Imperial Hotel Case Study: Analyzing Management Issues & Solutions

This report analyzes the management issues at the Imperial Hotel in London, focusing on problems stemming from ineffective leadership under the previous general manager, which led to high employee turnover, low morale, and decreased customer service quality. The report reviews relevant management theories, such as the human relations theory and scientific management theory, suggesting the application of the former to improve employee relations and motivation. It details key proposals by the new general manager, Peter Farnsworth, including fostering better communication, integrating business functions, reviewing processes and IT support, and implementing incentive schemes to improve employee performance and productivity. The ultimate goal is to revive the hotel's image, improve profitability, and enhance customer satisfaction by addressing the root causes of the identified management challenges. The report emphasizes the importance of strong leadership, effective communication, and employee engagement in achieving these goals. This document is available on Desklib, a platform offering solved assignments and study resources for students.

MARKETING INTRODUCTION TO
MANAGEMENT
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Analysis of the individual problem..................................................................................................4
Review of management theory........................................................................................................5
Effective management of the problem.............................................................................................6
Key proposals for the resolution of the problem.............................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
Reference list.................................................................................................................................10
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Introduction
The Imperial Hotel, London
Imperial hotel is one of the most popular hotels in London, located at the centre of the city’s
West End (imperialhotels.co.uk, 2018). The hotel offers rooms for a night at very cheap rates as
compared to other hotels. It has about 500 rooms; it has about 12 conference rooms and
conference facilities with capacity to accommodate 1000 people, about four restaurants and three
bars. The Hotel has high brand name in the international market and is known to operate 4 star
hotels. The Imperial Hotel has about 25 Hotels in the UK alone. Business travellers and foreign
tourists are the main targeted customers of the Hotel. The Hotel has about 450 staff workers
while the Hotel contacts external agencies for providing services such as cleaning, laundry
services and management for the leisure centre.
The Imperial Hotel is facing several problems such as inability to satisfy their customers, high
employee turnover, low employee morale and reluctance to work, inappropriate leadership and
management, employees are lacking proper set of skills and therefore lacking efficiency and
many more. In this report, analysis of a single problem has been discussed. The issue related to
ineffective leadership and management that was followed by the previous general manager, is
elaborated in this entire report. The assignment also contains management theory, which can be
applied for the specific problem, and few key proposals for solving these issues are described as
well.
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Analysis of the individual problem
The Imperial Hotel consists of hundreds of rooms and even more number of staff workers to take
care of the Hotel and provide the best customer service and support to all their customers. The
previous general manager of the Hotel had limited experience and expertise necessary for
monitoring, controlling and managing several activities inside the Imperial Hotel. Poor
management and leadership style has caused immense problems for the Imperial Hotel (Quintana
et al., 2015). 80% of the employees are found to leave the job every year, resulting in high
financial loss. The Hotel has to recruit new employees and provide training and development
again, which is raising the expenditure of the company.
However, the Hotel is experiencing huge crisis in operation and management due to the ill
practises and erroneous leadership style followed by the previous general manager. The Hotel
has appointed new manger Peter Farnsworth to solve its problem and overcome its present
situation. Due to high employee turnover, the quality of customer service has decreased
drastically which is having a direct impact on the overall business. The whole structure and
hierarchy of the management has ruined as a result of poor leadership quality of previous
manager. The Head of Departments (HODs) are not taking their responsibility and duties
seriously. Instead, they are putting the blame on each other, during board meetings and
conferences, for all the mess that has been created and defending their own department is so as to
gain bonuses. These Head of Departments have been working in the Hotel from past 10 years,
still ineffective in taking responsible and wise decisions. Many have retired after the previous
manager retired from his position. Lack of a strong leader, there is no proper coordination and
team building spirit among staff workers, causing delays, improper maintenance of the hotel and
so on (Lyu et al., 2016). Supervisors and managers are unable to control and manage daily
activities such as housekeeping, in the kitchen and in the reception as well. There have been
many complaints from guests about the service that was delivered showing weak practises. This
also points towards lack of proper communication between management and employee and
between different employees as well.
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Review of management theory
There are various management theories that can be applied in the context of Imperial Hotel.
Some of them are human relations theory and scientific management theory.
Human Relations Theory
This theory is the most widely used and became very popular since 20th century. According to
this management theory, human resource should be the prime focus of managers, they should
emphasize or improve the capacity of each individual working in their organization, such that
they are able to work independently and have the skills to bring creativity and innovation in their
method of working (Nieves and Segarra-Ciprés, 2015). This way the management can bring out
the best potential hidden within every individual and effectively use it for the benefit of the
organization. According to this theory, management need to adopt policies such that they can
focus on the needs of employees and then align them with the needs and goals of the
organization, thereby fostering the development of both the organization and the employees
(Follett, 2016).
Scientific Management Theory
20th century was the period when all the major technological development took place. This was
the time when the potential of technology to increase productivity and performance was
becoming clear and evident. This theory specifies use of data and measurement in order to make
the organization effective and efficient. This theory proposes to observe and evaluate processes
in terms of number, as this will assist managers to get better insight about the business and
thereby help them to develop better strategies and tactics. According to this theory, following
this approach of using numbers to gather data leads to standardization and a strategy based on
punishment and reward. This approach is relevant for operations that require lot of data to be
interpreted.
In Imperial Hotel, managers were unable to manage the human resource of the organization well
and lacked proper leadership qualities. Applying human relations management theory will help
managers to stabilize the current situation and build good relations with them. This will help the
managers to retain employees in the organization and attract new talented ones (Ivanov, 2014).
Focusing on the needs of employees can improve their attitude and behaviour towards the
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organization and be more dedicated and committed to work. Better relationships between
employee and employers will improve the communication process and assist in managing
activities and functions within the organization. As employees in the Imperial Hotel will keep
improving, the sales and revenue of the organization will witness improvement. Employees and
staff workers are responsible for delivering the most essential service to guests, thus constantly
motivating them and fulfilling their needs will help to increase the performance and productivity
of the organization.
Effective management of the problem
The previous manager, in Imperial Hotel, is thought to be responsible for the entire mess that has
been created in the functioning of The Imperial Hotel. Even after he retired, the managers and
the supervisors working in The Hotel have not been able to resolve issues, rather they try to save
their own department in order to get bonuses. There are several problems standing in front of the
Imperial Hotel and blocking its way to work seamlessly and effectively. However, the
supervisors and managers in the organization can work with positivity and open mindedness to
solve each issue and develop plans for further improvement. Effectively management of any
issue in business context requires going deep into the issue to identify its roots and then develop
strategies to resolve it. Peter Farnsworth has developed many suggestions for addressing all the
obstacles blocking the growth of Imperial Hotel. Promoting and encouraging employees to find
better and creative ways for performing a particular task or activity will bring innovation in the
process and procedures (Tang et al., 2015).
The most effective ways of managing any issue is to improve the communication process and
transparent communication. Proper communication is the necessity within an organization and
especially one involved in several problems and issue (Law et al., 2014). Managers require the
right set of skills to establish open dialogue between employees and employers for effective
problem management.
Key proposals for the resolution of the problem
Peter Farnsworth is a well-experienced man with lot of years of experience in the field. New
general manager views the problem faced by Imperial Hotel in a positive light and plans to
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attract new talented employees for the Hotel so that they can work together to turn the situation
around. Manager thinks that the previous manager followed a very impoverished management
principle and was task-oriented. Peter plans to adopt new leadership style, which is best suitable
for the organization and intends to combine the different function s within the organization to
form teams and improve the efficiency in work (Chen, 2014). Peter plans to use integration of
business functions as a strategy to inter-link various departments, thereby establish proper line of
communication between them. Most of the complaints from guests were due to lack of
communication between employees and departments.
Other proposals suggested by Peter are to review and monitor the processes and information
technology support. He plans to develop supportive management, which is capable for taking
responsibility for their actions, and aims to improve the present situation. Peter has also
suggested leading the workers by setting an example for them. In simple words, Peter wishes to
lead employees with his actions as well as their words. Leaders in departments or head of
departments can effectively accomplish their targets and goals by translating their intention into
reality by standing string on their own principles and work according to the messages they teach
others (Ogbeide et al., 2017).
Review and management of various processes will allow the management to understand and find
areas that require improvement and thus need attention. Training and developing employees to
use technology efficiently, this in turn will assist in improving cost effectiveness and better
customer service. Peters plan to improve management system is the most necessary step that is
desperately required. Proper management will aid in monitoring of activities, making better
plans, and strategies for future, evaluating the performance of employees, directing and guiding
staff workers and improving the brand image of the Hotel and so on (Chang and Ma., 2015).
Managers and supervisors with right set of skills will be able to build good relationships with
their customers and thereby compelling them to visit again.
Peter has also suggested implementing number of incentive schemes for employees in order to
promote them to improve their performance and work with higher dedication. This way Peter
plans to meet the standards of work and improve the productivity. In order to achieve this, the
schemes that Peter has developed includes employee of the month, this incentive will be given to
one individual of each department that will include bonus of £50 and employee of the month for
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the whole hotel will include £200. The criteria for achieving this includes that employees will
have to show consistent quality in their performance for three months to achieve this incentive.
Along with this, the managers also plan to throw parties at the end of the year for all the
employees.
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Conclusion
In this assignment, brief analysis of the Imperial Hotel is done in order to investigate the matters
related to several problems that have evolved in past few years. Mismanagement and lack of a
strong leader lead to the downfall of 100 years old Imperial Hotel. The Hotel is popular in
London and mostly targets business travellers and tourist guests. In this report, 6 different
problems have been mentioned, however, key proposals for resolving the problem are provided
for only one problem.
Peter Farnsworth, a newly appointed manager is full of optimism and views the present situation
of The Imperial Hotel as an opportunity to revive the image of hotel and bring back its glory and
reputation. He plans to make radical changes such that the Hotel is back on its track and able to
produce large profits smoothly and satisfy customers. For this, he has proposed several
suggestions that he hopes will be appropriate enough to tackle the current issue. Major plans
proposed by Peter are to re-structure the management and combine different teams. Combining
teams will improve the communication process within the organisation (Rahim, 2017). Most of
the time half of the issues that are evolved in a business environment are developed primarily
due to lack of transfer of messages from one person to another. So far, Peter Farnsworth has
suggested wise proposals to solve the issues directly and hopes to change the situation within a
year.
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Reference list
Chang, H.P. and Ma, C.C., 2015. Managing the service brand value of the hotel industry in an
emerging market. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 47, pp.1-13.
Chen, K.Y., 2014. Improving importance-performance analysis: The role of the zone of tolerance
and competitor performance. The case of Taiwan's hot spring hotels. Tourism Management, 40,
pp.260-272.
Follett, M.P., 2016. 7 Management thought and human relations. A History of Management
Thought, p.175.
imperialhotels.co.uk, T. (2018). The Imperial Hotel | Great Value in Central London from £100 |
Imperial Hotels. [online] Imperial Hotels. Available at:
https://www.imperialhotels.co.uk/en/imperial [Accessed 20 Jun. 2018].
Ivanov, S., 2014. Hotel revenue management: From theory to practice. Zangador.
Law, R., Buhalis, D. and Cobanoglu, C., 2014. Progress on information and communication
technologies in hospitality and tourism. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management, 26(5), pp.727-750.
Lyu, Y., Zhou, X., Li, W., Wan, J., Zhang, J. and Qiu, C., 2016. The impact of abusive
supervision on service employees’ proactive customer service performance in the hotel
industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 28(9), pp.1992-2012.
Nieves, J. and Segarra-Ciprés, M., 2015. Management innovation in the hotel industry. Tourism
Management, 46, pp.51-58.
Ogbeide, G.C.A., Böser, S., Harrinton, R.J. and Ottenbacher, M.C., 2017. Complaint
management in hospitality organizations: The role of empowerment and other service recovery
attributes impacting loyalty and satisfaction. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 17(2), pp.204-
216.
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Quintana, T.A., Park, S. and Cabrera, Y.A., 2015. Assessing the effects of leadership styles on
employees’ outcomes in international luxury hotels. Journal of Business ethics, 129(2), pp.469-
489.
Rahim, M.A., 2017. Managing conflict in organizations. Routledge.
Tang, T.W., Wang, M.C.H. and Tang, Y.Y., 2015. Developing service innovation capability in
the hotel industry. Service Business, 9(1), pp.97-113.
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