Flexibility in People Management: Zero Hour Contracts in Hotel Industry

This study deals with the management of zero hour contracts in the context of Hotel Beaumont and Hotel La Place which are two popular hotels in UK. Benefits and barriers of zero hour contracts are also discussed.

Running head: PEOPLE MANAGEMENT
Flexibility the Use of Zero Hour Contract
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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Introduction
Flexibility management in an organization is a crucial part to enhance the performance of
the employees. Flexibility can be managed by the application of zero hour contracts in an
organization (Brozovic 2018). This study deals with the management of zero hour contracts in
the context of Hotel Beaumont and Hotel La Place which are two popular hotels in UK.
Concept of Zero hour contract
Flexibility is a process that allows an organization to give positive outcomes with
reduced cost and a scheduled time-frame. There are several aspects of flexibility management
one of the most important by the application of zero hour contracts in an organization. Zero hour
contract is a system between the employer and the employees of an organization. In this system,
the employer is not obligated to give any minimum working hours and the staffs are not bounded
to accept any work that is offered by the employer (Lopes and Dewan 2014).
Management of Zero hour contract in the context of Hotel Beaumont and Hotel La Place
Employees in UK prefer the zero hour contract as it makes them flexible in their work. In
the hospitality sectors, it is crucial to follow the flexibility of the employer and the workers to
maximize the performance. According to Atkinson’s model, core workers and the secondary
workers are the major two components of the labor flexibility (Cioara et al. 2018). On the other
hand, Handy’s Shamrock models have three components the core staffs, contractual frings and
consultancy to manage the workforce. Hotel Beaumont and Hotel La Place can apply these two
theories in order to manage the zero hour contracts as well as flexibility in their organization.
These two models enable them to understand workforce management by making their
organization flexible. However, Hotel Beaumont focuses on the on-call scheduling practice in

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their organization to manage the zero hour contracts. They provide short notice to the employees
and call them for work. However, the employees are not bounded to accept any fixed work shift
that is offered by this organization and they are paid as per their working hour
(Thebeaumont.com 2018). They can take their work as per their wish. In the context of Hotel La
Place, they call employees for emergency work with 5 days notice. However, in zero contact
practice, the workers have to take the shift that is offered by the organization (Hotellaplace.com
2018). These two organizations follow two different practices for their zero hour contracts.
Hotel Beaumont focuses on the fast-on-boarding and staff engagement methods to
implement and manage the zero hour contract in their organization. Fast-on-boarding is a
practice that allows the organization to recruit new staffs and obtain fast productivity
(Thesun.co.uk. 2018). Therefore, they trained their new staffs in a proper way, which allows the
new comers to know their team quickly and increase their performance level. It is important for
an organization to enhance the level of employee engagement in their zero hour contract process.
Hotel Beaumont gives their concern to staff engagement through using the interactive media
message. This informs the employees quickly and allows them to show great work.
Hotel La Place has used volume recruitment technique via social media to manage the
zero hour contracts in their organization. However, social media helps an organization to
advertise their recruitment process to the target workers (Williams and Koumenta 2016). Hotel
La Place is able to fill their job details through Facebook and Twitter quickly and deliver it to the
target workers belong from different geographical regions. This enables such organization to get
a high volume recruitment in a cost-effective manner. As a result, their recruitment cost is
discarded and they can get a huge number of employees for their zero contact hour practice.

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Figure: Atkinson’s flexibility
(Source: Cioara et al. 2018)
Figure: Shamrock model
(Source: Williams and Koumenta 2016)
Benefits and barrier of zero hour contracts

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Zero hour contract is beneficial for the hospitality industry as t their daily outcomes are
unpredictable (Arnett et al. 2018). For the hotel La Place and Beaumont this practice will be
helpful to give the staffs flexibility as they are not tied to accept fixed working hours and they
can take a shift as per their wish. This enhances the performance of the worker as well as the
productivity. However, one of the major barriers of zero hour contract that these organizations
are not able to give the employees financial stability, which may hamper the growth of an
organization as employees become dissatisfied with their work. On the other hand, the employers
of hotel La Place and Beaumont failed to protect the employees from discrimination. Therefore,
the huge pressure and unpredictable working hours compel the employees to leave the job, which
affects the growth of an organization.
Brief explanation from
https://www.gov.uk/contract-types-and-employer-responsibilities/zero-hour-contracts and
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1736691/zero-hours-contracts-uk-workers-employers-
rights/
From the first link it has been found that Zero hour contract is also known as casual
contract and by applying it the organization can hire employee through call and short notice that
enhances the recruitment process. In the second link it has been found, that workers who are
associated with Zero hour contract will get little notice and organization paid them based on their
working hour. This is beneficial for the employer to reduce the labor cost.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that application of zero hour contract in the context of hotel La place
and Beaumont will be a great approach to enhance their productivity by providing flexibility to

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the employees. Therefore, it is suitable to recruit high volume workers with low cost, which
increase the productivity.

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References
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