Facilitating Harmonious Working Relationships at Custom House Bar

This report investigates strategies to facilitate harmonious working relationships between new and existing staff at the Custom House Bar within the Marriott Hotel in Sydney. The research explores the background of the Custom House Bar, identifies the problem of staff conflict, and outlines the research aim, objectives, and significance. A comprehensive literature review examines co-worker conflict, employee retention, and the relationship between these two factors. The methodology includes a qualitative approach with data collected through an interview with a bar supervisor. Findings reveal a lack of communication as a primary source of conflict. The report recommends implementing introductory sessions, enhancing communication, providing training, and promoting social interaction to improve staff relationships. An action table based on the SMART framework is also included for successful implementation of these recommendations.

[School]
[Course title]
What Strategies could be employed to facilitate harmonious working relationships between new and
existing staff at the Custom House Bar at the Marriott hotel, Sydney?
[Document subtitle]

1 CONTENTS
2 Abstract........................................................................................................................... 1
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................... 1
2.1 Background of the Study..........................................................................................1
2.2 Problem Statement, Research Purpose, Aim & Objective........................................2
2.3 Significance of The Research..................................................................................2
2.4 Scope of the Report.................................................................................................2
3 Literature Review............................................................................................................ 3
3.1 Co-worker Conflict....................................................................................................3
3.2 Employee Retention.................................................................................................3
3.3 Relationship Between Co-workers conflict and Employee Retention.......................4
4 Research Methods..........................................................................................................4
4.1 Methodology............................................................................................................ 4
4.2 Population and Sampling Techniques......................................................................5
4.3 Data collection.........................................................................................................5
4.4 Data Analysis...........................................................................................................5
4.5 Ethical Consideration...............................................................................................5
4.6 Validity, Reliability, and Transferability.....................................................................6
5 Findings & Discussion.....................................................................................................6
5.1 Reasons for conflicts between new and existing employees....................................6
5.2 Introductory sessions...............................................................................................7
5.3 Build an effective organizational link to increase customer retention........................7
5.4 Enhance communication and collaboration between new and existing staff
members............................................................................................................................. 7
5.5 Training sessions.....................................................................................................7
6 Conclusion...................................................................................................................... 8
6.1 Limitation of this study..............................................................................................8

7 Recommendation & Implementation...............................................................................8
7.1 Motivation.................................................................................................................9
7.2 Reward system........................................................................................................9
7.3 Career and development..........................................................................................9
7.4 Encourage people to socialize outside of work.........................................................9
7.5 Action table for recommendations............................................................................9
8 Reference...................................................................................................................... 10
9 Appendices interview Transcript....................................................................................13
9.1 Appendix – A..........................................................................................................13
2 ABSTRACT
The main aim of this report is to investigate effective strategies that can be implemented to
support harmonious working relationships between existing and new staff members at the
Custom House Bar at the Marriot Hotel, Sydney. In order to complete this study, the data
was collected from various journal articles in order to identify the research gap. In this
research qualitative research methodology has implemented to investigate the key factors
which affect the relationship between co-workers at the hotel. The supervisor of the bar was
interviewed for gathering information about the root causes of existing conflicting problems.
Through the interview, it has been found that there is a lack of communication between new
and old employee groups at Custom House Bar. By providing a healthy and positive working
environment, business organizations can increase effectiveness, job commitment,
productivity and efficiency of employees. In this report, it has been recommended to the
organization to encourage people to socialize outside of work, implement career and
development program, reward system and motivate employees for building a harmonious
relationship between employees in an organization. At last, the action table has been
designed based on the SMART framework for the successful implementation of
recommendations.
1. INTRODUCTION

2.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
This report is about the Custom House Bar located at the Marriot Hotel in Sydney. It is a
vibrant and historic gastropub and beer garden that offers exceptional bar services to
Sydney locals and travelers. In the current scenario, Custom House Bar has been
experiencing some issues related to the staffing which adversely affected the demand for
hotel services in Sydney. Conflict is the root cause of staffing problems which negatively
affect the employee-employee relationships. The conflicts occur in the workplace due to
inappropriate collaboration and communication between existing and new staff members.
Business organizations cannot survive and attain competitive advantages if their employees
are engaged in conflicts & fights. The success of organizations directly proportional to the
relationships among employees. It is imperative to develop a favorable relationship, improve
harmony among the employees in order to enhance the performance of private banks.
Conflicts among staff members might escalate and results in non-productive results.
Conflicts could result in depression and tensions among staff members. Interpersonal, inter-
organizational, intergroup and intrapersonal conflicts. Moreover, organizations should take
appropriate steps to avoid the presence of conflicting situations for achieving business
objectives. It is impossible to eliminate conflicts at the workplace, but by establishing proper
policies and guidelines for promotion practices and work responsibilities can create a
harmonious environment. In this report, the root causes of conflicts among new and existing
staff members at Custom House Bar have been researched.
2.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT, RESEARCH PURPOSE, AIM & OBJECTIVE
The customers of Custom House Bar are not satisfied with the services offered by the staff
members due to lack of coordination, collaboration, and presence of conflicts among new
and existing staff members. These problems have an adverse impact on the customer,
employees and over the profitability of the bar. The main aim of this report is to investigate
effective strategies that can be implemented to support harmonious working relationships
between existing and new staff members at the Custom House Bar at the Marriot Hotel,
Sydney.
This study will help
To identify key problem factors due to which services of Custom House Bar
facing downtime.
To investigate an effective mitigation process that will allow the bar to mitigate
identified problems.

To identify strategies that will create harmonious working relationships between
existing & new staff members
2.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH
This research is highly important and significant for Custom House Bar as its key findings
will help the existing staff members to build harmonious relationships with their co-workers at
the workplace and vice versa. Moreover, this study will help the Custom House Bar to
address all the problematic areas and create a healthy working environment. Along with this,
the research findings will be beneficial for scholars, practitioners & researchers as they can
enhance their knowledge on the research topic.
2.4 SCOPE OF THE REPORT
This research document has been partitioned into six sections. The first section of this report
covers a brief background, report outline (scope), significance, problem statement, aim and
objectives of the research. In the next section, the literature of various journal articles and
industry publications focusing on co-worker conflict, the relationship between employee and
co-workers and employee retention have been reviewed in order to identify the research
gap. The third section focuses on research methodology and data collection techniques. In
the next section, the collected data has been analyzed in order to present research findings.
The fifth section concludes the problems and analysis results discussed in the previous
sections. Lastly, some recommendations have been provided to the Custom House Bar on
the basis of research to create harmonious relationships between staff members.
3 LITERATURE REVIEW
3.1 CO-WORKER CONFLICT
Conflict can be defined as an inevitable & natural aspect of employer-employee interaction
which might cause dysfunctional or functional consequences. (Yirik, 2015) suggested that
organizational factors such as motivational resources, interpersonal communication, and
management style should be considered by organizations to minimize conflicts. In the

context of the hospitality industry, the employee turnover caused by conflicts at the
workplace is the biggest problem at a global level (Nicolaides, 2018). Poor behavior,
discrimination, pay issues, and poor staffing are the main root causes of conflicts among
workers at the workplace (Katz, 2015).
(Jung & Yoon, 2018) investigated the impact of conflict management on the improvement of
innovative behavior of employees in the hospitality industry. The research findings indicated
that conflict management climate can increase innovate innovative behavior and employee
engagement at the workplace. (Kodikal & Rahiman, 2014) explored various types of conflict
management strategies and indicated that 50% of conflicts can be resolved at the workplace
through collaborative strategy.
3.2 EMPLOYEE RETENTION
Employee retention can be defined as the ability of business organizations to retain their
valuable and experienced staff members (Fox, 2012). Presently, the hospitality industry
focuses on employee retention because employee turnover results in low customer
satisfaction and revenue loss. Many of the researchers proved that communication and
collaboration strategy can be implemented by the hospitality industry to increase happiness
among employees which leads to high employee retention (Das & Baruah, 2013). The
company culture, training, and development, remuneration and reward strategies have a
positive impact on employee retention. (PRAGASSA, 2017) suggested that appreciative
working and learning climate contributes positively to employee retention.
The managers of hotels need to understand the key retention strategies which have been
implemented by famous organization leaders in order to reduce employee turnover and
increase employee retention (Scott, 2016). Currently, senior management of hospitality
industry should keep into account the sensitivity & importance of the issue of employee
retention and factors affect the job satisfaction among the employees.
(Mathimaran & Kumar, 2017) suggested that Respect, Rewards, and Recognition are three
Rs of employee retention that should be implemented to keep high employee satisfaction
and retention. (Ezeuduji & Mbane, 2017) investigated various types of employee retention

factors by taking an example of Hotels in Cape Town S.A. The research findings indicated
that work relations, working hours, employee engagement and compensation are main
factors which support employee retention in an effective way.
3.3 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CO-WORKERS CONFLICT AND EMPLOYEE
RETENTION
Co-workers conflicts in the workplace are one of the main reasons for employee turnover
and employee dissatisfaction (Ahmed, 2014). There are various factors named as employee
absenteeism, motivational factors, turnover, co-worker conflicts, managerial and decision-
making factors which create a problematic situation for business organizations as these
factors have an adverse impact on employee performance
(Mao, Hsieh & Chen, 2012). (Weerarathna & Weerasinghe, 2017) proved that there is a
positive relationship between employee’s intention to leave an organization and
organizational conflicts. The HR department should take appropriate initiatives for reducing
employee turnover by resolving conflicts among co-workers at an earlier stage. Awareness
sessions should be conducted by the hospitality industry to educate workers about the
adverse effects of organizational conflicts.
(Nwokocha, 2015) explored that poor leadership behavior, work environment and lack of
effective communication are main factors which undermine industrial harmony and
organizational productivity. Hospitality organizations can promote a culture of harmony by
mitigating conflicts. Moreover, harmonious working environment guarantees the employee’s
aspirations and satisfaction of workers. Employees having a high level of harmony can
resolve conflicts at the workplace (Osatuke, Leiter & Belton, 2013). By reviewing the
literature of various academic sources, it has been found that there is limited research
conducted on promoting harmonious working relationships between new & existing staff in
context to the hospitality industry. This research will overcome this research gap.
4 RESEARCH METHODS
4.1 METHODOLOGY
In order to complete this project, the data was collected from various journal articles in order
to identify the research gap. Moreover, qualitative research methodology was

implemented to investigate the key factors which affect the relationship between co-workers
at Custom House Bar in Marriot Hotel, Sydney. For completing this research project, I have
utilized personal interview as a data collection technique. In the following section, the
research findings have been discussed on the basis of perception and opinions of an
interviewee.
4.2 POPULATION AND SAMPLING TECHNIQUES
For this research project, I have collected data about problems faced by staff members at
Custom House Bar from only a single person due to a limited period of time. Personal
interview was conducted with the Bar Supervisor for data collection. Before conducting an
interview session, the interview questions were structured and documented in advance so
that data can be gathered in a systematic way. Mr. David is a bar supervisor who has
extensive knowledge both about staff members and the Marriot Hotel. I was selected for an
interview because he is a consistent performer in the organization from the last 3 years. As a
bar supervisor, he is working with many staff members at the workplace on a regular basis.
That was why he was preferred among other staff members for this project.
Moreover, non-probability sampling also known as judgemental sampling technique was
utilized for conducting this research. This technique is suitable when there is a restricted
number of participants, limited criteria, tight research budget and limited time (Foley, 2018).
In this type of sampling technique, the researchers have communicated directly with their
target audience for producing research results. It does not require knowledge of statistical or
mathematical tools to test data samples which saves valuable time of researchers.
4.3 DATA COLLECTION
Data collection can be defined as a process of gathering data/information from various kinds
of related sources in order to answer the research question (Paradis, O'Brien, Nimmon,
Bandiera & Martimianakis, 2016). There are two types of data collection methods named as
secondary data collection and primary data collection. In order to answer the research
question, the qualitative primary data collection method was utilized. In this method,
qualitative data was collected from Mr. David (Bar Supervisor) by conducting an interview
session. Both close-ended and open-ended questions were asked to the interviewee for data
collection so that the respondent can present his perspective properly. In order to provide
comfort to the respondent, the interview was recorded with the use of a voice recorder after
taking his permission. Moreover, during the interview session, personal questions were
avoided.

4.4 DATA ANALYSIS
A qualitative data analysis technique was utilized in order to examine the data collected
during interview sessions. The answers of both open-ended and closed-ended research
questions were critically analyzed for presenting the collected information in a systematic
way. In addition to this, a data reduction tool was utilized for presenting collected data in a
theoretical way. In order to perform data analysis, the gathered information was summarized
in the form of research findings and recommendations.
4.5 ETHICAL CONSIDERATION
The following ethical considerations were considered when doing this research work:
In order to preserve the confidentiality and privacy bar supervisor, none of the
sensitive and private information was exposed (Moosavi & Hasani, 2017).
The consent from interviewee has obtained prior to the research.
An interview should not be subjected to harm in any way.
4.6 VALIDITY, RELIABILITY, AND TRANSFERABILITY
The validity demonstrates whether the research approach is capable to answer the research
question or not. This research is valid and genuine as the primary data has been collected to
identify key factors due to which services of Custom House Bar facing downtime. Moreover,
the research question can be answered by the research design. Hence, the research is valid
and reliable. On the other hand, the research might not be trustworthy and credible because
interview technique was used for data collection. Moreover, the findings of the research are
based on the perspective of one interviewee which might not be accurate. As a result, the
research findings and collected data cannot be used in another context which depicts that
research is non-transferable.
5 FINDINGS & DISCUSSION
In order to achieve research objectives, Mr. David (a bar supervisor) was interviewed for
gathering information about the root causes of existing conflicting problems. A direct
interview was conducted for gathering the required information. Through an interview, it has
been found that there is poor communication between new and old employee groups at
Custom House Bar. By providing a good working environment, business organizations can

increase effectiveness, job commitment, productivity and efficiency of employees. The key
findings of this investigation are explained below:
5.1 REASONS FOR CONFLICTS BETWEEN NEW AND EXISTING EMPLOYEES
During an interview session, Mr. David provided information about the reasons for conflicts
between new and existing employees. It has been found that conflicts adversely affect the
performance of employees. In the following section, major issues of conflicts have been
discussed:
 Staff members do not respect other’s work: According to the information provided
by Mr. David, the new and existing staff members do not respect the work done by
each other. Currently, there is no introductory session has been conducted by the
management to spread awareness about key business operations of Custom House
Bar among new employees which result in the occurrence of conflicts among new
employee group and existing employee group.
 Tit-for-tat approach – The new and old employee always trying to bring down each
other at the workplace by practicing a tit-for-tat approach. It is a critical problem
which adversely affects the performance of all team members.
 Poor communication and collaboration among staff members – There are two
groups in our organization i.e. new employee group and old employee group. Both
groups are working in a different way which is the root cause of conflicts among
them. The conflict is the topmost issue because new employees do not interact with
old staff members at the workplace due to lack of collaboration among them.
 Employee turnover – The organizational conflicts increase employee turnover due
to which it is difficult for the Manager of Custom House Bar to retain experienced
employees.
5.2 INTRODUCTORY SESSIONS
From the perspective of Supervisor, the Bar Manager should conduct introductory sessions
in order to spread awareness among new staff members regarding the working culture of
Custom House Bar. The introductory session should be conducted on the day of joining as it
will allow the organization to avoid the occurrence of conflicting situations (Raziq &
Maulabakhsh, 2015).

5.3 BUILD AN EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONAL LINK TO INCREASE CUSTOMER
RETENTION
The organizational link can be defined as a formal/informal relationship between a company
and its employees. It is quite difficult for employees to leave their workplaces when they find
a strong connection with their supervisors, co-workers or clients. According to the findings of
(Awan, 2015), the level of employee’s productivity can be increased in an effective way with
the development of a positive and conducive working environment at the workplace. There
are various factors such as training and development, relations with co-workers, supervisor
support, managerial support, adequate workload and recognition plans that are helpful in the
development of effective workplace environment which positively affect the productivity level
of employees. Moreover, the presence of a strong linkage between staff members and
organization has increased employee loyalty (Raziq & Maulabakhsh, 2015).
The key findings of research conducted by (Dhriti, 2015) indicated that organizational linkage
allows existing and new employees to effectively connect with each other at the workplace.
An effective co-worker’s relations include cultivating and creating a productive and motivated
workforce (Msengeti & Obwogi, 2015). The manager of Custom House Bar should
encourage employees to communicate effectively with their co-workers at the workplace as it
will increase employee-employee relations and employee retention. In order to increase
customer satisfaction, the Bar Manager should retain its experienced and new employees by
providing them a positive working environment.
5.4 ENHANCE COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION BETWEEN NEW AND
EXISTING STAFF MEMBERS
From the perspective of the Bar Supervisor, there is a need to improve collaboration and
communication between new and existing staff members at Custom House Bar to achieve
business objectives. The senior management should engage all employees in a purposeful
conversation in order to enhance collaboration among them (Loh & Loi, 2018). Moreover, the
existing staff members and senior management should motivate the new employees through
appreciation so that they can contribute to the achievement of business goals.
5.5 TRAINING SESSIONS
Training is a traditional approach which has been adopted by companies to motivate their
culturally diverse workforce. According to Mr. David, the Bar Manager should conduct
training sessions for building effective relationships between new and existing employees as
they will be provided with an opportunity to learn collaboratively during training sessions

(Raziq & Maulabakhsh, 2015). They can properly understand the way of working and
working culture of Custom House Bar in the training session that creates and promote a
sense of harmony at the workplace. The training sessions should be conducted after 20-25
days as per the business requirements (Awan, 2015). The training programs ensure that all
employees have consistent background knowledge and experience in terms of basic
organizational policies and procedures. Moreover, the performance of employees will be
increased as they can understand the operations of Custom Bar House and their job
responsibilities effectively by participating in training sessions (Dhriti, 2015).
6 CONCLUSION
In this report, various factors have been investigated that create a conflicting environment at
Custom House Bar in Marriot Hotel, Sydney. It has been found that the customers of Custom
House Bar are not satisfied with the services offered by the staff members due to lack of
coordination, collaboration, and presence of conflicts among new and existing staff
members. These issues have an adverse impact on the customer, employees and over the
profitability of the bar. This research report concluded that effective communication and
collaboration will create and promote harmony among new and existing employees at the
hotel. Moreover, the organization can achieve a competitive advantage and business goals
by creating a harmonious and positive working environment.
Employer turnover, poor communication, and collaboration, lack of respect and adoption of
tit-for-tat approach are the main reasons for the occurrence of conflicting situations at
workplace. The research findings indicated that the management of Custom House Bar
should conduct introduction sessions in order to spread awareness among new staff
members regarding the working culture of Custom House Bar. The Marriot hotel should
conduct a training session for building effective relationships between new and existing
employees as they can be provided with an opportunity to learn and work collaboratively
when attending a training program. Training is one of the best strategies that could be
employed by the hotel for building and promoting harmonious relationships between new
and existing staff. During the interview session, it has been realized that there is a need to
encourage employees to communicate effectively with their co-workers at the workplace as it
will increase employee-employee relations and employee retention. All existing problems at
Marriot Hotel can overcome through effective communication & collaboration among staff
members.
The research findings can be applied to a hotel or any business organization has
encountered the same types of problems. Along with this, the research findings are