Research Proposal: COVID-19 Impact on Work Flexibility - Hilton Hotel

This research proposal investigates the impact of COVID-19 on work flexibility within the hospitality sector, specifically focusing on Hilton Hotel. It aims to understand the concept of work flexibility, assess the changes brought about by the pandemic, and determine the importance of flexible work arrangements in the hospitality industry. The study employs a qualitative approach using an inductive research method and descriptive research design, underpinned by interpretivism philosophy. Data will be collected through both primary (survey questionnaires from 40 Hilton UK employees using probability random sampling) and secondary sources, analyzed thematically to explore the alterations in operations, policies, and timings. Ethical considerations are prioritized, ensuring informed consent and participant privacy. The expected outcome is a comprehensive understanding of the changes experienced by the hospitality industry and how service providers can adapt to evolving customer expectations and improve overall performance.

LT6P19GN: Research Methods and Project
ASSESSMENT COVER SHEET
PROGRAMME TITLE: BA (Hons) Hospitality Management (Top Up)
MODULE TITLE: Research Methods and Projects
MODULE CODE:
INTAKE/SEMESTER:
ASSESSMENT TITLE: Research Project Proposal
MODULE LEADER/LECTURER
STUDENT ID: (London Met)
STUDENT ID:
STUDENT NAME:
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 019
I declare that all material in this assignment is my own work except where there is clear
acknowledgement or reference to the work of others and I have complied and agreed to the
College statement on Plagiarism and Academic Integrity on the College Student Handbook
provided at Induction.
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Students should provide a completed assignment cover sheet with all essential details. All assignments
should be submitted in electronic format via college systems on or before the submission deadline. The
e-submission system will not allow late submissions. By submitting this assignment and cover sheet
electronically, in whatever form, you are deemed to have made the declaration set out above.
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Research Topic/ Research Question:
1. INTRODUCTION.
Research Background: Work flexibility refers to the opportunity provided to employees in order to
work freely at their own timings and even work remotely for the benefit of the organization (Angelici,
and Profeta, 2020). It has been determined that before the outbreak of Covid 19, the employees within
hospitality sector used to work 24*7 as the nature of their work demands the same. However, the
outbreak of Covid 19 has provided the workforce within the hospitality sector to manage them
according to their own time and convenience and made them learn how things can be operated
remotely. The adaptability to change is helping the hospitality industry to grow and manage the
operations easily within their hotels. In the present proposal, the Hilton Hotel has been chosen which
provides its customers with premium quality services at reasonable price. The present proposal will aim
to determine the impact of Covid 19 on the operating and work flexibility of the workforce within the
hospitality sector.
Aims & Objectives
Aim: To analyse the impact of Covid 19 on work flexibility and environment of hospitality
organizations: A case study on Hilton Hotel.
Objectives:
I. To develop an understanding about the concept of work flexibility.
II. To determine the impact of Covid 19 on the work flexibility of the employees within the hospitality
sector
III. To assess the importance of work flexibility within the hospitality sector.
Research Questions:
i. What is the concept of work flexibility with its benefits as well as drawbacks?
ii. How Covid 19 affected the work flexibility and the environment of the hospitality sector?
iii. Determine the importance of work flexibility with respect to the hospitality industry.
iv. To recommend ways in which the work flexibility can be implemented within the
hospitality industry.
Research Rationale: The major reason behind carrying out this research is to determine how Covid 19
affected the work flexibility and environment of the Hilton Hotel. This is recognized as the research
issue as it has been determined that the Covid 19 has affected the operations, policies, and timings of all
the industries. It is considered as an issue because it has been identified that there are organization who
are satisfied with the changes brought within their organization after the Covid 19 but there are several
organizations who have faced difficulties in such times. Therefore, thematic perception test technique
will be used in order to determine the impact of Covid 19 on the work flexibility and the environment
of the Hilton Hotel.
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Scope of Research Study: The present study will be helpful for the research scholars carrying out
research similar to the current study in evaluating the data collected by them and forming conclusions
on the basis of the same.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW:
Theme 1 : To determine the meaning and concept of work flexibility including its advantages
and disadvantages.
According to Beno, (2018), work flexibility can be defined as the opportunity given by the
employer to the employee to work freely at the time when it is convenient for them. It provides the
employees the opportunity to continue working with their jobs by taking those timings which are
suitable for them to carry out their work related activities. As investigated by Vyas, and Butakhieo,
(2021), it can be stated that the flexible working hours helps an organization with a number of
advantages such as the ability to work at flexible hours increases the comfort of the workforce and
thus, increases their productivity. It also helps the organization in hiring employees from remote place
who cannot work from office to make them work from their home and utilize their talent for the
benefit of the organization. Since, less employees work from office, it also reduces the office
expenses of an organization. On the contrary, Yawson, (2020) states that there are certain
disadvantages of the work flexibility too. This involves not making optimum use of the time provided
to them. There are certain employees who misuse the facility of work in flexible shifts as there is no
one to keep an eye on them.
Theme 2 : To identify the impact of Covid 19 on the work flexibility and environment of the
Hilton hotel.
As investigated by Chung, and Van der Lippe, (2020), due to the Covid 19, many workers
within the Hilton Hotel were not able to join the hotel as the employees within the hotel belongs to
various regions. Due to the outbreak of Covid 19 and the imposition of lock down, the Hilton Hotel
had to face staff turnover and also face a reduction in the staff working within the hotel. Due to which,
the hotel had to provide the employees the opportunity to manage the work by being at remote places.
Theme 3 : To determine the importance of work flexibility in the context of hospitality sector.
According to Lehdonvirta, (2018), the work flexibility is of great use for the hospitality
industry as it increases the productivity of employees, enhances the satisfaction of employees, retains
the talent , reduces as the cost and lastly enhances the profitability of the business.
METHODOLOGY
Research type
There are mainly two types of research, namely, qualitative and quantitative. In order to
determine the impact of Covid 19 on the work flexibility of the hospitality sector, the qualitative
research has been chosen.
Research Approach
For the purpose of evaluating the impact of the Covid 19 on the hospitality sector , the
inductive approach of research will be used. The inductive approach of research helps in analysing
and forming conclusions on the basis of qualitative data collected.
Research design
There are mainly three types of research designs which includes descriptive research design,
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exploratory research design and the case study research design. However, in the present study, the
descriptive research design will be used as it will help the research scholars in determining how
Covid 19 has affected the work flexibility and the environment within the hospitality industry.
Research philosophy
There are mainly two types of research philosophies, i.e., interpretivism and positivism. For
the present study, the interpretivism philosophy will be used as it helps an effective analysis of the
qualitative data and will help in determining the impact of Covid 19 on the work flexibility and
environment of the hospitality industry.
Data collection and analysis:
There are two types of data collection method: primary and secondary data. In primary data collection
data is collected from the participants by researcher while in secondary data analysis research is
conducted through using only secondary sources like books, journals and web sources. In the
proposed research both type of data collection will be used. The primary data will be obtained using a
survey questionnaire. The use of primary data helps in making the research more realistic and fair
because data is collected from the contemporary research environment by researcher (Hesse-Biber,
2018). The use of secondary data in the study is also helpful in strengthening the theoretical support to
the data obtained and analysed. The study is of qualitative type and thus for analysing the collected
data, thematic analysis is used. Use of various themes to obtain findings is effective because thematic
analysis provides a broader analysis and evaluation of the selected research topic.
Sampling:
For making the research and data collection process only a small population is chosen to collect the
data. This is called sampling. For collecting the primary data 40 employees of Hilton UK will be
selected and a questionnaire based survey will be conducted. The participants will be selected
randomly using probability random sampling. The advantage of using this sampling method is that it
eliminates the bias in data collection and analysis process. The sample population is also chosen small
in the proposed project so to keep the research manageable and within budget frame.
Ethical considerations:
While conducting primary research it is also important that ethics must be followed. All the
participants must be informed clearly about the purpose, method and outcome of the research so that
participants can provide their free consent and are able to withdraw at any instant of the research.
During the research it is also the ethical responsibility of the researcher to ensure that participants are
not harmed and their privacy or dignity is maintained (Clark and Vealé, 2018). The data provided by
client must also be represented fairly without manipulating it to obtained desired study results.
CONCLUSION
It is expected that this study will deliver a thorough understanding of changes which are experienced
by hospitality industry. The study will explore and analyse the changes which Covid pandemic and
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related restrictions introduced within operation and business environment of hospitality organisations.
It will also help service providers to understand that how hospitality services and customer
expectations are transforming after normalisation of pandemic situations. It can also be concluded that
work flexibility trends and operation environment have also been changed considerably so that
organisations can enhance their performance and customer experience can be improved.
WORK PLANNING
Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors
Framing aim and objectives 2 days Mon 5/9/22 Tue 5/10/22
Conducting a literature
review 4 days Wed 5/11/22 Mon 5/16/22 1
Selection of research
methodology 3 days Tue 5/17/22 Thu 5/19/22 2
Data collection 10 days Fri 5/20/22 Thu 6/2/22 3
Data analysis 15 days Fri 6/3/22 Thu 6/23/22 4
Discussion 7 days Fri 6/24/22 Mon 7/4/22 5
Conclusion 4 days Tue 7/5/22 Fri 7/8/22 6
Report submission 1 day? Mon 7/11/22 Mon 7/11/22 7
REFRENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
Clark, K.R. and Vealé, B.L., 2018. Strategies to enhance data collection and analysis in qualitative
research. Radiologic technology. 89(5).pp.482CT-485CT.
Hesse-Biber, S., 2018. Toward an understanding of a qualitatively driven mixed methods data
collection and analysis: Moving toward a theoretically centered mixed methods praxis. The
SAGE handbook of qualitative data collection. pp.545-564.
Angelici, M. and Profeta, P., 2020. Smart-working: Work flexibility without constraints.
Beno, M., 2018, November. Work flexibility, telepresence in the office for remote workers: A case
study from austria. In International Conference on Multi-disciplinary Trends in Artificial
Intelligence (pp. 19-31). Springer, Cham.
Vyas, L. and Butakhieo, N., 2021. The impact of working from home during COVID-19 on work and
life domains: an exploratory study on Hong Kong. Policy design and practice. 4(1). pp.59-76.
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Yawson, R., 2020. Strategic flexibility analysis of HRD research and practice post COVID-19
pandemic. Human Resource Development International. 23(4). pp.406-417.
Chung, H. and Van der Lippe, T., 2020. Flexible working, work–life balance, and gender equality:
Introduction. Social Indicators Research. 151(2).pp.365-381.
Lehdonvirta, V., 2018. Flexibility in the gig economy: managing time on three online piecework
platforms. New Technology, Work and Employment. 33(1). pp.13-29.
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