Imperial Hotel's Challenges: A Case Study in Leadership and Management

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INTRODUCTION TO MANAGEMENT
PROBLEM 4- INEFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT BY
PREVIOUS HEAD OF DEPARTMENT AND SUPERVISORY STAFF
INCLUDING POOR MONITORING AND CONTROL PROCEDURE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................................3
PROBLEM ANALYSIS............................................................................................................................4
SUGGESTIONS TO RESOLVE THE PROBLEM..................................................................................4
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Hospitality is a business that satisfies guests to create wealth for shareholders. Hospitality is a
Latin word which is derived from "hospitire" this means "receive as guest". This simple
statement has defined this term that it is the relationship between the receiver and provider that
means services are offered to the guests to run the business. As they classify as a guest not as
customers so this term implies so much pressure and become more sensitive towards the goal
thus, it increases the value and price of business and staff by going beyond to the cherished level.
Therefore human management should be very effective and quick so that it can influence the
satisfaction level of guests and standard quality of services.
In this case study, we are talking about the imperial hotel situated at Russell square of East Side
that is the branch of imperial hotels London. The design of the original building done by Charles
Fitzroy doll and it was built between 1905 to 1911. In 1966 it was pulled down and replaced by a
new building at the same name (Imperial hotel, 2019). The president hotel shares the lodge of
this building. The networks of imperial hotels which are situated nearby the streets are Bedford,
president, royal national, Tavistock, county and Morton. In London, the imperial hotel has 500
bedroom hotels. This hotel is the part of a well-known international branded chain of hotels in
the 4-star market hotels which operates 25 hotels in the UK so the imperial hotel is also managed
and owned by this brand. This hotel is for the guests who have high expectations for the standard
services by the hotel, international guests and standard guest prefer this hotel which is situated in
the heart of London. The facilities that imperial hotel is providing to its guests are as follows-
with all en-suite facilities,, 500 bedrooms are there, 12 conference rooms, swimming pool with
leisure Centre, conference facilities for 1000 people, 4 restaurant and 3 bars (Trip advisor, 2019).
If we talk about the staff of the imperial hotel, it has 6 head departments that include
housekeeping, food and beverages, front house and reception, guest services and concierge,
human resource and training. It has 450 staff in totality (full-time have 300 and remaining in
part-time). They have outside contractors which help them for specialist cleaning, management
of leisure Centre and laundry services. The imperial hotel is operating from 100 years, and 8
years ago this hotel was renovated and again this hotel needs refurbish and redecoration
(Imperial hotel, 2019).

PROBLEM ANALYSIS
The imperial hotel is facing high turnover of staff, poor management which results in
dissatisfaction of guests about the services. There are many issues in the hotel due to the poor
leadership and management by the general manager of the imperial hotel. Many new heads of a
department have been appointed for years but most of them left because of these problems, as the
managers and supervisors are failing to manage and monitor the standard practices of the hotel
such as kitchen, housekeeping and hotel receptions. They are failing to report on time at
practices and if we focus on the complaints of the guests it seems that there is a disconnection
between reporting and what actually happening in the hotel.
New general manager Peter Farnsworth has found many folds in the management that is a huge
gap in good management and this hotel is unable to attract the good leaders and managers to
improve the performance of the hotel. So he is trying to improvise the previous management that
will be directed in a task-oriented manner. This hotel needs strong leadership and good
collaboration between all the departments of the hotel. According to the feedback and complaints
of the guests, it has been observed that there is a communication gap between the key functions
of a hotel like less supportive management and lack of leadership. That needs to be changed to
place the hotel in the top and make a considerable profit for the hotel and to get a high rank in
the star hotel group.
SUGGESTIONS TO RESOLVE THE PROBLEM
Imperial hotel is facing a various problem and one of them ineffective leadership and
management in their hotel that can be resolved by following good management practices strictly
in the hotel. The leader or the manager needs to improvise the management structure and there is
highly requirement value framework for key models of classical management of rational goal
model. This value framework will help the manager to manage the working rationally in the
hotel (Suh, et al., 2012).
There must be the application of Frederick W. Taylor principles in the management by the
leader; (Marxists, 2019) his 5 basic principles will help the manager of an imperial hotel in
achieving the predictability and greater control on management-

1. Use the scientific methods to determine “best way” to complete the things.
2. Selection of best person on the basis of his physical and mental ability.
3. According to the prescribed methods employees should be trained, teach and develop.
4. Appropriate financial incentives should be provided.
5. A manager should plan and organize all the internal working through the process model.
The imperial hotel should go for the, Theory of bureaucracy, given by Max Weber which is
based on strict expert authority and strict rules which improves the efficiency of performance in
the organization, this promotes rationalization and standardization at the working place, this
theory foster the rules and regulations which helps in maintaining coordination and stability
among the top management, middle management and employees or the staffs, impersonality
helps in fair practices and ignores the nepotism and favoritism, division of labour between
management and employees helps in making work easy though break down of work in simple
form (Suh, E., et al., 2012). Hierarchical structure helps in controlling power whereas authority
structure helps in making the right decision for different levels of the organization. In the hotel
imperial also manager needs to divide the work according to the specializations and expertise
that will promote quality of services and make the people work together to enhance the creativity
and interest in the hotel towards work. Cooperation will improve the working and will help in
decreasing the guest's complaints (Shafritz, et al., 2015).

To achieve the collaboration between the departments of the hotel, the manager or the leader
must do these things-
1. The department head or senior leader must keep his point to collaborate at their level that
should be seen across the hotel or organization. This will help in leaking down to all the
executives and managers of the company.
2. There should be the development of a platform where each and every member of the
different department can connect with each other. As informal get together are proved to
be more effective than formal meetings (Townsend, K., et al., 2014).
3. There should be the creation of teams through different members of the different
department for some projects this will help in enhancing their capabilities as well as
improve the understanding of each other across the department.
4. There must be formal and informal systems in the hotel or company to settle the conflicts
of intra and interdepartmental issues so that they are resolved efficiently. This action will
require the commitment of senior management or leaders.
5. The goals of the department must be set in a way that the performance of each
department will influence the other department of the hotel. This will be the best way in
the hotel to support each other department and come with the common goal of the hotel.

This link of collaboration will help the hotel to tie the staff bonus performance in the
organizational performance (Townsend, et al., 2014).
This collaboration link will prevent staff turnover and will help the staff to grow professionally
as well as in building networks. This will create a positive environment and will promote the
better working of staff which will delight the guest services and helps in gaining profit for the
hotel. The teamwork in the hotel will help in giving an advantage over the competition.
To reduce the complaints of the guest’s one should not forget the effectiveness of verbal and
non-verbal communication skills which make the staffs and colleagues capable to impress the
guests. Hotel imperial must spend some considerable amount in the training of their staff
communication skills so that the members can face the guests confidently and impressively
(Singh and Crisafulli, 2017). This will be beneficial for the hotel business to impress its guests
through good communication.
To look into the problem of hotel imperial, it is much needed for the department head or the
leader that these staff challenges must be resolved through some basic steps:
1. ORGANISE STAFF TRAINING- to manage the guest at crucial times, staff should be
able to communicate in an effective manner, this will require arrangement of
communication program for the staff that will benefit in doing effective communication
with the guests in situation like dealing with guests complaints, coordinating between
departments, helping in documentation like reports, bills and other procedure of hotel,
attending the guests at front desk. A hotel should create an environment where staff
communicates with each other in effective communication skills so that it will help them
in practising their communication skills which they have learned at training.
2. LISTEN TO YOUR STAFF- communication should be in a two-way process which
means management should allow the staff to give their ideas and views on important
issues. Management should always listen to their staff as they are the direct links who
interact with the guests directly on a daily basis. They are capable of encountering the
problems of guests as they are the customer service providers who can help in
improvising the functions of the hotel according to the guest wants (Singh and Crisafulli,
2017). The best way to involve your staff in decision making or taking their views

regarding guest's problem is to take feedback of staff on weakly basis and reward them
according to their input, this process will help in motivating the staff of the hotel and will
increase the capability of a hotel to take the business forward.
3. TRAIN THE STAFF ON ATTENDING GUESTS- hotel staff should know how
effectively to communicate with guest. There are many cases where hotel gets the bad
reviews about the bad communication of the staff which ultimately troubles the guest so
manager or leader must well train the staff in order handle the issues of guest effectively.
Thus, this will requires good communication skills and behavioral skills to maintain the
number of guests in a hotel.
4. MIRROR TECHNIQUES- to make your communication successful, it will be best that
staff will respond in the same style the guest is talking. Some guest doesn’t like long
conversations and some like so staff must handle them spontaneously and quickly (Singh
and Crisafulli, 2017). Thus, it is very important to observe your guest and address them
according to their comfort.
These skills will help the hotel business in handling the guest in an appropriate manner and make
the staff skillful that will help in improving guest services, create better understanding among the
staff members and supervisors or managers, help in understanding updated technology used in
hotels, this will boost the confidence of staff in approaching the guests and will promote the
higher level of understanding among the different departments as it will result in positive attitude
staff at workplace. Therefore, hotels must emphasis on providing training on good
communication skill of staff that will cover all the basic etiquettes and advanced rapport skills
program.

CONCLUSION
In the hospitality industry, the imperial hotel is known as the well-reputed brand as it is offering
services from the last 100 years; this hotel is filled with various different experiences. This hotel
provides a standard level of services to their international and national visitors or guests. But
recently it is facing many problems like customers dissatisfaction, because of poor management
and communication gap, they are getting bad reviews. We have discussed many problems which
they facing that leads guests complaints. In this assignment analyzed the poor leadership and
management which have an impact on guest's dissatisfaction and high turnover of staff in
imperial hotel London. A staff of this hotel neither motivated nor confident because of
unstructured management due to this staff was leaving the company. Because poor leadership
discourages the staff and creates a negative environment for the staff as they don't get rewarded
for their good work and there is an informal structure by which staff can communicate and
understand each other. This assignment suggest some methods and structures that can improve
the working in hotel as well as leadership, suggestions for collaborations are also discussed to
promote the understanding between different department and some training and program has
been discussed to polish the skills of staff which will help in giving best services to guest and
reduced the complaints and bad reviews about the hotel.

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