Strategic Human Resources Management at the Hilton Hotels - Case Study Example

Strategic human resources management at the Hilton hotels: Introduction: Hilton hotel is a world acclaimed hotel, with a massive base s.Hilton Hotels has over 2800 hotels with over fifteen thousand employees all over the world. The hotel has over forty eight thousand rooms and also owns brands of suites apart from the Hilton suites which include Conrad Hotels and Resorts, Doubletree, Embassy Suites Hotels, Hampton Inn, Hampton Inn and Suites and Hilton Garden Inn among others.1 A. The role of strategic human resources in Hilton hotels Hilton Hotels an internationally acclaimed as well as prestigious hotel has since time immemorial been adopting policies that would make it ensure that it stays in business, the management has kept trends in many areas and particularly in the department of human resources , it has adopted a human resource strategy just like any other incredibly managed international organization. 2The following are the roles that human resources have been played at the Hilton Hotels all over the world. 1. Efficiency Employees at the Hilton Hotels are extremely efficient in the delivery of services, the employees have been receiving training with an attempt to see to it that they are seen to be efficient, training is also a way by which workers are empowered and therefore this is a strategy aimed at achieving employee loyalty.3 Efficiency in economics refers to a situation in which a firm production process is optimum to avoid unnecessary expenses.4 Any guest visiting any of the Resorts leaves no room to complain after having been served by the company's employees who are highly trained. While inside the hotels the customers are attended to by the employees, who are on duty during the day and night. 5 All the 48000 rooms are fixed with telephones services just to ensure that the customers regardless of the status are attended to as he or she wishes. Orders made at the hotel Are delivered with the shortest time possible, this is mainly facilitated by the efficiency of the Chefs and the Waiters and the waitresses.6 The Hilton Hotel rooms are serviced daily and beddings and other equipments serviced on a daily basis or when need occurs. Each of the resorts have swimming pools where these pools have trained life saver attendants whose work is to ensure the safety of the guests enjoying their stay and taking a swim at the pool, should any emergency occur, the attendants who are at the pools at any time of the day and night attend to this and therefore reducing fatalities, a report on Five star Hotels in Europe showed that Hilton Resorts was top three in Efficiency with less that sixteen percent accidents 2006.Hilton Hotels therefore maintains high levels of efficiency.7 2. Customer satisfaction There are several ways to know whether a customer has been satisfied by the services and goods you are offering them, the aim of this findings is to ensure that those customers coming back and also is to see that customers responses are positive at all times. Customer's example tourists and government officials who visit various countries have been accommodated by Hilton Hotels. Various dignitaries including Presidents, ambassadors, have developed the tendency of making sure that they are booked to Hilton Hotels wherever they go, they shows that they have been getting satisfaction in the process of being the guest of the hotels. The human resources department in all the Hilton hotel resorts have trained their employees to ensure they impress their guests by way of ensuring that they are handled with care right from the time they show up at the reception with their luggage's being taken care of by attendants, and the Hotels have a policy of ensuring that each guest is assigned to a particular hospitable staff who attends to his or her need during the time period the customer stays at the hotel.8 The Hilton Hotel employee makes sure that their guests are extremely impressed with the services offered at the hotel. This ultimately ensures that the customers are satisfied with the services. The hotel staff also package foods in accordance with the customers needs, for instance if a customer from Asia books a hotel in another continent example Africa, the staff of that hotel ensure that they have all the ingredients of preparing the meal in Asian style once the customer checks in, the customer is therefore made to feel at home at all times during the stay at the hotel. 3. Expansion of customer base Any company is keen on seeing an increase in the number of its customers since an increase in the number of customers means that turnovers also go up. The Hilton Hotels has extensive strategies that ensure that its customer base keeps on increasing. According to the Readers Digest, the Hotels' human Resources departments work hand in hand with the public relations Department to ensure that incentives are put in place to attract new and permanent customers. Such incentives include organizing schemes such as raffles for free trips to any customer who makes booking at the hotel at a given time.9 The public relations department also ensures that it follows up with most of its customers after they check out enquiring from them about the services of the hotel, this ostensibly creates a feeling of care on the customers and they will always want to come back to Hilton, they are also likely to recommend the Hotels to other customers, this ostensibly creates and expands the customer base all over the world. B. The human resource strategies and their impact on the organization: Hilton hotels has a rich tradition, some of the traditions of the prestigious hotels include preparing meals in accordance with the location of the resort , for instance the meals prepared in Africa conform with then African Traditions, in countries or areas where some meals are a nuisance or offend the religious principles of the inhabitants. Hilton Hotels ensure that anything that is unacceptable to the majority is not given prominence by advertising , this has endeared the Hotels to many for instance in the countries where Muslims are the majority, pork and pork products prepared in the hotels are not advertised .This strategy is the brainchild of both the human resources and marketing department, the Hr department hires personnel that are conversant with the trends of the inhabitants of the area this strategy is key in ensuring that the traditions of the chain of hotels are maintained and the customers are satisfied in a tremendous way. Innovation The Hilton Hotels is an international Company with excellent employees who have a keen eye to innovation, they come up with strategies that ensure that hotel stays on top, and some of the innovations include furnishing the rooms in a modern way making sure that the customer's needs are met. Innovative employees of the Hilton hotels are rewarded or given opportunities to further their innovation through education in institutions that offer hospitality courses, the innovative employee are also given opportunities to meet and exchange ideas with other employees from other resorts.10 All These assist the Hotels to keep in line with the requirements of the customers, the requirements of the customers keep on changing and can only be met by innovative and creative employees, the employees can only be maintained by being handled with gratitude and further training just in the same way the Hilton hotels through Human resource strategy has been doing. Expansion Expansion of a business is a good sign that business is doing just fine, when that business happens to be a hotel business which apparently is a very delicate business then it can only be concluded that the management of the business is doing an incredible job. Hotel business is a business that is faced with so many risks, such risks include terrorism, bad weather mainly for those which are located near oceans and political instability are the eyesore of any business, if the political class do not conduct themselves with a careful and a coherent mind may scare away tourists who are the backbone of the hotel business. Whenever the hotel strategize to expand by opening resorts outside the country, then credit can only be give to the management of the mother hotel, Hilton Hotel has expanded in a tremendous way. The human resources strategy of the giant hotel has been careful as to expand in areas where there is not only good business but also potential talented workers who assist in the running and flourishing of the business. Whenever locals find that international companies has not imported talent , then they identify with it by visiting and making good use of its facilities. This is an excellent strategy that The Hilton Hotels has implemented over the years and therefore ensures that employees are from the same country they invest. Increasing Sales and Turnover According to the Washington Post, an American daily publication, The Hilton hotels is one group of hotels that has never had a problem with making profits. Hilton hotels has been making good business through several strategies that were identified included reducing expenses incurring as result of incompetent employees who sometimes are a disgrace in business.11 Hilton has been hiring employees who are competent and this reduces expenses associated with incompetent employees, the hotel also employs employees who are loyal and those who do not engage in unethical behaviors that consume the expected profits. The Hilton Hotels has been making profits all the time , this indicates that the strategies put in place Human resource strategies have been effective and have assisted the resorts in increasing their sales and turnover and eventually higher profits.12 Reducing expenses Human resources department in any corporation gives advice to the senior management on how to reduce expenses, particularly on the side of the workers; workers should be trained and retrained on how to keep their expenses on the hotel minimal.13 The human resources department which is the body that is charged with the responsibility of training the employees has to see to it that the employees understand the need to reduce expenses that they or the customers may incur and deemed unnecessary. 14 The human resources department should be able to hammer the point to the employees and to the customers that they stand to gain should these expenses be reduced. Hilton Hotel's human resource management strategy is such that the expenses that are unnecessary and that could be avoided by the employees are debited to them, this may seem harsh but it motivates the workers to sensitize the clients to a make good use of the amenities they provide .The clients are also taught on how to utilize basic amenities like water, electricity in a conservative manner and in this way the expenses are greatly reduced. Employee care and empowerment: Hilton hotels is good company to work in, according to Mark Watson a former employee of Hilton Hotels in Europe15, he stated that the strategy of the hotel in as far as their employees are concerned include, insuring them against several covers like accident, offering scholarships to the employees , travel plans for them , health schemes for the employees. These strategies assist in making sure that the Hotels gaining employee loyalty, the employees cease from becoming a liability to the hotel and they are converted to be loyal employees. 16 Any company whose employees are loyal reaps immense benefits from that loyalty, loyal employees are also not easily poached by other competing organizations and this is achieved by treating workers well, 17the hotel therefore puts a lot of effort in ensuring that that company attains the goals that have been set. The company reaps dividends by rewarding the employees since they are the cornerstone of the business.18 These strategies have also empowered workers, empowerment is important in that it enables workers to make decision that they find appropriate in their day to day operations19, this helps to improve consumer relations and also improve on workers loyalty. Therefore empowering workers will benefit the organization and this is one of the major strategies that the Hilton hotel has adopted.20 Technology Technology is indeed imperative in running of any business today. Businesses that want to stay top of things have to embrace technology. Hilton hotels have indeed taken in many technological inventions to see top it that they lessen the workload on their employees, example Customers wishing to visit any of the hotels have the leeway to make their bookings online, this makes it easier for the customer who before the embracing of technology had to write letters or make calls to make their bookings, some of the letters or calls never got through greatly inconveniencing the potential clients and making the hotels lose a lot of money. Hilton hotels have also adapted a way of hiring their employees through the internet which they refer to as Web based Solution; any potential employee has to have to meet the standards set out in the web. This saves a lot of money and time for the hotels in recruiting new workers. Impact on the structure: The organizational culture of many companies, be they local or international is that there are various departments .These departments are in charged of various tasks according to the training and expertise of those working in them. The impacts on the organizational structure of the strategies that have been embraced by the Hilton Hotels are numerous. The benefits of adopting the strategies far outshine the demerits. 21 A company is able to merge many departments and have employees in the departments working for a common goal. The workers in the human resources department and those from the public relations department of the Hilton Hotels map out strategies together to see to it that the customers are satisfied. In as far as recruitment and retention of staff, the group of companies having used the web based solution where it is able to reduce the costs involved in hiring, the risks when employees hired are incompetent are also cut .Therefore through the web based program of hiring, the impact has been tremendous in a positive way which is likely to be emulated by other international companies.22 References: Ashford E. (1989) the experience of powerlessness in organizations, journal of Organizational Behavior, 43 (1) 207 to 242 Chiles M. and Zorn E. (1995) Empowerment in organizations, Journal of Applied Communication, 23 (1) Human resource website (2008) about human resource, retrieved on 17th July, available at http://humanresources.about.com Hospitality Europe (2008) the hotel industry, retrieved on 17th July, available at www.HospitalityEurope.org The Hilton hotel website (2008) about the Hilton hotel, retrieved on 17th July, available at www.hiltonhotels.com Kenexa (2008)The web solution, retrieved on 17th July, available at www.kenexaprogrammes.net Kreisberg S. (1999) Transforming power Domination, empowerment, and education, University of New York Press, New York Philip Hardwick (2004) Introduction to Modern Economics, Pearson Press, New York Peffer and Velga (1999) Putting workers first for organizational success, Harvard Business School Press, Harvard Rapport J. (1984) Studies in empowerment: Introduction to empowerment, Beacon Press, Boston Readers digest (1999) Secrets of Talent at the Hilton hotel, Gregory Sandburg, SA The Washington post (2008) Hilton international hotels, retrieved on 17th July, available at www.washingtonpost.com Thomas W. and Penthouse A. (1990) Elements of Empowerment: An Interpretive Model of Motivation, Journal of Management, 15 (4) 666 to 681 Wilkinson A. (1998) Empowerment of employees: theory and practice, McGraw Hill publishers, New York" Youndt A and et al (1996) "Human Resource Management, Manufacturing Strategy", Management Journal, 39 page 836 to 866 Read More