Workshop Critic - Sofitel Shenyang Lido Hotel - Case Study Example

Workshop Critic [Name] [Professor Name] [Course] [Date] Abstract This workshop critic is intended to clarify the practices and concepts in HRD, namely development, education and training to address the issues related to employee retention in the hotel industry, with focus on the Sofitel Shenyang Lido hotel. Further, it discusses the contributory factors for employee retention in the hotel industry in addition to external aspect that are related to the work environment and internal issues that face individual employees. In addition, it provides a rationale for the workshop design, and outlines relevant theories and models. The theories drawn include process theories of learning and development as well as content theories. It also examines the outcomes of the implementation of the design. Finally, it discuss applications and draw conclusions regarding the major lessons from this experience, including generalizations of effective workshop design to workplaces and implications for personal learning and career directions. Workshop Critic: Sofitel Shenyang Lido hotel Each organization has its unique needs that must be met if the organization has to achieve its goals through the available resources. To meet these needs, organizations must integrate human, financial and physical resources. Within this perspective, a HRD professional has to develop a prime factor that contributes to the effectiveness of an organization. Additionally, the HRD professional has to adopt many models and disciplines, including education, adult education, employee education, training and development. Through literature synthesis, a performance improvement model for supported employment is examined using Holton’s (1999) human resource development model. Sofitel Shenyang Lido hotel is one of the largest international five-star hotels in northeastern of China, which is located in the heart of capital city—Shenyang. This hotel is newly established and made a contract with Shenyang Lido Company, which has the real estate of the hotel. Now, Sofitel Shenyang Lido hotel became the new management company and replaced from the Sheraton Lido hotel. The hotel has more than 590 elegant and spacious guestrooms, suites and premier apartment. Effective human resource management is critical and has a direct influence on all spheres of an organization. Hospitality industry, which is typically recognized for having high levels of employee turnovers, has started to recognize the high cost of employee replacement than retention. The workshop provides a learning environment for understanding the underlying causes behind these employee turnover issues, employee retention, the major decisions behind employee turnover, the retention efforts made by the company management and whether the employees would consider returning to the organization. Learners demonstrate they have understood the concept of the qualities for successful workshop. This activity is intended to set the right tone for the learners during the workshop. The group learning ensures that any negative remarks are instantaneously identified and dealt with. It also aims to balance the respect for individual opinions with clear-cut boundaries. Further it encourages a model of positive participation through collaborative learning. Learners are further encourages to discuss the ideas they feel they are comfortable with. This kind of participatory group learning through the workshop also encourages discussions from a broad perspective (Hooper and Hannafin, 1991). From a critical perspective, it is perceivable that the learners take part in discussions for prior experience that demonstrate the quality of responsibility. They also get to revisit the quality of responsibility within the context of the learning and workplace objective. However, it is evident that some learners do not get to participate successfully from the outset. Overall, the learning process evokes the impact of several factors including environmental, emotional and cognitive and prior experience, which together are essential for the understanding of views related to employee retention or turnover. With this regard, several theories are called upon. The workshop learning process was effective as learners were actively involved in a range of interactions throughout the learning activities. In general, in a learning process, there should be active interaction among the learners, or between the facilitator and the learner (Clark, 2001). A relevant theory of process learning is the constructive school of learning. To this extent, this paper suggests that knowledge is not received externally but rather through an individual learner’s own perspective, as well through processing what is understood through senses that create knowledge. Here, the learner is the core of learning even as the facilitator or instructor playing a strictly facilitating or advisory role. In transformation theory, both the cognitivism and constructivism are applied to illustrate the learning process. In this way, learning is showed as the process of applying a prior presentation to interpret a revised or new interpretation of the meaning of an individual’s experience to offer guide for possible future action. The transformative learning process involves transforming the opinions, attitudes, beliefs or emotional responses that comprise changing an individual’s meaning perspectives. Learning comprises five interacting contexts, namely the reference frame or the meaning perspective where the learning is entrenched, the communication conditions and the process where the learning occurs, the learner’s self-image and the circumstances that underlie the learning process. Concerning the outcome of this particular design, cooperative learning was the primary focus of the workshop. It involved a detailed kind of joint learning where learners work together on a structured activity in small groups. It was effective in learning issues including identifying the role of a HRD professional, understanding the issues important issues related to HRD professional, establishing the key challenges and opportunities of a HRD professional and understanding learning group activities and communication, and lastly, how to fix culture conflicts given that Sofitel is headquartered in France, has hired some employees from other countries; For example, the general manager is French, the marketing director is from Canada, and the hotel owner is from Hong Kong. The workshop also enabled the understanding of ways of resolving the high turnover problems, namely motivation, training and diversity management. In the process of creating an environment where cooperative learning occurs, three elements had to be created. First, the learners had to feel free to participate in the discussion. Secondly, the groups had to have small enough members to ensure that everyone could participate, and lastly, the tasks on which the learners worked on collaboratively have to be defined clearly. However, the sessions seemed rather long and unnecessary and it could be viewed that the long sessions turned out to put off the learners as they started to get bored. This paper recommends that the time allocated should be congruent with the number of individuals in the group. While extremely long sessions are strenuous and people tend to exhaust the topics, they can be criticized for tiring the learners (Edwards, 1991). The following aspects were observed to ensure an effective workshop was conducted, namely facilitation of the training, fundamental principles of adult-learning, ensuring an effective environment and finally, using the selected tool effectively. With regard to the fundamental principles of adult-learning, it was significant that before conducting the workshop, understanding how adults work at the hotel was imperative. This is essentially backed by the argument that people learn well while motivated (Rogers, 2003). On the view that the facilitator’s conduct failed to meet expectation of some learners, this paper recommends that facilitators should try and encourage and motivate learners on ways to embrace the workshop if it had to enhance value. Some theorists have suggested that among the steps a facilitator can take in this regard is to emphasize the significance of the training, the ongoing development and the extent the company has invested in the workshop. To be effective, the workshop had to be motivational. The learners participated actively. This was significant in ensuring the effectiveness of the workshop. Indeed, active participation in the discussions ensures effectiveness of the learning process. Some of the featured participatory roles include role plays, teamwork or group exercises. Sociologists have concluded that adults learn best through doing. Thus this paper further recommends that slide lecture presentations should be conducted at minimum. The step by step practice could have been more instrumental in effective learning, if the practice activities were integrated into each learning session. In skills training, the step by step practice has been numerously identified as integral. Further it was important that feedback on the learning outcome be made. Technically, feedback on how performance related to the performance standards has been achieved in very critical in collaborative learning. The order in which the material presented is also of essence to the effective learning process. The learning could have been more effective if the materials were presented using a definite order, for instance the chronological order. Often, the best learning processes often start with the simpler topics while moving progressively towards the more difficult ones. As a general rule or principle, self-study materials proposed by this paper for being effective as knowledge whole skills are effectively taught using workshops or role plays, both of which characterize some elements of self-study (Coppola, Nicholas and Carini, 2006). Stressing on how learning can be applied in different work scenarios is a critical element. By showing this relationship and how learning can be applied in work situations can be very valuable in the learning process. With regard to the learning environment, the group meetings were held after class or in N50 in the group room. It can be agreed that by matching the setting where the learning will be conducted to the training program, it can ensure the effectiveness of the learning program. Selection of the group was important in convening the kind of environment where problem solving, discussion, free participation and teamwork could be enabled (Berge, 2002). On the issue of training tools, the group meetings used workshop materials role plays, PowerPoint printing and marking criteria sheet. All these can be very effective in workshop scenarios. However, integration of other materials such as video projectors, simulations and team activities could have made the workshop more fruitful (Cooper, 1993). To the presenters or facilitators, PowerPoint was effective in demonstrating ideas that learners and the facilitators alike intend to out across. The PowerPoint presentations could have been more effective if they were run through LCD projector or video. The Flip carts could have been more important in demonstrating ideas. The workshop also featured role play. It is worthy to know that adults learn best through performing a duty. Role play can be said to provide a great opportunity of learners to practice knowledge and techniques. Since it tended to be more realistic, it brought the real-life scenario to the workshop. It also provided an instant feedback during the collaborative learning process. On the issue of strategies for employee satisfaction, discussion activities should be more structured. Ina addition to discussions being helpful in learning the problems Sofitel was experiencing, they presented clear and relevant content. However, engagement level of participants should be improved. On the issue of facilitating the training, facilitation and management o f the learning process or trainings is indeed an important fact that can both be played and control in the learning process. Basing on the conduct of the facilitator throughout the workshop, it can be established that they were obligated to have a rapport with the group, have the knowledge of handling the individuals in a group and lastly, know how to use questions. From literature review, it can be established that the best way to establish rapport with a group is to learn their names, encourage participation and lastly make eye contact. By using the questions, conversations within the group are let going. In addition, questions can help explain an individual’s comment particularly in instances of establishing a rapport. From a critical analysis, it could be observed that individuals in the workshop too two different forms, namely, those who participate and those who do not participate. For the non-participating members, it could be essential that the facilitator asks them questions about their experiences in the workshop. Critical issues learned from the workshop included the roles of the Human Resource Development (HRD) professional. Learners were able to learn the roles of an HRD professional. Generally, an HRD specialist should be a technical specialist in several technical areas. He should have strategic partner skills if he has to be more effective in offering technical guidance to the organization. This means he should be in a position to identify intensive human resource issues and stay ahead of the organization’s upper-level management. He should also demonstrate strong leadership skills. As a technical specialist, he should be in a position to apply extensive knowledge on several technical areas to resolve immediate needs of the organization. He should also pose as a technical consultant who is in a position to develop innovative human resource solutions to resolve client issues and to attain the overall business goals. With this regard, he should be a creative thinkers, a decision-maker, negotiator and flexible. He should also be a problem-solver, a project manager and a planner. In-depth interview with the hotel’s managers and employees exposes how the hospitality industry’s notorious turnover rate could be minimized. Generally, the image of the hotel industry is unattractive given its high employee turnover rates. China’s hospitality industry faces serious human resource challenges. Indeed, statistics show that only half of the country’s recent graduates opt to work in hotels. In addition, there is high turnover among graduates (David, 2008). The 2004 Statistics by the China Tourism Association shows that the average turnover rate was 21.2 percent (Wang, 2004). Hospitality is a labour-intensive industry that demands human resources with various levels of skills. Even as the industry is heavily reliant on employees, it is plagued by high turnover rates and low employee retention (Baum, 2008). The trend is similar in other countries. In Australia for example, researches have showed up to 50 percent of employees and about 40 percent of the managerial staff (Davidson, Timo & Wang, 2009). In tack ling employee retention, from the group discussions during the workshop, it perceivable that there is no conclusive approach as to what HRD professionals can do to motivate the workers (Judge et al, 2000). While many theories may have some merits, few have conclusive research to support them. Some aspects of Herzberg’s Motivator-Hygiene theory, McGregor’s Y theory, and self-efficacy, with their ability to foretell motivational behavior may meet this requirement. However, in the end, employee retention would still appear as subjective issues that may fail to completely fit in the models. For the purpose of HRD, it is imperative to handpick ideas from each theory (Ehrhart, 2006). From the employee retention capacity, the Human Resource Model views humans as capable of being motivated by a set of interconnected factors, including desire for some meaningful work, need for recognition and money (Kalat, 2002). Within this model, it is perceived that each of the employees would have a variety of talents, finish their tasks and seek a different goal while contributing their unique contributions to the organization (Porter et al 2003).  This perception tends to view employees as reservoirs of budding talents and proposes that it is the responsibility of the managers to seek the best ways of how to tap such talents (Kim and Jogaratnam, 2010). A basic assumption is conceived that workers want to contribute to positive outcomes of their jobs, as they are pre-motivated and in that case, the more they become motivated the more the job becomes meaningful to them thus reducing the rate of employee turnover in the organization (Porter et al 2003).  Concerning worker retention, Porter et al (2003) recommends process theory and content theory. The first includes Portt-Lawler model and Vroom’s expectancy theory, which are further expanded on following recent research to include self-efficacy. The first includes McClelland’s Learned Needs theory, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Alderfer’s ERG theory and Hertberg’s Movitator-Hygeine theory. In conclusion, this paper critically analyses a workshop design through which employee retention issues in the hospitality industry, with focus on Sofitel Shenyang Lido hotel, were discussed. It further provides a rationale for the workshop design, and outlines relevant theories and models. The theories drawn include process theories of learning and development as well as content theories. It also examines the outcomes of the implementation of the design. Finally, it discuss applications and draw conclusions regarding the major learning from this experience, including generalizations of effective workshop design to workplaces and implications for your personal learning/career directions (Hinojosa and Lineros, 2012). References Baum, T. (2008). “Implications of hospitality and tourism labour markets for talent management strategies.” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 20(7), 720-729. Berge, Z. L. (2002). Active, interactive, and reflective learning. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 3(2), 181-190. Clark, R. E. (2001). A summary of disagreements with the “mere vehicles” argument. In R. E. Clark (Ed.), Learning from media: Arguments, analysis, and evidence (pp. 125-136). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing Inc. Cooper, P. A. 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(2002). “Learning objects need instructional design theory.” A. Rossett (Ed.), The ASTD e-Learning handbook (pp. 115-126). New York: McGraw-Hill. Read More