HM601 Consultancy Project: Improving Employee Skills at Marriott Hotel

This consultancy project proposal, submitted by a student, addresses the need to improve employee skills at the Marriott Hotel. The proposal begins with a situation analysis, identifying a lack of customer service skills and motivation for training among employees, compounded by increased competition from budget hotels. The objectives include developing a training and development program to offer career advancement opportunities, enhance skills, and improve service standards. The proposed program incorporates on-the-job training, secondments, one-on-one training, and job rotation. The project is planned over a 90-day timeframe, with phases for employee evaluation, training program design and implementation, and evaluation of the training's effectiveness. The proposal outlines measurable outcomes, joint accountabilities between the consultant and hotel management, and terms and conditions, including fees and payment options. The project aims to improve employee skills, increase employee satisfaction, reduce turnover, and create a more adaptable workforce. The document also includes an analysis of management challenges in the hospitality sector, such as high competition, marketing efforts, energy management, customer satisfaction, and the need for skilled staff. The proposal offers a comprehensive strategy for the Marriott Hotel to enhance its employee skills and maintain its brand reputation.

CONSULTANCY PROJECT
PROPOSAL
PROPOSAL TO ASSIST IN IMPROVING
EMPLOYEE'S SKILLS IN MARRIOTT
HOTEL
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To Marriott Hotel Manager
and I work for Consultancy Company for several years. This proposal is aimed to assist Marriott
hotel in improving employees skills. Below I will detail my analysis made on your current
situation.
Situation summary
After analyzing the internal situation of the hotel I have come to the conclusion that the
employees lack skills in dealing effectively with the customers and are not motivated to engage
in training and development opportunities offered by the hotel. Based on the external analysis I
have identified high competition from budget hotels which have improved their services and
products and offer customers better experiences. It is compulsory for Marriott hotel to address
these issues and maintain its brand reputation. Due to the fact that it is a luxury hotel the services
provided by the employees must be at a certain standard. I have developed this proposal to help
Marriott employees improve their skills and encourage them to training and career advancement
within the company.
Even though Marriott puts its employees first and provides a supportive environment in
which employees can grow in their current jobs and build long term careers, it must adopt a
different strategy which will encourage employees to constantly improve their skills and aspire
for career development. Marriott must develop a new training and development program by
assessing the needs of all its employees. This program must be available to all employees from
both low and top layers. The training and development programs provided by Marriott support
mostly the development and career advancement for managers and supervisors and not for the
employees that work in operational areas and have the desire to advance in their career.
Objectives
The objectives of this proposal is to develop a training and development program which
will give the opportunity to all employees to take career advancement opportunities, improve
their skills, acquire qualifications and even change their job role within the hotel. The key
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objectives of the new training and development program are to improve career chances, to
achieve higher service standards, to improve knowledge and skills by instructional and practical
activities, and to improve the performance of existing employees and encourage them for further
development and career advancement.
For achieving the objectives and encourage the employees of Marriott hotel to enroll in
training and acquire knowledge, skills and enhance their performance can be used on the job
training and secondments. On the job training will give the employees the possibility to be
trained while performing their jobs and secodments will provide them the opportunity to
experience a different part of the hotel. This intervention will be beneficial because the
employees from lower management levels like operational staff will get interest in other jobs
and will improve and develop new skills.
The objectives can be achieved by doing following activities:
 on the job training;
 secondments;
 one to one training for all employees interested in developing their skills and acquire
new knowledge on the current job;
 develop a job rotation program for the employees that are willing to change their
current role and improve their career chances;
 group discussions, observation, feedback and assistance.
Timeframe
I am available to begin working with you this month, from April 25. I also suggest that
we start with a 90 days . This will include 3 phases such as:
Activity: Month 1 (25
April 2017 - 25
May 2017)
Month 2 (01
June 2017 - 01
July 2017)
Month 3 (05
July 2017 - 05
August 2017)
Responsibilities:
Phase 1: Manager
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Evaluation of
employees skills
and knowledge.
Consultant
Phase 2: Design
and implement
training
program
Consultant
Phase 3:
Evaluation of
training
Manager
Consultant
After the training program is at the end I will work with the manager to evaluate the progress
and interest of the employees in taking career advancement opportunities. We will also need to
evaluate their skills level and knowledge achieved during this initial phase. After this evaluation
we can decide what further assistance is necessarily and what changes we need to make in the
proposed plan.
Measurement
The success of the new proposal can be seen in the followings:
 employees have gained new skills and opportunities;
 happier employees;
 reduce labour turnover and avoid redundancies;
 more flexible and adaptable workforce;
 skilled employees; confident workforce.
Joint Accountabilities
I will work with the manager of the hotel to decide on the training and development
program for the employees interested to advance their careers and acquire new skills and
knowledge. Jointly we will make determinations during the initial phase of 90 days and decide
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on what activities is required to concentrate and develop further. During the initial phase appear
unanticipated interventions or even changes in the program.
Terms and conditions
The fees that I am charging will depend on the time units. For the initial phase of 90 days
the charge for the services will be £50,000. If after the initial phase is required more time and
assistance the charge will be £5,000 per week. In case of payment made in advance for the initial
phase of 90 days I can provide you a discount of 5%. At the end of the initial phase will be made
a joint evaluation to decide whether we need to continue with our collaboration.
We will work in the best interest of your hotel and we will provide qualified staff for
designing and implementing the training program. All the materials used during training will be
provided by us. We will require from you to provide the space for keeping the training and
information on the performance of the employees. We need to analyze their achievements and
performance and set up new targets for each of them. For any further clarifications on the
proposal you can contact me. I would be glad to help you in solving out these issues.
With respect,
Different types of managerial changes within the Hospitality sector are described below as
As there is changes in economy and new innovation features in technologies so
management of Hotels are not easier task and the challenges which are faced by this industry in
the present time are described below as:
High Competition: The hotel lines are described as blooming and growing business
stages. The business of travel sector have achieved success as there are large number of persons
who are spending their holidays by visiting to different places. The travel agent who is
organizing this trip is looking for accommodations of people which is according to standards of
people will high quality services. As the demands in economy is high at times for
accommodation in hotel so they are facing high competition from their rivalry business. The
places which are having monuments or famous places to visit at those areas hotels are located at
distance of 1 Km because there is high competition among owners are there prices are always in
competition from one another. In order to attract new customers the well established hotels are
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applying various offers and discounts if they are booking online this is valuable in enhancing
their profitability ratios (Baaij, 2013). They are making plans in order to ensure new facilities in
their overall business operations so that customers will be satisfied with their services.
Improper Efforts linked with marketing: As there is innovation in technologies so
hotels can easily expand their business operations by using online tools where people can books
room in advance according to their choices. There was research conducted in order to analyze
how many hotels around the globe have used online technologies in order to expand their
business activities but it was concluded that across 80% of hotels are using the old tools for their
business operations. If the firms are not able to able to develop good marketing efforts then it
may affect their positions at market places thus their sales and profitability ratios also gets
affected. According to recent trends in economy the hotel lines are slowly moving towards
online travel agencies related marketing and the the software designed by hotel management
helps in decreasing work load of business thus there is high Return on Investment from their
overall business operations (Allison and Kaye, 2011). There is need for each and every hotel to
adopt online tools in order to earn high profitability. This can be achieved by applying various
tools linked with social websites, digital marketing and effective tools for promoting their
products online. This results in gaining potential customer who will increase their profitability
ratios.
Energy Management difficulties: The total profit ratios of hotels can be increased if
they are investing money in those resources which are valuable, which can be easily renewed and
are environment friendly. The main preference of tourist are those hotels which are providing
them quality food products and there rooms are Eco friendly. The main priority of these industry
is related with cutting down electricity prices and saving energy as an step towards social
development. The methods which can be adopted for saving energy are Voltage optimization as
it is mainly working to minimize the power so that consumption of energy factor can be limited
so that all equipment of which are consuming electricity can be easily protected. On the other
one method can be systems linked with energy management which comprises of the switches
from where energy can be controlled and these button shave to be shut down when they are not
using thus a step towards consuming energy.
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Poor Customer satisfaction level: As there is always requirement of manpower who can
serve people with quality food protects to their customers in order to satisfy them and enhance
their productivity ratios. This is an essential factor for Marriott Hotels because if they are not
able to satisfy their customers then their image at market areas will decline and it takes time to
build again good reputations (Bhargava and Pathy, 2011). According to views of hotel persons
customer satisfaction can be achieved by offering them quality food products, supporting them at
difficult times and providing them good accommodation facilities.
Lack of productive managers and chefs: The most vital and difficult tasks for hotel
mangers are related with hiring good cooks, and service staff who can satisfy all their customers.
This is difficult business for all those firms who are operating at small levels in economy. The
hotels who are executing their operations at national and internal areas can easily spend high cost
on recruiting cooks who can make quality food thus satisfying needs of all their workers. It can
be said that it is very difficult jobs for all those hotels who are having lower budgets in order to
select and hire right cook.
High Service rates: Marriott hotels should focus on their service quality which may be
high or low and these should be effectively delivered to their end customers. The prices of hotels
should be economical in order to gain competitive advantages and achieve higher positions from
their rivalry business. The rooms which are especially designed for logging should be offered ta
reasonable price (Alvesson, 2011). The pricing policy adopted by business should be according
to the quality services which are offered by firms to their customers. The firms should avoid
taking any type of high charges and commissions as it increase the price for customers and they
are not willing to use their services thus affecting their sales and profitability ratios.
Cleanliness issues: It is basic elements which should be focused by firms and they
should mainly focus on their logging rooms, reception areas and kitchen. It should be neat and
clean because these are the main focus areas of customers. The environment of hotel should be
Eco friendly. The business of hotel line is running whole day as customers are coming to use the
services according to their convenience. Thus they should hire workers in shifts in order to
develop healthy environment thus customers will be satisfied with services provided by them.
This is the most effective ways in order to ensure cleanliness and development of healthy
environment at work places. All the working of business will be executed in systematic and
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planned thus there should be plans made in order to assign roles and responsibilities to all their
workers according to their shift.
Transportation facilities are improper: Marriott hotel should develop facilities in order
to pick customers at any time when they are reaching the locations so they will not waste their
time by waiting for transport. There should be plans developed in order top improve their
services like van or bus should be appointed with a driver to pick up customers from major
locations like railway station, bus stop, airport or any other famous tourist destinations. All the
hotels which are running their operations in remote areas should adhere to this facility in order to
achieve success in their operations.
Global Uncertainty and safety and security aspects: This is the major concern for all
those people who are traveling from one place to another in relation with safety aspects. As the
rates of crimes in economy are constantly increasing so there should be focus security aspects of
all customers (Bryson, 2011). Government are also adopting different measures by which they
can reduce crimes and people can be safe while traveling to different locations. Customers
should be protected from fraudulent activities like terrorism, fraudulent acts of debit and credit
cards, issues which are linked with Cyber crime activities etc. The areas which are situated in
remote areas are having high risk of attack from tourist thus the hotels which are situated in those
locations should be protected.
Lack of refreshing events and entertainment: It is the major demand of all tourist to
stay in those hotel rooms which are refreshing and there are entertainment program organized so
that customers can easily spend their time and they should feel relax from their hectic day life
schedule. The hotel management should ensure that there is entertainment programs which are
organized on regular basis as it helps in attracting large group of customers who will increase
their sales and profitability ratios (Goodson and Lindblad, 2011). There should be feedback
taken from customers in order to evaluate and identify those where changes had to be
implemented so they can easily expand their business operations all around the globe at national
and international areas.
Yield Management: It is described as those important process which are used in order to
match demand factors of tourist in economy. If there are large number of tourist who are visiting
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the hotel then there room rates will be higher and if there is decline in their services then hotels
will give various discounts to their customers (Hodgson, Pelzer and Inzana, 2013). The main aim
of designing yield systems are related with changing the pricing policies of hotels when there is
high customer demand thus their revenues and profitability factors will also increase in order to
achieve higher growth. These programs are designed as they are successful in maximizing profit
ratios of Marriott hotel. This concept is used by all those departments who are earning higher
revenues at the present time.
Evaluating management theory, analyze and interpret a variety of complex industry-specific
managerial problems and issues
Management theories are designed in order to increases productivity at work places and offer
best quality services to all their potential customers. If top level authority who are working in
hospitality sector are using different theories to implement effective strategies at work places in
order to achieve good results. Management theories are valuable in setting ideas, goals and
targets which employees had to achieve in desired time frames. This is valuable in order to
achieve effective results for business organizations.
The different types of management theories are described below as:
Contingency Theory: This theory states that management are taking all the important
decisions at the same time rather then waiting for days in order to apply solutions for the
problems which are faced by the employees. This is valuable for all authorities as they can easily
analyze the present situation and then they can make plans in order to achieve best and effective
outcomes. In hospitality industry managers can use different types of leadership approaches
which may compose of participation of employees in order to make effective decision making
process and employees can give their ideas if any changes had to be made in the business process
of Marriott hotels (Horevitz and Manoleas, 2013). Contingency theory are vital for all leaders as
it helps them to apply various plans, policies and strategies which are related with taking right
and correct decisions at the similar time when situation have occurred as the whole picture is
analyses by mangers and then they are taking decisions which are vital and effective for their
business operations.
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System Theory: This theory is based on a examining and study about various systems
which are used at work places. Systems are reflected as combination of all process which are
used in order to successfully execute all their business activities. If there are modifications made
in any parts then it affects the whole process while different patterns are used in order to execute
their working. If firms wants to implement new methods which results in achieving higher
growth then it can be achieved by analyzing systems how effective they are in order to achieve
good and effective results for business operations and all the goals and predetermined objectives
have been achieved.
The new systems which are adopted should not results in failure and they should always
focus on making plans for achieving success and growth. The main goal of this theory is linked
with development of new systems which can be applied at work places. The managers who are
successful in understanding the concept of system theory as the systems which are adopted by
business how they are affecting working organizations (Lakai and et. al., 2012). There are
different parts combined in order to make a system which is valuable in achieving all business
goals and objectives. Authorities can easily analyze the patterns which are used by them in order
to execute all their working in effective ways. Thus the systems which are adopted by hospitality
staff helps in achieving goals for all departments rather then focusing on single areas by which
growth and productivity can be enhanced.
Chaos Theory: Changes at work places can occur at any time because they are
inevitable. There can be situations when certain events and situations which are at smaller levels
can be easily controlled while other may not. This theory states that plans should be made in
order to control changes so as to achieve sustainability at work place (Lawson and et. al., 2013).
As the size of organizations are increasing day by days so sustainability is the main concern for
all hospitality industry as they want to establish their systems in order to achieve growth and
development. Firms are increasing their energy levels in order to adopt themselves according to
implementation of new systems. The systems which are used by firm needs to be changed from
time to time in order to produce products according to technological advancement. It is mainly
related with unpredictability in various systems as the complexity of organizations are growing
rapidly.
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Theory X and Y
The theory of management states that an individual had to use their strong factors in order to
execute their work attitude in effective and planned ways in order to achieve goods results for
working organizations. Theory X states that if there is ineffective working productivity then
employees had to be motivated so they can achieve their targets in desired time frames. If the
members of teams are demotivated then motivation factors can helps them to achieve all their
goals. Managers are using various leadership styles in order to motivate employees, this theory is
also reflected as hands on theory as they are motivating employees in order to complete their
working in effective and planned ways.
Theory Y states that states all employees at work places are naturally driven and they should take
their responsibilities in order to do the desired works which have been assigned to them. People
should show interest in working and they should be ready to accept all challenges that comes
along their ways (Linde and et. al., 2012). Mangers are adopting participate leadership styles in
which all employees can participate and they can give their suggestions which are useful for
decision making process. The authorities are having trust upon all their employees that they will
understand the values of responsibilities which are assigned to them thus they will perform all
business operations in effective and planned ways in order to achieve good results. Thus it results
in building strong relations among employees and managers which is necessary for organizations
to achieve success in their operations.
Managerial problems and issues related with hospitality industry
In the modern era the problems and issues which are faced by hospitality industry are
described below as:
More competition in hospital sector: There are many firms who are dealing in the same
sector which results in increasing in competition thus affecting their profitability ratios. There is
high competition seen among this sector and this was analyzed by conducting research and
development activities (Mesquita, Lima and Flores, 2013). As there is high competition among
this sector thus their revenues and profitability factor has also greatly declined. Due to increase
in competition firms are adopting new and innovative machines by which they can cure the
person without facing much difficulty.
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Retention of Loyal customers: As there is high competition among this sector so
business should have the ability to attract large group of customers who will be using their
services thus their their revenues and profitability factor will be increased. This is the greatest
challenge which is faced by all hospitality industry in the present time. In order to retain loyal
loyal customers who will not use services from other business who are dealing in same business
then then they should introduce various promotional schemes, health checkups in order to gain
trust and confidence of all people.
Finding best employees who can work effectively: This is the major issue which is
faced by hospitality industry as the main focus of employers is to hire those potential candidates
who can work effectively in order to achieve all their goals and business objectives. In this sector
the demands of customers are constantly changing as they want services which can satisfy them.
Thus finding best employees is a challenging task for all mangers because if bad services are
offered to clients it its greatly affects their revenues (Muzio and et. al., 2011). There are various
methods used b y firms in order to select best employees b y giving advertisement for vacant
post in newspapers, social media promotions and their own website where people can easily
visit. There can be situations when mangers fail to find best employees for their activities but
they can always organize training and development programs in order to make them perfect in
their operations.
Cost of operating: The important factors which are hindering business is basically the
cost which is incurred in paying penalties, taxes and other fees. This cost is flexible thus their
profitability and revenues are also affected. There is always a challenge faced by staff as how
they can maintain balance between their profitability rates and cost which are spend on
operations (Panda, 2013). This can be controlled by taking advice from expert persons as they
have experience in business thus they can give good ideas which which cost factors can be
controlled.
Policies and procedures which are not existing: in hospitality industry HR mangers are
involved in legal plans and policies which are linked with hiring of employees and the laws
according to which they have right to solve their issues and problems. Some of the business in
similar fields which are executing their operations at smaller scales are not able to follow all
rules and regulations and also records of workers are not maintained properly. If there are
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