Human Resource Management Analysis: Imperial Hotel Case Study

This report presents a case study of Imperial Hotel, a 500-bedroom hotel in London facing significant Human Resource Management (HRM) challenges. The primary issue identified is a negative work culture, leading to increased sick leave, poor attendance, and declining guest satisfaction. The analysis delves into the hotel's performance-oriented culture, autocratic leadership style, long working hours, and the impact of part-time employees. Recommendations are provided, drawing on systematic and behavioral management theories, to address these issues. These include restructuring daily activities, recruiting new employees and supervisors, adjusting working hours, providing employee training, shifting to a democratic leadership style, and fostering employee participation in decision-making. The report emphasizes the importance of monitoring staff activities, performance evaluations, and aligning HRM changes with financial improvements to enhance the overall performance of the hotel. The report concludes by summarizing the various issues and recommendations for improving the hotel's administration, policies, leadership, and work performance.

Human Resource
Management
Problem Solving at Hotel
Imperial

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM...................................................................................................1
RECOMMENDATION...................................................................................................................2
Systematic management theory.......................................................................................................2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Human Resource management is a practice of managing the employees and the
workforce in an organization as well as managing their issues for betterment of the
organizational performance. This report is based on a case study of Imperial Hotels, a 500
bedroom Hotel in London being managed by well-known international brand of hotel- Star
Hotels. Imperial Hotels provide accommodation and food services with best of amenities and
leisure for customers. There has been issue negative work culture among the staff and increasing
levels of sick leave and poor attendance in Imperial Hotels. The report will include the complete
analysis of the problem and its impact on the Hotel performance. The report will also include
recommendation for defining solution to this problem on the basis of management theory.
ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM
As per the identification of different issues the major issue and problem identified is that-
Negative work culture among the staff with increasing levels of sick leave and poor attendance
of the staffs in Hotel.
Overview of the problem- The organizational culture of Imperial Hotel is performance oriented
and hence the general manager and departmental heads monthly compensation and benefits are
based on the Financial performance of the Hotel. The managers are totally involved in increasing
the sales revenue of the Hotel by increasing the average room rate and monthly sales. The
evaluation of the Hotel performance is linked with the Guest Satisfaction Survey as the value of
hotel is to provide the best customer services. However, the ratings of Imperial Hotels are poor in
performance as well as in customer service as per Guest Satisfaction surveys. There had been
toxic work culture in the previous management of Imperial Hotels as due to autocratic leadership
style and commanding personality of the manager. The hotel being situated in busy London, it
has to perform its operations 24 hours every day and this result in Long working Hours for the
employees. The existing employees and staffs have to cover up the work shifts of the employees
who have taken sick leave. Next thing is that the Hotel consists one proportion of part-time
employees that consists majority of females who have family commitments and other work time
issues. Due to lack of managing the work timings there has been continuous employee turn over
rate and staffs are opting for other well organized job especially the part-time workforce. Also,
there has been unpunctual behaviour from the staff for the shift timings and also there has been
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covering up of duties by the other staff members for the lately arriving staffs. This has been due
to lack of supervision element from the supervisors in Hotel. There has been lower levels of
supervision due to increasing turnover in the supervisory staff. The major issue is with the
leadership style and management of the Hotel activities. The autocratic leadership style has
created negative behaviour of staff and reduced their performance level. There has been high
commanding by the manager and the employees are not consulted before implementing any
policies or activities with respect to performance improvement or meeting up the customer's
needs. Thus, all these issues have been undergoing in the administration of the Imperial Hotels.
RECOMMENDATION
In order to recommend and suggest effective measures following management theory and
practice needs to be understood that will help the management to frame different strategies and
apply various changes in the Hotel administration.
Systematic management theory
This theory emphasis the focus on the management process rather than the final goal or the
outcome. This theory explains that there should be specific process or the plan for the task to be
complete(Bratton and Gold, 2017). As in the Imperial hotel there was an autocratic leadership
style the leader used to make all the plan and decide the procedure which makes the employee
resist in the hotel. The systematic theory also explains that organization should have the adequate
number of the employee in the organization to carry the task of the business but it was not that
looked in the organization as the management remuneration was fixed on the basis of profit of
the hotel the management does not look at this as a seriously which has resulted in breakdown of
the employee health and also reduces the energy of the employee in the hotel due to the long
working. Another big aspect of the Systematic theory was that maintaining the inventory so that
the organization is able to satisfy the need of the consumer, in the case of the Imperial it was also
a big problem as the hotel was not able to serve the guest as expected by the owner and the guest
was not happy toward the hotel which was found by the suggestion or the feedback of the guest
which was found through the survey.
Behavioural management theory
This is the theory which explains that the is very necessary for the organization to understand the
employee and the behaviour of the employee as it will only help the organization in motivating
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the employee to work hard(Burke, 2017). In the case of the Imperial it was not as same as the
theory explains as the management of the hotel does not look behind the employee in any case
which has created the situation of the negative culture in the organization as the employees were
not happy with the organization as some action of the management was also affecting the health
of the employee such as long working hour, flexible shifts, which has resulted in reducing the
employee presence in the hotel. Behavioural theory also explains the organization has to identify
the need of the employee and try to full fill the same so that the employee feel motivated in the
organization but it was not the case in the Imperial hotel as the hotel was no itself able to earn the
expected return which was creating the pressure on the management and the management was
taking the step in the organization which was affecting the culture of the organization.
Behavioural management theory also explains that the organization need to motivate the
employee so that the employees will be able to give the best out of them but it was not in the
case of the Imperial hotel as the department head were also in the pressure to deliver the result
for the organization, but they were not able to do, so they were taking the tough decision to have
a result but the decision had backfires most of the time as they were affecting the culture and the
employee in the organization.
The following elements are been recommended by Mr. Peter Farnsworth, a newly appointed
general manager in the administration of Imperial Hotels. These recommendations shall be used
in the form of effective measures by the management of the Hotel in order to eradicate the issues
and problems.
 Initially there will be a proper structuring of all the activities to be performed in daily
administration of Imperial Hotels. It will include the time schedules of the activities,
listing of important tasks, assigning of responsibilities and work to various staffs and all
other elements related to Hotel work.
 Secondly there will be recruitment process initiated to hire new employees for the Hotel
work as there is a burden on existing employees and this result in their lack of
performance which further produce poor quality service to the guests as discussed in the
above problem.
 The working hours for each shift will be set for everyday working and the staffs will be
divided as per their shifts.
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 The team of new supervisors will be hired through recruitment process in order to
monitor the activities of the staffs and their performance.
 Part-time working staffs and especially the women staff will be allowed for discussion
with their issues and problems with the supervisors and accordingly they will be placed in
the shift timings decided before. This will resolve their problems related to shift timings
and will also keep them engaged with their jobs.
 Another thing is that there has been result in poor customer service by the Imperial Hotel
and hence the activities like training of employees and staffs related to Hospitality
services will be provided which can groom the staff and will enable them to deliver the
best outcomes of service.
 Instead of making decisions regarding the increase in price of Hotel rooms, the major
investment will be made in employees training and their performance improvement. This
will turn out to be strength of the Hotel and eradicate the issue of poor service which will
in turn automatic generate the sales revenue through better reviews made by the
customers.
 There will be complete monitoring done on the activities of the staffs by the supervisors,
and they will be made responsible for addressing the issues within staff, service and other
elements.
 Supervisors will have to guide every staff member in relation to any doubts or issues in
work.
 There will be complete reporting being done by supervisors to the managers every day
that will consist the report of all the day to day activities performed and the issues raised
and resolved. This will in turn help the manager to clearly analyse and focus on the daily
activities and evaluate the Hotel Performance by finding out areas of improvement.
 The autocratic leadership style of the management is affecting the interest of the
employees to work at Hotel but this style will be changed into democratic and there will
be employees participation before implementing any rules or policies.
 Employees will be allowed to suggest their reviews and preferences in relation to the
management practice, improvement in performance, training methods and improvement
in service quality etc. to the management so that the administration can be modified by
knowing the actual problems and scenario of working.
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 The decisions regarding shifts timings, work schedule and allotment of resources in every
department will be discussed with the staffs of that category and later will be
implemented in the administration after the staff opinion.
 The employees participation and collecting the reviews will not only motivate them in
improving their performance or making them feel as a part of the organization but it will
also help the Hotel administration to clearly understand the internal structure and strength
and what changes are to be made to enhance the growth of the Hotel.
 There will be performance evaluation made by departmental heads and manager himself
to match up the targets set and targets achieved and what are the variances between them.
This evaluation will be taken place every three months to check the feasibility of every
plan made for the activities.
 After all these measures there will be focus on financial performance of the Hotel and the
changes made will match will the improvements occurring in sales revenue and financial
growth of Imperial Hotels.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is summarized regarding the learning of various issues occurring
at Hotel industry and how they affect the Hotel administration and activities as well as
performance of the Hotel. The report included various recommendation and changes made by the
newly appointed manager in relation to the Hotel activities, policies, leadership style and work
performance. All these changes were made for eradicating all the issues being occurred and for
the improvement of growth and performance of the Hotel.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Burke, W.W., 2017. Organization change: Theory and practice. Sage Publications.
Online
Systematic management theory, 2019 [ONLINE] Available through
<https://study.com/academy/lesson/systematic-management-theory-lesson-quiz.html>
Behavioural management theory, 2018 [ONLINE] Available through
<https://study.com/academy/lesson/behavioral-management-theory-understanding-
employee-behavior-motivation.html>
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