Imperial Hotel Case Study - Front of House Staff and IT Systems

This case study analyzes the problems faced by Imperial Hotel due to poor team working and inefficient use of IT systems including the reservation and property management systems. The report suggests strategies such as training into IT systems, cross-team building exercises, and reviewing the team bonus schemes to resolve the issues. The problem is analyzed in detail with comments on the suggestions made by the General Manager Peter Fansworth.

Running head: IMPERIAL HOTEL CASE STUDY
Imperial Hotel Case Study
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1IMPERIAL HOTEL CASE STUDY
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Analysis of the individual problem..............................................................................................2
Problem 5: Front of house staff – poor team working and inefficient use of IT systems
including the reservation and property management systems.................................................2
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
Bibliography....................................................................................................................................7
Appendix........................................................................................................................................10

2IMPERIAL HOTEL CASE STUDY
Introduction
The following report is about the Imperial Hotel situated in London, United Kingdom.
Located in the heart of London’s West End, this hotel was managed and owned by an
internationally acclaimed chain of hotels called the Star Hotels. Star Hotels already have the
responsibility of managing over 25 hotels all over United Kingdom. However, recently there
have been reports of customer dissatisfaction lately in the Imperial Hotels. Therefore, as per the
instructions of the newly appointed General Manager, Peter Fansworth, all the problems have
been scrutinized to be categorized under six groups according to the type of the problem.
Following report would consist of the analysis of these six categorized problems to materialize
the reasons behind the sudden decline in the customer satisfaction and the overall ratings of the
hotel. The General Manager had implemented the strategy to make the problems be identified in
the first place and categorized. Then it would be resolved with the suggestions offered. The
analysis of these problems would be justified in the following report by commenting on the
suggestions that has been made by the General Manager Peter Fansworth. The different problems
will be investigated individually and the proposals to resolve the problems would be prioritized
based on the analysis.
Analysis of the individual problem
Problem 5: Front of house staff – poor team working and inefficient use of IT systems
including the reservation and property management systems
The front house staffs, that is, the reception has the pivotal role in the interaction with the
guests offering services and providing supporting to the guests. It was found that there has been

3IMPERIAL HOTEL CASE STUDY
extreme discontinuity in providing services to the guests because the reception was not available
at all times of the day, which is ideally important to implement. Then again all the staff members
of the hotel need to be updated about the information of the guests, which was also not explained
enough. This resulted in discontinuity in the customer services as well. The results of this
miscommunication and mismanagement in services have resulted in the faulty billing of the
customer’s stay in the hotel. Some of the primary staff of the Reception has been in constant
conflict with the members of the other departments after there has been reporting of various false
complaints being lodged on the formers by the guests. Housekeeping staff have been provided
with an incorrect or outdated data on room availability. Even there was wrong information on the
staying of any hotel guest. Reception could not inform correctly the Housekeeping about early
and late arrivals and as a result rooms have not been cleaned in time with guests. Subsequently,
the guests had to wait for long periods to get their room keys. It was also known to the HOD of
Front office and reception about the conflict issue of this department as well as the conflict of the
other departments. The operations and management with regards to the reservation and property
management have also been proved to be of a low grade, therefore, the ratings of the hotel can be
justifiable to be drooping down. The problem would further double into causing further problems
in the hotel and identifies with the problems in the other categorized problems as well. The
problem had been analyzed by the strategy of implementing customer surveys based on the guest
cards completed by the customers themselves. In these surveys, the customers are provided with
a guest card that is to be filled by them according to the experiences they have had in the hotel
regarding the facilities of the hotel and the services they have received by the staff of the hotels.
The next problem that has been categorized in this group has been the staff turnover that has
been a matter that would bother the hotel industry altogether. The staff turnover has been

4IMPERIAL HOTEL CASE STUDY
reported to be about 80 percent in the past one year. Even for the front line staff, the Imperial
Hotels have reported to have the staff turnover to be particularly high. The reasons for this have
been various, such as, the nature of the employment to be specific. This has been identified to be
one of the major issues, as the nature of the students have identified to be students ; the European
Union foreign nationals who wanted to work for short periods in London with a considerable low
payment. Like any other hotel industry, Imperial Hotels along with the managerial organization
Star hotels, have the organizational culture that is performance driven. Since, the work culture is
performance driven, the entire workforce and especially the managerial staff relies mostly on the
increase of sales per month by increasing the monthly tenure of the hotels as well as pushing
high levels of performances. It had been found that the previous General Manager had made the
overall staff atmosphere has been too much toxic for the people to work over there. Due to the
poor management and leadership control of the previous General Manager, the hotel had suffered
heavy damages. There have been tremendous amounts of staff turnover, poor levels of sales
performances and increasingly bad levels of Guest Satisfaction Surveys or GSS. This has
invoked a lot of questions about the leadership qualities and the quality of management in all of
the departments of the hotel. There have been numerous complaints from the hotel guests about
general cleanliness, with special focuses to bathrooms. Housekeeping room assistants have also
not reported as usual being abrupt in their responses and being rude most of the time. Staff
motivation had been found out to be very poor in levels.
The new changes in the management included the inclusion of a new General Manager
and a new Head of the Department for the Front Office and Reception. Since both of them have
been working in complete convergence with each other, both are aware of the term. Both of them
have been in constant discussion with each other about the reception team’s dynamics. There

5IMPERIAL HOTEL CASE STUDY
have also been reported issues of clashes amongst influential people and strong personalities
within the department.
The new General Manager has suggested some strategies to solve the issues. The
analyses of these issues are discussed in details as below:
 Training into IT systems: This would implement the organization to be
accessible to the customers at all hours and not only the general physical timings.
The implementation of IT systems would make the individual performances much
more better evaluated.
 Cross-team building exercises: This would boost the morale of the staff working
under the organization. The strategy would decrease the differences between all
the levels of employees who have been in the hotel staff. This would definitely
decrease the conflicts that arise between the influential staff and other staff.
 Reviewing the team bonus schemes: Any bonus scheme influences a staff
member to work harder in order to achieve the bonus as a form of recognition.
This would make the staff focus on their individual performances more than the
conflicts that arise between them. Personal problems would not let the
performances hamper more and would make them provide services better to the
guests in the hotel.

6IMPERIAL HOTEL CASE STUDY
Conclusion
In conclusion it can be said that the problems that had been faced by the Imperial Hotels
along with the managerial organization of Star Hotels were resulting in the declination of the
standard of the hotel according to the levels of hotel industry functioning in United Kingdom.
Therefore, as per the instructions of the newly appointed General Manager, Peter Fansworth, all
the problems have been scrutinized to be categorized under six groups according to the type of
the problem. Following report had the analysis of the fifth amongst the six categorized problems
to materialize the reasons behind the sudden decline in the customer satisfaction and the overall
ratings of the hotel. The General Manager had implemented the strategy to make the problems be
identified in the first place and categorized. The resolution suggestions were scrutinized as a
result in accordance to this report. The analyses of these problems are thus justified in the
following report by commenting on the suggestions that has been made by the General Manager
Peter Fansworth.

7IMPERIAL HOTEL CASE STUDY
Bibliography
Berezina, K., Bilgihan, A., Cobanoglu, C. and Okumus, F., 2016. Understanding satisfied and
dissatisfied hotel customers: text mining of online hotel reviews. Journal of Hospitality
Marketing & Management, 25(1), pp.1-24.
Deery, M. and Jago, L., 2015. Revisiting talent management, work-life balance and retention
strategies. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(3), pp.453-472.
Eras, J.J.C., Santos, V.S., Gutiérrez, A.S., Plasencia, M.Á.G., Haeseldonckx, D. and
Vandecasteele, C., 2016. Tools to improve forecasting and control of the electricity consumption
in hotels. Journal of cleaner production, 137, pp.803-812.
Gössling, S., Hall, C.M. and Andersson, A.C., 2018. The manager's dilemma: a
conceptualization of online review manipulation strategies. Current Issues in Tourism, 21(5),
pp.484-503.
Jayaweera, T., 2015. Impact of work environmental factors on job performance, mediating role
of work motivation: A study of hotel sector in England. International journal of business and
management, 10(3), p.271.
Kanyurhi, E.B. and Bugandwa Mungu Akonkwa, D., 2016. Internal marketing, employee job
satisfaction, and perceived organizational performance in microfinance institutions. International
Journal of Bank Marketing, 34(5), pp.773-796.

8IMPERIAL HOTEL CASE STUDY
Knox, A., Warhurst, C., Nickson, D. and Dutton, E., 2015. More than a feeling: using hotel room
attendants to improve understanding of job quality. The International Journal of Human
Resource Management, 26(12), pp.1547-1567.
Law, V.T., Tavitiyaman, P. and Zhang, H.Q., 2015. An analysis of industry forces, strategic
implementation, and performance: Evidence from state-owned hotels in China. Journal of China
Tourism Research, 11(3), pp.315-336.
Leonidou, L.C., Leonidou, C.N., Fotiadis, T.A. and Aykol, B., 2015. Dynamic capabilities
driving an eco-based advantage and performance in global hotel chains: The moderating effect of
international strategy. Tourism Management, 50, pp.268-280.
Lopes, M., 2016. The hospitality industry (Doctoral dissertation).
Lu, L., Lu, A.C.C., Gursoy, D. and Neale, N.R., 2016. Work engagement, job satisfaction, and
turnover intentions: A comparison between supervisors and line-level employees. International
Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 28(4), pp.737-761.
Peng, J., Zhao, X. and Mattila, A.S., 2015. Improving service management in budget
hotels. International journal of hospitality management, 49, pp.139-148.
Rahimi, R. and Gunlu, E., 2016. Implementing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in
hotel industry from organizational culture perspective: Case of a chain hotel in the
UK. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 28(1), pp.89-112.
Rahimi, R. and Kozak, M., 2017. Impact of customer relationship management on customer
satisfaction: The case of a budget hotel chain. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 34(1),
pp.40-51.

9IMPERIAL HOTEL CASE STUDY
Rahimi, R., 2017. Organizational culture and customer relationship management: a simple linear
regression analysis. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 26(4), pp.443-449.
Wong, S.C.K. and Li, J.S., 2015. Will hotel employees’ perception of unethical managerial
behavior affect their job satisfaction? A study of Chinese hotel employees in
China. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(5), pp.853-877.

10IMPERIAL HOTEL CASE STUDY
Appendix
Week 4 Seminars – Imperial Hotel Case Study Planning Sheet
The Imperial Hotel Assignment - Formative Exercise
The purpose of this planning exercise is to begin the understanding of the complexity
Student Name/No:
Group/Seminar Tutor:
Date of submission:
Problem No:
Front of house staff – poor team working and inefficient use of IT systems including the reservation and
property management systems had conflicts amongst them. The front house staffs, that is, the reception
has the pivotal role in the interaction with the guests offering services and providing supporting to the
guests. It was found that there has been extreme discontinuity in providing services to the guests because
the reception was not available at all times of the day, which is ideally important to implement. Then
again all the staff members of the hotel need to be updated about the information of the guests, which was
also not explained enough. This resulted in discontinuity in the customer services as well. The results of
this miscommunication and mismanagement in services have resulted in the faulty billing of the
customer’s stay in the hotel. Some of the primary staff of the Reception has been in constant conflict with
the members of the other departments after there has been reporting of various false complaints being
lodged on the formers by the guests. Housekeeping staff have been provided with an incorrect or outdated
data on room availability. Even there was wrong information on the staying of any hotel guest. Reception
could not inform correctly the Housekeeping about early and late arrivals and as a result rooms have not
been cleaned in time with guests. Subsequently, the guests had to wait for long periods to get their room
keys. It was also known to the HOD of Front office and reception about the conflict issue of this

11IMPERIAL HOTEL CASE STUDY
department as well as the conflict of the other departments. The operations and management with regards
to the reservation and property management have also been proved to be of a low grade, therefore, the
ratings of the hotel can be justifiable to be drooping down.
 What do you consider the core reasons for this specific problem at the hotel?
The members of the front house staff were misinformed about the guest information. Reception could not
inform correctly the Housekeeping about early and late arrivals and as a result rooms have not been
cleaned in time with guests. Subsequently, the guests had to wait for long periods to get their room keys.
It was also known to the HOD of Front office and reception about the conflict issue of this department as
well as the conflict of the other departments. The operations and management with regards to the
reservation and property management have also been proved to be of a low grade, therefore, the ratings of
the hotel can be justifiable to be drooping down.
 Briefly identify how your specific problem may be linked to any other of the 5
remaining problems identified in the hotel case
The problem would further double into causing further problems in the hotel and identifies with the
problems in the other categorized problems as well. The problem had been analyzed by the strategy of
implementing customer surveys based on the guest cards completed by the customers themselves. In these
surveys, the customers are provided with a guest card that is to be filled by them according to the
experiences they have had in the hotel regarding the facilities of the hotel and the services they have
received by the staff of the hotels. The next problem that has been categorized in this group has been the
staff turnover that has been a matter that would bother the hotel industry altogether. The staff turnover has
been reported to be about 80 percent in the past one year. Even for the front line staff, the Imperial Hotels
have reported to have the staff turnover to be particularly high. The reasons for this have been various,
such as, the nature of the employment to be specific. This has been identified to be one of the major
issues, as the nature of the students have identified to be students; the European Union foreign nationals
who wanted to work for short periods in London with a considerable low payment. Like any other hotel

12IMPERIAL HOTEL CASE STUDY
industry, Imperial Hotels along with the managerial organization Star hotels, have the organizational
culture that is performance driven. Since, the work culture is performance driven, the entire workforce
and especially the managerial staff relies mostly on the increase of sales per month by increasing the
monthly tenure of the hotels as well as pushing high levels of performances. It had been found that the
previous General Manager had made the overall staff atmosphere has been too much toxic for the people
to work over there. Due to the poor management and leadership control of the previous General Manager,
the hotel had suffered heavy damages. There have been tremendous amounts of staff turnover, poor levels
of sales performances and increasingly bad levels of Guest Satisfaction Surveys or GSS. This has invoked
a lot of questions about the leadership qualities and the quality of management in all of the departments of
the hotel. There have been numerous complaints from the hotel guests about general cleanliness, with
special focuses to bathrooms. Housekeeping room assistants have also not reported as usual being abrupt
in their responses and being rude most of the time. Staff motivation had been found out to be very poor in
levels.
 How useful do you consider the suggested actions are proposed by Peter Farnsworth
to resolve your specific problem?
The problem solving strategies that have been considered to solve the issues are extremely helpful and
would even help in curbing the differences between the staff.
 Consider two alternative ways that this specific problem could be resolved which
have not as yet been considered.
Two of the alternative ways that the problem could be solved can be discussed as follows:
 Get staff regularly involved in planning and problem-solving operational challenges
 Training the HR to understand the problems faced by the low level staff and trying to
solve the problems without considering the level of the staff