observed that the changing and competitive business environment has affected the human resource management system of the hotel. The hotel is focusing more on recruiting efficient employees by outsourcing process. With the help of the charity organizer Shanice the Cliffside Hotel is trying to enhance its employee engagement level as the hotel consider it as an important factor contributing in the success of the company. Presently the hotel is facing problem with the performance of its employees and trainees. That is why the governing body of this hotel is putting effort to manage the performance of all the staffs for providing better services. For this reason the Cliffside Hotel was planning to train and mentor its staffs for improving their performance and managing their stress. In service industry employees’ performance is a very important factor. So to maintain its position in the market hotel needs to work on these issues. Discussion The Cliffside hotel is run by a charitable body. For this purpose the charges and rent of the hotel are low when compared to other hotels in Dundee. The hotel was operating its business with minimum number of staffs and trainees. The guests who were staying in this hotel were not satisfied with its services. The quality of food offered by the hotel was very bad and its service was also not up to the standard. As a result the Cliffside hotel was losing its customers for which it was facing a major problem in doing social activities. Collecting funds is not easy for the company. So to some extent the hotel has to depend on its customers. Moreover the staffs of Cliffside hotel were not performing their duties and responsibilities properly (Crutchfield and Roughton, 2013). The governing and the administrative bodies’ of the hotel were not guiding the employees. As a result the employees were behaving badly with the guests. For these reasons the charitable society had taken the initiatives for providing training to the employees. The society recruited Mark Tanner as a manager of Cliffside hotel. He looks after different departments and functions of the hotel. The turnover of the employees was very low in this hotel for which it was facing many difficulties in its business process (Champoux, 2010). For all of these reasons the operating environment of Cliffside Hotel has changed. For implementing this change the hotel took the initiative to provide training to its trainees and other employees for performing their duties and responsibilities effectively. This will help Cliffside hotel to satisfy its customers and deliver good services. Training will also help the employees to motivate them in their work. As a result the performance of the employees will be improved. By recruiting good and effective manager the hotel can enhance its business operations and reduce the service gaps (Huq, 2010). Change in operating environment will facilitate the hotel to set up effective policies and procedures of HRM. The Cliffside hotel is facing problem with the rising cost pressure. For this reason the company is planning to downsize its workforce if it can’t match up with the rising cost. For downsizing its workforce the hotel can fire the employees who are not performing well. The Cliffside hotel can also provide the option of voluntary retirement to its employees who have become old or who are not interested to perform social activities. The hotel provides low wages to its employees. So it can fire the employees who want more wages. The disadvantage of this option will be the hotel can loss efficient employees and its employee strength will decrease (Jones and Brazzel, 2014). To reduce its costs related to employees the hotel is planning to outsource employees from other company to continue its business process. For outsourcing its employees the hotel can avail the option of making a contract with a good company which is involved in outsourcing high quality employee in hotel industry. This will help the Cliffside hotel to use different types of employees at different times as per its needs and requirements (Baker and Doran, 2007). The disadvantage of this option will be if the outsourcing company closes its business then the hotel will face major problem in continuing its business. Shanice as a charity organizer and manager of The Cliffside hotel can restructure the staffing of this hotel and can set new policies and procedures of HR. This will help all the organizational member of the hotel to perform their work effectively. Motivation plays an important role in improving the performance level of employees. As a manager Shanice will motivate then to perform charitable activities for helping the society by creating social awareness in them. She will provide more opportunities to employees for enhancing their career in this organization. These factors will bring success to the hotel because by increasing employee engagement level the hotel can deliver better service and performance which will help the hotel to fulfil its goals and objectives (Ashkanasy, Wilderom and Peterson, 2011). It is very important for The Cliffside hotel to manage the performance of its employees effectively. This is because the hotel was facing problems in managing its employees. Their performance level was very low for which the hotel was not been able to satisfy its customers. As a result by managing the employee performance, the hotel will be able to generate more revenue and improve its quality of services (Kostova and Roth, 2002). Coaching and mentoring contribute a lot in improving performance level of employees. With the help of coaching and mentoring the hotel will be able to enhance the qualities and skills of its employees. These processes will help them to learn many new things for improving their service quality. The employees can understand the problems of the hotel in a better way (Armstrong, 2006). The governing body of the hotel needs to manage different stress associated with the business. By managing stress of the employees will help the employees to hotel to deal with its guests in a satisfactory way. If the stress of the employees is not managed properly then it will create negative impact of dealing with the guests. The employees will then show off bad behaviour in front of guests for their stress (Luthans, 2005). Conclusion This case study deals with various things which affect the business operations of the Cliffside Hotel. This hotel is run by a charitable body. For this reason money the governing body of the hotel and its managers were not focusing on improving its revenue. They were more focused on social activities that they perform. Various funding bodies help the hotel to run the business with minimum numbers of employees and trainees. Presently the hotel is facing some major problems which are creating threat to the survival of this hotel. Charges of the Cliffside Hotel are much lower that other hotels present in Dundee. The hotel has kept its charges intentionally low as it is run by charitable organization. For its low charges this hotel many times fails to provide good service to its guests. In this case study various problems of the hotel have been discussed in detailed. Recommendations For improving the business condition of the Cliffside Hotel the governing body of this hotel can recruit a reputed trainer who will help the organization to effectively train the employees for improving their business process. The trainer will also make them understand about the quality of service they need to deliver for achieving goals and objectives of hotel. The hotel can incorporate performance management system for motivating employees to deliver best quality of services. The hotel should advertise and perform more social activities for improving their business position and attracting many more social worker to join the organization. References Armstrong, M. 2006. A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. New York: Kogan Page Publishers. Ashkanasy, N. M, Wilderom, C.P.M. and Peterson, M. F. 2011. The Handbook of Organizational Culture and Climate. London: SAGE. Baker, J. R. and Doran, M. S. 2007. Human Resource Management: A Problem-solving Approach Linked to ISLLC Standards. London: R&L Education. Champoux, J., 2010. Organizational Behavior: Integrating Individuals, Groups, and Organizations. New York: Routledge. Crutchfield, N and Roughton, J., 2013. Safety Culture: An Innovative Leadership Approach. Waltham: Butterworth-Heinemann. Ellinger, A. D., Ellinger, A. E., and Keller, S. B., 2003. Supervisory coaching behavior, employee satisfaction, and warehouse employee performance: A dyadic perspective in the distribution industry. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 14(4), pp.435-458. Huq, R., 2010. Employee Empowerment: The Rhetoric and the Reality. Devon: Triarchy Press Limited. Jones, B. B. and Brazzel, M., 2014. The NTL Handbook of Organization Development and Change: Principles, Practices, and Perspectives. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Kennerley, M., and Neely, A., 2003. Measuring performance in a changing business environment. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 23(2), pp.213-229. Kim, B. P., Murrmann, S. K., and Lee, G., 2009. Moderating effects of gender and organizational level between role stress and job satisfaction among hotel employees. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 28(4), pp.612-619. Kostova, T. and Roth, K., 2002. Adoption of an organizational practice by subsidiaries of multinational corporations: Institutional and relational effects. Academy of management journal, 45(1), pp. 215-233. Lam, T., and Han, M. X. 2005. A study of outsourcing strategy: a case involving the hotel industry in Shanghai, China. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 24(1), pp.41-56. Luthans, F., and Peterson, S. J. 2002. Employee engagement and manager self-efficacy. Journal of management development, 21(5), pp.376-387. Luthans, F., 2005. Organizational behaviour. New York: McGraw-Hill. Thorpe, R., and Beasley, T. 2004. The characteristics of performance management research: Implications and challenges. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 53(4), pp.334-344. Read More