Change Management in Hospitality: Principal Hotel London Staff View

This essay examines the impact of organizational changes on staff within the hospitality industry, using the Principal Hotel London as a case study. The essay explores the challenges faced by employees when new policies and operational changes are introduced, particularly after IHG took over and rebranded the hotel to Kimpton. It applies Social Cognitive Theory to understand staff reactions, including the difficulties in adapting to new systems and the psychological impact of change, such as fear of job loss. The analysis highlights the importance of training, communication, and reciprocal causation in managing change effectively. The essay concludes that effective change management requires providing staff with appropriate training and information to help them adapt to new policies and maintain positive performance. The case study emphasizes the need for hospitality organizations to support their employees during periods of transition to ensure both individual and organizational success.

RESEARCH SKILLS 2

Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................3
Social Cognitive Theory (SCT)..............................................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

Introduction
This essay is going to show the perspective of staff when a hospitality organisation bring
changes within the existing policies and code of conduct which has been built or developed by
the company only. Specifically, these alterations are made by a hotel in order to sustain in the
market for a longer period of time so that they can deliver the customers with appropriate
experience (Jenkins, Hall and Raeside, 2018). This perspective will be e shown with the help of a
theory which is social cognitive theory. Also, that has been taken into consideration is of
principal hotel London which is considered to be the historic building located in Russell square
(Case 1).
Main Body
One of the famous International hotel chain, named as ING hotels took over Principal
Hotel London, in order to improvise their on brand image and to sustain in the market for a
longer period of time. The main perspective of IHG hotels is to deliver the best services to their
customers and after when they reach to the hotel rooms, they should have given proper value as
well. In order to do so, company has decided to rebrand the principal hotel London in the name
of Kimpton. This was done to enhance the profit margins and to gain competitive advantages but
if it is thought on a different perspective of employees then these are the individuals who go
through different difficulties when a company or a hotel bring changes within the existing
policies, operations, and other elements for the betterment of themselves. This can be understood
with a good example of receptionist when she cried in front of the reception manager where she
mentioned that it is hard for her to learn the new system as she was already not come up with the
existing alterations that company has made at the time of buying principal hotel London. This
perspective can be understood with the theory which is social cognitive theory (Stillman, Shen
and Ferguson, 2018).
Social Cognitive Theory (SCT)
According to (Ng and Lucianetti, (2016), Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) began as the
Social Learning Theory (SLT) during the 1960s by Albert Bandura. It formed into the SCT in
1986 and sets that learning happens in a social setting with a dynamic and corresponding
connection of the individual, condition, and conduct. The exceptional component of SCT is the
accentuation on social impact and its accentuation on outer and inside social fortification. SCT

considers the remarkable manner by which people gain and look after conduct, while
additionally considering the social condition wherein people play out the conduct. The
hypothesis considers an individual's past encounters, which factor into whether conduct activity
will happen. These past encounters impacts fortifications, desires, and anticipations, all of which
shape whether an individual will participate in a particular conduct and the reasons why an
individual takes part in that conduct.
Bandura's Model specifically mentioned about personal factor where, it was said that
life would be incredibly dangerous if a person learns everything just from the knowledge he or
she already has. Therefore, it can easily be said that social experiences if a person gets then it is
may be possible that he or she may specifically gain the observing knowledge from the others
and also improvise the skills as well. It was also mentioned that shaping every single thing like
situation that was faced by staff members of principal hotel London, when IHG took over the
hotel, where the company started making changes and receptionist and other staff members
started dealing with ample number of problems just because company has made changes to gain
competitive advantages. It was pretty much clear that, whenever a new change takes place there
is a possibility that a person who is dealing with it may not grab the alterations in specified time
frame (Font, Garay and Jones, 2016).
The psychology which was followed by the staff members who has had difficulty in order
to adapt the change that IHG has brought, it raised fear among them that they will lose their jobs
in near future even when they were already having the appropriate information about the
company will not be terminating any individual that belongs to principal hotel London.
Therefore, it was required by staff members to adapt the change that company was bringing in as
it was not only an opportunity for the company to gain advantages within the competitive market
but it has also given opportunities to staff to gain knowledge and improve the skills which are
already having in them and also adopt the new ones. What exactly reception manager who took
the staff members on dinner, where she raised a number of questions and receptionist given the
information that she is dealing with number of problems while adopting the changes. this is
where, the right decision which was taken by a reception manager was to talk to employees and
take the right decisions in correct time so that motivation can be e given to them considering
different aspects like training, delivering them every single information which company is going
to make in near future in relation to changes and so on.

Based on the social cognitive theory which was given by Bandura, where it was pretty
much clearly mentioned about the environmental aspects that human capabilities if are required
to be developed then and one sided determinism will not be delivering any sort of decisions and
it may also create and directional causation behaviour where it can control the mind set of
individuals and influence upon their overall behaviour of conducting different sort of tasks
company is adopting any sort of life change (Boateng and et. al., 2016). Then it will be required
by them to focus upon reciprocal causation as it will help them in looking among different
aspects of adopting a particular change. In the same way if it is thought about the case that has
already been taken into consideration of principal hotel London, where IHG has turned it into
Kimpton's policies which will be totally customer centric approach that was required by their
staff to adopt. It was analysed to that staff members were resisting the change but as they cannot
help it adopting does alterations with pressure and sometimes this situation can lead the whole
performance of staff to deliver bad results or may lead to ineffectiveness at the workplace. But, it
was also so necessary by the company to bring the changes and it was needed by staff to
understand the fact that without alterations a company or themselves can not sustain for a longer
period of time or may perform well. This was considered to be the situation where staff members
were following the directional causation behaviour, but rather than this it was needed by them to
start utilising recreational causation as this is the place where many companies are making
appropriate changes to go through all the current trends that are coming in this world so that to
target the customers in an effective manner.
On the other side, if it is talked about the Behavioural aspect of Social Cognitive Theory
which was delivered by Bandura, which alludes to an individual's real capacity to play out a
conduct through fundamental information and abilities (Rubenstein and et. al., 2018). So as to
effectively play out a conduct, an individual must realize what to do and how to do it. Individuals
gain from the results of their conduct, which additionally influences the earth wherein they live.
In the case of IHG, which brought all the policies of Kimpton in Principal Hotel London after
taking it over, it was required by staff member of this hotel to look among different aspects
where they can gain the knowledge about what is required to be done at the next and how it can
be done. This information can be given by staff members like receptionist to reception manager
like some requirement of training is necessary and other. This would not only help company to
sustain in the market but it would also lead staff members to improvise their existing skills and to

enhance the motivation level of performing different tasks considering the changes that has been
made by the company for the betterment of their own to deliver the best experience to customers
(Nabi and Prestin, 2017).
Conclusion
With the help of above mentioned report, it can easily be said that when an organisation
brings changes within its operations, policies and other elements then it is pretty much required
by them to deliver write training to correct staff members in specified time frame. Away with
this, it was also required by hospitality organisation to keep on delivering appropriate
information to staff members so that they can adopt alterations right on time and start delivering
appropriate performance considering positive proficiency which is already in them.

References
Books and journals
Jenkins, L., Hall, H. and Raeside, R., 2018. Applications and applicability of social cognitive
theory in information science research. Manuscript of paper submitted to Journal
Librarianship and Information Science.
Stillman, P.E., Shen, X. and Ferguson, M.J., 2018. How mouse-tracking can advance social
cognitive theory. Trends in cognitive sciences, 22(6), pp.531-543.
Ng, T.W. and Lucianetti, L., 2016. Within-individual increases in innovative behavior and
creative, persuasion, and change self-efficacy over time: A social–cognitive theory
perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(1), p.14.
Font, X., Garay, L. and Jones, S., 2016. A social cognitive theory of sustainability
empathy. Annals of Tourism Research, 58, pp.65-80.
Boateng and et. al., 2016. Assessing the determinants of internet banking adoption intentions: A
social cognitive theory perspective. Computers in Human Behavior, 65, pp.468-478.
Nabi, R.L. and Prestin, A., 2017. Social learning theory and social cognitive theory. The
International Encyclopedia of Media Effects, pp.1-13.
Rubenstein and et. al., 2018. How teachers perceive factors that influence creativity
development: Applying a Social Cognitive Theory perspective. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 70, pp.100-110.