Benchmarking in Stewarding Operations of Starwood

The provided assignment revolves around the concept of benchmarking in stewarding operations, specifically in the context of Starwood, a leading hotel management company. The task delves into the benefits of implementing a benchmarking process, including measuring performance, minimizing waste, and enhancing customer experience. It also touches upon the role of Point of Intervention (POI) in identifying opportunities for improvement and promoting consistent progress within Starwood's organizational framework.

CASE STUDY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Improvements in the stewarding process with a flow-chart...............................................1
2. Root cause analysis at Starwood to overcome process issue.............................................2
3. Changes introduced by power of innovation (POI) programme........................................4
4. Significance of benchmarking process for Starwood ........................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

This case study is based on understanding the process analysis at Starwood Hotels and
Resorts, which is situated at Scottsdale in Arizona state. This consists of mainly four questions
that will describe about their management approaches in solving the issues of this organization.
1. Improvements in the stewarding process with a flow-chart
Stewarding process infers the arrangement for supervising and monitoring the tasks in
systematic order to avoid any errors or delays. This mainly deals with administration of kitchen
arena that serves the entire hotel's operations with respect to events, room service, pool areas and
restaurant (Brubaker and et.al., 2014). In this regard, stewards are appointed to make the
operational workings convenient for optimising the resources' allocation and assist in increasing
the profitability and productivity.
In regard with Starwood's current stewarding process, there are many challenging factors
that sometimes hamper their working styles and cause stress, pressure and an additional burden
on the main chef and the restaurant manager to complete the orders and other related activities
properly. It leads to influence their cost effectiveness and time efficiency. The major obstacle
was lack of specific tasks and duties that have been assigned to an individual steward. This
affected their works because they required on hourly basis in multiple kitchens. It further added
to their difficulty levels as they needed to perform the responsibilities like cleaning, dumping
waste etc. with complete attention and fulfil the expectations and requirements of the kitchen
areas in their scheduled shifts.
However, in order to bring changes on concrete basis, it is understandable that few
physical changes must be incorporated by the management to meet the necessary requirements.
There must be an emphasis on minimising their movements from one kitchen to another by
defining their responsibilities and roles in systematic order. This can be done by marking their
shifts with appropriate breaks, installation of dishwashers in their kitchen areas for easy
accessibility when cleaning, providing training to stewards for enhancing their performance and
skills. Imparting knowledge and etiquette sessions at regular basis to bring collaboration and
cooperation while completing the tasks or assigned duties and many more.
Subsequently, this will lay the foundation of a framework that comprises planning,
implementing, managing and maintaining the kitchen areas and its surroundings in a hygienic,
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clean and sanitized manner. The entire scheduling must be done on the basis of accountability
and feasibility by keeping in mind about several factors (Lawson, 2016). These involve minimal
assignment of duties in multiple kitchens, managing time while performing each task including
travelling time, Therefore, the new process as shown in the flowchart would assist them to
overcome the obstacles in efficient manner to improve the current problems of allotting their
duties and handling of china cutlery with more care. Along this, the highlighted region was to
minimise the movement of stewards from one kitchen to another as building layout is
incompatible with their shortcuts and hinders their delivery of work.
The following flowchart will be going to highlight the new changes that must be incorporated by
Starwood to resolve their issues in relation to the stewarding.
2. Root cause analysis at Starwood to overcome process issue
The given case-study reflected on the root causes that affected Starwood's working
practises of stewarding process. It emphasized on several issues faced by the kitchen stewards
while maintaining kitchen related duties and tasks-allocation. Here, the root cause is the layout of
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the building that acts as the biggest challenging factor in conducting the tasks. Additionally,
there are couple of corridors which was constructed in a maze like manner and increase the
difficulty level for the new stewards to locate and sometimes, it brought confusion for the
existing employees as well (Yildiz, 2015). It leads to longer hours when moving from one area to
other kitchen section and also accelerate the time consumption when washing the dishes in the
sanitizing dishwashers. However, these are automated, yet their installation location is far and
needs to access under the supervision of individuals.
Furthermore, the layout cannot be changed but can be modified by using few strategies
that can assist in overcoming this process issue like making changes in the inventory sections
and the installation of all the equipments in each kitchen area to enhance the accessibility and
decreasing the time-taking as well. This will automatically reduce the number of rounds taken by
them and they can fix their time as per the availability of their break times. It will add a dynamic
approachability in engaging their schedules as per the allotted time-frames to bring radical
changes to gain attention of customers. Such flexible approach would make the entire work
environment better in terms of conducting tasks in uniform manner to enhance the quality and
safety of the provided services of this organization.
Along with this, another issue is planning the entire scheduling of stewards shifts in the
complete professional year. The executive steward used excel spreadsheet to make a summary of
covers for suitable preparation of stewards' shifts throughout their kitchen areas in both
restaurants and resorts. In addition, there was a technical problem that led to usage of stewards
services incompletely due to lack of understanding for eliminating the downtime that was used.
This downtime mainly indicated the waiting time during occurrence of event or banquet. For
this, the management must lay instructions to their employees about their holiday/leave policies
and benefits or reward systems during special occasions like festivals, yearly conferences or
meeting etc. They must have a transparent communication channel to conduct a one-to-one
interactive sessions. It would be beneficial for stewards to take planned leaves and inform about
their availability so that the scheduling can be done accordingly.
Moreover, the executive steward can conduct monthly meetings to take their suggestions
and feedbacks as well. There must be an integrated framework to channelise the optimisation of
resources with cost effectiveness. Such meetings and interactive sessions would lay a
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demonstration of more team-work and collaboration (Fokand Yeung, 2016). Thus, these issues
can be overcome in effective manner by employing the suggested changes.
3. Changes introduced by power of innovation (POI) programme
The POI programme has bring influenced the several performance aspects of Starwood.
The key changes are observed in terms of quality and work efficiency of Stewarding staff.
Contrary to the earlier operational methods the stewards are no longer required to wait for the
dishwashing and cleaning operations. It has also improved the efficiency and financial benefits
by reducing the operational costs in terms of reduced working hours (Nieves and Quintana,
2018). The POI program also encourages the strict control and monitoring of the operational
tasks by the steward so that the tasks are managed with better efficiency. The POI programs also
helps Starwood to identify the operational and management aspects which needs improvement
strategies. This help to ensure the continue improvement in the business and operational
processes. The improvements made by POI in Starwood can be analysed in terms of following
aspects :
Total quality management (TQM):
The one of the area which is improved by POI is TQM standards of Starwood. With the
innovative advancements introduced by POI the overall quality has been increased. For instance
the time saving advantage delivered to steward improve the resource management process. The
staff members are now more conscious regarding quality of their outputs (Aquilani and et.al.,
2017). The improve accuracy in the operational activities also makes business activities of
Starwood cost efficient. The implemented changes focuses on improving various aspects of
TQM such as response of customers, management perspective, team efficiency as well as
efficiency in the operational processes.
Business process re-engineering:
Due to construction design and limited resources it was complex process for the steward
to execute its operations. However the POI has provided Starwood staff members a new
approach to perform their operational activities. For instance the use of dishwasher makes
process simpler as well as quick. The quality assurance and monitoring has also gained new
standards and parameters. It is very challenging for any organisation to modify its business
processes or operational aspects because the proposed changes may not certainly bring desired
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outputs. However in Starwood the implemented changes have successfully improved the
efficiency. For instance the allocation of stewards on the basis of demand not only enhances their
efficiency but also reduces the excessive financial and resource allocation burden on the
management.
Organisational development:
This can be considered as one of the most influenced aspect of Starwood which is
affected by the POI scheme. The customers of organisation evaluate its performance on the basis
of overall performance and service quality. The innovative changes improved the working
efficiency and accuracy at every level. It has also reduced the time involved in delivery of
services to the guests. If the cleaning and management process in hotel are slow then it definitely
create an adverse impact on the customers regarding quality of services (Tjiptono, 2017).
However POI has directly targeted the time delay and operational cost which are the important
element in performance evaluation of the organisation.
4. Significance of benchmarking process for Starwood
Benchmarking is defined as the process of comparing the business process and methods
with the predefined standards or the standards set by the other competitive organisations of the
business. For Starwood the benchmarking process can be very helpful and effective. With the
application of benchmarks on functional process the staff members will have clarity towards the
efficiency required and expected by them to achieve customer satisfaction as well as cost
benefits. When team members are aware of the desired standards of quality through
benchmarking then they always makes an effort to achieve excellence.
On the other hand if Starwood will not use any of benchmarks then staff members may
not understand the desired level of efficiency. Another benefit which can be provided by
benchmarking is that it will help Starwood to evaluate its own performance. When benchmarks
are defined then each team members and steward can analyse that if they are working in desired
direction or not. In case if improvements are required then necessary actions can be taken by the
stewards on time before the mismanagement is reflected in the quality of services. Thus it will be
great for organisation to develop benchmarks (Yildiz, 2015). However it is very important for
Starwood to set benchmarks with care. These standard levels will directly control the operational
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activities so benchmarks must be chosen as per the long term success objectives of the
organisation.
For resolving the current performance related issues of Starwood the benchmarking can
provide effective solutions by identifying the areas causing problems. For instance the current
issue of stewarding operations can easily be resolved when there will be specific benchmarks for
every operational aspect.
Internal benchmarking is the new proposition which will assist in executing the new process, as
mentioned in the flowchart. Herein, it is understandable that this type of benchmarking would be
beneficial to bring changes in the stewarding operations of this organization. This would be
effective in terms of measuring and evaluating the services and overall performance of stewards
by identifying their practising styles, shift timings and interconnectivity for completing the
allocates jobs at hand. Moreover, it will help in minimal waste of resources and other related
aspects. This type of benchmarking will aid in minimising the unwanted obstacles and focus on
enhancing the customers' experience at Starwood.
Furthermore, this benchmarking will support the management of Starwood to manage and
maintain their administrative responsibilities in profound manner. In addition to this, it will
provide an overview about their employees' and stewards' performance metrics such as skills,
leadership, managerial skills, temperament etc. after comparing their profits, revenues and
performance management. Thus, it will reap benefits and promote consistent improvements by
addressing the opportunities and gaps (Liu, Tsai and Wu, 2018).
Thus it can be concluded that benchmarking process and POI will help Starwood to accomplish
its business objectives. The organisation can increase its profitability by enhancing the functional
efficiency of each department so that desired customer satisfaction and quality standards can be
achieved.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Aquilani, B. and et.al., 2017. A systematic literature review on total quality management critical
success factors and the identification of new avenues of research. The TQM
Journal, 29(1), pp.184-213.
Brubaker, J.R. and et.al., 2014, April. Stewarding a legacy: responsibilities and relationships in
the management of post-mortem data. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on
Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 4157-4166). ACM.
Fok, R.H. and Yeung, R.M., 2016. Work attitudes of Generation Y in Macau’s hotel industry:
management’s perspective.Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes.8(1). pp.83-96.
Lawson, H.A., 2016. Stewarding the discipline with cross-boundary leadership.Quest.68(2),
pp.91-115.
Liu, H., Tsai, H. and Wu, J., 2018. Regional hotel performance and benchmarking in the Pearl
River Delta: An input and output efficiency analysis. International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management, 30(2), pp.855-873.
Nieves, J. and Quintana, A., 2018. Human resource practices and innovation in the hotel
industry: The mediating role of human capital. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 18(1),
pp.72-83.
Tjiptono, F., 2017. Total quality management.
Yildiz, Ö., 2015. Internal communication function and hotel productivity–A comparative study.
Online
Total Quality Management – TQM, 2018. [Online] Accessed through
<https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/total-quality-management-tqm.asp>
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