Imperial Hotel: A Case Study in Hospitality Management Challenges

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Introduction to Management
“Problem 5: Back of house staff (Housekeeping, Kitchen, Maintenance) – poor operating
and control procedures in place with stock being regularly pilfered and evidence of staff
not meeting basic Standard Operating Procedures (SOPS) resulting in unusually high
operating costs”
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Executive Summery
The whole study presents a brief detail of the Imperial Hotel, which is situated in London.
The Hotel has 500 bedrooms, many restaurants, bars and swimming pools. The hotel is
serving their service for nearly 100 years. The environment of the hotel is quite old because it
was last refurnished eight years ago. That is why the hotel faces many issues, which cause to
decrease the incoming rates of the customers. The new manager of the hotel found many
issues, which are obstructing the works of the hotel. In the study there are presented many
management and development theories, which can solve the issues of the hotel and help the
management to fulfil their goals.
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Analysis of the individual problem............................................................................................5
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
Bibliography.............................................................................................................................11
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Introduction
The main purpose of the study is to focus on the Imperial Hotel, which has 500 bedrooms
and it is situated in the West End in London. It provides many facilities like; it has specials
room for the conference facility. Moreover, it has restaurants, bars, swimming pool to give
delight to the customers. However, as the hotel is 100 years old, it faces many issues. The
study presents all the problems, faced by the management of the Imperial hotel. The turnover
rates of the staff are nearly 80% because of the poor morale of the staffs. The hotel was
refurnished and repaired around 8 years ago and as a result, it cannot give satisfaction to the
customers. The debates among the staffs have become casual to the back house staffs. In this
study, the problems caused by the staffs of the back house, like housekeeping or maintenance
staffs, are discussed in this study. Many management theories are presented here to support or
to solve the situations of the hotel so that the management can fulfil their goals and dreams.
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Analysis of the individual problem
Discuss the problem’s likely causes from a management and operational perspective
including any relationships with the other 4 problems
The Imperial hotel failed to satisfy their customers or their guest due to many issues within
their service. The rates of the customers also became poorer as they are not served services
with good quality. However, the hotel has many facilities, as it has conference room or
meeting room. Moreover, there are bars, restaurants, and swimming pools to give pleasures to
their customers. With the course of time, the hotel is facing many issues like the turnover of
their staff is so high and so it causes more money. The Staffs of the hotel engage in debate
and conflicts with the staffs of other department. The hotel was refurnished 8 years ago and
as a result, the management face a common problem like, poor guest satisfaction. They
became casual to their guest and as a result, the customers dislike to visit their again. The
departments of the front house staffs neglect their works like, they do not keep any departure
records and they do not take the help of the IT system. As a result, they face many faults in
system. The employees or the staffs are leaving the organization without any notice and are
engaging the other organizations or the opponents.
The Imperial Hotel is suffering mainly for the back house staffs, like, maintenance staffs,
kitchen staffs and the housekeeping staffs. They are neglecting their works and their
responsibility to the hotel and are providing poor quality of services. There are many
organization that always face many challenges to control or to manage the housekeeping
department (Lugosi, 2017). There are around 400 – 500 rooms in the hotel and the
administration staffs, 12 supervisory and the executives prove their negligence through their
work. It is becoming very difficult and challenging to recruit the staffs for the housekeeping
and even the beck house staffs are leaving the organization or tend not to work there. As a
result, the organization intended to take the help of the ABC agency to recruit more staffs in
the back house departments.
Charles Santos controls and manages the whole ABC agency and knows everything about
the hotel industry. Charles Santos had a huge experience in many other super stars hotels
through years, but the mangers of the Imperial Hotel had not such huge experience. They
agency made a survey on their hotel to focus on the main issues of the hotel and then intend
to give them the solution. They notice that the back house Spanish was not interested to work
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with other staffs in the hotel. The Spanish staffs always intend to work in a team with the
Spanish. As a result, there is no good communication among the housekeeping or the kitchen
staffs. They always engaged in debate with the other and so, the standard of the food and of
the maintenance of the room became very poor. As, a result, the upcoming rates of the
customers became very low and the hotel are facing heavy losses.
Put forward a 3 point plan for resolving the problem particularly in terms of improving
the quality of service, staff morale, operational efficiency and productivity to make the
hotel financially sustainable.
The management of the Imperial Hotel are trying to follow the three-point plan to solve the
issues faced by them and the other hospitality industry as well. The three-point plans are
Approach of Collaboration, Proper Training of the staffs and the Moral of the staffs or
the employees. They focus on the plans to improve the staff morale, their efficiency of work
and to prove a good quality service.
 Collaboration is one of the main things that an organization needs to win against any
difficulty. It helps to improve the relationship among the employees of an
organization. Collaboration can make easy to do any tough work and the entire
organization can gain a speed to provide a good quality service. The Imperial Hotel
tries to make a good communication or the collaboration among the staffs, especially
among the Spanish staffs. A good collaboration among the staffs also helps to builds a
strong, stable and healthy relation and as a result, the staffs share their personal issues
or problem to the other staffs (Marasco et al., 2018).
 Any types of industry must gives their employees a proper training before including
them in their industry or business. The Imperial Hotel, which is serving for over 100
years, must think about the training process. Peter Farnsworth thought for the period
after joining the organization. The staffs or the employees of the Imperial hotel must
know about the job roles and the goals of the organization to increase the efficiency
or productivity of the organizations. It also make the organization financially strong
or sustainable. They must follow the rules and conditions of the hotel and try to
maintain their honesty and ethics in their behaviour towards the guests (Dhar, 2015).
Moreover, there are many employees, who face some language problems. The guests
come in the hotel from around many countries and so the employees must have the
knowledge for the other many languages to have a better communication.
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 The Moral of the staffs must be maintained to hold the status of the hotel. The head
of the organization also need to provide good feedbacks to their staffs for their
contribution in the organization. As a result, the manager can inspire or instigate the
staffs or the employees to a better job like that. The staffs should maintain their moral
and ethics while serving their guest (Zoghbi-Manrique-de-Lara et al., 2016). The
guests prefer to stay in that hotel, which server according to their desires, like, good
maintained and clean room with furniture and many others.
Support your answer with management and operations theories and principles
The management of the Imperial Hotel tries to follow many theories, like, Belbin’s Team
working theories to overcome the issues, which are hindering the activities of the hotel. These
theories also help the management to identify the issues, which can hider or cause problem in
future. The manger with the help of the theories takes the decisions according to the present
situations.
 Belbin’s team working theory: The theory focuses on the fact that the members of
the team must know their roles in the team or in an organization. According to their
roles, they must cherish their strong points and their merits and try to overcome their
problems and difficulties or their disadvantages (Lynch et al., 2018). In the Belbin’s
theory, there are there three sections like actions oriented roles, thought oriented
roles and people oriented roles. There are nine types of roles in the three parts. The
Shapers are usually dynamic and they always try to solve or improve the condition of
the team or of the organization. They can turn any sudden obstacles into an
opportunity. The Implementer tries to implement new types of ideas to fulfil the
works. The role of the team worker is to give company or to help the other members
of the team. The resource investigator tries to include more members or resource into
their team to make a balanced team (Meslec et al., 2015).
The Imperial Hotel must work as a team to sort out any problem with ales time or to
complete the works with fewer faults. The staffs, especially the back house staffs
always engage in debate and conflicts. It will help to create and maintain a team to be
balanced. Belbin’s team role model helps the members of the team to identify their
weakness, advantages or disadvantages so that they can work upon their weak points
and improve them. The debates or the conflicts among the workers start to decrease
with the help of the model. There are some strategies that the hotel must follow while
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using the Belbin’s model. However, if the organization has a large group, they must
divide or split it into small groups so that, the leaders can look upon each of the,
members of the groups. The leader must divide the nine roles to the members
justifiably and make them understand about their roles (Block, 2018).
 The Contingency Theory: The contingency theory warns the members of the team
that any results or outcomes are dependant or contingent and it may vary to every
situation (Fiedler et al., 2015). As a result, the result sometimes can be very shocking
and at that time, the members of the team must have patient to deal with the
situations. One single path or way is not enough to deal with the circumstances. The
plan of the contingency is server to cover up any loss or problems. It refers to the
matter that the result of any work is dependent on the strategy of the process of the
organization, and on the behaviour or the environment of the organization. The
organization must manage the environmental system or the strategy to deal with the
present issues (Antonakis et al., 2017).
 The Imperial Hotel, which is around 100 years old, was repaired or furnished around
8 years ago. As a result, the hotel is facing many new problems due to their old
environment in the hotel. Day-by-day, the customers are changing their interest and
are demanding more from the management. However, the rates of the customer’s
visiting into the hotel begin to decrease due the old furnishing. As a result, the
management must consider the fact that, they should follow the contingency theory to
serve their customer according their interest and according to the present situations.
 Scientific management theory: Scientific management is actually theory, which
maintains or manages the workflows of the organization. The main aim of the
scientific management is to increase the efficiency of the economy (Kavanagh, 2015).
Taylor developed the theory to engage more labour or the workers in the
organization. There are about four principles in the model of the Taylor’s scientific
management. The scientific theory of Taylor can be concluded in the way that Taylor
recreated and replaces the old methods and theories and creates the scientific method
(Waring, 2016). This method helps to choose the person, who is right for the roles or
the position. In the theory, both the management and the working team participate to
solve the problem and to complete the work with fewer faults and even in less time.
The management and the working team divide the task among them individually to
perform well according to the goals of the organization (Su, 2017). The main issue,
which the Imperial Hotel faces, is that there are high turnover of the staff, which is
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around 80%. As a result, the hotel faces a heavy loss for the maintenance of the hotel.
That is why, the management must follow the scientific management theory and must
include the staffs that are eligible for the position to overcome or solve such type
issues.

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Conclusion
The study has presented a brief analysis of the Imperial Hotel. Peter Farnsworth, new manger
of the hotel has realized that there are many internal issues in the hotel, which is hindering the
activities of the management. The staffs of the organization are engaged in conflicts with the
staffs of other department. In this study the problems, caused by the back house staff are
discussed. The back house staffs include kitchen staffs, housekeeping or maintenance staffs,
who have became casual to their duties and responsibilities in the hotel. There are many
management and development theories, which can help the organization to overcome those
issues and to improve their situation. The 3-point plan, like collaboration, training and
morality are discussed here to have clarity about the situation. However, if the Imperial Hotel
refurnished or repaired newly according to the present situation and follows or maintains the
theories, they can solve all the problems and can fulfil their goals.
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Bibliography
Antonakis, J. and Day, D.V. eds., 2017. The nature of leadership. Sage publications.
Block, P., 2018. Team development. Work, 3, p.3.
Dhar, R.L., 2015. Service quality and the training of employees: The mediating role of
organizational commitment. Tourism Management, 46, pp.419-430.
Fiedler, F.R.E.D., 2015. Contingency theory of leadership. Organizational Behavior 1:
Essential Theories of Motivation and Leadership, 232.
Kavanagh, D., 2015. Scientific Management. Wiley Encyclopedia of Management, pp.1-2.
Lugosi, P. and Jameson, S., 2017. Challenges in hospitality management education:
Perspectives from the United Kingdom. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 31,
pp.163-172.
Lynch, D.S., Lynch, M.J. and Clemens, C.M., 2018. Belbin Team Roles. The Handbook of
Communication Training: A Best Practices Framework for Assessing and Developing
Competence.
Marasco, A., De Martino, M., Magnotti, F. and Morvillo, A., 2018. Collaborative innovation
in tourism and hospitality: a systematic review of the literature. International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management, 30(6), pp.2364-2395.
Meslec, N. and Curşeu, P.L., 2015. Are balanced groups better? Belbin roles in collaborative
learning groups. Learning and Individual Differences, 39, pp.81-88.
Su, Y., 2017. Taylor Scientific Management Theory Carding and Significance of
Organization Management. Social Sciences, 6(4), pp.102-107.
Waring, S.P., 2016. Taylorism transformed: Scientific management theory since 1945. UNC
Press Books.
Zoghbi-Manrique-de-Lara, P. and Guerra-Baez, R., 2016. Exploring the influence of ethical
climate on employee compassion in the hospitality industry. Journal of Business
Ethics, 133(3), pp.605-617.
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