Introduction to Management Report: Analysis of Hotel Staff Problems

This report analyzes the staff turnover problem at the Imperial Hotel, a 4-star hotel in London, focusing on the high turnover rate of back-of-house staff. The report begins with a review of management theory, specifically Douglas McGregor's Theory Y, and its application to the hotel's situation. The core of the report identifies and analyzes the ineffectiveness of the room attendance staff and proposes three solutions: changing recruitment agencies, employing students on zero-hour contracts, and offering incentives and bonus schemes. The report justifies these suggestions by highlighting the benefits of each approach, such as access to better candidates, flexibility in staffing, and improved employee motivation and retention. The conclusion reiterates the importance of effective management in achieving organizational goals and emphasizes the significance of addressing staff turnover to ensure the hotel's success. The report provides a detailed examination of the problems and offers practical solutions for the hotel's management to consider.

Introduction to Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Review of management theory........................................................................................................1
An analysis of one specific problem................................................................................................2
Suggestion no. 1, Considering using contacted staff through specialist agencies.................3
Suggestion no. 2, Employing students only on zero hour contracts......................................3
Suggestion no.3, Offering a number of incentives & bonus to inspire staff..........................4
Summary and Justification...............................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Management can be defined as the act of bringing individuals together in order to
accomplish a common aim or objectives, which is done by utilising available resources
efficiently and effectively. As companies might be seen as systems and management can also be
described as human act, with design, to enable the production of valuable results from a system.
The basic objective of management is to serve customers and it has also been determined that
good managers continuously streamline their organisation towards making a scale (Anderson,
Sweeney and Cochran, 2018).
The assignment on introduction to management is based on Imperial Hotel, which is
located in London managed and owned part of a renowned global chain of hotels in the 4-star
segment or 4-star Hotels which runs 25 hotels all over the UK. The Imperial Hotel, situated in
the heart of London’s West End, accommodates mainly international tourists and business guests
who have high expectancy of service standards. Imperial hotel acquires 6 main departments
such as; food & beverages, housekeeping, customer service and concierge, front office &
reception, and human resource training. New manager of the hotel i.e. Peter Farnsworth has
recently been appointed as on the post of a manager. The former General Manager, who just got
retired, had been facing a number of issues in handling the hotel, such as; the hotel was dealing
with a very high turnover of employees in each and every department running around 80% a year
mostly due to lack of staff morale. Hence, this report will cover problem number six which is an
issue of Back Of House Staff and analysis of the problem will be done with recommendations to
solve it.
Review of management theory
Currently the problem that the Imperial hotel is facing is tough to hire room assistants,
and those working already are expected to stay for no longer than 6 months. Employee turnover
within the department at present is around 60% per year. Spanish staff are not cooperative when
said to work with non-Spanish employees. There are various complaints and issues that the
guests have encountered such as dirty rooms and washrooms in the hotel. There have also been a
number of criticisms about housekeeping room attendants being rude (Tubman, 2018).
In this context of demotivated employees and staff members that leave their job as they
are unable to work for so longer period, the Hotel manager must adopt management theory, that
1

are the set of general rules that direct the managers to handle the company. Theory provides an
explanation to help workers to effectively relate to the business goals (Bratton and Gold, 2017).
Douglas McGregor's Theories X & Y, is the management theory by Douglas McGregor's
theory of management, frequently denoted to as McGregor's XY theory, that remains a cutting-
edge management approach. It was concluded by the theorist that there are basically two diverse
management styles that are directed by manager's perception of their team member's motivations.
Theory X is referring to autocratic in nature and is utilised by managers who expect that their
workforce is uninterested or do not like their work. On the other hand, theory Y is participative
management style utilised by managers who believe that employees are self motivated,
accountable and committed to take ownership of their work. Theory X leads to micromanaging,
and theory Y can provide Imperial hotel to a more collective and dispersed workplace. Hence,
theory Y, if used by Peter then it will give employees frequent opportunities for promotion. The
reason behind the use of this Y theory by the manager indicates that he should create and
encourage a work environment which provides opportunities to back office staff to take initiative
and self-direction. Opportunities for contribution should be given to employees towards hotel's
well-being. Decentralization is provided by theory Y, which means team-work, authority, and
participation in decision making within the company. Numerous ways are discovered and
searched through this theory in which an individual employee can make important contribution
in the company. Hence, application of this theory harmonizes and aligns worker's needs and
aspirations with firm's.
An analysis of one specific problem
The room attendance of in-house staff, all hired on full-time contracts, is getting
increasingly ineffective which has put burden on the budget of housekeeping. The working
standard of the in-house staff members has been decreasing. Texlon system is used by the
Imperial Hotel, it is a hand-held tracker device where a sample check is undertaken by a
supervisor of the room standards to score and rank the standards of a serviced room. The
outcomes are later presented into the hotel computer and each employee of the staff is provided a
ranking out of 100. The Spanish staff (75%+ scores) reliably score higher than the in-house staff
(60%-65%), which again has triggered significant resentment (Gambetti, Melewar and Martin,
2017).
2

Therefore, after studying the entire problem and understanding the cause of it, the hotel
can adopt some suggestions of Peter Fransworth for managing the issue, that are; Considering
using contacted staff through specialist agencies, employ students on zero hour contracts only
and offer a number of incentives and bonus schemes to inspire staff to perform to a higher.
Suggestion no. 1, Considering using contacted staff through specialist agencies
Currently, Imperial hotel is utilising ABC International recruitment agency which is
operated by Charles Santos who has appreciable experience in the hotel industry in England and
Spain. Each prospect is interviewed and examined on the basis of their English before they are
appointed as an employee. The three references are made by all applicants, which are checked by
ABC prior to their departure from Spain. According to the requirements of the organisation,
candidates must have considerable practical experience of working in a hotel housekeeping
department before taking up a post. If the hotel cannot provide staff accommodation then ABC
arranges for them. However, as seen to the problem face by the hotel manager, it has been
suggested that the hotel must change their recruitment company from ABC to anyone else.
Following are the benefits for the organisation if they consider to use new recruitment
agencies: if the firm changes its recruitment agencies for hiring staff for the back office work,
then this will allow them to have access to more better candidates. The reason behind this is that,
candidates will actually have a track and register for those industries which have good reputation
in the industry. Therefore, shifting to another recruitment agency will be the best as it will
already have a huge network of engaged, skilled and friendly candidates to approach with hotel's
vacancy (Lavery, 2014).
Suggestion no. 2, Employing students only on zero hour contracts
Zero hour contract refers to a contract between an individual and a company, whereby
that individual is not responsible for providing any minimum working hours, on the hand
organisation is not obliged to admit any work presented. An agreement is signed by that
individual to be available for the work as and when required. wage Under this contract, the
employees are authorised to the national minimum & statutory annual leave similarly as regular
workers. For example, this method is used where the work demands are asymmetrical or there is
not a consistent demand for staff members. Moreover, in terms of workers, it can give a level of
flexibility for the individual or students that will be hired by hotel Imperial. In addition, this will
3

also enable them to perform around commitments so that organisation can focus at other crucial
activities.
The major advantage for hotel after adapting this method will be that, these agreements
are flexible and enables managers to hire students as and when company requires. As the
manager can tailor its students requirements to demand, the firm can not only develop without
danger or risk of recruiting permanent staff, but Peter can also hire to whom he subsequently
desires to offer full-time employment or guaranteed of work. Further, this method is also
beneficial for those students also, as it provides the flexibility to prepare for recruitment and
simplicity out of the labour market whilst keeping an income and job skills (Lopes and Dewan,
2014).
Suggestion no.3, Offering a number of incentives & bonus to inspire staff
This method of offering incentives and bonus schemes to workers is the best technique to
keep employees in the organisation for the longer period. Through bonuses, workers get
motivated to raise their performance to fulfil company's goals. Further, more these bonus
schemes are considered as positive strategy and can provide real motivation. There are different
forms bonuses available such as; non monetary, profitability based, referral, mission based,
innovation and so on. After receiving reward achievements, employees improve the productivity
and assist the organisation to raise profits. Therefore, schemes of offering bonuses can serve as a
vital tool for Imperial hotel, as it has a small workforce, thus, assist in ensuring employee loyalty
and decreasing turnover (Nekvapil and Sherman, 2015).
Recognition incentives involve actions such as thanking employees, praising staff,
presenting them with a certificate of achievement. There are two types of incentives that are;
monetary which are calculated in terms of money and non-monetary. Non monetary incentives
are like; taking the workers out for lunch throwing a small party to reduce their stress, giving
them the recognition they deserve and so on. Apart from this, team based bonus schemes are
attaining in popularity, by evaluating targets at the level of particular teams, the influence of
worker's performance is much more visible than if the bonus were to be based on corporate level
factor alone. There are variety of bonus schemes such as; quality bonus, safety bonus, cost
management, etc.
4

Summary and Justification
The very first suggestion of considering a new recruiting agency instead of ABC
company. The reason behind that it is the best option because changing the recruitment agency
and shifting to new and better company will provide the manager to have better and more options
as a skilled candidate. The more the reputed recruitment agency will be the more the individuals
will register to that agency for job.
The second suggestion for resolution of the problem, as using zero hour contracts as a
tool for organisation's growth is best for Imperial to opt because the biggest advantage of using
this is flexibility. Involving students on Zero hours contract will allow hotel to deal with an
unpredicted event such as; to handle a sudden raise in demand. Lastly, comes the method of
offering bonuses and incentives to workers, as these incentive plans are made to motivate
employees to have higher achievement level.
CONCLUSION
From the entire report it has been concluded that, management in every business and
activities of the organisation termed as act of getting people together to achieve desired goals and
objectives by utilising various methods and tools effectively and efficiently. Further, based on
the report, it is clear that management in the context of hospitality is the broader concept that
includes hotels, restaurants, housekeeping, venues and so on. The basic work to the hotel
manager is to keep an eye on the operations, workers, customer services and financial records.
As studied, in Imperial hotel staff turnover is 60% and manager faces many challenges in
recruiting new staff because many employees leave their job in few months. Also, candidates
employed by ABC company leave the job very early. For this, some ways were being suggested
to Peter (the manager) regarding how to motivate employees using the theory of Y of
management. Also, the best three suggesting were stated by the manager, which after further
analysis were termed to be the best methods for Imperial hotel to adopt to have better staff
members.
5

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Anderson, D. R., Sweeney, D. J. and Cochran, J. J., 2018. An Introduction to Management
Science: Quantitative Approach. Cengage learning.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Gambetti, R. C., Melewar, T. C. and Martin, K.D., 2017. Guest Editors’ Introduction: Ethical
Management of Intangible Assets in Contemporary Organizations. Business Ethics
Quarterly. 27(3). pp.381-392.
Lavery, S., 2014. The Politics of Precarious Employment in Europe: Zero Hour Contracts and
The Commodification of Work. Precarious Employment in Europe içinde, FEPS Young
Economics Network Working Paper, Brussels, pp.6-16.
Lopes, A. and Dewan, I., 2014. Precarious pedagogies? The impact of casual and zero-hour
contracts in higher education. Journal of Feminist Scholarship, 7(8), pp.28-42.
Nekvapil, J. and Sherman, T., 2015. An introduction: Language management theory in language
policy and planning. International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 2015(232). pp.1-
12.
Online
Tubman, R., 2018. Zero Hours Contract: Their benefits and when it is appropriate to use them.
[Online]. Available on:
<https://www.legal-island.com/articles/uk/features/basics/2018/mar/zero-hours-contracts-
their-benefits-and-when-it-is-appropriate-to-use-them/>
6