Year 1 Semester 2 Introduction to Management: Imperial Hotel Report

This report analyzes the management challenges faced by The Imperial Hotel, London, focusing on negative work culture, high sick leave, and poor staff attendance. The report delves into the background of these problems, their interrelation with issues like high staff turnover, poor guest satisfaction, and inefficient operations. It explores management theories to understand these issues, including employee absenteeism theory and competition and benchmarking theory. The report proposes solutions, such as implementing feedback mechanisms, involving employees in decision-making, adopting Handy's culture model to shift towards a task culture, and fostering a healthy competitive environment. It also discusses the importance of team development using Tuckman's model. The analysis concludes that the hotel's problems are interconnected, with poor performance stemming from work pressure, absenteeism, and turnover, all of which are linked to the existing negative culture. The proposed solutions aim to address these root causes and improve the overall performance and work environment of the hotel.

The Imperial Hotel

Table of Contents
The Imperial Hotel...........................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Background of the Problem and its relation with other problems...............................................3
Plan for Resolving Problem.........................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Management means act of planning and organising and then ensuring achievement of
objectives which have been planned. This requires management to support those who are
involved in the process of achieving organisational objectives and this also requires support pof
those people in management activities. During the process management faces many problems
and among them management of organisational culture and getting adequate support of those
involved in the process in most difficult. One such problem inn being faced by The Imperial
Hotel, London as there is a challenge for organisation to deal with negative work culture and
increasing sick leave and poor attendance of staff. This report will discuss the problem and its
possible solutions in light of management theories.
MAIN BODY
Background of the Problem and its relation with other problems
The Imperial Hotel, London is facing challenge in the form of negative work culture and
high level of sick leave and poor attendance. From an organisational point of view these
problems are significant requiring immediate attention (Stefanovska-Petkovska and et.al., 2019).
Negative work culture in the organisation affects performance of the employees and reduces
their morale and motivation. This directly impact performance of those in organisation and such
reasons affect the performance of all the employees and collectively performance of organisation
get reduced. This problem has been capitalized by the increasing sick leave and poor attendance
of the employees at the work. Poor attendance increase the work pressure of other employees and
sick leave also create work pressure for those employees who cover up for employees who get
sick at short notice. Hotels operate and this is why long working hours and pressure of work
affect the performance and culture of the hotel. In relation with attendance issue it can be said
that many of the part time employees are females having family commitments and other work
commitments and is case they often get late for their shifts and many times employees ask their
colleagues to cover for them for short periods and there is no proper supervision of the
employees because of high turnover of supervisory staff (Lee, Idris and Delfabbro, 2017). The
culture at the hotel is negative because in management of previous general manager the culture

and working at the hotel was toxic and management style is also authoritarian and people are not
given due importance and this makes the problem more complex. Staff is not consulted in
relation with ways of improving the work and staff s required to do whatever they are being told
and they are not ask for feedback in such case employees cannot even share their problems with
management and their problems in the organisation remain unresolved.
Problems in the organisation are often interrelated as the higher turnover and absenteeism is
result of high work pressure and high work pressure is result of higher absenteeism and sick
leaves. Other problems which are being faced by The Imperial Hotel are
Poor Guest Satisfaction, guest satisfaction is important for success of the operations and this is
why the reason behind poor guest satisfaction are that quality of service is not good and along
with that they are also not satisfied with performance of the employees. Regular complaints as
been received from guest about performance of front office staff as they are indifferent and rude t
guest (Valentine, Ferebee and Heitner, 2019). This is related with their high work pressure which
is created because of sick leave of their colleagues and absenteeism, such situations create stress
and employees performance gets affected and this is the reason that guest are not being treated
well which is a part of their performance.
High Staff Turnover with 80% staff leaving within the year, this problem is result of the
inefficient recruitment as hotel employs those people who are willing to work for short period of
time in London and other than this low pay is also a reason behind this. This is also the reason of
negative work culture of the organisation as employees those who leave organisation makes
impact on other employees they also create and increase their work pressure and stress result in
poor performance.
Front of house- poor team working and in efficient use of IT system including reservation and
property management systems (Ozturk and Karatepe, 2019). This is the result of negative work
culture as teams in hotel are arguing with other teams rather than finding the solutions which can
improve their current situation.
Back of the house – poor operating and control procedure in place with stock being regularly
pilfered and evidence of staff not meeting basic standard operating procedure which result in
high operating cost. Culture of hotel is also a failure when Spanish workers do not like to work

with non-Spanish workers and this suggests improper diversity management. Their relation with
the absenteeism problem is that increased absenteeism of colleagues increase work pressure of
the employees and lastly as a result of high work pressure they leave the hotel.
This discussion leads to the conclusion that hotel is facing these key problems and all the
problems of the hotel are interdependent and cause behind each other (Zhang and Zhu, 2019).
Poor performance is result of high work pressure which is result of absenteeism and turnover and
which is result of the culture and this way all problems somehow are linked to each other.
Plan for Resolving Problem
Problem being faced by The Imperial Hotel are very important and requires immediate
attention of the management. The plan which The Imperial Hotel can follow is
Ask Feedback and Provide Suitable Solution
Employees at the Imperial Hotel are not asked for any feedback and this way they are not
able to share their problem with management. This requires that management at the Imperial
Hotel should develop means through which employees can share their feedback and concern
with management. This is important as the most of issues in the hotel are related to employees
and their performance. The feedback mechanism in the organisation will enable management t
identify and understand what are the problems because of which employees are not able to
perform or they are leaving the organisation and reasons behind their absenteeism (Ishizaka and
Pereira, 2016). Management along with asking feedback also should ensure that they are able to
understand the problem and solve in the best possible manner they can do so that employees’
performance does not get reduced and they do not leave the hotel. Both the issues improper
performance and turnover of the employees are unfavourable for organisation.
Cost associated with this plan is very less as Hotel management can either set up the old
way of getting feedback and other than this Hotel can also set up internal mechanism through
which employees can express their feedback through online mediums.
This will involve efforts from the side of management as they will have to solve problem
as well unless they are able to do that the whole effort of feedback will become meaningless.

This solution is based on the Theory Y of management and managers at the hotel should consider
this theory that employees and workers genuinely want to work and find satisfaction in their
work and fulfilment in performing their duties (Brenyah and Obuobisa-Darko, 2017). Employees
are given more freedom under this theory and consider that employees will go extra miles to
improve their performance. This theory says that employees should be trusted and given respect.
Knowledge about problem and solving their issues is also a way in which management can show
their respect towards employees and at that employees are considered important as the
employees are working their best for the organisation, organisation is also contributing in the
improving their performance.
Involve Employees in Decision making
Authoritarian management style is one of the reason because of which culture of the
Hotel has become negative. This problem can only be solved by involvement of employees in the
decision making and employees are asked for their input in the organisational processes.
This practice of management will contribute in motivating employees. This will make
employees feel that they are important for organisation and they will be able to have positive
relation with their management in which they are not only required to follow the orders of
management but they are also considered important by the management and they will be able to
utilize their creativity which will improve their performance. As the theory of human relation
states that most important aspect of motivation of the employee is relations in the organisation
and positive relations of employees with management will motivate employees and this will
improve their performance in the organisation.
Handy’s culture model
This solution is based on the Handy’s culture model, this model of organisational culture
includes four type of organisational culture. Power culture, role culture, task culture and person
culture and presently the culture which is being followed in the hotel is power culture in this
control radiates from the centre of the organisation and decision making authority remains with
few people (Shier and Handy, 2016). Hotel now should adopt Task culture as this will bring
together expertise of various people which will benefit the organisation and along with that
people in the organisational will be able to share their knowledge and expertise. This will

motivate employees and at the same time this will also develop successful teams in the
organisation and objectives based on performance and financial improvement of the organisation
will be achieved in improved manner. This will also improve coordination as will motivate
workers to work more carefully to play their part of the tasks and organisational success.
Create Environment of Healthy Competition
One of the problems identified in the hotel is that teams are not effective in their working
and this can be solved by encouraging team working and healthy competition in the organisation.
This will enable company to have high quality of performance and employees are competing
with each other but the competition needs to be healthy in order to restrain any negative impact
of the competition among employees (Black and et.al., 2019). In relation with team working new
general manger needs to ensure that development of team is proper and he can develop the teams
in organisation according to Tuckman’s model of team development.
Theory of Team Development
This theory includes five stages of team development and these are;
Forming
This is the first stage of team development and includes that team members try to know and
understand each other. This starts from knowledge about the background and interest of the team
members. This stage should be properly executed as later relationship between team members
get significantly affected from this stage.
Storming
This includes focus of team on the tasks and they start taking and giving suggestions. This needs
proper management of team as different ideas get involved and members might get destructed
from the aim of the team. This stage of the team development requires strong leadership to
facilitate the team and their objective can remain centre of focus (Natvig and Stark, 2016).
Conflicts in team members is very normal in this stage.
Norming

Conflicts in the earlier stage seem to get resolved in this stage and this is why in this stage
members create bond and start trusting each other and start considering perceptions and ideas of
each other.
Performing
This involves stage where team members completely focus on performance to achieve the
objectives. This stage is important as success of this stage reflect through efficiency of goal
achievement.
Adjourning
Team get dissolved after completion of their objectives.
In this the organisation should ensure that its teams cover all the five stages and
competition among team member makes the team more strong rather than dysfunctional.
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion it can be concluded that the Imperial Hotel is facing some of
the problems and the one which was discussed in this was negative organisational culture,
increased sick leave and high absenteeism which affect the performance of the hotel in financial
aspects and along with this also reduce guest satisfaction at the hotel. Plan was proposed through
which hotel will be able to solve the problem being faced and involved discussion over cultural
theory and how hotel can use this theory.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Black, S and et.al., 2019. Team Development Over Time. Organizational Behavior.
Brenyah, R.S. and Obuobisa-Darko, T., 2017. Organisational culture and employee engagement
within the Ghanaian public sector. Review Pub Administration Manag, 5(233), p.2.
Ishizaka, A. and Pereira, V.E., 2016. Portraying an employee performance management system
based on multi-criteria decision analysis and visual techniques. International Journal of
Manpower.
Lee, M.C.C., Idris, M.A. and Delfabbro, P.H., 2017. The linkages between hierarchical culture
and empowering leadership and their effects on employees’ work engagement: Work
meaningfulness as a mediator. International Journal of Stress Management. 24(4).
p.392.
Natvig, D. and Stark, N.L., 2016. A project team analysis using Tuckman's model of small-group
development. Journal of Nursing Education. 55(12). pp.675-681.
Ozturk, A. and Karatepe, O.M., 2019. Frontline hotel employees’ psychological capital, trust in
organization, and their effects on nonattendance intentions, absenteeism, and creative
performance. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management. 28(2). pp.217-239.
Shier, M.L. and Handy, F., 2016. Executive leadership and social innovation in direct-service
nonprofits: Shaping the organizational culture to create social change. Journal of
Progressive Human Services. 27(2). pp.111-130.
Stefanovska-Petkovska, M and et.al., 2019. The Effects of Organizational Culture and
Dimensions on Job Satisfaction and Work-Life Balance. Montenegrin Journal of
Economics. 15(1). pp.99-112.
Valentine, D.S., Ferebee, S. and Heitner, K.L., 2019. The Effect of Wellness Programs on Long-
Term Contract Employees' Workplace Stress, Absenteeism, and
Presenteeism. International Journal of Adult Vocational Education and Technology
(IJAVET). 10(4). pp.30-40.
Valentine, D.S., Ferebee, S. and Heitner, K.L., 2019. The Effect of Wellness Programs on Long-
Term Contract Employees' Workplace Stress, Absenteeism, and
Presenteeism. International Journal of Adult Vocational Education and Technology
(IJAVET). 10(4). pp.30-40.
Zhang, K. and Zhu, X., 2019, December. Supervisor Developmental Feedback and Employee
Job Performance: Chain Mediation of Emotional Intelligence and Feedback Seeking.
In 2019 3rd International Conference on Education, Economics and Management
Research (ICEEMR 2019) (pp. 93-96). Atlantis Press.