Employability Skills Report: Travelodge Hotel Case Study

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Employa
bility
Skills

Table of Contents
Introduction:..........................................................................................................................................3
Task 1.....................................................................................................................................................4
1.1 Develop a set of own responsibilities and performance objectives.............................................4
1.2 Evaluate own effectiveness against defined objectives...............................................................5
1.3 Make recommendations for improvement..................................................................................6
1.4 Review how motivational techniques can be used to improve quality of performance..............6
Task 2.....................................................................................................................................................7
2.1 Develop solution to work based problems..................................................................................7
2.2 Communicate in a variety of styles and appropriate manner at various levels...........................8
2.3 identify effective time management strategies...........................................................................9
Task 3...................................................................................................................................................11
3.1 Explain the roles people play in team and how they can work together to achieve shared goals.
.........................................................................................................................................................11
3.2 Analyse team dynamics.............................................................................................................12
3.3 Suggest alternative ways to complete tasks and achieve team goals........................................12
Task 4...................................................................................................................................................13
4.1 Evaluate tools and methods for developing solutions to problems with reference to Travelodge
Hotel................................................................................................................................................13
4.2 Develop an appropriate strategy for resolving a particular problem of labour turnover with
reference to Travelodge Hotel.........................................................................................................13
4.3 Evaluate the potential impact on the business of implementing the strategy..........................14
Conclusion:..........................................................................................................................................15
References:..........................................................................................................................................16
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Introduction:
The term employability skills refers to the skills which can either be developed or get
transferred to employees as per the situational demands. The main skills which are
included in the employability skills are the effective communication skills as well as
the technical knowledge that employers look for while appointing candidates for their
organisation. Travelodge is the UK’s largest private company providing
accommodation services in the hospitality industry of UK. Now the company has its
business operations in many parts of the world. The following assignment is based
on the employability skills with respect to Travelodge Hotel. The main focus of the
assignment will be on the identification of challenges faced by employees at
workplace and the Travelodge’s working environment. In addition to this, the
assignment will focus on the identification of the various problems that are faced by
Travelodge Hotel and the various motivation techniques used by the organisation in
order to enhance the performance. The solutions to work-based problem will also be
provided in the following assignment. The report will also discuss the various
strategies that can be used by the Travelodge Hotel in order to reduce the problem
currently existing within organisation i.e. staff turnover.
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Task 1
1.1 Develop a set of own responsibilities and performance
objectives.
The ability in order to encourage the employee for the real performance within the
organisation is gained through the development of own responsibilities as well as
performance objectives. It enables the employee for the one’s constant development
as well as for the self-management (Bradley, 2014). Being appointed as the HR
manager at the UK’s leading group of Hotels Travelodge, it is required that I set my
personal goals in accordance with the organisational goals. The main aim behind
this is to make employee capable of identifying the basic requirements of the job in
order to make them understand what is required out of them and hence enable them
to make efforts in the right direction. It improves the performance as well as assures
success. Following are the ways through which responsibilities and performance can
be developed:
 Planning i.e. set clear goals, planning of converting ideas into action
 Performance i.e. time-management and revision of actions
 Replication i.e. replication of own performance
As a manager in HR department at Travelodge Hotel, I have developed the following
set of responsibilities for myself:
Responsibilities:
 To make sure that the recruitment process within organisation as well as their
selection is carried out in a smooth manner.
 To monthly report and maintain the online performance record of the employees
as well as their payroll.
 Assisting the department in identifying the various training needs for the
employees.
 To improve the employee relations within the organisation so as to improve their
performance (Bradley, 2014)
 To politely attend the queries of employees and resolve them in efficient manner.
 To participate, assist as well as support other managers in the organisation in the
decision making process.
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Performance Objectives:
 My prime objective behind working in the hospitality industry is to gain good
command over the language and to enhance my communication skills.
 To have the improved understanding as well as knowledge in relation with the
employee relation laws and employment laws.
 To enable myself to flexibly perform as per the situation at workplace.
 To encourage my team members for improved performance.
 To set standards for myself so as to meet organisational goals (Bradley, 2014)
1.2 Evaluate own effectiveness against defined objectives
As discussed above, the responsibilities as well as the performance objectives have
been set by me. Therefore, now I am required to evaluate my own effectiveness
against the desired organisational objectives.
Firstly, as a manger of the organisation it is important that I participate and support
the policies as well as procedures of organisation and in order to achieve this
objective, I need to introduce the policy framework for all the employees working in
the organisation at present (Wysocki, 2012).
Secondly, I need to carefully analyse the workforce requirements for the organisation
and recruit and select employees for the individual when and where required.
Therefore, it becomes my responsibility to ensure smooth functioning of the whole
recruitment process. The various candidates’ needs to be examined on the basis of
various tests and exams and by properly being informed about all the procedures
followed by the organisation for their selection.
Once the employees gets selected by the organisation, I need to make them
understand the organisational culture followed by communicating them various rules
and regulations (Wysocki, 2012). In this way they will be able to work in an effective
manner. For this, it is required that I possess proper knowledge of employment laws.
Another major objective of mine being the manager of the organisation, is to retain
qualified and potential employees for the organisation. This is being achieved by
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providing employees with various motivational techniques such as performance
appraisals and employee empowerment through promotions and appraisals.
Hence, all the above mentioned responsibilities will enable me to perform my job and
responsibilities effectively and evaluating my own performance against the
organisational objectives.
1.3 Make recommendations for improvement.
Within an organisation, there exists various business activities which takes place
either within an organisation or outside the organisation and out of which few are
easy to deal with while others require knowledge as well as experience so as to take
precise decision. It’s been long since I have been employed by Travelodge
organisation and there were many things which I used to lack in during my training
and my appointment time with this organisation. The most important skill which I
lacked in was the communication skills. I was not a good communicator and
therefore I used to get nervous while interacting with my peers as well as my
supervisors and managers. I used to get nervous while presenting my thoughts as
well as ideas in front of my peers and therefore there was lack of confidence in me
(Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).
Therefore, after being encouraged by my seniors at workplace and my managers, I
decided to improve my communication skills and hence I took various actions so as
to develop effective communication skills including both written and verbal. I started
working on my language so as to develop my writing skills. I was motivated by my
organisation for the same and therefore my organisation provided me proper training
and development program so as to enable me to work on these skills. Therefore, on
the whole with the support of my trainers as well as my seniors and my organisation,
slowly I started implementing lessons learnt in training at my workplace and
improved my skills (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).
1.4 Review how motivational techniques can be used to improve
quality of performance.
There are various types of motivational techniques that are used by the organisation
and their managers in order to enhance the performance. These includes both
financial techniques of motivation as well as non-financial. Their impact is explained
as below:
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 Monetary Rewards: Giving monetary awards to employees serves as the
financial motivator and encourages the employees to give their best to the
organisation. This is being given in the form of salary increment, incentive or
bonus etc. (Goetsch and Davis, 2014)
 Performance Recognition: organisations can also encourage their employees to
perform to their level best by providing them recognition on the basis of their
performance in the form of appraisal letter, word of praise or by appreciating their
efforts in front of other employees.
 Employee Engagement or participation: Engaging employees in the process of
organisational decision making and valuing their opinions and thoughts provide
employees with job satisfaction and this motivates them to enhance their
performance (Goetsch and Davis, 2014).
 Competition: Competition is yet another important technique of motivating
employees as employees usually performs better when they are made to
compete against their colleagues.
Task 2
2.1 Develop solution to work based problems.
Problem solution means identifying the root cause of the problem and then carefully
providing the suitable solution for resolving the issue. Being the manager, I have
always tried to find out the organisational issues and problems and provide the best
possible solution in order to resolve the issue (Burgoon, et.al, 2016). During my
course of working with Travelodge, I have identified following problems and the
solution is also provided with them:
 The barrier of communication: One of the major problems identified by me is
the ineffective and improper channel of communication that exists between the
management and the employees of the Travelodge. It has been found that
employees of the hotel find it difficult to properly communicate their feelings as
well as their concerns and issues with the senior management of the hotel and
this is because of the absence of the proper channel of communication.
Therefore employees must be made free to openly share their ideas as well as
their problems with the top management and in order to achieve this, the
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organisation should held weekly meetings where employees can openly discuss
their issues with the top management and share their ideas and opinions
(Burgoon, et.al, 2016).
 Recruitment: Another major problem that was identified at Travelodge Hotel was
its poor recruitment process. The recruitment at Travelodge does not consist of
the job analysis and therefore it was not possible to recruit candidates as per the
requirement of the different positions (Burgoon, et.al, 2016). This affected the
quality of the services being delivered. Therefore, in order to recruit the suitable
candidates, the organisation carried out the job analysis and also took the help of
the placement agency for the recruitment as well as selection of the appropriate
candidates.
2.2 Communicate in a variety of styles and appropriate manner at
various levels.
The various styles of communication can be explained using the following two styles
which are used by the manager at Travelodge. The first is the formal letter to senior
management in order to inform about organisational problems and the other is the
memo to the other staff members of the Travelodge (Mackall, 2014).
Formal Letter
Dear Senior Manager,
I am writing this letter in order to explain the various issues that have been observed
by me during the past one month in the Travelodge Hotel and therefore decided to
inform you about the same.
Being the manager of the organisation, I have observed that there is lack of proper
communication channel between the staff members and the senior management and
this creates difficulties for the employees to interact with senior staff as well as to
share their problems with us. In addition to this, the lack of effective communication
and the appropriate channel of communication also prevents the easy flow of
information and the availability of the new innovative ideas from different employees
and hence the productivity gets hampered.
Therefore, I suggest as well as request you on the behalf of the employees to
develop effective channel of communication so that the employees may feel free to
discuss their problems. Also, there is a need of weekly group discussions between
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staff members and senior managers so as to find out the mutual solution for the
various problems encountered at Travelodge.
I look forward to you for the passing of my advice to senior staff as well and I hope
that some serious and proper action will be taken as soon as possible.
Yours Sincerely,
John David
Manager
Memo to staff members
To: All Staff Members
From: Manager
Subject: Group discussion cum Dinner
Date: 22-05-2019
The company has decided to have a formal discussion on the various problems that
are being faced by the staff members regarding the channel of communication.
Therefore, all the staff members are hereby informed as well as invited to join the
senior managers and directors at Hotel Lee Garden, on the evening of the 28th May
2019 for dinner. Further details will be circulated as soon as we receive them. All the
staff members who are interested in participate in group discussion, kindly leave
their names here.
2.3 identify effective time management strategies.
The following time management strategies can be used by Travelodge Hotel so as to
enhance the productivity as well as to accomplish the desired organisational
objectives:
 The organisation needs to identify the amount of time that is being spent by the
employees on the various organisational activities. This helps in the determining
as to whether the valuable time is being spent on the right activity (Griffin, 2013).
 In order to perform the various tasks, the organisation must set priorities by
preparing the list of all the activities that needs to be performed on the day-to-
day, weekly, monthly as well as quarterly basis.
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 In order to improve the productivity of the organisation, the managers of the
Travelodge Hotel must make use of the personal planning tools. This can be
done by writing down the various tasks that needs to be performed as well as
scheduling them in proper manner.
 In addition to this, the organisation must prevent the multitasking as it hampers
the productivity (Griffin, 2013).
 The employees of the hotel must avoid talking on phones for the long hours and
texting and messaging while working in the hotel.
Therefore, by performing above time management strategies, the organisation can
enhance its productivity as well as functioning.
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Task 3
3.1 Explain the roles people play in team and how they can work
together to achieve shared goals.
Teams play an important and critical role in the success of the organisation as team
work provides assistance to management in the achievement of tasks on time as
well as with effectiveness. There are various roles that can be played by different
team members that ensures the mutual cooperation of team members as well as the
achievement of the shared goals. The various roles are defined under the Belbin’s
model which includes shapers, complete finishers, evaluators, team workers,
specialists, planters, coordinators etc. It is the responsibility of the team leaders to
delegate tasks in proper and appropriate manner so as to ensure the timely
achievement of the organisational objectives. It is also important for the team leader
to ensure effective communication between team members so as to make sure that
roles and responsibilities are understood by each and every member (Belbin, 2013).
The following are the roles that are adopted by the various team members at
Travelodge:
Shapers: The team members who challenges other team members in order to bring
improvement.
Implementers: Those who are responsible for getting tasks done.
Finishers: The one who has the responsibility of completing the projects on time.
Coordinators: Coordinator is being assigned the responsibility of the team leader.
Team workers: Team workers are those who make sure that all the members of the
team are working together to achieve shared goals (Belbin, 2013).
Resource Investigators: Those who interact with other stakeholders of the
organisation.
Planters: Those who are responsible for bringing new ideas to the team.
Evaluators: Those who analyse all the possibilities of the particular idea
implementation.
Specialist: Those who possess specialised skills and expertise.
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3.2 Analyse team dynamics.
The term team dynamics business refers to those forces that has an impact on the
performance as well as the behaviour of the teams and their members. The team
dynamics is considered to be effective if it enhances the performance of the team
members and hence helps organisation to achieve maximised profitability. The result
of the effective team dynamics on the functioning of the Travelodge can be
understood from following:
 Effective team dynamics provides job satisfaction to employees by providing
positive working environment at workplace (Charian and Jacob, 2013).
 The positive thinking as well as the positive attitude of the employees’ results in
positive team dynamics and this helps the hotel in further growth.
 It empowers the employees and encourage them to share ideas openly with each
other which helps in resolving issues easily.
 It enhances the relationship among the team members that results in improved
group efforts (Charian and Jacob, 2013).
3.3 Suggest alternative ways to complete tasks and achieve team
goals.
It becomes easier to achieve the organisational goals if the employees of the
organisation are motivated as well as self-directed. In addition to this, the
responsibilities as well as the duties must be clearly defined and explained so as to
help employees meet their objectives (Drucker, 2013). This approach is mainly used
by Travelodge hotel so as to utilise the maximum potential of their employees.
In order to enhance the quality of the performance of the employees, Travelodge
makes use of several strategies. Travelodge rewards the employees who meet their
deadlines within time frame and assures quality. It also encourages employees to
perform extra ordinarily by providing rewards in the form of incentives, bonus, travel
package etc. project leaders make sure that consistency is maintained in the tasks
and effective communication channel is established through reliability which
encourages communication between employees and higher authorities. The effective
communication between the employees and the management enables the
employees to participate in decision making and present their ideas and suggestions
which helps the organisation in the attainment of its business objectives (Drucker,
2013).
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