Report: Analyzing Leadership and Operational Issues at Imperial Hotel

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the Imperial Hotel case study, which is facing significant challenges including low guest satisfaction, poor employee morale, and operational inefficiencies. The report identifies key issues such as poor staff performance, negative work culture, and inadequate responses to guest complaints. It explores the application of management principles like division of work, authority and responsibility, and Total Quality Management (TQM), and Just-In-Time (JIT) to address these problems. The analysis highlights the importance of improving service quality, boosting employee morale through training and communication, and enhancing operational efficiency to improve guest satisfaction. The report concludes with recommendations for the hotel to adopt strategic plans to improve its performance and sustain its market position by focusing on customer satisfaction through effective leadership and management strategies.

One summative assessment which is an
individual report on a case study – The
Imperial Hotel.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Analysis of individual problems.................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
This report is based on the case study which is based on the Imperial Hotel operating in
London, UK. In the case study hotel's performance has been very low and is facing many
problems like poor guest satisfaction, negative work culture among the staff,poor team
performance, poor operations. Above all the major problem which is faced by Imperial Hotel is
poor guest satisfaction (Pérez and Rodriguez del Bosque, 2015). For any hospitality company
customer satisfaction is very important and has to provide quality products and services to their
guest in order to satisfy them. Guest satisfaction plays an important role for the organisational
profitability and smooth functioning of the organisation.
Imperial hotel has is facing issue of low guest satisfaction as guests has been complaining
about the various services which are offered by the hotel like guests complained about the poor
quality of staff, staff are not performing their tasks the way it needs to be done. Customers have
been raising complaints regarding bad quality of rooms, poor room services, rude behaviour with
guests (Matzler and et.al., 2015). Also, customers are facing the issue of waiting for long for
check in and check out and sometime customers have been charged with unfair bills. Also, one
of the major issue faced by guests which resulted in poor guest satisfaction is no timely response
for their complaints. So, these are the issues which have resulted in poor guest satisfaction and it
is really important for Imperial Hotel to address these issues in order to improve the level of
customer satisfaction.
MAIN BODY
Analysis of individual problems
As hotel is facing an issue of poor satisfaction of employees which has been due to many
reasons and in order to overcome the issue of poor guest satisfaction, company need to apply the
appropriate management and operations theories and principles in the organisation. To over this
issue company can apply Principles of Management which can be explained below:
1. Division of work: This is the major principle which should be adopted by the management of
Imperial Hotel as division of work among the teams and departments can help the hotel to
improve their services and can promote efficiency in the workplace.
1

2. Authority and responsibility: Employees of Imperial Hotel should assigned with proper
authorities and responsibilities which can guide the employees to perform their tasks easily
(Hales, 2016). It is important for the organisation to make agreements regarding the authorities
and responsibilities assigned to employees.
3. Discipline: As some customers have been complaining about the rude behaviour from staff, so
it is important to establish discipline as their core value of the hotel and should respect their
guest even if guest is rude with the staff.
4. Unity of company: This principle can also the organisation to improve the level of customer
satisfaction if an employees receives orders from a one superior it will help in performing of the
task easy for employees (Henry Fayol’s 14 Principles of Management, 2019). This will reduce the
confusions and will be properly guided towards accomplishments of the tasks.
5. Centralisation: According to this principle entire authority of the hotel should be dispersed or
concentrated at the top of the management level. They will be responsible for making decision of
the hotel
6. Esprit de Corps: This is also the important principle which should be applied within the hotel
which is best way for improving the level of customer satisfaction. When there will be proper
involvement of employee and unity among the employees it can help in increasing the efficiency
of the hotel (Popov and et.al., 2019). Also, it will help in development of the culture in the
organisation which will reflect trust and understanding.
In order to improve the operations of hotel as customers have been complaining about the
poor quality, late response, high waiting periods the various principles which can be adopted that
can help in addressing the issue are as follows:
Total Quality Management (TQM): It is the structured approach which help Imperial Hotel in
improving the quality of their products and services which can help in improving the guest
satisfaction (Boakye and et.al., 2017). As it will allow the company to detect and eliminate the
errors which are done while offering various services which. Also, company can decrease the
defects of their services by applying Six sigma which provides the guidelines for reducing the
defects.
Just In time (JIT): It is another operational principle which can be adopted by Imperial Hotel
which can help the hotel in reducing the waiting periods and can improve the response time of
2

the hotel. So, this principle can also help the company to address their issues of improving guest
satisfaction.
Imperial Hotel hotel is facing number of issues which has decreased the operational
efficiency of the hotel and have resulted in poor satisfaction of customers. It is important for
Imperial Hotel to address this issue if not addressed it will result a huge loss for the organisation.
Before addressing the issue it is vital for the organisation to understand the problem and properly
analyse the problem in order to provide effective solution (Amin and et.al., 2017). The major
reason which has resulted in poor customer satisfaction is poor quality of staff which are not
performing their duties. This may be due lack of poor direction from the management or the
manager which has resulted in the poor quality of staff. Also, management has not been taken
care of the infrastructure of the hotel rooms which is also the reason for poor guest satisfaction, it
is the duty of management to regularly check the quality of room, products and services offered
to customers. Also, the staff of the imperial hotel also lacks discipline, as customers have been
complaining of the constantly complaining of the rude behaviour from the reception staff. As,
reception is the face of the hotel it should treat customer with proper gesture and with welcome
nature but this has failed to do so, which is also one of the major reason for poor guest
satisfaction of the guests. Another issue which has resulted in the poor customer satisfaction is
excessive waiting period for customer, they have to wait for long time for their turn in order to
check in and check out from the hotel. Reception staff is totally negligent towards their duties
and responsibilities which has resulted in the frustration of among customers. Also, customers
has also been complaining about charging of incorrect bills while checking out from the hotel,
this is the most problematic issue and major factor of customer dissatisfaction of the hotel (Kim
and Park, 2017). This have also raised an issue of deceiving of customers which may result in
loosing of customers. Besides management have not been responding the complaints from the
guests, even management has been negligent towards their duties and would have tackled the
issue in a better way.
Poor guest satisfaction may be have arose due to other problems which existed in the
organisation for examples there existed a negative work culture among the employees which has
resulted in lack of collaboration and unity among the employees. For a hotel company it is
important for to maintain the positive culture which could important for customer satisfaction.
Also, company is facing high turnover which is mainly due to absenteeism of the employees.
3

Poor attendance means the lack of employees for performing various tasks in the organisation
which could have resulted in the poor services offered to guests. Absenteeism is also the major
issue which have result in negative work as it would have resulted high pressure in other
employees of the organisation due to which they are not able to perform their duties and carry on
their responsibilities effectively. Also, lack of collaboration and poor communication among the
teams and management can also be the reason of poor guest satisfaction. As management has
been able to set the proper communication system in the hotel which has resulted in the
miscommunication and lack of collaboration between the various departments. When is there is
lack of communication and collaboration it is quite obvious that guests of the hotel will
dissatisfied with the services offered by Imperial Hotel. It is the duty of a front of house staff to
respond to customer effective and manage their services, but this department has failed to deliver
the quality services to their guests which have resulted in the poor satisfaction of guests. Also,
operations department of Imperial Hotel has been in their services, they lacked appropriate skills
and control procedures, poor inventory control which have resulted in the high operating costs of
the hotel. So, this is the reason hotel has been charging extra charges to customers in order to
compensate their loss. So, these are the major reasons for poor guest satisfaction which could
result in the loss of the hotel.
It is important for the organisation to develop a startegic plan in order to improve the
level of guest satisfaction for the hotel. A company should focus on three factor of the hotel
which can help the hotel to resolve the issue and these are mentioned below:
Improving the quality of service: As Imperial Hotel operates in the hospitality industry so it is
vital for the hotel to improve their quality of services. It can be done by treating the guests as
VIP and addressing them with proper positive gesture (Cheng and et.al., 2019). In order to
improve their information system Imperial Hotel should update their Information Technology
which can help in offering better services to their customers. Also, there should be proper
distribution of duties and responsibilities among the staff and various departments of the
organisation.
Also, company should organise training and developmental programs
Boosting the employee morale: In order to increase the guest satisfaction, Imperial Hotel
should try to motivate their employees. For this company should communicate often with their
employees which will decrease the gap between the management and employees and it will also
4

improve the communication within the organisation. Also, company should organise training and
developmental programs which is the best way for boosting the employee morale to higher level.
Due to training and developmental programs employees will be able to overcome their weakness
and will also help in improving their skills. For this it is suggested that there should be
decentralisation of power in the hotel.
Improving the operational efficiency: In order to improve the operational efficiency company
should adopt two important principles of operations management which is JIT and TQM
(Moutinho and Vargas-Sanchez, 2018). These two principles can help Imperial Hotel to improve
back of house staff which can result in improvement in house keeping department, kitchen and
maintenance department of the Hotel. By, adopting these principles hotel can improve their
operational process.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above report that it is important for the organisation to
maintain the high level of customer satisfaction on order sustain in the market. If any hotel
company is facing the problem of low guest satisfaction it is very important for the company to
overcome this issue as soon as possible. It can be summarised the Imperial Hotel is facing
various problem and low customer satisfaction is one among them. It is important for the
organisation to analyse the situation effectively before providing the solution to the problem. In
order to address the issue company should try to apply appropriate management and operational
principle in order improve the customer satisfaction. Proper management principles should be
adopted which can help the company to improve their efficiency within the management and can
help in improving their quality of service. Present report also concludes that in order to improve
the guest satisfaction, company can implement two major principles of operations management
such as Total quality management which can help in improving the quality of services offered to
customers. Another principle which can be applied by the hotel is Just in time principles which
can help in improving the operational efficiency of the hotel and can also decrease the waiting
period of the customer. So, by following the principles of management and operations and with
the help of appropriate strategy company can improve its guests satisfaction to higher levels.
5

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Amin, M and et.al., 2017. The structural relationship between TQM, employee satisfaction and
hotel performance. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
29(4). pp.1256-1278.
Boakye, K and et.al., 2017. Adopting Lean Six Sigma Operational Improvement Principles in
Critical Access Hospitals: Lessons Learned from an Academic-Practice Partnership.
Cheng, B. L and et.al., 2019. Service recovery, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty:
evidence from Malaysia’s hotel industry. International Journal of Quality and Service
Sciences.
Hales, C., 2016. Stem Cell, Pathogen or Fatal Remedy? The Relationship of Taylor’s Principles
of Management to the Wider Management Movement. In Re-Tayloring Management.
(pp. 31-55). Routledge.
Kim, W. G. and Park, S. A., 2017. Social media review rating versus traditional customer
satisfaction: which one has more incremental predictive power in explaining hotel
performance?. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. 29(2).
pp.784-802.
Matzler, K and et.al., 2015. Switching experience, customer satisfaction, and switching costs in
the ICT industry. Journal of Service Management. 26(1). pp.117-136.
Moutinho, L. and Vargas-Sanchez, A. eds., 2018. Strategic Management in Tourism, CABI
Tourism Texts. Cabi.
Pérez, A. and Rodriguez del Bosque, I., 2015. Corporate social responsibility and customer
loyalty: exploring the role of identification, satisfaction and type of company. Journal of
Services Marketing. 29(1). pp.15-25.
Popov, A. V and et.al., 2019. Principles and methods of formation of the personnel management
system of an educational organization under the institutional transformation of higher
education. Dilemas Contemporáneos: Educación, Política y Valore. 6 (Special).
Online
Henry Fayol’s 14 Principles of Management. 2019. [online]. Available Through:
<https://businessjargons.com/henry-fayols-14-principles-management.html>.
6