HR50022E - Global Perspective on Rewarding People: Travelodge Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Travelodge Hotels Limited's reward and retention strategies within the context of the hospitality industry. It begins by outlining the various environmental forces—political, economic, social-cultural, technological, legal, and environmental—that impact the sector and, consequently, Travelodge's operations. The report then delves into the specific challenges Travelodge faces regarding employee reward and retention, including issues such as employees' understanding of rewards, the alignment of rewards with individual needs, the measurement of performance, and the differentiation between qualitative and quantitative aspects of the job. Additionally, it addresses retention challenges like unclear job expectations, long working hours, mismatches between jobs and employees, and toxic working environments. Finally, the report offers recommendations to address these challenges, emphasizing the importance of understanding environmental forces, providing training to employees, adapting to social needs, offering flexible working hours, rewarding performance, and clarifying job requirements. The report concludes by summarizing key findings and implications for Travelodge's human resource management.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE IN
REWARDING PEOPLE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Environmental Forces that impact the sector...............................................................................3
Challenges faced by Travelodge regarding reward and Retention..............................................5
Recommendation to address environmental and reward challenges...........................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Reward is something which is given to employees in monetary and non monetary form to
appreciate their performance and work for the organisation. Reward is an important part of
human resource management when it comes to motivate people. This report will discuss
environmental factors and challenges which are faced by the organisation regarding reward and
retention of the people. The company chosen for discussion is Travelodge Hotels Limited
founded in 1985 and headquartered at Thame, England, UK. This is a private company in the
hospitality industry operating in UK. It is largest independent company in UK with 570 hotels in
UK.
MAIN BODY
Environmental Forces that impact the sector
Business and organisational sectors get affected from various forces and so does
Travelodge (Kara, 2018). Impact of these forces on organisation is both positive and negative
and this is why timely analysis helps company in identifying the opportunities and threats from
which company need to safeguard it or take advantage of. These environmental forces are-
Political
Business organisations get significantly affected from this force and so does Travelodge. This
force includes impact of various regulations which are made by government of UK regarding
operations of the Travelodge. This includes tourism industry and independent tourism allowed in
a country. Infrastructure development in a country which attract tourists and other than this some
of the factors is security in a country and policies which are beneficial for the hotel industry.
Some of the factors required to paid attention by the government so that growth of tourism
industry will help in growth of hotel industry.
Economic
Economic forces are recession and inflation and other economic fallouts which reduce the travel
of the people and this affect the profitability and operations of the hotel (Arif and Hossin, 2016).

This also gets affected by the economic policies of government like tax, interest rate and other
monetary regulations which affect the Travelodge and its economic condition. Foreign exchange
in another factor to impact the budget of travellers from foreign and this impact their budget and
consequently they look for budget hotels and this is a benefit for Travelodge.
Social-Cultural Factor
Travelling and hotel provides services which are optional rather than something necessary and
this is why choice and preference of the people is important consideration (Arif and Hossin,
2016). Though increasing number of tourist worldwide is a favourable force of this environment
and will benefit Travelodge. Travelodge has to deal with customers of all ages and success
depends on the capability of Travelodge to meet varying expectation of the customers. This
means that more valued service and personal involvement of the Travelodge in catering its
customers.
Technological
From digital marketing to online booking technological environment force have significant
impact on the Travelodge and its functions (Mihaescu and Rudholm, 2018). Hospitality industry
is increasing their technological uses to improve quality of their service and efficiency of their
operations. From ensuring that guest does not have to experience difficulty in booking the hotel
rooms to their security in hotel is carried out through technology. Some of the very common
technological forces which have impact on the hospitality industry are usability of digital
platform by the customers regarding hotel like analysing and comparing hotel services.
Customers are required to write and access reviews about the hotel and this is also done through
technological mediums.
Legal
This force is very significant and Travelodge to ensure that it does not fall into any legal trouble
has to ensure that it comply with all the legal requirements. These are regarding employment in
the Travelodge which includes wages and salaries to conditions of the work. Guest safety and
customers’ protection and food and beverages safety and standards are required to be followed

by Travelodge. Hotels also have to comply with discrimination a law which is more like a
benefit for the tourism industry and for hospitality industry and Travelodge as well.
Environmental
This factor has very significant impact on hospitality sector as this includes energy consumption.
Increasing cost of energy requires that hotels are build in such way that cost of energy can be
reduced and operations of the Travelodge are energy efficient. Climate change is another factor
affecting this industry and Travelodge (Mihaescu and Rudholm, 2018). Customers of the
industry specifically those coming with the purpose of travelling and leisure environment and
climate make a specific impact. Such customers are based on favourable climate and
environmental factors and this make the business seasonally profitable. Other than this
Travelodge is also required to consider impact of its operations on environment and this is why
have to employ strategies and plans for waste management, recycling of waste and reduction of
waste.
Challenges faced by Travelodge regarding reward and Retention
Travelogue is a growing hospitality organisation and along with managing the human
resources for growth it has to face general problems of hospitality organisation regarding
retention of the employees. Though proper reward and reward management can help in
managing the problem but reward management also have to face some challenges these are-
Reward not understood by people
This is a very common problem that Travelodge faced and the problem is that rewards
which are given to employees are not understood by them (Krishna and Upadhyay, 2018). This
affects the overall objective behind giving the reward. This is very important when rewards are
based on the performance of employees, in such case if they do not understand the reward then
they will not make efforts to improve their performance.
Reward not linked with individual employee needs
This is another challenge being faced by the Travelogue that employees’ individual needs
are not fulfilled by the rewards given to them. This is because of standardization and equality
among employees. In such case rewards being given to employees are not fulfilling their needs

and in such case the results expected because of rewards are not achieved. Flat rewards also are
not able to create specific impact on the employee as the rewards are also general.
Measurement of Performance
This is very difficult to measure performance of the employee in hospitality industry the
reason is that all the performance cannot be measured in quantitative manner (Pradhan, Jena and
Pattnaik, 2017). This is a challenge for reward as this is very difficult to measure improvement in
performance and along with impact of the performance of employee on the organisational
growth and efficiency.
Differentiating in Qualitative and Quantitative Performance
This is also a challenge for the hotel to differentiating in qualitative and quantitative
aspects of the job and then determination off the rewards based on this difference. Determination
of the rewards to be given to employees is also a big challenge that affect the success of the
rewards and which is suitable for every employee of the Travelodge.
Other than reward retention of the employees in the hotel is also a challenge faced by
Travelodge. Some of the challenges faced by Travelodge regarding retention are;
Unclear Job expectation
This is a very common reason because of which retention of employees is a challenge in
hospitality industry. This is because employees often are not aware about what they are expected
to do. Job role ambiguity leads to stress and reduced job satisfaction and as a result employees
leave the organisation (Muqadas, Rehman and Aslam, 2017). This is one of the reasons which
made retention a challenge for Travelodge. This also sometimes lead to unhappy employee as
they might feel that they are working on the job they were hired for.
Stretched Working Hours
Hospitality industry often faces this challenge as the working hours in the hospitality
sector are often stretched due to its nature. This is one of the reasons that Travelodge faced
challenge in employee retention.

Mismatch between Job and Employees
This is another reason that hospitality is common for young age people to get hired (Khan
and et.al., 2017). But this is not right fit for all the employees and this realization happens after
employee has joined the hotel. Travelodge also faced challenge in retention because of this
reason as Travelodge was growing as an organisation and required to hire many employees and
in such case it hired many young age employees and later they did not retained in organisation
for long. Because their talent is something different from hospitality and they are not always well
equipped with knowledge and skills to work in hospitality.
Toxic Working Environment
This is another reason because of which retention became challenge for Travelodge. The
reason behind toxic working environment is that Travelodge is a growing organisation in
hospitality industry and this is why calls for high-pressure work environment (Dikshit and
Madan, 2018). This work-pressure leave employees in stress and this is also not possible for
everyone to manage the stress.
Recommendation to address environmental and reward challenges.
In the present era, organisation are facing varied challenges due to the dynamic nature of
environment. Thus, one of the challenges for entity is to satisfy the needs of employees to cope
up with their changing needs and evolving environment to accomplish success in order to remain
competitive in market (Heninger, Smith and Wood, 2019). On the basis of above, suggestive
measures are provided to cope up with environment and reward challenges. Hence, these as are-
 The entity needs to put focus on the improving the understanding with help of
undertaking initiatives as to provide solutions for issues at local, regional and global
level. In this, enterprise should take initiatives by integrating the diverse set of knowledge
that engages the social, ecological, health of individuals.
 The entity should take steps to deal with environment challenges that are impacting the
working of enterprise as well as individuals. If the political conditions of the country are
not stable, then this could affect the working of enterprise. In order to cope up with it, the
entity needs to take precautionary measures so that better things can be done.

 If the entity come up with the technological changes to promote advancement by
implementing the modern tools and techniques than working of firm can be affected as
many of them are not familiar with the use of modern tools. In order to cope up with this
issue, the entity needs to provide training to employees so that they can know the
advanced and their knowledge can be upgraded.
 The entity should take steps towards to understand the social needs such as changes in
lifestyle, needs, demand etc. By being updated with latest demand the entity can able to
attract customer and this can also help to maintain the long term customer retention.
 Hospitality industry should allow their employees for working on fixed hour basis. They
must provide flexibility to them as stretching working hours affects the employee
retention in entity (Marler and Trainor, 2019). For this, they must hire employees on two
shift basis so that flexible working condition can aid to boost the employees moral and
also affects positive on firm productivity.
 Hospitality industry must reward their employee on their performance this aids to
motivates them and this also leads to bring out proficiency which can improve the
working environment and also enhance brand recognition. Rewarding employees aids to
boost their morale and they start to perform their best.
 The one of the common challenge of the hospitality industry is that it has no clear job
condition for employees. People are not clear about that they need to do and this affects
the working of the industry in huge context. By clearing them the job requirement and by
hiring the right person at the right job can aids to promote the working of enterprise in
effective and efficient manner.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of above it can be concluded that hospitality industry which is growing at
high pace gets affected from various forces. Forces have both negative and positive impact on
the growth of hospitality industry. One of the factors and challenge being faced by hospitality
industry is related to retention of the employees in the organisation. This is very common
problem in the hospitality industry and there are various reasons like working condition, stress
and quality of job. In this report along with challenges of retention, challenges of reward have
also been discussed along with recommendation to deal with the challenge.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Arif, T.M.H. and Hossin, M.Z., 2016. A comparative analysis of internal and external
environments between Hotel Hyatt, UK and Hotel The Cox Today, Cox’s Bazar,
Bangladesh. IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science. 21(6). pp.13-22.
Dikshit, M.S.K. and Madan, M.V., 2018. HR Rewards system and Employees motivation: An
Analysis. NOLEGEIN-Journal of Human Resource Management & Development.
pp.43-49.
Heninger, W.G., Smith, S.D. and Wood, D.A., 2019. Reward type and performance: an
examination of organizational wellness programs. Management Accounting Research.
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Kara, E., 2018. A contemporary approach for strategic management in tourism sector: pestel
analysis on the city Muğla, Turkey. İşletme Araştırmaları Dergisi. 10(2). pp.598-608.
Khan, Z and et.al., 2017. Employee emotional resilience during post-merger integration across
national boundaries: Rewards and the mediating role of fairness norms. Journal of
World Business. p.100888.
Krishna, C. and Upadhyay, R., 2018. Emerging HR Challenges (Literature Review on Employee
Retention). Anwesh. 3(1). p.56.
Marler, C.A. and Trainor, B.C., 2019. The challenge hypothesis revisited: Focus on reproductive
experience and neural mechanisms. Hormones and behaviour. p.104645.
Mihaescu, O. and Rudholm, N., 2018. How does big-box retail entry affect incumbents in the
hospitality industry: Evidence from a natural experiment (No. 134). HUI Research.
Muqadas, F., Rehman, M. and Aslam, U., 2017. Exploring the challenges, trends and issues for
knowledge sharing. VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems.
Pradhan, R.K., Jena, L.K. and Pattnaik, R., 2017. Employee Retention Strategies in Service
Industries: Opportunities and Challenges. In Employees and Employers in Service
Organizations (pp. 53-70). Apple Academic Press.