Managing Human Resources Report: IHG - Strategic HRM Analysis

This report delves into the core aspects of human resource management (HRM) within the context of InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG). It begins by examining the David Guest model of HRM, outlining its dimensions and implications for both line managers and employees, and contrasting it with Storey's approach to HRM. The report then explores the application of flexibility models within IHG, discussing various types of flexibility such as functional and numerical flexibility. It further investigates topical issues including forms of workplace discrimination and equal opportunities legislation, comparing approaches to managing these areas. The report also analyzes performance management methods, employee welfare strategies, and the impact of health and safety legislation on HR practices. Overall, the report provides a detailed overview of strategic HRM principles and their practical application within a multinational hospitality organization.

Managing Human Resources

TABLE OF CONTENTS
introduction......................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1 ESSAY..............................................................................................................................3
1.1.................................................................................................................................................3
1.2 ................................................................................................................................................4
1.3 ................................................................................................................................................5
TASK 2- TOPICAL ISSUE.............................................................................................................6
2.1 Explaining how a model of flexibility might be applied to IHG...........................................6
2.2 Discussing the types of flexibility that can be developed by IHG........................................7
2.3 Assessing the use of flexible working practices from the perspective of employee and
employer .....................................................................................................................................8
2.4 Discussing the impact of changes taking place in the labour market have had on flexible
working practices.........................................................................................................................9
TASK 3- TOPICAL ISSUE...........................................................................................................10
3.1 Explaining the forms of discrimination that can take place within the workplace..............10
3.2 Discussing the practical implications of equal opportunities legislation for IHG...............10
3.3 Comparing the approaches to managing equal opportunities and diversity........................11
TASK 4- TOPICAL ISSUE...........................................................................................................11
4.1 Identifying and comparing the methods performance management....................................11
4.2 Assessing the approaches used by IHG to managing employee welfare.............................12
4.3 Discussing the implications of health and safety legislation on HR practices....................13
4.4 Evaluating the impact of another topical issue on HR practices.........................................13
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15
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INTRODUCTION
Managing human resources is a primary function of human resource manger for
employee welfare. Under this the manager is liable to perform various managing activities those
are controlling, planning, resource allocation etc. In this manager is also liable to give direction
to employees in order to achieve the ultimate organizational goals (Singh and Burke, 2013). Also
it is prime responsibility of manager to maintain coordination and motivate employees to
develop a suitable working environment for employees. Inter Continental Hotel Plc is a British
multinational company that have around 5028 hotel across the world. IT headquarter is situated
at Denham, UK (About IHG, 2016). Moreover, the report will demonstrated the David guest
model of HRM and its implications for the both the line managers and workers as well. Later the
report will include a discussion on different types of flexibility developed by the IHG hotel
group. Furthermore the report will include a comparison on the approaches used in managing the
equal opportunity as well as diversity. In the end, the assignment will pay focus on the health and
safety laws and regulations which an entrepreneur needs to follow to assure proper safety at the
workplace.
TASK 1 ESSAY
1.1
The following model of HRM was introduce by the David Guest. He defined human
resource management as a different form of compliance that is based on the personnel
management (PM) or is a advance version of PM. Firstly, David Guest Model seeks to commit to
companies objective secondly the model states that HRM is linked with strategic management of
the organizations. HRM also focuses on needs or employees rather than going for collective
workforce. It also enables the Intercontinental Hotel Group to devolve power to make the
business activities more flexible (Ahmed, 2013). David Guest also states that the Human
Resource Management consider workers as the important part of the organisation. This approach
employs a different perception for managing the workforce and other activities such as training
and selection of staff members.
In the model, David Guest has come out with numerous ways through which entity can
generate employs with higher commitments and performance. The model presents the
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relationship between employees performance and the human resource management practices
(Progoulaki and Theotokas, 2016). The model comprises 6 dimensions of HR management
which is totally different from the traditional way of personnel management that are described
here as under:
1. Firstly, corporations HR professionals have to frame strategies and policies to manage
their workforce, known as HRM strategies. This is the base for managing entire group of
the business personnel. Effective strategies are considered appropriate because it helps to
manage effectively the employees or vice-versa.
2. HRM practices involve recruitment and selection programme, appraisal and reward
system as well. In this, IHG focuses to select highly talented workers and also motivate
them through rewarding and recognising their performance, so that, they will be willing
to deliver best services (Edwards and Bach, 2012).
3. HRM outcomes comprise highly committed and talented people and qualitative
workforce so that customers can be served in the best manner.
4. In the behavioural outcome, IHG can gain motivated workforce who will be ready to give
their best efforts to complete their assigned tasks and duties with higher level of
efficiency. Through this, co-operations can be maintained by the involvement of all the
parties who are working in the hotel.
5. Performance outcome are directly related to the staff productivity. It is important for the
IHG to increase their employee’s productivity by improving their quality of work,
bringing innovations and declining absenteeism and turnover etc. it also assist hotelier to
manage their workplace conflicts in an effective manner.
6. All of this outcome will definitely assist IHG to reach financial targets by gaining more
net earnings and ROI as well (Pant, 2015).
1.2
According to Storey’s approach to HRM, there are number of changes had taken place in
the past century. Previously, companies are engaging in personnel management, shortened to
PM. However, in modern times of current years human resource management is also concerned
with the administrative, record keeping, organizing, job designing, etc tasks along with employee
welfare and benefits.
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As per Storey, Personnel management is a system of administrative record keeping at an
operational level. However, it attempts to make fair and terms and condition for employment .
And is required to maintain efficiency in managing staff people and their activities (Dumoulin
and et.al., 2014).
The major difference between HRM and PM
In the past few years, the scope of HRM has been greatly broadened because in the
historical times, PM involves only few activities of the HR managers whereas currently,
managers are involves in wide range of operations to manage workforce effectively. PM focuses
on the administration of workers so as to ensure staff welfare and maintains their relationship
(Singh, 2014). However, HRM pay focus on recruiting highly talented people, motivating them
and manage their effectively so that their performance can be improved to deliver best quality
services to the consumers. In PM, decision making authority is centralized in the hand of top
management whereas in HRM, business decisions are taken by the managers by considering their
workers ideas, views and suggestions. In other words, there is decentralized decision-making
process in HRM because of employee’s participation. PM consider staff member just the labor
which is input to gain desired output. Contrary to this, HRM take people as a valuable internal
part of the organization, in which, workers put their efforts and contribution to accomplish
organizational goals. In addition to this, the goal of PM is to assure staff satisfaction whilst the
aim of HRM is to achieve set mission and vision of the corporation.
1.3
Line managers of Intercontinental Hotel Group while developing strategic approach for human
resource management may go through various implications.
Implications for Line manager are as follows:
1. Line managers specializes in day to day managing people within organization.
2. Also play a vital role in managing operational cost.
3. Line managers also provides technical expertise if required in an case.
4. It is the duty of line manager to allocate the work to their team members. Along with this,
monitoring is also necessary to analyse and assess the progress of the work performing by
the individuals (Den Hartog and Boon, 2013). It assists management to complete the
work on right work.
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5. Line manager of IHG is also responsible to measure and examine their workers
performance so as to ensure quality work for the customer satisfaction.
Similarly employees of Intercontinental Hotel Group while developing strategic approach
to HRM take place they go through various implications.
Implications for Employees are as follows:
1. Employees are liable to execute the business strategies in real practice to deliver
customers in the best possible manner.
2. Employees also need to enhance their performance through self-evaluation and creating
matrix. Improvement in staff productivity surely assists IHG to deal appropriately the
customer and satisfying their need, expectations and demand.
3. They need to collaborate and coordinate their activities and functions with the other staff
member to fulfil the target mission of hotel.
4. Workers also motivate themselves to put their valuable contribution to complete their job
responsibility in the effective manner (Naidu and Chand, 2014).
5. It is the duty of business personnel to build an effective communication at the workplace.
So that, each and every member of the team will be able to carry out their activities in the
best manner.
TASK 2- TOPICAL ISSUE
2.1 Explaining how a model of flexibility might be applied to IHG
Intercontinental Hotel can go for Mixture Model of flexibility as shown in the diagram below:
High functional flexibility
&
High numerical flexibility (HH)
High functional flexibility
&
Low numerical flexibility (HL)
Low functional flexibility
&
High numerical flexibility (LH)
Low functional flexibility
&
Low numerical flexibility (LL)
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According to the presented table, the two areas that are LL and HH are considered as
balanced flexibility; however, the remaining areas HL and LH are unbalanced. On the other
hand, both numerical and functional flexibility plays a different role at the workplace and affect
staff productivity as well (Stone, 2013). The respected IHG hotel group will definitely perform
best in the three areas that are HH, LH and LL as well.
With reference to the IHG, it can enhance its employee’s productivity through providing
both the high numerical and functional flexibility to their workers. In such respect, functional
flexibility can be assured by allowing workers to do multiple tasks, henceforth, also called task
flexibility. Through this, they can improve their employee’s ability to perform different kind of
activities and work via organizing training sessions at the workplace (Varma and Budhwar,
2013). In the time of large customer traffic and busy season, IHG can recruit more people to
handle the heavy workload. It can recruit part time workers and other on short-term contracts as
well. By providing both the work-based flexibility to the staff, hotel can bring significant
improvement in their employees productivity and performance and reach targets easily.
2.2 Discussing the types of flexibility that can be developed by IHG
There are various types of flexibility that can be developed by Intercontinental Hotel within its
work place. Those are:
1. Functional Flexibility- It refers to the deploy of employees to various departments,
functions and roles again and again after a certain time period. Functional flexibility
results in increasing the number of specialize job of a single employees. This also helps
in handling rush or work pressure at the time of occasions as well as busy seasons. In
order to create functional flexibility within the workplace of Intercontinental Hotel the
manager has to allocate different type of work to their staff member periodically (Snell
and Bohlander, 2013). It will enable employees to get knowledge of multiple tasks and
they can get specialization. So that he/ she may get specialize in two or three jobs which
will further help at the time of busy seasons. Also this will help the manger in knowing
the weaknesses and strengths of the workers in different field and soon may work on it.
Numerical Flexibility- It is related with the numbers of personnel working in the respective
hotel group. In order to develop such flexibility within the workplace the IHG will have to
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recruit large amount of employees. In the time of large customer traffic, it becomes essential
for the hotel to recruit more people so that customer can be served effectively. Therefore, in
such cases, it can appoint part-time workers who will be liable to work for a short duration.
Henceforth, it provides convenience to the workers as they do not need to perform their
activities during the entire office timing (Kane, 2013). Further, short-term contracts can be
made, in which, workers can be recruited for a limited period, it is considered good because
in off season, hotels does not require many people at the workplace. Thus, by making
contracts, they can manage customer crowd and deliver best services to them.
2. Financial Flexibility- In the present times, it is essential for the hoteliers to manage their
funds appropriately so as to prevent themselves from the volatile market. It enables IHG
to face market risk and effectively manage the unexpected increase in cost. Through this,
they can manage their net cash availability and corporate leverage (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin
and Cardy, 2015).
2.3 Assessing the use of flexible working practices from the perspective of employee and
employer
Organization such as IHG can arrange the numerical, functional etc flexibility within the
operational are by providing employees flexible working hours, or work locations or work
arrangement etc (Flexible Work Arrangements, 2016). Each arrangement have some advantage
to both employer as well as employees working within the IHG. Some of the benefits are as
follows:
Benefits from Flexible working hours:
Under flexi work timing employer provide various flexibility such as flexi time schemes,
compressed workweek, part time work, job sharing etc.
To employees:
1. It helps in avoiding rush hour transpose.
2. It leads to create more control over the time off to employees.
3. With the help of flexi working hours employees get benefit in balancing its personal as
well as professional life (Akingbola, 2015).
4. It also helps the employees in increasing its ability to schedule work during quiet time to
accomplish more.
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To employer
1. It helps employer in scheduling work across longer portions of the day.
2. It also helps him in keeping or recruiting valuable staff having other life commitment and
interest (Mendenhall and Osland, 2012).
3. It helps him in making optimum use of available resource such as computers, desk, etc.
Benefits from Flexible work location:
To employees:
1. It leads to Increase in the control over when work is done.
2. Escape from the everyday disruptions of the office environment.
To employer
1. May need less furniture, smaller office space and less equipment, fewer parking spots
etc.
2. Reduced absenteeism and lateness (Dale, Cooper and Wilkinson, 2014).
3. It will help in Increasing productivity because of fewer distractions or interactions
between colleagues.
2.4 Discussing the impact of changes taking place in the labour market have had on flexible
working practices
The main of flexible working arrangements is to appoint qualitative people so as to
render better services to the people. With regards to IHG hotel, FWAs affects favourably the
workforce and the business itself. It is because, it provide convenience to the workers by
providing them numerous facilities such as work from home, part time working, shifts and many
others (McDonnell, Scullion and Lavelle, 2013).. Through this, they can manage their personal
as well as professional life in the effective manner. From the historical period, number of
changes had taken place in the labour market, therefore, it becomes essential for the IHG and
other organizations to provide flexibility to their workers. Increasing personal need of the
employees and the occupational, geographical and industrial mobility, changing the pattern of
workforce such as recruiting female workers along with the male employees brought the
requirement of FWAs. Furthermore, peak workload and migration brings it necessity for the
hotel to provide flexible arrangements to the people (Allen, Lee and Reiche, 2015).. This
practices not only provide benefits to the employees only but also provide advantage to the IHG
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as it can recruit talented people to meet high market demand. While, in the case of demand
shortfall, it can decrease the part-time and short-term contracted workers and operate through
permanent employees.
TASK 3- TOPICAL ISSUE
3.1 Explaining the forms of discrimination that can take place within the workplace
Discrimination is any form of unfair, biased, prejudicial, inequality, intolerable treatment
which is further based on race, sex, tribe, religion, origin, affiliation etc (Types of discrimination,
2016). This may happen at the time of promotion, selection of employee within the organization.
There are two forms of discrimination that may take place within the workplace of IHG. Those
are:
Direct Discrimination- Such type of discrimination occur at the time when an employer
gives preference to another employee more. For example the manager of Intercontinental Hotel
Group may grant promotion to only those who are more closer to him/her irrespective of looking
for representatives skills (Kaufman, 2015).
Indirect Discrimination- Similarly, indirect discrimination refers to the unfavorable
working environment where few people get advantage over other. There can be various reasons
for such favor like color, race, caste, religion etc. For example the chosen organization selects
the applicant may give preference to the applicant with good look. This may be a severe
disadvantage for other who are lacking in their personality but have skills (Peter and Robert,
2015).
3.2 Discussing the practical implications of equal opportunities legislation for IHG
There are following legislation which IHG needs to comply in their HR practices, illustrated
below:
Race Relation Act 1976
` UK parliament created this act so as to prevent workers from unfair and unethical
business practices. It covers discrimination on the basis of colour, nationality, race, education
and many others. As per the previous discussion, it has been identified that in direct
discrimination, a person is treated unfairly or less favourably than other whilst in indirect
discrimination, one group is treated equal and the other entire group is treated unfairly
(Aladwan, Bhanugopan and Fish, 2014). Thus, according to this act, it is the responsibility of
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IHG to not involve in any discrimination practices and unfair treatment of the workers only
because of his/her nationality, colour and origin etc. For instance, excluding black people in the
recruitment and selection programme is a type of racial discrimination.
Race Relation Amendment Act 2000
This law mainly emphasizes to protect workers from the unfair treatment due to their
national origin and race only. The main purpose of this Act is to combat against the
discrimination at the workplace on basis of race of employees. Public bodies are asked to analyse
the reasons behind missing the numbers of black people as a senior managers in the
organizations (Zhang and et.al., 2012). After the implementation of this Act public bodies have
started analysis reasons behind such discrimination and various procedure and polices to avoid
such racial discrimination within the work premises of IHG or any other firm in UK.
3.3 Comparing the approaches to managing equal opportunities and diversity
There are various methods that can be used by IHG for managing the performances of employees
within the workplace. Those are:
Self Evaluation- As its name suggested, in this method, employees evaluate their
performance on their own basis. With regards to IHG, HR manager can provide a form to each
and every member in which they can fill answers to examine their own performance. Such self-
evaluation sheet covers both the multiple choice and long answers (Stone, 2013). It provides
benefit to the manager to identify the discrepancy in their appraisal programme and also develop
a strong bonding between workers and management team.
Performance appraisal 360 degree- This is considered as the best technique of
performance measurement and evaluation. In this method, managers can collect feedbacks from
all the parties such as superior, subordinates, customers and many others and evaluate their
views, opinion and experience about the workers. It is the best way because opinion of all the
affecting parties can be judged and thereby necessary decisions can be taken for bringing
improvements in workers’ productivity.
TASK 4- TOPICAL ISSUE
4.1 Identifying and comparing the methods performance management
In the present time business organizations make use of performance management system
to appraise the best personnel of the personnel. Besides this, by making analysis of the current
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performance level IHG can also determine the training needs of personnel. IHG undertakes 360
degree appraisal system to manage the performance level of an employee more effectively and
efficiently (Kaufman, 2015). In this, business unit takes feedback from the manager, peers and
supervisors about the performance of employee. It is the most effectual system which helps in
gaining deeper insight about in relation to the performance level of personnel. Moreover, peers,
supervisors and mangers have better idea regarding the performance of personnel. Through this,
IHG collects in-depth information regarding the current position of employees.
However, when peers and supervisors serve false information due to their personal
conflicts then it may result into inappropriate evaluation. In this, such evaluation method places
negative impact on the performance and motivational aspect of the human resources of an
organization. In comparison to this, rating scale is also one of the most effectual methods in
which personnel give rank to themselves such as 1 to 5 (Kane, 2013). Through this, management
can make assessment of the performance of employees on the basis of teamwork,
communication, problem solving skills etc. Moreover, in the hospitality sector satisfaction level
of the customers are highly affected by the way in which services offered to them. In this regard,
by making focus on all such aspects company can manage the performance level of employees in
the best possible manner.
4.2 Assessing the approaches used by IHG to managing employee welfare
Management of employee welfare is highly required within the business organization.
Moreover, practices of employee welfare is highly associated with the growth and profitability
aspect of the firm (Edwards and Bach, 2012). Employees give their best efforts within the
business organization only when they are highly satisfied and motivated. In this, IHG makes
remarkable contribution in the staff or employee welfare by taking into consideration the
following aspects are:
 IHG offers medical facilities to their employees by organizing the campaign of
periodical health check up. In addition to this, it also offers medical allowances or
benefits it personnel are hospitalized.
 In addition to this, company also provides traveling, education, house and other
allowances to the employees. It also helps employees in managing their personal
activities more effectually (Dumoulin and et.al., 2014).
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