THE IMPERIAL HOTEL, LONDON: A Case Study in Human Resource Management

This report analyzes the challenges faced by The Imperial Hotel, London, specifically focusing on the housekeeping department's staffing issues and employee dissatisfaction. It explores the implementation of human relations management theory to address these problems, including the use of recruitment agencies, zero-hour contracts for students, and employee incentive programs. The report examines the effectiveness of these strategies in improving employee morale, reducing operational costs, and enhancing customer satisfaction.

THE IMPERIAL HOTEL, LONDON
INTRODUCTION TO MANAGEMENT

Contents
INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................2
ANALYSIS OF THE INDIVIDUAL PROBLEM..................................................................................3
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................8
BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................................9
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INTRODUCTION
This report is based on the assessment of the business and managing the business using
different management theories. This assessment can be completed by using team-based
approaches to recognize the problems and issues faced by the organization and defining
some problem-solving strategies to face the challenges (Erasmus, et. al. 2016). This
assessment is based on the case study of the Imperial Hotel, London. It is a famous
international brand of hotel chains. The hotel is operating for approximately 100 years. The
hotel branches of the Imperial Hotel, London are considered as 4-start hotels in the
hospitality market. Currently, there are about 25 hotel branches of the hotel leading in the
UK. The hotel is situated in caters which are considered as the heart of London. The hotel is
considered for the specialist's services of business gatherings and international visitors
having a high standard of living and wishing for the same level of services.
There are about 500 rooms in the hotel with each room having en-suite facilities. Currently,
there are 450 employees working for the hotel out which 300 are working on a full time
basis and remaining on a part time basis. The hotel contacts to outside contractors for
special services of cleaning and events. According to Peter Farnsworth, new general
manager of the hotel, currently the hotel is facing some problems and the focus of this
report is on the problem “Back of house staff (Housekeeping, Kitchen, Maintenance) – poor
operating and control procedures in place with stock being regularly pilfered and evidence
of staff not meeting basic Standard Operating Procedures (SOPS) resulting in unusually high
operating costs”. So this report will be focused on recognizing the resolutions and improving
the performance of the hotel.
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ANALYSIS OF THE INDIVIDUAL PROBLEMS
Business assessment and managing the problems are the activities done by the
management of the organisation to ensure the smooth functioning of the business that will
help the organization to result in great outcomes. The imperial hotel, London is currently
facing various challenges and problems that are in need to be solved effectively to avoid any
future difficulties. There are various management theories considered for managing and
evaluating the organizational and these differ according to the problems and challenges
faces by the organization (Al-Refaie, 2015). The current scenarios of Imperial hotel suggest
that they are facing high problems in managing human resources and maintaining the
relationship between them. So, the human relations management theory is considered here
in this report to enhance the performance of the employees to gain high output (Bratton
and Gold, 2017).
As this report is based on business assessment, one of the main problems and challenges
faced by the Imperial hotel London is the staffing problem. The overall workforce of the
hotel comprising maintenance, kitchen and housekeeping, are not meeting the standards
and requirements of the hotel appropriately. The operating and controlling procedures are
not resulting in accurate outcomes. The goods and stocks are considerably getting stole and
pilfered. There are evidence and customers complaints regarding the unsatisfied services
offered by the workforce. Even these are also costing the hotel high operating costs.
The hotel has always faced a problem in recruiting for the housekeeping department. On an
average, the hotel is considered to provide services in 400-500 days every day. The
Executive Housekeeper along with 12 guiding and management employees oversees the
servicing of the room. The human resource department of the hotel has considerably faced
many problems in the recruitment process of room attendants and even after appointing
some, they are considered to leave the hotel within 6 months. The housekeeping
department of the hotel is considered to have the ratio of 60% of employee turnover. It has
become important for the hotel management to recruit numerous employees who will
serve for the hotel with stability.
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As the case study suggests, the hotel management asked ABC recruitment agency to hire
employees for the hotel. The recruitment agency has experience in the Spanish and English
hospitality industry; they helped the hotel to appoint the employees having highly fluent
language and communication abilities to cope up with customers (Armstrong and Taylor,
2014). They are first judged on the basis of their capabilities and then checked properly
according to the rules. Even they are assessed on the basis of their previous experiences in
the hospitality industry. The costs implicated by the hotel for including recruitment agency
were a bit higher than the employment of home staff. The in-house assistant head
housekeeper of the hotel is a fluent Spanish speaker. She is training the Spanish employees
of the hotel according to the brand standards. The staffs are considering working with other
Spanish staff in their shifts. The in-house room attendants have claimed that Spanish staffs
are not working co-operatively with non-Spanish staff. This shows that the hotel is facing
problem in managing the relationship between the workforces. This is even also causing the
lowering of the standards of services because of the inappropriate working of the staff.
According to the assessment results of texlon system, the Spanish staffs have high-
performance output than home staff. As Peter Farnsworth has suggested some solutions for
the problem and one of these solutions are to higher the staffs with the help of recruitment
agency (Atkinson and Storey, 2016). The hotel is already in contract with ABC recruitment
agency and the Spanish staff hired by ABC have high output rate, the hotel can concentrate
on taking help from the ABC recruitment for employing more Spanish staff who will enhance
the performance criteria of the hotel. The rates charged by ABC recruitment agency are not
so higher and also are not affecting the budget of the hotel; this will be beneficial for the
hotel. As the contract suggests, the Spanish staff have to work for the hotel for at least 12
months, this will also reduce the problem of the employees leaving before 6 months.
As the hotel cannot wholly rely on the recruitment agency, there is a percentage of the in-
house employees hired by the management itself and those are working with the hotel on
the basis of the full-time contract. This full-time contract has made the budget strategies of
the hotel worse and has mad the hotel financially weak. The hotel management has divided
the budget according to different departments and the housekeeping department is costing
a lot to the hotel because of employing staff on full-time contract basis. This problem of the
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hotel can be solved by adopting various strategies. Employing only Spanish staff on the basis
of the full-year contract may lead the hotel management to limit their services and
creativity only to the Spanish staff. So this strategy won’t work. Peter Farnsworth initially
suggested employing students on the basis zero hour contract. This strategy can be very
helpful to the hotel to reduce the operational costs of housekeeping department and also to
implement creativity in the services provided to clients.
The students and graduates completing their degree in hospitality industry always look for a
good hotel to complete their internship. The Imperial hotel’s management can contact
various universities for making them involve their students in the internship program of the
hotel. The management can also directly implement the program and advertise it in nearby
areas of universities to directly apply for the program. The management can consider the
technique of zero hour contract for students to make them burden free while working in a
hotel. This will help the hotel management to ask the students to work in the hotel only
when they are needed. They will pay for the work done according to the hours spent by the
students (Lopes and Dewan, 2014). This will be beneficial for the hotel to reduce the
unwanted costs of extra employees and also to make the employees work only when there
is a high need. This contract will help the hotel management to make the employees work at
the time of when the bookings will be full in the hotel. Zero hour employees are liable to get
the same wages and statutory leave that of regular employees. The employees are free to
work anywhere else too in this period of time as they are not bounded (Koumenta and
Williams, 2016). This point can affect the hotel performance in the case when there will be a
need but all the zero-hour employees will be working somewhere else. The students will not
get negative towards their work as they will be able to learn new things to apply in their
career. This will also advantage the hotel management to learn the desires and
requirements of the customers according to the current trend and also to understand new,
creative and innovative techniques applied by students with respect to their work (Capify,
2015).
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Figure: Pointers for the services provided by the hotel
The above-given figure describes that the pointers received by the hotel regarding their
services and the satisfaction of the customers and employees are very low and are
considered worst. The strategies suggested by Peter Farnsworth can be helpful to the
management for converting these worst points into better.
In recent times, the management of the hotel was considered to get many complaints from
the guests regarding the cleanliness level of the rooms and washrooms. Even some guests
also have a complaint about the rude and abrupt behaviour of the housekeeping staff. The
management decided to go through the case and when investigated, the results showed
that the staff were not happy about their promotions and work and even they were not
getting proper motivation from their respective managers. The affected work of the
employees describes their dissatisfaction level towards their job. Dissatisfied employees can
be a bad outcome for the management (Eldor and Harpaz, 2016). As Peter Farnsworth
initially suggested providing some incentives, bonus and other measures to encourage staff
towards their work, the hotel management can adopt the strategies of encouraging
employees by organizing healthy competitions and activities which may bring them bonus
and incentives if they worked effectively.
To encourage housekeeping department towards their work, the management can adopt
the strategies of customers feedback where the customers have to rate the work of
employees out of 10. The management should provide incentives to employees if the
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employees will get 8 or more than 8 for each of their work by customers. This process will
encourage employees to give their best while working to satisfy customers and get their
good feedbacks (Assaf, et. al. 2015). Apart from this, the management can also techniques
of providing proper training and development methods to employees to make them learn
new techniques for attracting employees and handling them with proper communication
and softness. The training and development methods will encourage employees by making
them feel satisfied with improving their personal and professional skill set (Lazaroiu, 2015).
This will work as an encouragement factor for the employees and they will directly start
performing great to make the customers satisfy in the hotel and wish to visit again.
Strategies adopted by the management to encourage employees and satisfy customers
should be considered in the budget to avoid extra costs. Implementing strategies and
actions in the budget will make the hotel management to generate optimal results which
will directly result in the high development ration for the hotel.
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CONCLUSION
The above report was based on the management theories to be adopted by the
organizations to reduce the chances of problematic situations and increase the profitability
and customer satisfaction. The focus of this report was concentrated on the human
relationship management theory for the Imperial Hotel, London. The hotel is facing a lot of
problems to manage their housekeeping department. The staffs are also not satisfied with
their work and encouragement level. Apart from this, the management is also facing some
problems regarding the hiring of housekeeping staff. The technique of involving recruitment
agencies for employing best recruits for housekeeping department was suggested by Peter
Farnsworth, a new general manager of the hotel. Apart from this, he also suggested
employing students and freshly graduates on zero hour contract basis to avoid the extra
operational costs of the hotel.
These both suggestions will help the hotel management to reduce their employed costs and
get efficient workforce for the hotel. Apart from this, Peter Farnsworth also suggested the
management to encourage employees by offering the incentives and bonus for their great
work. There are some strategies suggested above that can be implemented by the hotel
management to encourage employees and provide them with a bonus in certain situations.
These strategies will also be helpful for the management to gain high customer satisfaction.
Satisfied employees and satisfied customers along with low operational costs and reduced
conflicting situations in the hotel will lead the hotel towards gaining high profitability ratio.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Al-Refaie, A., 2015. Effects of human resource management on hotel performance
using structural equation modeling. Computers in Human Behavior, 43, pp.293-303.
 Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource
management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
 Assaf, A.G., Josiassen, A., Cvelbar, L.K. and Woo, L., 2015. The effects of customer
voice on hotel performance. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 44,
pp.77-83.
 Atkinson, J. and Storey, D.J. eds., 2016. Employment, the small firm and the labour
market. Routledge.
 Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice.
Palgrave.
 Capify, A., 2015. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Zero Hour Contracts. [Online
available at http://www.capify.co.uk/advantages-disadvantages-zero-hour-
contracts/ last accessed 16th March 2018]
 Eldor, L. and Harpaz, I., 2016. A process model of employee engagement: The
learning climate and its relationship with extra role performance behaviors. Journal‐
of Organizational Behavior, 37(2), pp.213-235.
 Erasmus, B., Strydom, J.W. and Rudansky-Kloppers, S. eds., 2016. Introduction to
business management. Oxford University Press Southern Africa.
 Koumenta, M. and Williams, M., 2016. An Anatomy of Zero-Hour Contracts in the
United Kingdom.
 Lazaroiu, G., 2015. Employee motivation and job performance. Linguistic and
Philosophical Investigations, 14, p.97.
 Lopes, A. and Dewan, I., 2014. Precarious pedagogies? The impact of casual and
zero-hour contracts in higher education. Journal of Feminist Scholarship, 7(8), pp.28-
42.
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