Human Resourse Planning for Leicester City Hotel - Essay Example

Human Resource Planning For the success of any professional establishment to occur, human resource planning is an integral part of making sure that everything needed is available, and all personnel required is hired, given whatever training they may need, and put to their task(s). It is this that makes human resource such a crucial step in day-to-day, as well as future business planning and practices. Often times in order to broaden a companies image, it becomes evident that with this change may come the need to add more workers. With this need can also come the task of finding qualified workers, and dealing with the unfortunate business consequence of having issues with keeping workers on staff for whatever reason or another. With the case of Leicester City Hotel, an accurate human resource accounting will be needed in order to make the projected expansion of the hotel not only a success in the beginning stages, but secure it in order to have the continued success of the venture going into the future. In order to begin the task of planning for the future human resource needs which would inevitably come with the hotel's expansion; first and foremost what should be analyzed is the current state of the business in all forms. The Assignment and Case Study handout by Julie McCann provides a brief background of the hotel as well as its projected expansion and how much will change. Also the problems which are foreseen to arise in not only finding, but also maintaining a staff of qualified professionals who will not only make the expansion a success, but will stay on. This particular hotel, as McCann (2005 pg. 1) explains in her case study, is located in a city of moderate size, and deals with a clientele of business people during the week. During both the summer and holidays times deals with those individuals or families who are away form home on holiday. It is in this section where the author begins to assess the needs, which come up for the hotel during this time, as well as other things. The demand put on a companies service(s) is an essential part in calculating the necessary amount of staff needed for the faster-paced, higher demand times, and what kind of cut backs if any would need to occur or do occur during times of less demand. Overall, companies demand for staff goes up when demand for services goes up, and can also head downward when the demand for services begins to dwindle. In a sense it fits in with the overriding idea of the supply and demand principle. In viewing the expansion of the Hotel, as well as the impending surge in people who will come as a result, it is almost assured that a need for more staff will surely arise. What this will result in is causing a closer look to be taken when it comes to solidifying the chances of a qualified, reliable staff staying with the hotel for a longer period of time. Providing staff for any kind of establishment can be very time consuming, but needs to be done in such a way that the right amount of staff is brought on board. This in return can help make sure that whatever the needs the business has are being met in the time in which they need to be met. When you are running a business that has to operate during set business hours or is set in a specific location, it can often times prove to be challenging in finding staff which can fit in with this kind of set situation. Observing the forthcoming expansion of the hotel which, for all purposes, would ultimately result in an inevitable increase in demand for services. Any kind of inability on the part of the hiring staff in finding workers to fulfill such needs could prove to be a problem for the company in continuing to fulfill such obligations which come with any kind of expansion. Continuing from the previous paragraph, McCann (2005 pg. 1) alludes to the issue of securing quality staff, and what the hotel sees as a lack of qualified potential staff candidates coming out of such local resources as the colleges and universities. In order to best combat this problem, McCann tells the reader that the hotel has chosen to consider the following three things which are a training program which would either be done internally, or with the cooperation and assistance of another hotel. The other two options she mentions are the idea of providing better wages in the hopes of securing staff which inhibit the strongest qualifications, or looking in other area regions for a staff make-up which best fits the desires of the hiring staff for a prosperous company. In forecasting the staff requirements for the future, what needs to be taken into account is the rate at which the workers choose to leave their positions, and also most importantly the age groups in which the staff is comprised of. Age in itself can play a large part in the rate at which staff chooses to either stay or go. With a younger staff you often find those who have higher aspirations of furthering their education, which in return can impact their ability to continue their employment. With those who are of advanced age you can run into the possibility of a multitude of reasons as to why they would not be able to stay with their job. The main being poor health, which can often times lead to death if the person is at a higher level of advanced age or has a serious enough of a medical condition which would speed along the downhill process. That is why, in determining a staff make-up for a new establishment, or one that is facing an expansion such as the case with this hotel, age can in itself be a key ingredient in gauging and understanding the rate at which a staff turns over. Would knowing this in return hopefully help a company better outfit its business with a staff that has a higher likelihood of longevity' The plausible response to that question would be yes. Sound judgement and time spent would best answer this any other related staff issue having to do with a business. To best look at the projected staff needs, the handout provided by McCann provides the way to achieve this kind of hiring stability. In it (2005 pg. 2 Fig. 4) the author tells of both the required staff needed for a 55-bedroom hotel, which as she puts it will be a 60-member staff necessity. Also that the employee ratio to the bedrooms in the hotel would come out to be 1.09 staff for each bedroom inside. Mathematically speaking in the same figure just given, McCann breaks it down to the rate of bedrooms which are expected to come with the impending expansion, multiplies it by the figure of 1.09 staff, and with the end result being 21.8 extra staff needed. When involved in the tedious process of hiring staff to accommodate increased need, such hiring takes into consideration the rate of those who would be expected to leave. This would help in assessing with the most complete accuracy how many staff members have to be hired in the idea of accommodating the new expanded hotel. It would also help in realizing the fact that not everyone stays with a job for their whole life and empty existing jobs have to be filled as well as new ones. Based on the previous paragraph assessment of 81.2 full-time staff needed for the expansion, it would seem obvious that this requirement first and primarily should be the one to be met first above all. Something can also be said about the idea of hiring a staff pool of part time workers that can prove to cost effective for the company. With full time workers there are usually a set requirement for things like benefits to be provided. In the case of part time workers, there tends to be a difference in the things of that nature which employers are to provide for them. Providing of benefits can be very costly for an employer, so supplying the hotel with part time staff would prove to be an interim cost effective measure. With any kind of expansion sizable amounts of money are spent, so any kind of cost cutting measure can prove very valuable to the company which is doing the expanding. Also with apart time pool of staff, if a full time staff member is set to leave, someone can be pulled from the part time staff to look at filling the vacant position. By pulling someone from an existing staff makeup, it can save the employer the time, hassle, as well as the money which goes into training anew employee on the tasks which the company performs. Either way, the costs are down on one side due to the hiring of part time staff and the lack of such things to be provided that would normally be furnished for someone of a full time schedule. It may seem odd to hire a part time staff pool as well as the required staff lineup, but this practice has a multitude of ways in which it would prove to be of great benefit to the company. In observing all of this, it would be wise to recommend a few things, but very crucial things in that, in both obtaining and maintaining the necessary staff for the expansion to be successful. True and honest commitment to the hotel and those it serves needs to be first and foremost the primary responsibility and consideration in any kind of planning. It has been previously said that there seems to be a lack of desirable potential staff candidates coming out of local places of higher education. This can be changed by partnering with these institutions in providing the kinds of programs which would result in providing the kind of desirable and qualified staff that is desperately needed. Up front cost for this kind of a program(s) would surely exist, but long term benefits would also come with the cost. These long-term benefits which would come would be an increased number of local, qualified workers, that would be a much-needed asset in best completing the expansion. Another good advantage of such a program is that it would not only obtain qualified local workers for the hotel, but it would also motivate those to keep the earned money in the local community, and thus driving up the economic benefits for all involved. It is primarily obvious that a full time staff of 81.2 is the desired result in human resource planning for the hotel. In saying that, a part time staff of no less than half the number of the full time staff should also be on board in that this group would be the first in line when it came to filling any immediate vacancies. These vacancies would come from an unexpected vacated position by the higher up full time employee(s). A lot can be said about using local help in best meeting the needs of a company. The local help is best aware of the area in which the company is serving. Also in best case scenarios, can better fulfill the requirements of the position that they are given in that they feel more of a vested interest in doing the best job they can, and seeing it as a way of bettering the community in which they live in. As it has become obvious that the current state of obtaining good staff from the universities is seen as so poor, it is surely a sound and wise business judgement to take the time and momentary monetary expense and invest in programs at the local university level. These kind of programs in themselves act as a gateway between potential workers, and the employers which are so desperately looking for them. Instead of having to spend the time, and potentially more money going outside the area this hotel would be given the opportunity to find a sound way of obtaining their employees and also give something back tot the community which will surely bring prosperous times to them as a result. A has been said, recommendations to be made regarding the hotel would be simple in sounding, yet also strong in importance. Strong attention and realistic detail paid to a process of this nature is imperative in best making this expansion a success. It would ultimately be of great benefit to utilize the local population in best suiting the needs of the hotel. When, as it has become apparent in this instance, the locals are not as qualified as would be desired, investment should be made in helping the local population coming out of these colleges. So that they would be given the opportunity to rise to a level of readiness that the hotel management would so desire. Looking at all of the information, any kind of human resource planning can be a very large undertaking for sure. In defining Human Resource Planning, the HRM Guide (HRM Guide 2005 pg. 1) describes it as a process that anticipates and maps out the consequences of business strategy on an organizations human resources. Going on to say that it is reflected in planning of skill and competence as well as total head counts. This statement in itself best sums up the greater statements made in this paper. Businesses are an important foundation in the economic stability of the area in which they reside. If done poorly, the business as well as the community can be negatively impacted as a result. To do anything right, including human resource planning, conscious thought and adequate time is essential in best solving the issue at hand. The hiring of locals can offset the cost of going outside the area. The hiring of part time staff can offer a cost relief of hiring more than necessary full time staff, while also acting as a sort of insurance policy in that there is a constant employee pool to be utilized if need arises. Taking the time to train the locals may produce momentary initial cost for the company, but can also prove to be a best judgement call in the long run. These locals are vast group of potential employee candidates who should not be ignored, and with the kind of cash flow going into such a program, this cash investment can in return flow back out to the community in ways such as the hotel or other means. If local businesses were to make such an investment into the local populations they are in, it would very well prove to be a smart decision in the long run. A prosperous community can in return translate into more cash flow going back into the hotel itself. Local business investment can shore up the financial base for further stability. Works Cited McCann, Julie. (2005) University of Leicester Assignment and Case Study Pages: 1-2 Total text size: 7 HRM Guide. (2005) Human Resource Planning. Chapter 7 Place of Publication: UK Online Format URL (web address) http://www.hrmguide.co.uk/hrm/chap7/ch7-links3.htm Read More