Flexible Working and E-Business in the Hospitality Industry - Assignment Example

FLEXIBLE WORKING AND E-BUSINESS By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Flexible Working and E-Business Question One (a) Flexible Working in Hospitality Industry The hospitality industry is widely recognised for high employee turnover and being fast-paced, considering that the industry frequently involves unsociable as well as long hours that make it harder for workers to balance work and life commitments (RCSA, 2014). Espousing flexible working options has been very beneficial in this industry, and has helped in reducing stress and improving living standards through the capability to integrate work in addition to other life commitments. Moreover, flexible working has been beneficial in improving family relationships as well as morale, for workers in the hospitality industry (ACAS, 2011). Presently, scores of workers are searching for jobs offering flexible work hours, so that they can manage to meet their other commitments, as well as delight in a balanced way of life, while still working. As mentioned by Ubani (2012, p.73), scores of businesses in the hospitality industry are experiencing challenges in comprehending their HR as well as employment relations responsibilities in the countries they are operating. HRM Impact The main HRM issue facing hospitality industry is high worker turnover, and this has been prevalent for decades. Globally, the hospitality industry is suffering from high levels of employee turnover, which as mentioned by Yang and Fu (2009, p.203) is serious as well as universal issue that leads to high intangible costs and direct expenditure. According to Yang and Fu (2009, p.203), indirect costs associated with employee turnover form over 50% of the industry total costs related to turnover. Without doubt, staff turnover is more costly for luxurious hotels as compared to small hotels with lower budget, because of the former’s high cost of training and operating systems. Another HRM issue affecting the hospitality industry is service quality, considering that service delivery in the industry to customers mainly entails individual contact. Therefore, the association between customer service as well as HRM effectiveness is expected to be exceedingly strong. As indicated by Yang and Fu (2009, p.206), service quality concentrates on the interaction nature between the customer as well as the individual worker during service delivery, based on general competence and politeness. The HRM issues of poor service quality and high employee turnover is evident at Gilpin Lodge Country House Hotel that faces the aforementioned issues in its restaurant department. This was attributed to hotel decisions of hiring new employees without a thorough recruitment process, and which consequently made then restaurant workers discontented with inflexible working hours as well as lack of career opportunities and training (Piromruen, 2010). For this reason, lots of waitresses and waiters leave the hotel monthly, and those remaining are remaining also willing to shift to hotels offering flexible working hours and compensation and that provide them with career opportunities. In consequence, service quality has been impacted due to lack of food servers, resulting in high costs of operation. Technology Impact In hospitality industry, a lot of software companies are creating application to assist companies in this industry to effectively manage operations and service they offer to their customers. However, the industry faces a number of technology issues such as payment card industry (PCI) compliance, hotels’ unique identification numbers, and Support for disabled guests/customers. Basically, the fragmented nature as well as location of systems for companies in hospitality industry connotes that the credit card number of the customer can be accessible in numerous systems in unpredictable security formats in variable security locations. Therefore, hacking or identity theft can easily take place. According to Perini (2011), PCI compliance in hospitality industry has turned out to be very crucial for the market credibility as well as the financial stability of the industry, but compliance has proven to be a challenge for lots of companies, especially small hotels. The concept of a single unique identifier globally for hotels has existed for a while, but only on the Super Passenger Name Record (Super PNR) or single-image inventory. Although in the past it appeared beneficial for distribution channels, which collected information as well as inventory from thousands of assets, and for processing payment, it is currently more challenging. Another technological issue facing the hospitality industry is the requirement to provide support for disabled persons, with both US and Europe enacting revised regulations that requires all hotels to offer disabled customers a support technology. The ensure compliance, the companies in the hospitality industry have been forced to review most of their operations raging from construction to distribution, and espousal of various technologies such as voice recognition software for blind people and electronic menus for deaf and dumb. Question one (b) Inflexible working can lead to employee stress as well as burnout, which consequently result in employees leaving the company, or feeling less motivated. The future is promising for the hospitality industry, because employers will assist their workers to balance their work and life commitment by providing flexible working hours. Most companies in the hospitality industry will have realised the benefits of offering employees flexible working environment (ACAS, 2011). This will be beneficial to majority employees in this industry, especially women in balancing their work with other life commitments, like raising a family or studying. In future, flexible working will result in immense employees’ loyalty to their company, and consequently their staff will be highly improved. However, as mentioned by Cooke (2012) majority of manager in hospitality industry will see flexible working as an employee relations exercise. Basically, flexible working arrangements in the hospitality companies will guarantee greater retention rates amongst workers, both young and those approaching retirement, who desire to embrace working arrangements that are flexible or to move to different role (Stredwick & Ellis, 2005, p.107). Basically, his will be imperative in the knowledge economy, wherein most of employee value will be seized as tacit knowledge. Making certain experienced employees remain related to the hospitality company will assist in retaining this knowledge while still offering the experienced population with employment opportunities. The work context in hospitality is rapidly changing, and flexible working will be impacted by globalisation, technological, demographic as well as societal forces that are generating new opportunities as well as challenges for companies in this industry. So, leveraging the future opportunities as well as meeting the challenges will need agility, and arrangements for flexible working will enable hospitality companies to start creating working environments that are agiler. Question Two (a) Mobile E-business Security Threats Mobile electronic business offers business organisation with both an exhilarating opportunity as well as an enormous challenge (Amberg & Schröder, 2007). From providing customers the flexibility as well as suitability of mobile services anyplace and anytime, to broadening the enterprise data as well as application of current shifting labour force, mobile e-business provides novel means of generating income, streamlining main organisational and business processes, as well as reducing costs (Mallat et al., 2009). Equally, mobile e-business as well comes with risks and complexities related to creating new business paradigms. Without a doubt, security is the biggest challenge facing companies that have espoused mobile e-business. Mobile e-business makes companies vulnerable to various new susceptibilities as well as threats. So, the companies’ ability in addressing such risks is exceedingly important not just for customer confidence, but also for market penetration, brand image as well as lasting success in their strategy of mobile e-business. Basically, mobile e-business success is rooted in the efficient end-to-end strategy for managing as well as examining various complex risks. Internet security has been analysed widely, but there is some gap in knowledge pertaining to security issues in the mobile e-business. Mobile e-business setup can be attacked by dissatisfied insiders, crackers and hackers, and so the main security threats in mobile e-business consists of cracking, hacking, impersonating, spoofing, eavesdropping, Trojan horses, sniffing, viruses, among others. From a business point of view, DoS (Denial of Service) attacks seem to be the key threat to mobile-business, and it involves malicious deeds, which prevent users from accessing mobile e-business services. Security challenges on mobile e-business are immense, because they result in data loss, financial loss, and loss of consumer trust. Measuring through Audits In studying mobile-business security threats, auditing provide a crucial tool for measuring the various security threats facing this technology. Basically, most companies are held responsible for sporadic formal audits of their systems security controls. And such security audits can be utilised used to evaluate the readiness and also highlight measures that may be put into practice so as to boost the security operations effectiveness for the mobile e-business system. For instance, an information technology audit of a company that has adopted the mobile e-business before the espousal of the system can lead to audit findings that are directly associated with security issues. An audit one year after the espousal of the system can verify if IT staff dedication to the system has improved or jeopardised the security of the system, and if there is need to increase dedicated resources to the system. Audits can as well help the company to understand the level as well as severity of deficiencies within the system, and if the system is secure. A Microsoft sample scorecard can be utilised to rate the security of the mobile e-business system. Academic Model Adopted To guide this academic study, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was utilised, considering its extensive utilisation in examining users’ perceptions concerning existing or new technological solution, in this case mobile e-business. The TAM will offer a clear illustration concerning how the potential and the current users are viewing the solution provided by the mobile e-business solution and its overall adequateness (Yang et al., 2014, p.167). In this regard, two factors are postulated by TAM, Perceived Usefulness, which is described as the extent to which a user is certain that utilising the mobile e-business solution can improve his/her shopping devoid of taking into consideration other limitations such as security. The other factor is the Perceived Ease of Use, which according to Yang et al. (2014, p.166) is the extent to which the user deems that utilising the solution will require no effort. In this case, TAM will be utilised to give details pertaining to security barriers that have an effect on perceptions of the users with regard to the mobile e-business through which its application will improve online shopping job and less effort will be required. As stated by TAM theory, the behavioural intention of the user to espouse a certain technological solution is rooted in the user’s attitude toward the application of that technological solution. In this regard, attitude will be determined by elimination of vulnerable risks, which in this study is security. Therefore, TAM relevancy in this study is that mobile e-business adoption may be impacted influenced by Perceived Ease of Use as well as Perceived Usefulness. Question Two (b) In future, Rapid advancements in e-business will pose an increasing need for authentication as well as online security. The majority of the emerging technologies will in the future help in providing online authentication, and mobile devices will be utilised progressively as means of hacking, routing data from networks that are protected by means of their own network connections. As a consequence, networks will require novel methods of passive intrusion detection so as to overcome this challenge. Besides that, encryption will turn out to be ubiquitous, particularly amongst business since shareholders will realise that the business value is largely inclined towards the technological solution, and not on the services and goods they offer. Besides that, civil as well as criminal law on Cyber Security as well as hacking will expand greatly, and this will consequently impact the e-by increasing its stability and while concurrently troubling researchers on security. Overreaching laws spearheaded by lobbied groups will outlaw authentic research on online security and consequently negatively impact information science through creation of channel for more litigation on frisky intellectual property. Besides that, laws will be abused for commercial interests so as to stop persons from sharing individual information. More importantly, privacy and anonymity will continue eroding, and so, hackers and attackers will start using more computerised ways so as to clone their digital identity; thus, taking identity theft to a new extreme level. References ACAS, 2011. The right to apply for flexible working - a short guide for employers, working parents and carers. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=803" http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=803 [Accessed 1 May 2015]. Amberg, M. & Schröder, M., 2007. E‐business models and consumer expectations for digital audio distribution. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, vol. 20, no. 3, pp.291 - 303. Cooke, J.G., 2012. The Benefits of Flexible Working Arrangements: A Future of Work Report. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/centers/cwf/individuals/pdf/benefitsCEOFlex.pdf" https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/centers/cwf/individuals/pdf/benefitsCEOFlex.pdf [Accessed 1 May 2015]. Mallat, N., Rossi, M., Tuunainen, V.K. & Öörni, A., 2009. The impact of use context on mobile services acceptance: The Case of mobile ticketing. Information and Management., vol. 46, pp.190-95. Perini, V., 2011. What are the three big technology issues for the hotel industry? - See more at: http://www.tnooz.com/article/what-are-the-three-big-technology-issues-for-the-hotel-industry/#sthash.sQpeDLyi.dpuf. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.tnooz.com/article/what-are-the-three-big-technology-issues-for-the-hotel-industry/" http://www.tnooz.com/article/what-are-the-three-big-technology-issues-for-the-hotel-industry/ [Accessed 1 May 2015]. Piromruen, J., 2010. Staff Turnover Rate in Gilpin Lodge Country House Hotel. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.suic.org/wp-content/uploads/research3/mba_research/17high_staff_turnover.pdf" http://www.suic.org/wp-content/uploads/research3/mba_research/17high_staff_turnover.pdf [Accessed 1 May 2015]. RCSA, 2014. How Flexible Working Options Can Help Businesses Retain Staff. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.frontlinehospitality.com.au/flexible-working-options-businesses-retain-staff/" http://www.frontlinehospitality.com.au/flexible-working-options-businesses-retain-staff/ [Accessed 1 May 2015]. Stredwick, J. & Ellis, S., 2005. John Stredwick, Steve Ellis. 2nd ed. London: CIPD Publishing. Ubani, D., 2012. Hospitality & Tourism Human Relations Management in Africa. Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse. Yang, H.-O. & Fu, D.H.-W., 2009. CONTEMPORARY HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ISSUES AND CONCERNS IN THE HOTEL INDUSTRY: IDENTIFYING THE PRIORITIES. International Journal of Organizational Innovation, vol. 2, no. 1, pp.201-24. Yang, H.-, Jongkuk, L., Park, C.l. & Lee, K., 2014. The Adoption of Mobile Self-Service Technologies: Effects of Availability in Alternative Media and Trust on the Relative Importance of Perceived Usefulness and Ease of Use. International Journal of Smart Home, vol. 8, no. 4, pp.165-78. Read More