Four Seasons Hotels Inc and Its Position in the Hospitality Industry - Essay Example

?Answer the questions Introduce the company and its position in the hospitality industry. Is it an employer of choice? The company in discussion is Four Seasons Hotels Inc. that was established in 1960 in Canada. Over the course of the past 50 years, Four Seasons has effectively established itself as one of the leading chains of luxury hotels and resorts. It has also expanded into a chain that has 85 properties in over 35 countries across the globe with an employee base of over 30,000 (fourseasons.com, n.d.). Four Seasons has carved a very unique and prominent place for itself in the hospitality industry because of the very high and customized service that it provides to its customers. The objective of the organization which was to ‘personalize exceptional service’ attracts a very high number of clients and makes it very popular. Furthermore, Four Seasons also strives very hard to anticipate the needs of any customer and provide those needs even before the customer has requested for them. Four Seasons was also the pioneer of many unique services that has now become the norm when it comes to the hotels. For example, providing concierge services, repair of shoes, supplying shampoos, laundry and ironing services, multi cuisine menu and so on were pioneered by this hotel group, thus; giving it a very strong position in the hotel industry. An organization becomes an employer of choice not just by providing good salary and perks to its employees, but more importantly by providing tremendous amount of respect as well as a good working environment (Ablrichs, 2000). Four Seasons has succeeded in doing that. Four Seasons is considered to be an employer of choice because of its high focus on employee satisfaction. Along with benefits and remunerations, employees are highly respected. The employees treat each other the same way a guest is treated at the hotel. This creates a very healthy and robust environment that is necessary in the hospitality industry. This high focus on employee satisfaction makes it one of the most preferred employers in the hospitality industry. Furthermore, Four Seasons also has a very low rate of attrition compared to the industry standards. Therefore, a combination of factors such as good benefits, excellent rewards, high level of respect and good work environment has made the organization popular as an employer. In 2008, Four Seasons featured as no.88 in the Fortune List of best companies to work for. In 2011, they moved up to no. 53, giving testimony to the fact that it is indeed an employer of choice (money.cnn.com, 2011). 2. Explain its culture, is it unique to the company, how does this vary from its major competitors? In the hospitality industry, customer holds the key and is focused upon immensely (Butcher, Sparks & O’Callaghan, 2001). However, the unique culture of Four Seasons hotels is the high focus that it has on the employees. The culture of this chain of hotels is centered on a philosophy that everyone follows to the core. The golden rule is that everyone in the organization deals with others in the same way that they want to be dealt with. Primarily it comes down to how each employee of the organization is dealt with warmth, respect as well as courtesy. This level of respect and warmth directly translates into excellent customer service for the clients. The clients also receive personalized service that is done with a lot of warmth and care. This type of services forms the most attractive aspect of staying in a Four Seasons hotel. The culture of the company also gives immense freedom to each department and hence, the employees can put forth any ideas without hesitating. This created a very open and transparent culture, contributing to employee satisfaction. Furthermore, it was evident that employee satisfaction was also equally important as customer satisfaction. Most of the employees remain in the organization for a long period and grow in their roles. This also created employee loyalty and strengthened the culture of the organization. An important way of building this unique culture was through hiring the right set of employees. During the hiring process, special care is taken to ensure that individuals who have the right attitude and those who would fit in perfectly with the culture of the company would be hired (Sharp, 2009). Post an intensive training program, new staff is easy assimilated to the culture that thrives on warmth, respect and proactive approach. Therefore, their desired goal of defining luxury in the hotel business was fulfilled with the help of staff that is extremely dedicated, intuitive and has the right attitude. Four Seasons stands out from its competitors in terms of its service quality. Whatever facility is available at a particular hotel, it is bought out to the customers with a very high level of respect and warmth. Another aspect that distinguishes Four Seasons from its competitors is how the staff is intuitive and performs their duty accordingly. They have no hesitation in customizing any particular facility or amenity to suit the guests. The high levels of commitment and loyalty have made Four Seasons stand out from its competitors. 3. How does HRM fit into the company’s vision, mission & values? Do these reflect a strategic purpose? How does HRM fit into the overall identity of the company, its managers and employees, make recommendations for any improvement and justify these. It is fairly clear that the strength of the organization comes from its strong and dynamic group of employees. To maintain and empower such a robust group of employees, Human Resources Management is essential (Malikarjunan, 2006). In Four Seasons also HRM plays a critical part in ensuring that company’s vision, mission and values are maintained. The Human Resources department of the organization has played an integral part in planning intensive programs at every level, be it individual career planning or management training programs for employees at all the levels (Bruss, 2000). To equip the employees they have put in efforts to develop programs that would help them at every stage of their careers. This program ensures that employees are aware of the finer programs of service industry. They conduct an extensive initial orientation program. They also work along with the senior management to provide executive development program. Thus, HRM works towards a comprehensive employee development program. The efforts of the Human resources do reflect a strategic purpose because every effort or activity that they carry out has a very specific purpose. For example, the HRM’s employee development program has been designed in such a matter that it caters to every need of the employee during the entire duration of employment, regardless of whatever level they are at. Similarly, the HR executives are in charge of hiring and they conduct multiple rounds of interviews to make sure that every hire is a good one so that they can easily fit into the corporate strategy. In Four Seasons, the Human resources management fits in seamlessly into the organization and it performs certain critical functions that are necessary. In order to make improvements, the major effort that the HR team can undertake is to ensure that their team is closely aligned with the employees of the organization. Justas the employees who are in the service wing put in every effort to provide excellent service to the customers, the HR team should also consider the employees as their customer and try to be intuitive. For example, if they sense that there is any level of unhappiness among an employee or in a group of employees, they should take proactive steps to identify it and to provide a very actionable recommendation. Furthermore, indulging in research to identify new and unique techniques that would help in making the work of the employees much easier can also be a good proactive measure that they can take. 4. Does it have effective policies and procedures in HRM? Critically evaluate the ones you have identified. For any employee driven organization to be successful, it is necessary to have strong and effective policies and procedures in Human Resource Management (Armstrong, 2006). Four Seasons is also no different and it indeed does have policies that come under the purview of HRM. The first and foremost policy that the human resources team manages is related to hiring. The major responsibility related to hiring is entrusted to the HR team. The right hiring forms a critical part of the Four Seasons strategy because the emphasis is much more on attitude, not experience. Therefore, each candidate has to go through around four to five rounds of HR interviews. The noteworthy aspect is that rather than technical or specialized skills, higher emphasis is given to the performance during the HR interview. Through this refined process conducted by the HR team, Four Seasons carries out its hiring process. The procedures of training also are handled by the HR team. It forms a very important aspect of their policy because each employee should be able to seamlessly fit into the unique culture of Four Seasons. The HR team has to ensure that aspects such as warmth, service mentality, respect and being proactive are ingrained to the right employees. Even though Four Seasons has always done a very good job in hiring the right people, there has been some criticism regarding how preference is given to foreign candidates rather than local ones at many resorts and hotels. The HR team should strengthen this aspect to come out with a strong recruitment policy that centers on fairness. A very prominent aspect of employees in Four Seasons is that they continue working with the organization for a very long time. Therefore, during the course of this long tenure, there are higher expectations related to growth and development. To ensure that loyal and committed employees get this opportunity to grow, the HR department also should enforce policies around Learning and Development (Garrat, 1990). Employees are given the opportunity to enhance their additional skills and get educational qualifications. This policy proves to be a very attractive one because it provides that additional scope of skill enhancement and pursuing one’s interest while being a part of the organizations. Thus, this is one very commendable procedure carried out by the HR team. The HR team also has specific procedures related to measuring the feedback and employee satisfaction. Through surveys and exit interviews, it is measured effectively. 5. If you were the VP of HRM how would you move the company forward in the next five years? The next five years would prove to be the most critical ones for Four Seasons in the hotel industry. Over the years, global competition has increased and the standards of expectations have also increased, therefore Four Seasons has not only to maintain consistency, but has to improve it across all its operations. For this, I would focus both on customers as well as on employees. As many competitors are stepping forward and providing the same level of service that is provided by Four Seasons, it is also important to come forward and innovate, so that there is uniqueness. When there is high competition, the customers have a huge number of options before them, and in such a scenario, their choice is largely based on the ‘value’ and uniqueness that they are offered (Hoyer, 2006). With regard to Four Seasons, I would like to introduce schemes such as ‘valued customer program’ that would benefit our regular patrons. Better and improved packages would be designed with corporate organizations. I would also like to take the customized service that we follow a step further. For example, if there is a customer who has visited the hotel more than once, we would keep a record of their preferences and requirements and ensure that the next stay remains even more comfortable. Additional efforts would also be taken to make the facilities more children friendly so that we can attract additional customers in our holiday resorts. The second step that I would take on behalf of the HRM would be to make sure that there is a higher and much better rate of employee retention than before. In the hospitality industry, employees play the most pivotal role in sustaining the value chain (Nixon, 2000). Every employee is an asset and once a person is ingrained into the culture, the contribution made by that person is immense. To reduce attrition, the steps would be taken to give better employee satisfaction. This would be done through a combination of various methods such as providing a very high level of transparency, creating a clear career path for the employees, giving them the flexibility to pursue a role in the hotel that they are interested in and by providing them enough support during any instance of personal crisis. These proactive measures will also definitely have a strong reflection in the level of commitment and loyalty that employees will have. References Ablrichs, N.S. (2000). Competing for Talent: Key Recruitment and Retention Strategies for Being an Employer of Choice. Palo Alto: Davies-Black Publishing Armstrong, M. (2006). A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. London: Kogan Page Bruss, S. (2000). Tendencies towards the Strategic Role of the Human Resource Management Function - Four Seasons as a Control Sample. hookturn.net. Retrieved on Oct 12, 2011 from http://www.hookturn.net/sonja/cv/dissertation.pdf Butcher, K., Sparks, B., & O’Callaghan, F. (2001). Evaluative and relational influences on service loyalty. International Journal of Service Industry Management. 12(4), 310–32 Four Seasons.com (n.d) About Us. Retrieved from on Oct 12, 2001 http://www.fourseasons.com/about_us/ Garratt, B. (1990). Creating a Learning Organization. Cambridge: Director Books Hoyer, W (2006) Consumer Behaviour. Chulha Vista: South-Western College Malikarjunan K (2006). Best of HRM Practices. HRM Review. 6 (2), 33-34 Nixon, D. (2000). Human Resource Management in the Hotel Industry: Strategy, Innovation and Performance. Employee Relations. 22(4), 423 – 428 money.cnn.com (2011) The 100 Best Companies to Work for (2011). CNN Money. Retrieved from on Oct 12, 2001 http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2011/snapshots/53.html Sharp, I (2009). Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy. New York. Portfolio Hardcover Read More