Room Division Management Report: Attracting and Retaining Staff

This report delves into the intricacies of room division management within the hospitality industry. It addresses the critical role of employees, particularly front desk and housekeeping staff, in shaping a hotel's reputation and competitive edge. The report examines the skills and qualifications required for these roles, highlighting the challenges of attracting and retaining qualified employees, including issues like transient workforces and low pay. It analyzes employee motivation, drawing on expectancy theory and the significance of incentive programs and job satisfaction. The report also identifies common challenges faced by room division employees, such as managing guest emotions and handling various service-related issues. Finally, it provides recommendations for attracting and retaining staff, emphasizing training, fair compensation, and supportive management styles to improve the overall efficiency and productivity of the room division.

Running head: ROOM DIVISION MANAGEMENT
Room Division Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Answer to question 1:
Employees are the most significant resources within the hospitality industry and they
are mostly responsible for hotels to give a competitive advantage within the business world.
Therefore many scholars agree that the qualifications and skills of the front desk employees
and housekeeping play the key role in building and sustaining the reputation and image of the
hotel. According to Boella (2017) he hospitality industry is the industry which mostly needs
low level of skills and little training and development of employees. In fact, some findings
indicate that there is no such correlation between the position of the employees and their
educational level in the room division management. Along with that, some researchers have
also indicates that the font office employees tend to need more than the low level of skills.
The perceptions regarding the job in the labour market indicate towards the requirement of
employees in room division management having lower level of skills other than the
multinational hospitality organizations. However there are factors which make difficult for
the organizations in hospitality industry in attracting and retaining the appropriate employees
in room division management. These factors include transient work force, low payment and
serious lack in the formal qualifications (Tracey, 2016). In a study focusing on desired
competencies in the front office and housekeeping managers and employees, it is shown that
significant skills are required for the front office jobs such as communicating with other
employees and guests, thinking in a creative way for innovative service, developing the
service orientation, identification of problems, listening and problem solving skills, quality
management etc. The employee perception for this jobs also show that there has been a
relative significance of the competencies like the interpersonal behavioural and relationship
skills are required for applying the knowledge and technical skills within the work place.
Boella (2017), has also found that there are other factors that affect the job satisfaction level
of the employees such as promotion chances, good pay, nature of the job etc. It has also been

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indicated that the satisfied employees tend not to leave the job, therefore the rate of turnover
are low for such employees. However, there has been a major finding that the employees with
more educational qualification tend to have greater level of job satisfaction.
Answer to question 2:
The front office and housekeeping employees are responsible for a lot of things to
make the guests’ stay comfortable within the organization. The room division is the
combination of housekeeping, front office, security and maintenance employees. Therefore
the supervisor or the managers of this department should have experience and skills for these
jobs. As an employee or a manager, communicating with other is also important. Employee
talent has been a severe issue in these departments as mostly it is believed that these
employees require a lower level of competency. The hotel business is not only dependent of
the services they provide, but also on the front office employees. As indicated by Deresky
(2017) the front office and housekeeping employees should have a proactive approach in
dealing with guests and always assist them with whatever they need at any time. Therefore,
they also need to have a concrete plan for meeting the organizational goals and objectives.
The employees should proactively look for developing necessary skills including both soft
and hard skills. Communicating with guests is turning into a crucial job from the room
division management employees, therefore employees should also develop skills for being
able to work in a team, so that they can solve any issue working together. In addition to that,
the hospitality market has become more competitive, therefore, it is important to train and
develop a skilled workforce, which will eventually help the organization to gain the
competitive advantage. However recruiting people who are competent enough to deal with
complicated situation is a major issue for hotel industry. The major advantage of having
skilled employees at the front desk is that they can easily make the guests feel comfortable.
Therefore the demand for skilled and trained employees has been increasing (Snell, Morris &

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Bohlander, 2015). The front office personnel should be having social skills and special
qualities for dealing with the guests, apart from having the capability of performing in
complex situations. However, this need is not always fulfilled, as most people believe that
lower level skills are required for the room division management employees. Therefore, it
can be said that finding suitable employees with required talent for front office and
housekeeping has been a trouble for hospitality industry.
Answer to question 3:
It can be said that motivation is a force that directs special behavioural alternatives
that are suggested while considering among the options of behaviour. Expectancy theory was
initially developed by the concepts of Vroom. It is seen that nowadays the employees of the
hotels are immensely interested in working in front office as various incentive programs are
there from where they can earn significant amount of money. It can be said that these
incentive programs actually benefits all the stakeholders of the hotels and from the financial
gain the employees become more motivated towards work for the company and that is also a
gain of the company. Not only the financial part, while working in the front office, it may
appear that the front office employees are the representatives of the organization and that can
provide a major amount of job satisfaction to the employees that cannot be denied (Jaworski
et al., 2018). The front office employees many a times work as supervisor of some managers
which makes the job most prestigious in the hotel business and that is another force that is
nowadays driving the hotel employees to yearn for working as a front office employee in
hotels. Thus it can be said that the dignity, monetary benefit and the higher post or
importance of the role played in the organization, are the driving factors that are attracting the
hotel employees nowadays to work in front office of the hotels.

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Answer to question 4:
The hotels tend to have numbers of incidents occurring throughout the day as this
industry mostly deals with different kinds of people coming from all around the world. The
guests are with diverse characteristics coming from different countries and different cultures.
Even the highly reputed hotels may not be capable of satisfying their every customer with
their services. Usually the front office and housekeeping employees are responsible for
interacting with guests directly, therefore there are several challenges that they face on a
regular basis. Such challenges are:
 The room division management employees are accountable for managing the
emotions of the guests including angry customers who have not received their
services properly. Therefore this can be a major challenge for them.
 The front desk employees tend to handle numerous calls throughout the day and
sometimes it is impossible for them to understand how much time consuming the calls
are going to be before taking the call. Some customer can call to confirm their
booking or update their whereabouts or may be sometimes rescheduling their
bookings (Moreo, Green & O'Halloran, 2018). Therefore managing such calls with
varied numbers of issues can be a major challenge for the employees.
 Managing the flow of guests at the busy times can be another significant challenge for
the room division employees. When customers have to wait at the front desk, they can
get annoyed and frustrated with every passing minute. However, it is not only the
irritation of the customers the front office employees have to deal with, but they also
have to deal with the other teams such as housekeeping, security for offering the
guests the best possible services. Utilizing techniques for keeping the guests informed
regarding the delays in service and referring to the service guide can be a key
challenge as well.

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 The front office and housekeeping staffs are accountable for responding immediately
to the complaints regarding various issues such as quality of service to delay in
services the guests are receiving (Felicen et al., 2014). Therefore balancing
understanding and compassion with these situations and settling on the ways for
addressing such issues can take a toll on their time and energy, no matter how much
experience he or she has. Therefore, it can be said that the room division management
employees are the key for the maintenance of productivity and efficiency along with
having brilliant understanding with the guests.
Answer to question 5:
The staffing issues within the hospitality industry indicate that the organizations tend
to face major challenges in attracting and retaining the employees which eventually results
into shortages in staff members. The turnover rate of employees can be defined as the
involuntary or voluntary withdrawal of the employees from their existing organization.
Employee turnover has always been a major issue within the hospitality industry. Excessive
turnover including the important employees tend to hinder and disrupt the effectualness of the
organization (Sucher & Cheung, 2015). Therefore, attracting more skilled employees and
reducing the turnover rate is very much significant as it can reduce the cost for recruiting,
selecting and the training along with improving the service quality of the organization. In
order to attract more skilled employees for the organization, proper training and development
of the employees, providing fair payments are key practices that should be adapted by most
of the organizations in this industry (Peshave & Gupta, 2017). Recruiting employees
selectively is essential for enhancing the commitment of employees which also helps
mitigating the turnover rate of the staff members as it tends to exert a major influence on the
culture of the organization. A key practice that leads to selective staffing is to attract adequate
applicants in order to make sure that the organization gets the best qualified employees

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amongst them (Combes et al., 2016). Therefore, a pragmatic job preview is necessary for the
potential candidates so that they can also assess the effectiveness of the organization
(Meagher, 2017). In addition to that, selective staffing also includes using several reliable
methods for selecting the potential employees along with involving more stakeholders in the
decision making process. Therefore, this practice can help attracting the best talents for the
organization (Goh & Kong, 2016).
The training and orientation also help the employees to get familiarized with the
regular services of the employees and maximise the skills, knowledge and abilities for
performing their jobs. Therefore in order to retain employees in the room division
management, the organization should provide professional training and development sessions
with capable trainers (Robinson et al., 2016). Along with that offering fair and competitive
pay is also essential for retaining employees. It has been found out that most of the non-
managerial staff members in the hospitality industry tend to have a lower pay that any other
industry which also lead to higher turnover rate for the employees and trouble to attract and
retain their skilled employees (Gordon & Adler, 2017). Therefore for retaining the most
competent and experienced employees in the room division management, the hospitality
organizations should provide smart pay along with non-monetary benefits and necessary
recognition for dealing with difficult situations. A friendly management and supervision style
can help satisfying and retaining employees as it will help to reduce the working stress
(Riley, 2014).
Answer to question 6:
Recommendations for attracting and retaining room division staffs:

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 A specific and well-knit framework should be provided to the employees at the initial
phase of their jobs so that they can understand that what exactly the organization
expects out of them. This will help them to shape their daily jobs in a positive way.
 The supervision quality that the staff members receive is also significant for the
employee retention process. As the room division employees have to deal with
different kinds of guests, they should get adequate help from their managers and
supervisors (Knox et al., 2015). If the managers make the staff members feel that they
are undervalued, it can immediately contribute to the employee turnover.
 The employees should be given enough freedom for speaking her or his mind.
Whenever the employees are having issues with their job, both internally and
externally, the higher management should be supportive and work on their feedbacks.
 They should be treated fairly and there should not be any kind of discrimination
amongst employees based on any gender or race (Goh & Kong, 2016).

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