Imperial Hotel: Addressing Front Office Management Challenges Report

This report examines the management challenges faced by the front office of Imperial Hotel, London, focusing on issues within the reception, banqueting, and conference departments. It highlights problems such as employee conflicts, inaccurate information flow between departments, and inefficiencies in the IT systems, including the property management system. The report analyzes the impact of these issues on customer service, including rude behavior from staff and cleanliness complaints. Solutions proposed include implementing staff training programs to improve IT skills and customer service, fostering better communication and coordination among departments through team-building activities, and establishing performance-based rewards to motivate employees. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of effective management for operational efficiency, improved customer satisfaction, and a positive brand image. It provides specific recommendations for conflict resolution, IT system improvements, and employee performance reviews to address the identified problems.

INTRODUCTION TO
MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Interpretation of the problem..................................................................................................1
Solutions.................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
The management plays a very crucial role in carrying out various operations that are been
processed in the organisation in order to maintain its profitability and productivity. The effective
management of the organisation will look after the different operations that are been taken into
the consideration by the company and will provide the effective results or outputs (Schermerhorn
and et.al., 2014). For this report, we have taken Imperial Hotel, London for the organisation of
context. It is the part of the chain of luxury hotels, based in UK. For this report, we have taken
into the consideration the problem of the Front of the House staff at the Hotel.
In the recent time, the hotel has faced a severe loss due to the ineffective management of
the reception and other parts of the hotel such as banqueting and conference rooms, restaurants
and bars of the cited firm. Besides this, the poor management of IT systems that involves the
customer's reservation and property management system manages the various information is
been generated by the different departments of the organisation. The employee's at the front desk
has been in conflict due to delayed and incorrect information provided to them. The
housekeeping facility has been also provided wrong details about requirements of various
organisations (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017). The reception department is also dysfunctional in
most of the cases and can't manage the proper handling of various information received from
different departments of the cited firm. Thus, the proper solutions to these issues have been
suggested in the report.
Interpretation of the problem
The main role of the front office management within Imperial Hotel is to welcome the guests as
well as making all the transactions of them smooth. The front office staff (Reception,
Conference, Bars and restaurants) needs to use various technologies in their day to day
operations or activities. The reception of the hotel required to be open 24 hours a day in order to
serve the guests. The hotel uses a Micros Fidelio reservation and Property management system
(PMS) which helps in providing up to date information regarding the reservation and guests.
There are various departments operating within the hotel which are interconnected by effective
IT system. The various departments use the software and applications for communicating or
sharing information among themselves (Bajželj and et.al., 2014).
There are various issues faced by the departments within the hotel, many times the key
reception staff met with conflicts with the other departments in the hotel. Other departments face
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issue and complaints regarding the incorrect or wrong information provided by the reception
staff. IT system needs should be utilised effectively for keeping the records and information
about check-ins, check-outs, reservations, guest arrivals, guest departures. The hotel staff also
faces many issues due to poor team work. For example – if the reception employee's provides
wrong or incorrect information to the hospitality department regarding the guest arrival, the
hospitality department will fail to set or make the room. This can be a major issue and result in
major inconvenience for the guests (Chelladurai and Kerwin, 2017).
The cited hotel, i.e. Imperial Blue has recorded or analysed various problems related to
its house staff. The house staffs consist of the personnel at the reception, conference, banqueting
and the restaurant & bar section of the hotel. A detailed analysis of the problems has concluded
the following:
 The staff appointed at the reception does not responds quickly to the needs of its
customers. Even, sometimes, they have been found rude as well as aggressive while
answering or responding towards the customers.
 Also, the receptionist has found to be involved in the conflicts with other departments,
which has created a negative impact of the firm’s image in the minds of its concerned
customers.
 The reception has also found to be inefficient in providing the relevant data to the house
keeping regarding the arrivals as well as departures of the customers in the mentioned
hotel.
 The customers also reported the problems related to the cleanliness of the hotel rooms.
Often, they have been found to be untidy and unhygienic by the visitors (Stark, 2015).
 The personnel who are required to operate IT systems, lack the perfect knowledge needed
for the same. This has resulted in some technical problems with the cited hotel and its
house staff.
 Many times, it has happened that the conference as well as banqueting staffs have been
provided with the wrong information regarding arrival of number of guests and other
aspects related to the conference or event that is being held.
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All these problems with the house staff can become a serious threat for destroying its image in
the minds of its clients and customers.
The Reception department of Imperial Hotel has also failed miserably. The staff of the
reception are facing a stiff conflict with the different departments of the cited firm due to the
numerous complaints and the inaccurate and delayed information that is been provided by them.
For instance, the Housekeeping was provided with the outdated information about the early or
the late arrival of the guests that lead to the confusion and uncertainty about the guest staying in
the hotel. This lead to failure of the housekeeping department of the hotel to clean the rooms
before the arrival of the guests, affecting their satisfaction level (McNeil, Frey and Embrechts,
2015). Besides this, the reception department has also been dysfunctional without proper
handover and other information, causing the guests and others to wait for the keys of the rooms
for the long period. The Conferencing and the banqueting department should be provided the
appropriate number of the guests coming for the event, conference or the meetings at the hotel so
that they can look after the required arrangements which they can't make due to the ineffective
communication with the reception.
The HOD of Reception and Front Office, working with the association with the GM, is
aware of the conflicts that are being ongoing between various departments of the company. They
are looking for the effective measures to manage this conflict to regain the productivity and
performance level of the hotel. They would try to get rid of the blame culture in the company and
will look after the avoidance of the clashes between the higher authorities in the hotel. The
reviewing of the individual employee's on the basis of performance and productivity to aid the
better development and training process (Rasul and Rogger, 2016).
Solutions
As Imperial Hotel, London is a venture providing hospitality services to the visitors of the hotel,
the services rendered need to be effective and efficient as well as customer oriented. Customers
are the key aspects for every organisational structure. The cited firm has also analysed certain
customer grievances and complaints regarding the house staff appointed in the hotel. The house
staffs include the personnel working at the Reception, Conference, Banqueting and Restaurant &
Bars. They are the personnel from the mentioned venture who gets directly in the contact of the
customers as they directly provide services to them (Monczka and et.al., 2015).
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All these complaints call for the management team to develop effective as well as beneficial
training programmes for the employees. The present organisation has analysed problem with IT
system and their operations. The firm should strictly provide necessary training to the personnel
who are required to operate the system in order to provide relevant data to other personnel, while
rendering services to the customers. This knowledge gained from the training program will
generate their expertise in the required IT processes.
It is also analysed that, the house staff of the mentioned hotel has some inner built
conflicts. The head of the department should introduce some effective measures to avoid the
conflicts that are prevailing in the firm. The new manager of the cited venture should undertake
various activities to build coordination among the personnel in the house staff. As a general
principle of management, coordinating leads to generate team spirit among the members and the
team spirit generated can give beneficial results to the concerned organisation (Raj and Griffin,
2015). Also, coordination leads to generate cooperation on the part of employees. They will
coordinate as well as cooperate with each other resulting in reducing the impact of conflicts
generated. These activities can be undertaken by assigning group tasks or by playing team
building games or by providing group rewards.
The manager of the cited company should also generate motivational factors. The success
of an organisation highly depends on the workings as well as efficiencies of the personnel
appointed. The cited venture has determined certain inefficiencies of its staff. These
inefficiencies can be the outcome of the lack of motivational factors to the employees. In order to
overcome this issue, the appointed new head should generate motivational spirit in the firm, by
providing timely performance appraisal reports and rewards for the best performances should
also be provided (Booth, 2015). This rewards can be provided either in monetary or non-
monetary forms. Monetary rewards includes providing extra income to the employees in the
form of incentives, whereas, non-monetary rewards includes gift vouchers, promotion or an oral
appreciation of the work performed, from the senior may also motivate the concerned individuals
to work efficiently.
Besides this, the management of the Imperial hotel can look after the effective
management of the various conflicts and will help the company to meet the customer's
requirement in a better way. Apart from this, they will look after the building of the better
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coordination among the various employee's of different departments of the organisation that will
lead to better management of the staff. Other than this, the poor management of the information
and its transfer can be handled by improving the communication and IT system or the Property
Management System (PMS) of the company and helping them to fulfil the communication gap
between the various systems that are been taken into the consideration by the company. The
Imperial Hotel can adopt and implement the latest IT technologies in the organisation and
providing the suitable training to the employee's to use it (Rasul and Rogger, 2016). The better
cross team building activities and the interdepartmental activities that will help the organisation
to increase the effective interaction between the employee's of the various departments and will
help them to know and recognise about each other to carry out the various operations effectively
and efficiently in the cited firm. Besides this, the better reviewing of the employee's performance
in the hotel on the basis of performance and productivity will also help the business organisation
to look after the scope of various improvements that can be made to improve the work
performance of the different employee's and develop a better team coordination.
All these measures listed to be adopted or inculcated by the manager of the cited hotel,
will assist the organisation to overcome all the issues concerned with the house staff. It also
ensures good image of the firm in the minds of its visitors as well as customers.
CONCLUSION
Thus, from the report, we can conclude that effective and the efficient management is
very necessary for the better execution of various operations in the cited firm. In the report, we
have discussed various issues and the problems that are being faced by Imperial hotel. The
numerous issues or the conflicts that are being faced by the Front office and Reception of the
cited organisation have been discussed such as the communication gap between different
departments and the non functioning of the Reception desk causing the problems faced by the
guests or the clients and the poor services by housekeeping of the organisation. Various suitable
measures such as development of the cross team building exercises and providing effective
measures to gain better training using different IT tools to sport the better communication
process in the organisation. Besides this, the effective bonus scheme that will be adopted by the
management to motivate the employees will help in better performance of the employee's in the
cited firm.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Bajželj, B. and et.al., 2014. Importance of food-demand management for climate
mitigation. Nature Climate Change. 4(10). pp.924.
Booth, S.A., 2015. Crisis management strategy: Competition and change in modern enterprises.
Routledge.
Chelladurai, P. and Kerwin, S., 2017. Human resource management in sport and recreation.
Human Kinetics.
Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
McNeil, A.J., Frey, R. and Embrechts, P., 2015. Quantitative risk management: Concepts,
techniques and tools. Princeton university press.
Monczka, R.M. and et.al., 2015. Purchasing and supply chain management. Cengage Learning.
Raj, R. and Griffin, K.A. eds., 2015. Religious tourism and pilgrimage management: An
international perspective. CABI.
Rasul, I. and Rogger, D., 2016. Management of bureaucrats and public service delivery:
Evidence from the nigerian civil service. The Economic Journal.
Schermerhorn, J. and et.al., 2014. Management: Foundations and Applications (2nd Asia-Pacific
Edition). John Wiley & Sons.
Stark, J., 2015. Product lifecycle management. In Product Lifecycle Management (Volume 1). pp.
1-29. Springer, Cham.
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