Human Resource Management in Service Sector: IHG Case Study Report

This report analyzes Human Resource Management (HRM) within the service sector, using Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG) as a case study. It begins by explaining the importance of HRM, its role, and purpose in achieving organizational goals, including developing effective personnel policies and fostering positive employee relations. The report then justifies a human resource plan, considering demand and supply of personnel, and the associated costs, particularly in a service industry context. The assessment continues with an examination of current employment relations, focusing on aspects like culture, negotiation, personnel empowerment, and grievance solving, alongside a discussion of relevant employment laws such as the Equal Pay Act and Employment Rights Act. The report also identifies job titles, provides job descriptions and person specifications, and compares selection processes of two companies. Finally, it examines training and development functions, assessing the contribution of training activities to the overall success of the organization.

Human Resource
Management In Service
Sector

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK1.............................................................................................................................................3
P1.1 Explaining importance of HRM and analysing it’s role and purpose............................3
P1.2 Justifying human resource plan......................................................................................4
TASK2.............................................................................................................................................6
P2.1 Assessing current state of employment relations...........................................................6
P2.2 Discussing various employment laws which affect management of human resource...7
TASK3.............................................................................................................................................9
P3.1 Identifying job title and discussing it’s job description and person specification.........9
P3.2 Comparing selection process of two companies..........................................................11
TASK4...........................................................................................................................................12
P4.1 Examining training and development function and assessing contribution of training and
development activities..........................................................................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is a practice of operating and managing various processes
such as recruiting, selecting, planning and controlling in an organisation. The main aim of this
project report is to build an understanding about the concept of HRM and its importance in an
organisation. In order to which an hospitality company is selected named as Intercontinental
hotel group. IHG is a hotel group which has its headquarters in United kingdom. This hospitality
company operates in both luxurious and midscale hotel properties. As a HR management trainee
of this company an understanding about this concept is developed. In this report, role and
purpose of HRM is analysed along with justification of its plan. Job title and description is also
identified in this report. Comparison between selection process of two companies is assessed in
this report along with function of training and development.
TASK1
P1.1 Explaining importance of HRM and analysing it’s role and purpose
Human resource management is a management function which is adapted an organisation
to achieve their strategic goals. This function helps in creating a positive attitude among workers
and maximises use of resources. IHG is a diversified company which operates in multiple hotel
properties, in order to efficiently control and manage all their activities it is important to bring
professional growth. HRM helps in developing effective personnel policies which enables to
train employees and facilities professional growth.
Another importance of HRM includes developing better relationships between employee
and employer. It is considered that key of a healthy environment is the professional and better
relationships among employees of a company and principles of HRM helps enables to make
these relationships effective. Human resource management assists an organisation like IHG to
fill the gap between individual goals and organisational goals. Effective HR practices such as
team work helps in employees to tend towards fulfilling overall aims of business.
Other importance of human resource management includes selecting appropriate
candidate at suitable position, improving nation's economy, appropriate training and
development and many more (Amidu, Effah and Abor, 2011). Few roles and purposes of HRM
is mentioned below:
Role of HRM:
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HRM, by its name suggests it helps an organisation like IHG to manage all their
employees and their operations. This concept plays a significant role in bringing together all the
personnel in order to ensure team work. For example: HR manager of IHG, arranges activities
for employees of this company to make relationships between employee better.
Human resource management also plays an important role in resolving all the issues of
employees. For example: HR manager of IHG, consults all their employees to resolve their
employees issues regarding wages, work stress and many more. HRM also helps an organisation
to build effective strategies for business so that company can make effective decisions.
Commitment building and building capacity are also two roles of human resource management.
Purpose of HRM:
Main purpose behind using HRM by IHG to improve productivity of employees and
enhance profitability of an organisation. HRM is a concept which is used to define organisational
structure and also drives productivity. Another aim of HRM is to create coordination between the
department of a company. For example: IHG is a hospitality company which has several
departments such as finance, marketing and others. Human resource management helps in
bringing coordination in these departments by effective communication.
Providing satisfaction to employees is also a purpose of HRM as employees are
considered as backbone of an organisation and it is important to satisfy them so that they can
result as an asset for the organisation. Another aim of HRM is to ensure that IHG follows all the
ethical model and principles (Carlsson-Wall, Kraus and Lind, 2015).
P1.2 Justifying human resource plan
Human resource plan is a framework which includes all the strategies and policies which
are developed by the management of an organisation to develop organisational operations. This
plan is created with the help of human resource planning.
Human resource planning is a process of identifying needs of the business by which aim for the
plan is ascertained. IHG is a hospitality company which is trying to enter into other segments of
hospitality like food and beverage. In order to ensure that their plan will successfully
implemented. It is important to create an effective human resource plan. This plan can include
various operations that are required to be done along with number of employees that will be
required to complete those tasks (JOSHI and et. al, 2011).

Hospitality is a service industry and in order to increase the number of services by IHG, it
is important to ensure that an effective HR plan is implemented. This plan is usually based on
two aspects that is demand and supply. It is important to analyse both of these aspects before
creating such type of plan. These aspects helps in identifying availablity of human resource in
the organisation and HR of that entity makes sure that they supply all the demanded personnel.
Demand and supply, here are used in the reference to demand and supply of personnel which can
be used by the organisation like IHG to execute their plan for growth and development. Cost and
availability of human resource are also key considerations which are considered while preparing
such plan.
Management and HR of Intercontinental hotel group has adopted an approach in which
they believes that if a plan for growth is prepared using two aspects of demand and supply then
there are high chances for successful implementation.
In order to justify the above human resource plan various evidences are provided as
follows. Cost of employees can be ascertained by the demand for human resource. For example:
If the expansion plan of IHG requires 500 employees then this company has to bear cost for total
of 500 employees. Availability of employees are dependent on supply aspect. For example: If
number of employees available to IHG is 100 then they can supply those employees for their
expansion plan (Granlund, 2011).
Human resource plan
In large companies such as IHG there is always need for a systematic plan that support to
recruit and staff employees in the best position as per their knowledge and understanding. The
strategic HR plans are made by the upper level manager in order to make effective functioning
within company. They make sure that plans must be discussed with each project manager at
different level so that proper candidates are selected from large number of respondent appear for
respective job. The actual time frame that is needed to prepare an appropriate HR plan is approx
1-2 year so that current manpower are properly Transfer, promote, restructure and effective
training and education is provided to improve the overall productiveness.
Staffing or recruiting plan
Recruiting Source Budget Hire Goal Funded
Recruiting plan $400,000 100
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Online Recruiting $8000 20 YES
Www.Monster.com $4000 10 Yes
Www.careerbuilder.com $4000 10 yes
Campus Recruiting $40,000 30 YES
College of Amity University $20000 15 yes
Leeds University $20000 15 yes
Job Fairs $20,000 20 YES
Job fair location 1 $10,000 10 Yes
Job fair location 2 $10,000 10 Yes
TASK2
P2.1 Assessing current state of employment relations
Employment relations is a concept of cooperation and effective understanding among
various relations of an organisation. This relationships are employer- employee relationship,
employee- employee relationship and management to employee relationship. It is important to
control and manage all these relationships positively to ensure efficiency in operations.
Hospitality industry is the most influenced sector which gets highly impacted by organisational
relationships. Main aim of bringing efficiency in this system is to avoid conflict and issues
between employees and business managers so that they all can effectively contribute towards
achievement of business goals.
In current scenario, these employment relations has shaped in the form of unions. Trade
union is most influential and effective structure of employee relations. These trade unions are a
legal structure which is legalised by The world federation of trade unions which aims to bring
together all trades of the world. A trade union is described as a group of employees mainly of
same company or industry. Main aim behind developing this type of union is to protect interest
of every employee in order to avoid their exploitation. IHG has its own trade union and there are

certain aspects which impacts current state of employment relations of an this organisation.
These aspects are mentioned below:
Culture - This aspects is related with the cultural standards of IHG. This can include
uniform which has to be wore by all the employees of this hotel or it can be the way of greeting
and addressing visitors in the hotel. Culture of a business organisation reflects the working
environment and satisfaction of employees from that working environment.
Negotiation - This is the another important aspect of current state of employee relations.
According to this aspect, employees has the ability to negotiate and bargain about their work
affairs. These work affairs can include salary, working hours, promotion and other monetary and
non monetary benefits. For example: employee of IHG can negotiate with their manager or HR
manager about wages earned by them.
Personnel empowerment - Under this aspect of employee relations, rights of employees
are empowered. In the current scenario, it is considered that it is important for an organisation to
provide their employees relevant rights so that they can be satisfied. For example: employees of
IHG has provided right over all the orders which are given to them to question their suitability.
Grievance solving - In the current state of problem solving organisations like IHG has
provided their employees, a proper structure and administration for problem solving. Using this
structure, employees of these company can solve all their issues regarding working environment.
From the above aspects, it can be justified that current scenario of employee relations are
much more tend towards betterment of employees (Klychova, Faskhutdinova and Sadrieva,
2014).
CIPD 2018, It is a professional body for HR development which has conducted its 71
coference in UK and it covered some core points for human resource development. These are
strategic HR and ethical decision making, organisational development and business
effectiveness, technology and future of work, talent, skills and capabilities and employee
experience and people management.
The current relationship between management and employees is not good as there is
communication gap which leads to inefficiency in employees.
P2.2 Discussing various employment laws which affect management of human resource
Employment law - Law is a combination of various acts, statutes and legislations.
Employment law is the legal rules and regulations which are developed in order to protect the
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interest of an employee. There are different law in every nation for employee protection. There
are various laws for various issues. In the case of United kingdom, there are several legislations
which aim to protect employees and their rights. Few legislations which work for employment
protection includes Equal pay act. This act states that employees working on same position with
same skills and for same hours should be given same value of wages and any discrimination
regarding caste, gender, ethnicity or religion should not be justified (Johnson, 2013).
Another legislation which affects management of human resources for Intercontinental
hotel group is Employment right act. This act states that all the rights mentioned by
governmental authorities must be provided to employees and any firm working against these
rights must be punished. IHC follows this law and provides all relevant rights to their employees
due to which productivity of employees gets affected. Health and safety is also a statute which
states that all business organisation should fulfil rules and regulations regarding work premises
and environment in order to ensure safety of employees. For example: IHG follows all safety
instructions provided by this law such as not standing continuously for long hours which affects
own rules of the organisation.
Amendments has also impacted working of business organisation. For example:
Intercontinental use to follow rules of Employment rights act 1999, but due to amendments in
this law this organisation has to follow new regulations provided in employment rights act 2004.
Along with these amendments, there are few policies developed by governmental authorities
which affects profitability of the business (Dražić Lutilsky and Dragija, 2012).
Equal pay act 2010:
The act states about right to equal pay between women and men for their equal work. As
this covers individual in same employment and includes equality in pay and all other contractual
terms. IHG needs to follow this law and provide equal pay to their staff who are on same post
whether male or female.
Discriminating:
Discrimination is very common now days at workplace as it is done on basis of caste,
colour and gender. The IHG should comply with discrimination act so that they can provide
equal opportunity to employees.
Minimum Wages:

Minimum wages act states that staffs are obliged to get minimum wages to survive. The
IHG should implement this so that staff can get wages up to set bar.
TASK3
P3.1 Identifying job title and discussing it’s job description and person specification
Recruitment is the procedure which involves appointment of employees suitable for
specific vacant position in the organisation which is done through identification of factors which
affect the labour market, identification of organisational needs and conducting job analysis
(Recruitment, 2019). Selecting is the process of choosing the suitable candidate from the ample
of applicants for a specific job by the managers in accordance with the job requirements and
goals of the organization.
Job analysis - The process of job analysis involves detailed study of the job requirements
and person specifications needed for the job by gathering, analysing, synthesizing and reporting
information about the roles and responsibilities of the job and the conditions under which the job
will be performed (Ruiz-de-Arbulo-Lopez, Fortuny-Santos and Cuatrecasas-Arbós, 2013).
Job description - In order to understand this concept better, position of HR manager is
selected. HR manager of intercontinental hotel group must work in co-ordination with the
General Manger for managing major property issues relating to capital projects, customer service
and refurbishment actively and efficiently. Another requirement for the position of HR manager
of IHG includes providing assistance in development of hotel budgets and other related short
term and long term strategic goals. HR manager of this company must ensuring that the targets
are met by proving effective leadership to hotel management team and team members. To
respond to audits completed by company for continuous improvement. In order to plan, direct
and co-ordinate provision of services by operations department in accordance with guest
expectations. Management and development of Heads of Department for career progression and
effective succession planning within the hotel. To seek and respond to feedback from guests for
achieving positive outcomes through customer satisfaction.
Job Description
Position HR manager
Company IHG
Key skills  Communication skills
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 Interpersonal skills
 Problem solving skills
 Decision making skills
These skills will be helpful for HR manager of company for smooth functioning of
business and managing human resource of organisation. The above mention skills are very
important for a manager that support them to draw effective result for the betterment of
companies performance. Such as a good communicator manager is beneficial to transfer
meaningful information of Board of Director to other employees and vice versa. Interpersonal
skills are equally significant for a manager in IGH hotel so that they can deal different tough
situations in a ease manner and revert the same with more useful decision. It is good for a
manager to be good decision maker that help to grow proficiency and profitability of business
operation. For example, there is a trend of robotic delivery system in different hotel thus manger
of IHG use to make effective decision and start the same system in order to attract more number
of customer and increase sales.
Person specification
ATTRIBUTES ESSENTIAL DESIRABLE
Qualifications MBA/PGDM
(HR Specialization)
Min 7 CGPA in MBA/PGDM
Experience 1+ experience in HR field Perfection in framing
continuous appraisal system
Previous experience working
in flexible time
Knowledge & skills Good communication skill
Highly motivated
optimistic nature
Knowledge of psychology in
judging people
knowledge of framing
questions
Fitness Active nature to work on
flexible time and can fulfil all

needs of department on time
Styles & Values Follow norms of the company
appropriately
Ability to work under pressure
Personal Circumstances Be good in travelling alone Able to take initiative
The above requirements are must be present in the director of IHG which are mentioned
in job description (Moser, 2012).
P3.2 Comparing selection process of two companies
Selection process - This concept is related with the process of selecting the suitable
candidate for the vacant position in an organisation. Selection process of an organisation can
vary according to the requirements and suitability of the management. This process is slightly
different from other human resource processes such as recruitment and screening. This process is
not a long term procedure and is only focused to selecting a suitable candidate which can result
as an asset for the business and can contribute towards achievement of organisational goals.
Selection of Intercontinental hotel group - As discussed above, selection process of
organisations can vary according to their suitability. This company has adapted a full fledged
version of selection process, in which various processes like screening and recruitment is
involved. In a hotel industry, it is important to appoint professional and trained employees in
order to ensure best quality services provided. Under the selection process of IHG, an
advertisement is published using various mediums with the aim to attract maximum number of
applicants. After receiving those applications, a screening process is conducted by the human
resource of IHG to select few candidates for personal interview on the basis of benchmarks set
such as qualified degree, expensive etc. After completion of job interview, most eligible
candidates are selected and trained with relevant skills and techniques.
Selection process of McDonald's - Second hospitality company which is selected is
McDonald's. This company operates in food and beverage industry which requires less
professionalism and qualifications when it comes to personnel management. Selection process of
this company for recruiting employees is comparatively is short and pilot than IHG. Various
applications are invited by this company and screened according to the requirements of the job.
After shortlisting few candidates, all of them are invited for selection process where techniques
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such as group discussion is used to selection more than one individual as this is considered that
employees in bulk are appointed by this organisation. In this organisation also, relevant training
is provided to selected employees (Schaltegger and Csutora, 2012).
In both the organisations same recruitment process is followed all the steps of the process
are as follows:
Step 1: Recruitment planning- In this stage the human resource managers of the
companies decide to recruit new employees for the vacant posts. It includes a detailed analysis of
the job profile and than advertisement is provided on the job portals and newspapers.
Step 2: Strategy development- In this stage appropriate strategies are developed in
which the managers decide the qualifications, experiences, skills and qualities for the new
applicants.
Step 3: Searching- human resource managers of the companies search for the best
suitable candidates after deciding the appropriate skills, qualifications and other requirements for
the new candidates.
Step 4: Screening- When the complete the searching phase than they screen all the new
candidates and analyse all of them so that best of them can be selected for the job profile.
Step 5: Evaluation and control- When all the candidates are screened by the managers
than they evaluate potential of all of them and than make recruiting decisions.
All the above described steps are followed by the human resource managers of
Intercontinental hotel group and Mc. Donalds for recruitment and selection process. It help and
guide them to hire the best suitable candidate for the vacant job positions of the company.
TASK4
P4.1 Examining training and development function and assessing contribution of training and
development activities
Training is a concept of providing reliable and suitable training to employees in order to ensure
that they will contribute towards organisation. Training includes various programmes which are
designed by usually human resource managers to help employees to develop themselves. For
example: IHG arranges training programmes for new employees to ensure that they can
effectively adapt work culture of IHG and can be benefitted by the performance enhancement
programmes (Windolph, and Moeller, 2012).