Imperial Hotel: Staff Retention and Operational Cost Report

This report analyzes the staff retention issues at the Imperial Hotel, focusing on the challenges faced by back-of-house staff (housekeeping, kitchen, and maintenance). The report identifies poor operating and control processes, low staff morale, and high employee turnover rates as key problems. It examines the impact of these issues on operational costs and the hotel's overall performance. The report reviews the initial suggestions of the general manager, Peter Farnsworth, and provides additional recommendations, including hiring from domestic consultancy firms, utilizing zero-hour contracts for students, and implementing comprehensive incentive and bonus schemes. The analysis incorporates management theories, such as Henry Fayol's principles, to provide a framework for improving staff retention and fostering a more efficient and motivated workforce. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for a competitive workplace environment, fair performance appraisals, and the establishment of strong employee bonds to reduce turnover and enhance the hotel's service quality and profitability. This report is contributed by a student and available on Desklib, a platform offering AI-powered study tools.

INTRODUCTION TO
MARKETING

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK...............................................................................................................................................1
Back of house staff (House Keeping, Kitchen, Maintenance) – poor operating & control
process.........................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
In modern era, management plays a vital role in every single organisation which gives
surety of employees high retention rates which helps in decreasing the employment cost. Thus, it
is important for firms to have an effective management so that better position can be gained at
marketplace. Failure into this process may lead administration to create losses for it and also can
reduce market share within the company (Albert and Beatty, 2014). The Hotel which has been
taken under this report i.e. The Imperial Hotel. It is located in the middle of London and mostly
caters to high end business men, guests, tourists, celebrities and etc. It is famous for its advanced
service standards which continuously keeps on improvising satisfaction level of their clients.
Hotel is having well maintained 500 bedrooms, conference room of almost 1000 people, bars,
swimming pool, and etc., and serving their services to consumers from hundreds of years and is
owned by Star market. It is one of an international chain in which 25 hotels of United Kingdom
comes under. Recently, general manager named as Peter Farnsworth who has joined The
Imperial Hotel and found some problems that they are facing. Report will put light on plan and
initiatives which needs to be taken by management of Hotel in order to decrease retention of staff
members. Away from this, assessment is going to focus on challenges that Imperial Hotel face
that are related to staff members(housekeeping, kitchen, maintenance) operations.
TASK
Back of house staff (House Keeping, Kitchen, Maintenance) – poor operating & control process
Analysis of Case:
Above mentioned is a problem that is identified by consulted which was appointed by
senior general manager of Imperial Hotels. In this issue consultant found that hotel is working
good but its continuously increasing cost is a major problem for top management and reason of
these high expenditures are poor staff morale while competing with Spanish staff members as
these outside room attendants are more efficient than in house working members and hotel is
giving them privileged more than old workforce. These new outsider room attendants are hired
by taking help of recruitment agency named ABC international which provided consultancy
services in England and Spain (Anderson and et. al., 2018).
Consultant hired by Peter Fransworth, found that workers who are working since many
years but now they are facing problem of low morale and because of this they start leaving
1

corporation and as result, cost of employment went high. This section addresses issues regarding
back of house staff whom are room attendants, kitchen staff and house keeping.
Because of above stated problem staff turnover went 60% which is a reason of hike in
operational cost. Other issues that consultant analysed were non cooperative behaviour of
Spanish staff with in house manpower, their condition of working together in same shifts, poor
comparison between in house and out house staff. Employees are not working together with
maximum efficiency as they are facing conflicts with each other and hotel is having high
competition environment at workplace.
Commenting on Peter Fransworth's initial suggestions:
On the above problem, consultant gave his comment regarding improvement and addition
in initial suggestions given by general manager. These suggestions are described below:
Contacted Staff from specialist agencies: It is a fine idea which was already been used
by top management as they hired 20 room attendants from ABC Internationals from Spain. This
section is required a suggestion that company must hire those skilled personnels who belong to
UK only for promoting healthy working atmosphere as Spanish staff members are least
cooperative with their co-workers and want to be teamed up with other Spanish staff.
Employ students on zero Hours Contracts: As consultant faced that employee
retention is a major problem for hotel as their staff is leaving jobs in just six months due to low
morale and poor incentive systems (Hazen and et. al., 2014). Yes, zero hour contract is a fine
solution and association can hire students who are in need of working by paying them according
to their working hours. It means long they will work, attendants will be paid on the basis of their
working hours.
Range of Incentives and bonus schemes: Morale of workers can enhanced by paying
them extra benefits other than their basic salary and it is called as incentives. Company is in need
of establishing new and revised compensation schemes by taking equality concept into
consideration (Kotler, 2011). As, in house employees are facing inferiority complex from outside
workforce.
There are some other suggestions provided by consultant which are stated as below:
 Establishment of fine competitive environment at workplace and must ensure that all
employees should work with same level of loyalty and moral.
2

 Discrimination must not done by top management as this kind of behaviour is increasing
operational cost by enhancing staff turnover up to 60%.
 Proper appraisal of performance which should include awards and rewards for working
room attendants to motivate them.
 Imperial Hotel must use signing of bond with newly hired person for at least one year and
then provide them great pay scale as per their functionality level. It is for reducing
employee exit rates from organisation (Malhotra and Malhotra, 2012).
 Texlon system for performance assessment which is a good idea and company need to be
more focused on it. For instance human resource management can provide ratings out of
ten as it will speak accuracy and adequate info regarding working quality of present room
attendants.
Resolutions by Consultant:
There are some initial resolutions given by general manager and consultant analysed that
and provided some improvements and add ons to them. These solutions are elaborated as
beneath:
Hiring of new employees from other specialised consultancy agency:
In this section Imperial hotel management can focus of hiring other workers from
domestic consultancy firms which appoints regional manpower with high efficiency and agency
must pay attention on the issue that all attendants should stay with company for longer period of
time. It must be compete responsibility of recruitment firm that they ensure employee retention
for longer duration as this action is helpful in reducing staff turnover which is a major factor in
increased operational cost. When all workers are hired from same country then they will work
with high cooperation and will feel motivated (McCauley, 2012).
So as a result, this action will further increase morale and inspiration of current house
keeping staff. When all manpower are satisfied then they will work hard and also try to make all
clients satisfied by serving of Imperial Hotel's goods and services.
Employee student on zero Hour Contract Basis:
This suggestion includes that company can hire students who want to work for hour
payment basis. It means there is no fixed payment system for employees and they will be paid
for duration in which they worked for Imperial Hotels. This action aids, association in improving
3

corporation's image in front of clients and it will diminish operational cost that will ultimately
increase profitability of hotel.
In today's world, it has been found that students of colleges or of high schools are willing
to work with big companies under which they gets paid on basis of hours. Apart from this,
companies do not enrol these young people as they are not much qualified and work in a proper
sort of manner. Away from, administration also select students like who are studying hospitality
where they can finish internship.
Incentives and bonus schemes :
Management's main role is to motivating staff members so that they can give best of
production. Motivation can be given to workers in two ways (Bonus and Incentive Schemes,
2016). These are: through monitory and the other one is emotionally. At current situation, The
Imperial Hotel needs to improvise retention of employees. Thus, they can adapt incentives
schemes which are related to monitory. It has been analysed, that there are ample number of
schemes which can encourage staff members or improve their morale. Apart from this, it is kind
of strategy which brings competition in between staff members while working at workstation. A
person who have get incentive by performing greatly can stay motivated for a long period of time
and by looking at him/her other's can also get influenced and start working in more appropriate
way so that they can also get incentives. Management of The Imperial Hotel can include policies
of incentive and bonuses in which they can give rewards to employees. With the help of this
management can influence workers to become more effective at workplace. As per current stage,
administration of The Imperial Hotel needs to decrease rate of services that they are delivering to
consumers, as increase in cost which is related to operations can directly put impact on
profitability of firm.
Bonus schemes or strategies are meant to fulfil ample number of keys which are related
to businesses or objectives which are related to Human resource department (McKenzie-Mohr,
2011). To resolve issues at workplace or for different purposes The Imperial Hotel can adapt this
type of policy and these are as follows :
 Management forms policies to improvise performances of employees at workstation.
 To locate workers interest and their attempts that are related to customer service, on-time
delivery with quality and etc.
4

 To enhance executing level of workers so that they become more motivated towards
work and finish their targets in a shorter period of time.
 To give support to employees so that they give their best of production in order to meet
objectives and goals.
 To boost up belief of employees so that they can easily face changes that have been made
by The Imperial Hotel (Myerson, 2012).
 To make environment healthy of workstation so that workers do not have issues while
working with other staff members who have different culture.
In case of The Imperial Hotel, Peter Farnsworth found the major problem in which
Spanish workers were more efficient from in-house staff members. Under this scenario
management found that in-house members were becoming demotivated, loosing interest and
started treating customers rudely which is directly or indirectly putting impact on image of the
hotel. Henceforth, management can create favourable conditions for both The Imperial Hotel and
for staff members as well. Lastly, bonuses can also be given to consumers from time to time for
their extra efforts or on special days like Christmas, New Year, Easter, Halloween and many
others. By this, loyalty can get enhanced of employees (Palmer, 2012). With the help of this,
turnover which was gone from 90% to 60%, it can be increased in many ways.
There are some theories and concepts that can be used for solving high employee
turnover problem and these solutions are helpful in building efficient management system.
Elaboration of these management theories are described as beneath:
Henry Fayol's Management Theory: This theory is propounded by Henry Fayol who was a
management thinker and addressed 14 principles of management. There are some principles that
Imperial Hotel can use for deducting employment turnover:
Division of Work: All employees should be assigned those task which they can attempt
with maximum efficiency. Due to this action, self motivation and enthusiasm would be generate
among staff members and then organisation can retain them for longer duration of time. This
type of behaviour is helpful in reducing recruitment and selection of corporation by reducing
high turnover of employees.
Leadership: Henry Fayol also stated that a leader is a person who brings all his team
together in order to achieve common objectives of corporation. As leadership style of Imperial
hotel was poor which results into dissatisfaction among employees and because of this workers
5

are leaving corporation in short time basis. By enhancing qualities of leaders and managers, more
interest of employees could bring towards their work and manpower will start loving their task &
actions then this action will resulted into less leaving rate of workforce in shorter time duration.
Above are some rules that are given by Henry Fayol in order to reduce management
problems so that proper control and discipline could bring in corporation.
System Theory: According to this theory, it is a duty of manager that he should examine
performance of all staff members and then if any problem then corrective action should be taken.
This theory is helpful in establishing proper management along with scanning of environmental
problems so that performance and unethical working of back house staff members could be
controls to reduce high operating cost of company.
CONCLUSION
From the above comprehended report, it has been found that effective management can
reduce or remove many sort of problems that they face on daily basis. Apart from this, it is
managers responsibility to find those issues and diminish them so that long term benefits can be
gained. With the help of this, competitive advantages at marketplace can be gained. Various
incentives schemes can be introduced by management to enhance the percentage of retention
level of staff members, recruit talented labour that can work with more effectiveness and
efficiency so that leading position can be gained. Away from this, training and development
sessions can motivate in-house employees by which they become more familiar with needs and
wants of consumers. By this, workers can serve their services to consumers in very innovative
and better ways. It is essential for Imperial Hotel to have healthy environment at workstation so
that positive relation can be maintained in different cultured co-workers. Influencing power and
proper communication skills an individual of company should have. By this, requirements of
clients can be understood in ample number of ways. Under this assignment, Peter Farnsworth
who is a newly appointed general manager which gave some suggestions. Under this report,
management of The Imperial Hotel can adapt them so that conflicts can be resolved of workers
and make them more skilful by which productivity can get enhanced. With the help of this, brand
image and goodwill of firm can get increases at marketplace.
6

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Albert, M. and Beatty, B. J., 2014. Flipping the classroom applications to curriculum redesign
for an introduction to management course: Impact on grades. Journal of Education for
Business. 89(8). pp.419-424.
Anderson, D. R. and et. al., 2018. An Introduction to Management Science: Quantitative
Approach. Cengage learning.
Hazen, B. T. and et. al., 2014. Data quality for data science, predictive analytics, and big data in
supply chain management: An introduction to the problem and suggestions for research
and applications. International Journal of Production Economics. 154. pp.72-80.
Kotler, P., 2011. Reinventing marketing to manage the environmental imperative. Journal of
Marketing, 75(4), pp.132-135.
Malhotra, N. K. and Malhotra, N. K., 2012. Basic marketing research: Integration of social
media. Boston: Pearson.
McCauley, S., 2012. Introduction. In The Dilemma of Boundaries. (pp. 117-121). Springer,
Tokyo.
McDaniel, C. and Gates, R., 2013. Marketing research. Singapore.
McKenzie-Mohr, D., 2011. Fostering sustainable behavior: An introduction to community-based
social marketing. New society publishers.
Myerson, P., 2012. Lean supply chain and logistics management. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Palmer, A., 2012. Introduction to marketing: theory and practice. Oxford University Press.
Peterson, D. R., 2015. Introduction: Heritage management in colonial and contemporary Africa.
The politics of heritage in Africa: Economies, histories, and infrastructures. pp.1-36.
Runyon, B. A., 2013. Introduction to the revised American Association for the Study of Liver
Diseases Practice Guideline management of adult patients with ascites due to cirrhosis
2012. Hepatology. 57(4). pp.1651-1653.
Online
Bonus and Incentive Schemes. 2016. [Online]. Available through:
<http://www.ashworthblack.co.uk/bonus-schemes/>.
7