Human Resource Management for Service Industries: Assignment

Human Resource
Management for Service
Industries
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION:...................................................................................................................3
TASK 1ONE:............................................................................................................................3
1.1 Role and purpose of Human Resource Management in Hotel industry.............................3
1.2 Human resource plan based on an analysis of supply and demand for Marriott Hotel......5
2.1 Assess the current state of employment relations in Marriott Hotel..................................5
2.2 How employment law affects the management of HR in Marriott Hotel...........................7
TASK 2 TWO:..............................................................................................................................8
3.1 Job description and person specifications of Marriott Hotel..............................................8
3.2 Compare the selection process of different service industries businesses........................10
TASK 3THREE:.........................................................................................................................10
4.1 Contribution of training and development activities to Marriott Hotel............................10
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS ......................................................................11
REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................13
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INTRODUCTION:
Human resource management has very significant role to play in facilitating an
organization sustaining the tremendous competition (Mathis & Jackson, 2013). HRM is
comprised of a number of functions, planning, recruitment, training and development,
employee relations, and therefore has indispensable role to recruit and retain employees within
an organization. This current era has been witnessing extensive growth in hotel industry. Hotel
industry is basically a service industry where organizational sustenance depends on customers
satisfaction. With an aim to meet changing demands and expectations of customers, hotel
industry has realised the role of its staffs. Therefore, to achieve excellent service and high
quality service, the specific industry need recruit potential candidates, train, develop, motivate,
and retain its competent employees so that it can win competitive advantage (Mello, 2011). It
can be stated here that since hotel industry is based on the quality service provided by the
staffs, HRM is one of the most significant department that a company possess.
To carry out the study, Marriott Hotel has been selected which is one of the largest hotel in the
world. The organization strives innovative ways to serve its customers. In the journey to
facilitate its customers, Marriott realises the significance of its workforce. It abides by the
principle that when it takes care of its associates or employees they are the ones who will offer
world-class service to its guests (About Mariott, 2012). Therefore, in all the role and
responsibilities of HRM of the organization, inclusive of staff recruitment and employee
relations, different policies, strategies, and laws have been designed.
TASK 1ONE:
1.1 Role and purpose of Human Resource Management in Hotel industry
HRM and Hotel industry: Employees are the key assets to any industry and hospitality
industry is no exception. Since hospitality industry is based on serving its customers’ need,
employees has very critical role to play. Nevertheless, as per the report of The International
Society of Hospitality Consultants, the industry has been experiencing tremendous shortages of
skill and employees. People are leaving the hospitality industry more than they are joining the
workforce due to a number of issues linked with the particular industry are long working
hours, working in weekends and late nights, etc. (McBeth, et al., 2011). The industry also has
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been adversely affected by lack of effective training and job satisfaction of the staffs.
Therefore, human resource management department has indispensable role to play in handling
employees related issues.
Recruitment and selection: Since employees are the brand ambassador of a company in the
hospitality industry such as Marriott Hotel, they are at the most critical role to meet the needs
and expectation of the customers. The particular hotel recruits potential employees to provide
outstanding service. Thus, the human resource management department of Marriott Hotel has
significant role to contribute to its success and growth (Pinnington, 2011).
Training and development: No matter of employees Marriott Hotel deals directly with the
customers or provides support to the front line staffs of the firm, their performance is the
aspect that facilitate Marriott Hotel stand out from the rest of the industry (Rowley & Warner,
2010). Role of human resource staffs of the company is to recruit, develop and retail the staffs
who are efficient and competent, passionate and accountable to their work and in this manner
win competitive edge (Society for Human Resource Management, 2010).
Employee retention: HR managers also are responsible to retain their employees by
motivating them as well as give best of their performance. Hence, recruitment is not only the
important role to play by the HR Managers, they are responsible to meet all the needs and
expectation of the staffs to that they keep focussed on their work and remain competent but a
number of other roles that they are required to play (Shen, 2011). Marriott Hotel needs a
comprehensive HRM strategy that contributes to employee growth, commitment to delivering
excellent customer service and quality performance. Hence two facts that the HRM functions
focus upon are quality service and people centred, therefore HR managers plays crucial role in
the overall organizational success, especially in the hotel industry.
Employee relationships: Standard of the service offered to the customers not only includes
staffs’ competence but also upon the attitudes of employees. To improve employee attitudes
and make the staffs committed towards Marriott Hotel, HR managers take various strategies.
HR managers of the selected company further focus upon staffs training and development,
performance management and effective communication so that they always remain competent
and efficient in serving its customers (Marriott: Principles of Responsible Business, 2012).
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1.2 Human resource plan based on an analysis of supply and demand for Marriott Hotel
Human resource of Marriott Hotel analyses present and future human resource
requirements, which is developed and designed with proper monitoring of the work, conducted
and required number of staffs to accomplish the task (Sterling & Boxall, 2013). With right
knowledge about supply and demand in the hotel industry, the HR plans that Marriott
undertakes are as follows:
Scenario planning: The Company has HR planning which changes as per the HR
requirements. HR planning has ability to identify the changes in the work process as well as
the potential changes in the market based on which the company designs HR planning. HR
planning is develop to grab best out of opportunities that hotel industries are experiencing.
Employee turnover analysis: The statistics of employee turnover is very crucial for the
particular organization to design an effective HR plan. Based on the figure of employee
turnover, the company is able to find out the supply and demand of the staffs to meet
increasing service demands in the hostel industry.
Demand and supply forecast: Marriott plans the requirements of human resources for future
based on the demand and supply forecast. Demand and supply of the organization includes the
gap analysis between the existing associates and the requirements for staffs in future to meet
the targeted objectives (Stone & Stone, 2013). Accurate analysis of demand and supply of
human resources has immense role to play in winning competitive edge which further
facilitates the company in avoid additional costs for surplus staffs or staffs scarcity.
Work environment analysis: Every organization irrespective of any specific industry, are
required possess pool of creative and innovate staffs. Organizational environment plays very
important role in evaluating and improving staffs performance (Stone, 2013). In order to
support staffs in enhancing their skills and competence, organizations need to develop a culture
so that they are supported in improvement.
Figure: Steps of HR planning
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Source: Storey, J., 2014.
2.1 Assess the current state of employment relations in Marriott Hotel
Employment relations referred to as company’s efforts to maintain relationship
between employees and employers. A company with strong employee relations program lead
to fair and consistent treatment to all the staffs in the company so that they are motivated and
committed towards their work as well as the firm. Hence, employee relation management
concentrates upon motivating and encouraging staffs while improving productivity and
developing employee morale (Storey, 2014). Employee relationship at Marriott Hotel finds
resolution to the issues that staffs experience at their workplace and this attitude of the
company has been affecting its service quality significantly. The company maintains very
effective communication between employees and managers, which facilitate them to find out
the issue and address those as well (Business Group Health, 2018). Average tenure for a
general manager of Marriott is twenty-five years while more than ten thousand associates or
staffs have been serving for the company for more than 20 years. Founding philosophy of the
company is to take care of the staffs of the company and they will take care of the customers,
which again draws the customers come back again.
Being into the hotel industry service, Marriott considers employee relations as one of the
important elements, which again is comprised of employee productivity, motivation, and job
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satisfaction that has immense role to play in the success of the company. When staffs are
satisfied they are likely to produce improved outcomes that again in turn contributes to achieve
competitive advantage. Hotel industry segregates between employee statutory rights to
employment and contractual rights ( Marriott: HUMAN RIGHTS POLICY STATEMENT,
2017). Marriott designs employment contract based on the needs of the hotel industry. All the
associates are concerned about the work schedules, overtime regulations, disciplines at
workplace and contract termination (Fortune, 2015). In order to maintain and develop health
and strong employee relations, employee relationship occupies highest position in importance.
The company believes that its administration and communication are significant element to
improve employee engagement. The benefits and perks that are offered to the staffs are the
small attempts to keep them motivated towards their performance. Marriott has gym, gift store,
day care, dry cleaner, and a set of other wellness offers in the headquarters. The organization
has flexible work opportunities, line for assistance to staffs, another for English and Spanish
speaking staffs (Marriott: Business Conduct Guide, 2013). Staffs are provided with health care
benefits who work for thirty hours. Aside these, staffs are provided with discounts on room
rents for their friends, families and themselves as well. Fee weekend holiday stays are
available for employees who have worked for 25 years in the company. Associates’ are
awarded with company-widecompanywide Awards of Excellence that is celebrated in Oscar
style event that provides accolades.
2.2 How employment law affects the management of HR in Marriott Hotel
Employment laws related human rights and employee, rights rules and regulations are
designed in line with the state laws and central laws. Two key laws that Marriott abide by are
employee rights act and employment relations act. In the acts followed by the organizations,
are roles and responsibilities of employees, employers, contract policy, breach of contract,
termination of employment, grievance handling, strikes or lockouts and collective bargains.
Employment rights comprised of different elements are working schedule, wages,
compensation, healthcare facilities, maternity benefits, justification for dismissal, and so on. At
Marriott International, associates are valued and key to their success and growth is its global
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workforce. Marriott is dedicated to engaging, retaining competent and skilled diverse
workforce but not only focussed upon hiring. The organization has been letting its staffs decide
whether to join or not join labour union. Company’s Global Employment Principles have been
designed in line with Company’s Statement on Human Rights which again upholds the
principles of United Nations Universal Declaration Human Rights (Equality and Human Rights
Commission, 2014). Apart from Human rights polices and work place police policies such as
non-discrimination, child labour, forced labour and ethical recruitment, Marriott complies with
ethical business conduct which again follows all applicable laws. The firm ensures that all its
business partners and suppliers follows all policies associated with social responsibility,
diversity and community engagement. Marriott keeps away from workforce discrimination
through its Guarantee of Fair Treatment policies (Marriott: Business Conduct Guide, 2013). It
further complies with legal policies to recruit and retain staffs and third party engagement.
Marriott offers competitive standard of employee benefits and compensations (Marriott:
Principles of Responsible Business, 2012).
Therefore, employment laws that are followed by the organization has specific set of policies,
rules and regulations that the management has to abide by in its production and procedure.
Human resource management department as well as different other sections and polices
comply with employment laws. Management has uniform set of employment policies
developed in line with employment laws so that the company remains free from any
discrimination, promote an inclusive culture for diverse workforce (Zikic, 2015).
TASK 2 TWO:
3.1 Job description and person specifications of Marriott Hotel
Job description and person specific of Marriott International are as follows:
Name of the organization: Marriott Hotel
Name of the department: Customer service department
Job Title: Customer Service Executive
Job summary:
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Customer care executive of Hotel industry supports customers in checking availability,
booking, find options available at pricing range of the customers and provide all relevant
information about availability and booking of hotel rooms and other service as per the
requirements of the customers. Customer care executives help the customers in experience
good before they visit the hotel.
Main responsibilities:
Key responsibilities of customer service executives of Marriott International are as follows:
 Receive calls and provide information about availability of rooms and confirming the
booking
 Handle issue such as loss of baggage and others goods
 Enquiring about customers preference sin rooms, pricing, tourists destinations they are
willing to visit, choices of food
 Provide information on different holidaying options and tourists options available for
the tourists
Job specification:
Potential candidates who fulfil the below he following criteria are eligible for the position of
customer care executive:
 Candidates who are willing to appear for the interview of the foresaid post must be
within the age group of 18 – 30
 The candidate must be a possess a degree or diploma in Hotel Management or
equivalent qualification with proficiency over English
 Remain resilient and accountable for the task accomplished
 Understanding about brand image and reputation and have experience on international
hotel industry
 Strong knowledge in commercial matters, handing cost budgets, forecasting and profits
of hotel, develop proposals of revenue.
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 Experience in the field of customer service will be an added advantage for the selection
although working experience in customer service area is not mandatory
 The candidate must be proficient and eligible in managing calls, check medical records,
background check and check reference
 Customer care executive must be efficient in delivering excellent standard of customer
service while managing stress at work and show professionalism
Reporting:
Customer care executive will report to customer service managers as they will be in the
assistant manager posts. Not only departmental manager, customer service executives are
required to report to the manager of the hotel at the same time.
Figure: Job Analysis
Source: Mello, J., (2011)
Designing job specification and job descriptions is the role and responsibility of HR
department of the selected hotel. Rules, regulations, reporting personnel of the given positions,
task responsibilities and personal specifications that are taken are the essential criteria of the
individual staffs to get selected in the vacant positions. Tools techniques and job summary also
are included herein.
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3.2 Compare the selection process of different service industries businesses
Selection process of British Airways(Aviation) and Marriott Hotel(Hotel) are as
follows:
British Airways Marriott Hotel
1. Require both strong non-technical and
technical knowledge to perform its
tasks efficiently and accurately.
2. Selection of candidates depends upon
evaluation of technical efficiencies
and hard skill
3. Aptitude tests and simulation
assessment are conducted to assess the
technical skills and company of
candidates in the selection process.
Selection process of pilot in British
Airways includes inviting application
form candidates (Lange, et al., 2015),
and receiving filled up online
interview forms as described by
Lange, et al., (2015). Selection process
are conducted in British Airways
Recruitment Centre. Aptitude tests
inclusive of numerical and verbal
reasoning are evaluated through Right
to Work assessment process (Shaw,
2016). Candidates who go through the
interview are sent to the training
centre and finally recruited for Hold
pool for one year
1. Hotel industry requires skilled and
competent staffs rather than
experienced candidates
2. Selecting candidates in hotel industry
is mainly focused upon evaluating
candidates soft skills. Selection
procedure that is followed by Marriott
hotel comprised of personal interview
3. The organization follows interview
and online employee assessment.
Candidates are expected to resolve a
situational question at the face to face
interview process where the
interviewer has understanding about
candidate’s ability to handle a
situation. In the online assessment
process a set of tests are included,
personality tests, numerical reasoning
tests, verbal and situational judgment
tests
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Therefore the comparative study of selection process in two different business shows
that although both starts with inviting application and receiving filled up application forms,
two different businesses have separate selection techniques and interview process differs. Not
only different industries have distinct selection process but even if two companies within
service industry have different set of selection procedures.
TASK 3THREE:
4.1 Contribution of training and development activities to Marriott Hotel
Training is referred to as the programs created or developed by an organization to
improve are help staffs grow their skills and knowledge while development can be defined as
activity through which human resources of a company grow and enhance their skills .
Figure: Importance of Staff Training
Source: Society for Human Resource Management, (2010)
A wide number of benefits of training and development activity to Hilton hotel can be
identified as below:
 Develop and grow skills and knowledge of staffs which will enable them perform better
in the organization
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 Adequate training and development activity when arranged in an organization leads the
employees to feel motivated and confident. Improved motivation has close association
with better productivity and performance (Mathis & Jackson, 2013)
 When employees are positively motivated through proper training and development
opportunities they are less likely to leave such workplace resulting in less turnover
 With regular training the staffs are likely to have better knowledge and strategies to
deliver service to its customers. Risk of accidents are minimised with training
 With adequate training opportunities, employees are likely tot give better individual
performance which again leads to improved organizational productivity
 When an organization is able to deliver high productivity it is definite that it will have
higher profitability as well (Stone & Stone, 2013)
 Additionally when experienced staffs who are well trained deliver excellent service, the
organizational is able to promote its brand image and customers also become brand
loyal. This agin is likely to support the organization achieve competitive advantage.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
It can be concluded from the above report that HRM has significant role to play in
recruiting, planning, training and developing and retaining its skills staffs. In order to deliver
world class service to its customers, the specific hotel has very strong HR planning strategy
which facilitates the organization monitor accurate number of staffs needed to accomplish
tasks in future and calculate employee turnover. With right HR planning procedure the
company has been able to understand the actual number fi skilled staffs they need, how many
of them the company posses and the number it needs to recruit more so that they neither have
employee surplus nor they have shortage of staffs. By retaining and developing its staffs,
Marriott is able to achieve competitive edge in this global hostel industry. Marriott complies
with various polices, state and central laws in designing its employment polices and promote
human rights.
RECOMMENDATIONS
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It is recommended to Marriott Hotel to have very effective HRM policies so that it can
motivate and encourage its staffs to put into more effort. HRM department must design regular
training and development sessions, programmes, workshops and seminars so that the staffs are
allowed to remain aware about the market condition about the industry, changing preferences
of travellers, and increasing global competition. The specific hotel further needs to monitor
employee training so that skills and competence are well evaluated and thus arrange for future
training sessions accordingly.
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REFERENCES
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MARRIOTT INTERNATIONAL INC.. [Online]
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https://www.marriott.com/Multimedia/PDF/Corporate/
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[Accessed 26 November 2018].
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and-values/history.mi
[Accessed 26 November 2018].
15

Business Group Health, 2018. Healthy Pregnancy and
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[Online]
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marriott/
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16

Lange, K., Geppert, M., Saka‐Helmhout, A. & Becker‐
Ritterspach, F., 2015. Changing business models and
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comparison of British Airways and Deutsche
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17

Marriott: Principles of Responsible Business, 2012.
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Society for Human Resource Management, 2010. Motivation in Today‟s Workplace: The
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ONLINE
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[Accessed 26 November 2018].
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[Accessed 26 November 2018].
Business Group Health, 2018. Healthy Pregnancy and Healthy Children: Opportunities and
Challenges for Employers. [Online]
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b34e139136b8
Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2014. Equality and Human Rights Commission.
[Online]
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Available at: www.equalityhumanrights.com
[Accessed 2 January 2018].
Fortune, 2015. Why employees love staying at Marriott. [Online]
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[Accessed 25 November 2018].
Lange, K., Geppert, M., Saka‐Helmhout, A. & Becker‐Ritterspach, F., 2015. Changing
business models and employee representation in the airline industry: A comparison of British
Airways and Deutsche Lufthansa. British Journal of Management, , 26(3), p. 388.
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Available at:
https://www.marriott.com/Multimedia/PDF/CorporateResponsibility/Marriott_Business_Cond
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[Accessed 26 November 2018].
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