An Active Role of Management and Employees in Delivering a Satisfactory Service - Research Paper Example

Management theorists have often attempted to look into the reasons of effectiveness of different organisations and rationalise the grounds of failures. Henry Fayol, in his famous work on Principles of Management, argued that effective working of an organisation not only depends on the technological factors but also on the quality of managing employees. He asserted that effectiveness in an organisation can be achieved by clear authority and discipline. Fayol claims that Principles of Management are universally applicable and implementation of each of them would increase the effectiveness of the organisations (Luthans, 2002). All the above statements lead us into a basic enquiry- What is effectiveness of an organisation? Management effectiveness can be referred to as optimum mix of three major attributes which are: technical, conceptual and human. The technical attribute refers to the competency of the managers in their functional specialisation. Most of the higher studies (such as engineering and information technology) aim to hone the functional skills of the student. However, it is the conceptual and human dimensions of a manager’s job that becomes decisive factor in effectiveness of the organisation (Luthans, 2002). However, organization’s effectiveness has been explained in several ways such as achieving the goal/outcome (Etizioni, 1964), improving internal and external organizational performance (Richardetal, 2009) being number one in the industry and so on. But is the end customer of the product or service actually bothered with the profit figures or rank of the company in the industry? May be not! Then how can an organisation prove its effectiveness to the end-customer? The answer is that every time the end-user experiences the product or service, each time the organisation’s effectiveness is tested. Consider this: During 26/11 Mumbai (India) terror attacks, both Hotel Taj and Hotel Oberoi were targeted by the terrorists. After the attack it was found: manager of the hotel lost his wife and kids while saving the lives of the guests; a young lady (management trainee) guest relation executive who was with the United Lever Country CEOs gathering at that moment, stopped any of the members going out and volunteered 3 times to go out and get stuff such as ice cubes for whiskey of the guests when the situation outside the hall was very explosives and she could have been easily the target of the bullets; ‘people who exhibited courage included janitors, waiters, directors, artisans and captains – all level of people’ (Srinivas, 2009). The result was that the employees of Hotel Taj became the symbol of courage. Even the US President chose to stay in the Taj on his visit to India in 2010. There were 500 emails from various guests narrating heroics of the staff and thanking them for saving their lives. Needless to say, that they became loyal to the Taj for life. While there occurred incidents of bravery in Hotel Oberoi also, they were isolated in nature. The point to ponder is that why Hotel Taj hogged all the limelight of excellent service when even Hotel Oberoi went through the same event. This is because the staff at Taj had the commitment to serve the customers first, even if costs them their lives or their families. This commitment towards one’s duties cannot be taught in training programs or executed through HR policies. This commitment can be created only when the employees feel satisfied with every aspect of their job and feel cared for & respected. Satisfied staff is a result of culture of the organisation. Staff Satisfaction does not arise from a single act or a single policy. It is a result of creating a seamless fabric of culture and uniform policies and procedures throughout the organisation. Only when the employee is satisfied with his work, s/he will be able to pass it on to the customers. They cannot bring smiles on the customers’ faces when they themselves are grudging. Employee satisfaction is driven by internal quality which is measured by ‘the feelings that employees have towards their jobs, colleagues and companies’ (Heskette, Jones, loveman, W. Earl Sasser, & Schlesinger, 1994) drives employee satisfaction. Employee satisfaction drives loyalty which is the key to better productivity (Heskette, Jones, loveman, W. Earl Sasser, & Schlesinger, 1994). When an employee is satisfied, it raises the morale of the employee. High morale ensures that the employee is motivated to give her best to the job which results in higher productivity. Traditionally, studies on employees’ turnover concentrate only on cost of recruiting, hiring and training. In service industry, however, the real cost of turnover is loss of productivity and decreased customer satisfaction. Employee productivity drives value for the customer which is the outcome they receive in relation to the total costs (price and other costs incurred in acquiring the service). Value for the customer ultimately results in customer satisfaction. Underneath the entire process, that is creating and delivering value through satisfied employees to satisfied customers, lies the strong bond of leadership. A good leader ensures that the staffs are clearly communicated as to what is expected out of them both in normal and extraordinary circumstances. Besides good communication, the leader promotes intelligence, rationality and careful problem solving in the subordinates. Such intellectual stimulation not only cultivates a sense of pride in the member but also instils commitment towards the organisation. Leadership is not about position but it is about the capability to enable the team members to visualize the vision of the organization. Going back to the example of Taj Hotels; the company belongs to the Tata Group of industries which is the largest industrial group in India. Tatas are known to groom transformational leaders through their robust leadership training program. The program aims at creating leaders who are coaches to their team members. Leaders, who understand the direct link between service and profit, develop and maintain the culture of noble values. When an organisation champions the noblest values of service and mutual respect, employees rise to the challenge of living up to it. Though satisfied staff result in satisfied customers in almost all sorts of organizations, it particularly holds true for service centric organisations. This is majorly because of the differences between product and services regarding; how and when the services/ goods are generated, how the value is assigned to services/ goods, where the services/goods are delivered and when & how much human intervention is required for the delivery of goods/ services. Even in service centric organisations, hospitality industry requires peculiar tending of its employees so as to ensure customer satisfaction. The four basic attributes of services which require more employee and customer involvement are: intangibility, inseparability of production and consumption, heterogeneity and perishability of output. Services cannot be heard, seen, felt or tasted; they can be only experienced as against goods which are visible and have physical dimensions and attributes. Sometimes, a simple smile from a hotel staff becomes the service to the guest. Another attribute of hospitality industry which demands higher interest from employee’s side is its inseparability of production and consumption. In case of goods, there is a time and space gap between production and consumption. In services, production and consumption is usually clubbed together. Both the producer of the service and the consumer of the service have to come together to experience/evaluate the service; production and consumption are inseparable. This aspect of services removes any possibility of making a quality check like the one in assembly line products. Since hospitality services are produced and delivered simultaneously, the quality can be improved by only monitoring and taking corrective steps for future. Thus, every interaction of an employee with guests has to be treated with utmost care. Here lies the importance of developing cross-functional teams which help in managing and improving the core processes that effect both external customers and the mission performance. Also, since the services in hospitality industry are produced by human beings and consumed by human beings, the perception of the quality of service delivered or enjoyed differs from person to person. Even if the service provider and the consumer remain the same, the perception may vary due to change of time. No two service experiences can be alike. The performance of the employees delivering the same service varies on different dimensions such as between different hour zones of the day, from employee to employee and from one Service Company to another service company. This attribute of service industry calls for normalising the output to the highest extent possible. In hospitality industry, this could be achieved by reducing the common organizational stressors. The organizational stressors are the ones which are associated with the organization itself. In hospitality industry it could be in the form of rotating workshifts, centralization and formalization, line-staff conflicts, lack of participation in decisions and unfriendly customers. Efficient handling of such stresses would inspire the employees to ‘flow’ with the work (Luthans, 2002). A good team or group definitely enables the member to rise above these organizational stressors and look at the vision beyond. Cohesive teams give a sense of belonging to the employee and frequent interactions help in resolving potential conflicts. A cohesive and positively inducted group has the ability to deal with the seemingly impossible tasks. It is the biggest asset an organization can ask for. Warren Bennis argues that effective groups have shared dreams and they manage conflict by abandoning individual egos in the pursuit of dreams (Bennins, 1997). Group members of successful groups see importance of their work and the tasks hold priority over inter-personal relationships. It reinforces the desire to excel at ones job and thus enables to create satisfied customers than indifferent ones. It is impossible to copy soft skills, human touch typical to a service. Heterogeneity is particularly visible in labour intensive and high-contact services such as hotels. Heterogeneity of services highlights the fact that standardisation is difficult in services. The only way to seek some sort of standardisation in the routine tasks is through clear directions and communication. Depending upon the richness of the information, employees should be made aware of various aspects of his and the organisation’s activities. He should be informed about what result his actions hold on the organization’s future and whether it would be in line with the expected direction or not. As per Barnard, communication makes the organization cooperative system dynamic and links the human participants to the organization’s purpose (Reilly & Joseph A. Di Angello, 1990) Another property of services which demand sync between employees and customers is the perishability of services. It refers to the inability of services to be saved, stored, resold or returned. Goods can be stored to be consumed later on. However, services cannot be stored for later consumption. For example, if the rooms in a hotel are vacant on one particular day, they cannot be added to the next day which is going fully booked. Thus, if the supply available is not used, it perishes. Unsold services cannot be carried forward as stocks. Similarly, a service once consumed cannot be returned or exchanged for another. So a rare tantrum of an employee can cut off the customer for life irrespective of how many welcome kits are sent after that. Decoupling of operations from outside environment is not at all possible in high contact services and marginally possible in the production of services that involve low contact with the customers (for example baggage handling at airlines terminal) (Chase, 1978). Integration of marketing and operations is often found at very low levels in high – contact service organizations. For example, in a consumer durables firm, the marketing and operations might be coordinated at a much higher level than a restaurant where marketing and operations are coordinated at lower levels. Thus, the level of coordination decides the quality of service, particularly in hospitality industry. So the treatment of employees should not be based on the revenue they bring to the company but on the basis of customers they are able to satisfy. The distinctive aspect of hospitality organisational behaviour can also be looked from the angle of eight characteristics of peculiar services an organization in hospitality industry renders. Lovelock and Yip (1996) list the eight characteristics of services as : nature of the output -performance rather than an object, people- an intricate constituent of service experience, probability of quality control issues, difficult and often immeasurable evaluation criteria, no buffer of inventories, high importance to the time factor, and availability of electronic channels of distribution. The above mentioned characteristics highlight the aspects of services which differentiate it from other types of products. In hospitality industry, a newbie is seldom approached with as much enthusiasm as an established name in the same genre of service. For professional service providers, there is a need to be perceived as having experience which might not be the case with other product sellers. Thus, it is essential that employees of a service organization not only cater to the new customers but try as hard to retain the old ones. Hospitality industry also faces the challenge of limited differentiability. It is a more uphill task in case of professional services when almost every material convenience can be bought and sold in the market. Differentiating one hotel service from that of competitors is very difficult since professional services are virtually indistinguishable (Bloom, 1984). Mostly, the only difference that counts is the recommendation of an acquaintance which is hard to get if the employee of the concerned organization does not try for it. Another good reason to keep the employees happy. From the above we can conclude that hospitality industry calls for an active role of management and employees in delivering a satisfactory service (from the customer point of view). The employees who interact with the customers- be it housekeeping, front desk staff, guest relation executive, or anybody else- directly relays the attitude of the organization towards the customer through his/her interaction. Hence, the organizations should ensure that employees interact/serve the customer exactly the same way as expected out of them. However, this is possible only when the expectations out of them are clearly communicated to them. This bobs up the need for a transformational leader with interpersonal skills who ensures that the information is passed to the members in the most appropriate way based on the richness of the content. Also, a leader should ensure that potential problems do not crop up and any existing issue is appropriately handled suitably. Also, motivation andteamwork inspire the member to deal organizational stress successfully Roles may be assigned to the employees by management but, as discussed, they are carried out pro-actively when employees are concerned about their organisations. This concern can be developed by looking after the employee and respecting his/her job. By giving as much attention to the employees as they give to the customers, an organization can create actually satisfied customers. Bibliography Bennins, W. (1997). The Secret of Great Groups. Executive Forum , 29-32. Etizioni, A. (1964). Modern Organizations. Englewood Cliffs: NJ: Prentice-Hall. Heskette, J. L., Jones, T. O., loveman, G. W., W. Earl Sasser, J., & Schlesinger, L. A. (1994). Lessons in the Service Sector. Harvard Business Review , 164-174. Luthans, F. (2002). Organizational behaviour. New York: The McGraw- Hill Companies. Reilly, B. J., & Joseph A. Di Angello, J. (1990). Communication: A Cultural System of Meaning and Value. Human Relations , 129. Richardetal. (2009). Measuring Organizational Performance: Towards Methodological Best Practice. Journal of Management , 30-36. Srinivas, H. N. (2009, October 10). Terror Attack on Taj Mumbai. Tales of Leading without a Title.(D. Ranjekar, Interviewer) Read More