The Overtime Dilemma of a Hotel Manager - Research Paper Example

?The Overtime Dilemma of a Hotel Manager Creating the Right Labor Force The hospitality industry is considered one of the few industries whose success relies most heavily upon its human capital (Casson, 2013). According to Casson (2013), "finding the right people for the right task, building their skills, and making sure they choose to stay after they’ve attained a certain level of competency are challenges that are inherent within this business." Thus this poses the biggest challenge to management to ensure that the management has the right kind of labor force. Casson (2013) saw it as a difficulty since they have to select from "almost entirely an overseas pool of talent, making it a very transient market and one in which employees tend to move around quite frequently in pursuit of the best opportunities available." However, if the management was able to create a good team and selected the bests employees, then they already passed the first step of the many challenges ahead of the way. As a means of drawing inference upon these specific sectors of interest, this particular student will analyze these factors based upon the determinant of seeking to become a hotel manager. Furthermore, when choosing this particular topic, it came to the attention of the researcher that the specific subject matter has a direct correlation to both the legal matters as well as the applicability and practicality of choosing this specific field as a potential future career path. The reasons for this are as follows: 1) hotel management provides the most direct link between the client, the employee, and providing a high quality of service/ensuring future profitability, 2) hotel management requires that the hotel manager should be perennially cognizant of the means by which legal issues impact upon the work that they engage in, 3) hotel management is a promising and rapidly growing sector that represents a high level of opportunity for the graduate that has a background in hospitality or tourism related sectors. The Responsibilities of the Hotel Manager Given the role of a hotel manager or the Deputy or Operations Manager, in absence of the general manager, he is to run the hotel on a daily basis. The hotel manager is tasked to give solutions to the emergencies and problem the hotel faces each and every day. The hotel manager also take charge of the different departments of the hotel. But most of all, the operations manager reports to the general manager who will give the tasks and responsibilities to him. The general manager asks for jobs to be done and sometimes does not necessarily ask for any rationales as long as he gets what he wanted. Thus it can be said that being a hotel manager is one of the most challenging job a hotel industry major can ever pursue as a career having to ensure the job gets done under his management an he gives smiles to his boss at the end of the day. What should be done? What are the jobs to be done by the management team as well as the labor force? As enumerated by ACCOR (n.d.), the hotel industry "has a key role to play in sustainable development. Indeed, every hotel faces at its level the main current environmental issues: building heating, water consumption, household (guest) and industrial (laundry, restaurant) waste management, site preservation… A hotel is thus a real proving ground for exploring new technologies and new lifestyles." These responsibilities are not as easy as they seem. The ground work for everything to keep together in a daily basis while having different sets of guests, season, environmental and financial status as well as the unexpected calamities may hinder keeping the employees do their responsibilities. The hotel operation is 24/7 and does not have any break time or closing hours like any other business. From maintaining the cleanliness, serving the requests of the guests and keeping all the facilities up and running smoothly require enough knowledge and dedication from the staff. According to the interview done by Harvey Chipkin (2013) to Ted Mandigo, a veteran industry analyst who now teaches at Kendall College, in the hotel industry today “You need more skills than you used to,” he said. “Years ago you said, ‘Here’s a mop and a bucket.’ Now there is a lot more detail to every job—even targeted chemicals for cleaning. There is better awareness of load lifting because it’s tougher to pick up a thick pillow foam mattress; and housekeepers have to make sure TVs are functioning." Now this technological need to improve and the need to compete with other hotels require updated trainings to the hotel staff to ensure they can deliver their tasks smoothly and provide excellent customer service to their guests. The management team is also tasked to increase their market, control operational expense and maintain competitive performance against other existing hotels. This can be done if the labor force has an aligned vision and mission with management and they are working efficiently as required of them. The Labor Force Challenges According to the recent report of Harvey Chipkin (2013), "A wide variety of property types and market-specific union labor issues create a disparity of hospitality employment opportunities throughout the U.S., according to a number of hotel employers." It is already a very sensitive task of the manager to ensure all his staff are paid right. In Harvey Chipkin's (2013) report, he stated the results driven by New York City Labor Market Information Service's report which include the following: In 2011, the average industry wage was $53,045, which is well above the citywide median of $45,540 but below the citywide mean of $61,270. Under the current union contract, workers in unionized hotels offer wages well above what is paid to similar occupations in other industries; room attendants in unionized hotels earn $26.35 per hour compared with the citywide average of $17.11 per hour. Dishwashers in union hotels earn $25.62 per hour compared with $9.83 per hour citywide. Many non-union hotels, especially in Manhattan, offer pay rates that are influenced by the union agreement. For the most part, larger full-service hotels are unionized and limited-service hotels are not. Unionized hotels are concentrated in Manhattan, while non-unionized locations are in the outer boroughs. Geoffrey Mills, managing director of the Crowne Plaza Times Square and chair of the Hotel Association of New York City, said that while half his workforce is 45 years or older, there is only 3% to 4% annual turnover. The managing director of Crowne Plaza Times Square, Geoffrey Mills, admitted that it is the cost of operations that posted the biggest challenge for hoteliers thus he stated “We are trying to tighten employee costs" (Chipkin, 2013). In lieu of this, if the general manager wanted to get a job done which would require employees to render overtime but does not want any additional expense, the hotel manager is left to handle this alone, face his team and most especially get the job done. Overtime Pay and Computation According to the United States Code (5 USC § 5542), overtime rates and computation are as follows: (a) For full-time, part-time and intermittent tours of duty, hours of work officially ordered or approved in excess of 40 hours in an administrative workweek, or (with the exception of an employee engaged in professional or technical engineering or scientific activities for whom the first 40 hours of duty in an administrative workweek is the basic workweek and an employee whose basic pay exceeds the minimum rate for GS–10 (including any applicable locality-based comparability payment under section 5304 or similar provision of law and any applicable special rate of pay under section 5305 or similar provision of law) for whom the first 40 hours of duty in an administrative workweek is the basic workweek) in excess of 8 hours in a day, performed by an employee are overtime work and shall be paid for, except as otherwise provided by this subchapter, at the following rates: (1) For an employee whose basic pay is at a rate which does not exceed the minimum rate of basic pay for GS–10 (including any applicable locality-based comparability payment under section 5304 or similar provision of law and any applicable special rate of pay under section 5305 or similar provision of law), the overtime hourly rate of pay is an amount equal to one and one-half times the hourly rate of basic pay of the employee, and all that amount is premium pay. (2) For an employee whose basic pay is at a rate which exceeds the minimum rate of basic pay for GS–10 (including any applicable locality-based comparability payment under section 5304 or similar provision of law and any applicable special rate of pay under section 5305 or similar provision of law), the overtime hourly rate of pay is an amount equal to the greater of one and one-half times the hourly rate of the minimum rate of basic pay for GS–10 (including any applicable locality-based comparability payment under section 5304 or similar provision of law and any applicable special rate of pay under section 5305 or similar provision of law) or the hourly rate of basic pay of the employee, and all that amount is premium pay. To make it simple, overtime pay is payment which includes hours rendered at work more than the required which is 40 hours per week. Overtime pay is equal to employee's rate per hour x 1.5 x overtime hours rendered. The Dilemma Current Hotel Manpower Rate, Set-up and Schedule: Total housekeeping team: 60 employees Schedule: Opening shift: 9:00-18:00 = 20 employees Middle shift: 17:00-2:00 = 20 employees Closing shift: 1:00- 10:00 = 20 employees Hourly rate: $11.00 The general manager 's instruction at 3 o'clock in the afternoon states that a birthday celebration was unexpectedly booked at 7 o'clock in the evening which will have 300 guests to come. With less than four hours time given, setting up an entire grand ball room with 100% of the present manpower for opening shift would be close to impossible. He wanted the opening team to render one (1) hour overtime without pay. Instructed by the boss to get a job done requiring overtime from employees but does not want to have additional cost is one of the biggest challenges being a hotel manager. With twenty employees at $11 per hour to render over time means additional $16 ($11 x 1.5 x 1hr) per employee or additional operational cost of $320. Additional $16 for the day may be too much to ask from the employees. Even if you have the power to convince them, it is unlawful to take certain amount of money from a person especially if the person worked hard for it. As a hotel manager, it would be unethical to use your position and power to make them work without having been paid. But the instruction clearly stated that no additional expense shall be made. As a hotel manager, I would like to impress my boss that I got the job done without additional operational costs. Thus, given this scenario, I have twenty more employees coming at 5' o clock in the afternoon. Thus instead of spending $320 for over time pay, I will have 50% of my middle shift plantilla come as early as 4pm so that additional 10 employees can help finish the job on time. This means 50% or 10 employees would end their shift an hour earlier than the other ten (10) mid shift employees. These ten employees can help finish the planning and set-up with three hours time. At the end of the day, the birthday party event at 7 o'clock in the evening was successful and no over time concern or additional expense was incurred. As stated earlier in this paper, we need to have the right labor force. Team members must understand that in the job they have, there will be few instances that they have to be called in urgent needs thus making their schedule a flexible one. They must know the nature of their job includes being able to be called for unexpected bookings and problems. Thus they must embrace and stay positive to their work despite being called to report earlier than scheduled without feeling frustrated as being asked to work against their will. Conclusion Keeping the hotel up and running smoothly, twenty four (24) hours a day, seven (7) days a week is one of the toughest jobs and careers to pursue. Dealing with all the concerns and complaints while maintaining a happy disposition at wee hours time takes great effort. It is a solid "no-no" to let any of the hotel guests see a frustrated face while taking their orders and resolving their complains. Everyone knows that in a hospitality industry, it is a standard to treat each customer right at all times. What the management team needs to do is to have the right labor force. The Human Resource or People's team must hire the right employees willing to take the job with the right attitude and determination to work. The job in a hospitality industry would require extra patience, understanding and determination. The employees must be willing to take urgent calls, extend duty hours and must be willing to take flexible schedule such as changing of shifts. Given this right labor force, according to Andrew Glincher (n.d.) the owners and management should ensure that: "a compliant policy should be distributed to all employees and included in a hotel's employee handbook. Another important step hotel owners should take to ensure compliance with the new overtime rules is an internal audit. In any organization, over a period of time, job titles change, job responsibilities are shifted, and people are rewarded with new titles that may be inconsistent with their actual duties. An audit of the organization, performed by legal counsel under attorney client privilege, can help management understand where there are gaps and flaws and what management may do to rectify them. Job descriptions should be reviewed to ensure they are in compliance. By understanding the new regulations hotel executives can protect hotel employers from the threat of lawsuits and grievances regarding overtime issues. Lastly, it is duly important that the management team itself are well trained and knowledgable of their responsibilities as well as the standard operating procedures being implemented in the hotel. A lot of complaints are due to inaction of the management and unlawful decisions affecting the employees such as issues in wages and overtime pays. References: Casson, Simon. "Hospitality Industry: Leading by Example." Business| Tourism. gulfnews.com., 16 April 2013. Web. 17 April 2013. Chipkin, Harvey. "Outside Issues Create Labor Situations." Sections. hotelnewsnow.com ., 15 April 2013. Web. 17 April 2013. Glincher, Andrew. "Hotel Management Needs to Understand New Overtime Rules." Hospitality Law. Hotel Business Review: The Center for Hospitality Research. n.d. Web. 18 April 2013. "The Challenges of Sustainable Development." accor.com., n.d. Web. 18 April 2013 5 USC § 5542 Read More