QUESTION
Human Resource in Hospitality Management
You will answer the questions/perform the tasks that are listed at the end of the following scenario. Assignment No. 1 must be seven (7) pages minimum, may be double spaced, margins no larger than 1” and font size no larger than 12.
Keith had seven years experience as an events and banquet manager for two different hotels. One of the hotels was in New York City and the other in Paris, France. Keith loved the jobs in both cities and especially the one in Paris. Micah Miller, CEO of SWI recruited Keith for the GM position at SWI while Wayne Walton was transferred to Guam to supervise the completion of the construction and grand opening of a new SWI facility. After the comple-tion of the assignment Wayne would have the option to stay on at the Guam SWI as GM, or to resume his GM position at SWI in Cincinnati. The Guam assignment was projected to last at least eighteen months.
Depending upon which option Wayne’s takes after the Guam project, Keith would have the choice to take the Guam GM position or keep the GM position at SWI Cincinnati. Keith had an open position for an assistant general manager. While in the shopping mall, Keith ran into Tori, a former classmate from their Hospitality Management Program at Metro University. Keith invited Tori to lunch. They discussed what they had been doing since graduation. Keith had always been impressed with Tori’s abilities and so he offered her the position of assist general manager. Tori had a good position dealing with front house and front office operations at Drowsy Inn. One thing Tori knew was that her supervisor and the manager above her supervisor were pretty young and had no plans to leave Drowsy Inn. Based upon that situation, Tori knew that it would be quite a few years before either of them would leave those positions and she would not have an opportunity to move up at Drowsy Inn. After weighing all of the factors, Tori accepted the assistant GM position with SWI. Tori was responsible for dealing with the rooms operations for SWI. She did the training for front office employees, had oversight for the housekeeping department, and trained all employees in standards for customer satisfaction and customer service.
Tori gave Drowsy Inn six week’s notice, instead of the customary month’s notice. Tori thought that the extra time would provide Drowsy Inn more than an adequate chance to find a suitable replacement for her. Stan, Tori’s manager at Drowsy Inn responded to her resignation letter with one of his own marked private and confidential. In his letter Stan stated that, “I am disappointed that you did not discuss your planned departure with me. There was a strong probability that I
HR in the HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY ASSIGNMENT NO. 1 Spring 2012 2 of 4
could have matched or exceeded the position and salary that you took with SWI. The letter also had statement that, “A letter has also been sent to CEO, Micah Miller informing him that if he or anyone from SWI raids any more Drowsy Inn employees, I will be forced consult with attorney’s for Drowsy Inn.” Tori was surprised because she thought Stan liked her and wanted her to advance in her career.
Keith and Tori worked well together and with their staff. SWI did well. About fourteen months later, Keith was offered a GM position at a Paris Hotel. Keith jumped at the opportunity to go back to the city that he loved. The announcement of Keith’s resignation was made during the annual company party. Also announced was his replacement, Ted from Montreal, Canada.
Several people had worked with Ted before and did not like his management style. Three staff members turned in their resignations the next week. They thought that Ted’s management style was close to Hitler’s.
Upon his arrival Ted announced that he would meet individually with each employee as there would be major changes – organizationally, operationally, reassignment of people, position changes, and everyone would not be retained. The entire atmosphere at SWI began to change with that announcement and it has been downhill from there. SWI had gained an even better reputation under Keith’s guidance as an innovative, young, and enthusiastic operation with a high level of repeat business and customer satisfaction. The hotel guests also noticed that change and expressed their displeasure. Occupancy rates decreased.
Word reached Micah Miller that things were not going well with the hotel under Ted’s management. Plus Micah had revenue numbers as well which showed that revenue had declined. After a lengthy meeting with Micah, an announcement was made that Ted was leaving. Tori was named the acting GM until a permanent GM could be found. Tori did a great job. She was to get assistance from Rick when needed. But Tori rarely needed Rick’s help.
The atmosphere at SWI Cincinnati was just about back to where it had been when Keith was GM. Rick was a GM at a SWI property about 350 miles away.
Rick had some health issues and was not available for about three months.
All of the comments were positive. However, when Rick was able to stop by after his health improved, he appeared to be hostile toward her. About two weeks later he called Tori in the office and told her that her services were no longer needed. Summarily, he told Tori that she would get one month’s severance pay and her vacation pay. Ted also told her, “Clean out your office today!”
Tori could not figure out what happened as she even spent time overnight a number of times to make sure that all of the work was done, including the paperwork.
Kitchen workers in SWI’s 24 hour restaurant, Chic Cuisine are Latinos/Hispanics. While working in the kitchen area the workers usually talk to each other in Spanish. Tensions have arisen within the last three weeks because a number of the servers have complained to Greg Gourd, the general manager of the restaurant. The servers think that the kitchen workers should be required to only speak English while on the job. The front of the house servers do not speak Spanish and only understand a few Spanish words. The kitchen supervisor, Amy is bilingual and easily communicates with the kitchen staff/back of the house staff and the front of the house servers. The kitchen staff does not speak English as fluently as Spanish. An automated ordering system is used; thus, front and back of the house employees do not have to interact that often in order to prepare food for the patrons.
Over lunch one day, Amy overheard that Raul, one of the kitchen workers had mentioned that his 8 year old child has sickle cell anemia. Raul mentioned that the condition can be painful at times and that his child requires frequent medical care, medications, and even hospitalizations for blood transfusions and treatment. Amy had never heard of sickle cell anemia before. While at home that evening, Amy looked up the term sickle cell anemia on the Internet. On the American Society of Hematology website she discovered that it is an inherited disease, plus other interesting information about the disease. A child who inherits the sickle cell gene from both parents will have the sickle cell disease. If you inherit the sick cell gene from one parent, then you will carry the sickle cell trait. If you have the disease you will pass one sickle cell gene to your children. If you have the sickle cell trait there is a 50% chance that you will pass the sickle cell gene to your child. The website noted that The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute reported that more than 70,000 people in the United States have sick cell anemia. Other information about sickle cell disease was that it was more common among certain ethnic groups which included: 1) People of African descent, including African-Americans; 2) Hispanic-Americans; and 3) People of Saudi Arabian, Caribbean, and South and Central American Indian descent. All newborns are now tested for the disease in the United States.
Amy learned that symptoms and signs of the disease include: anemia, swelling of hands and feet, frequent pain, stunted growth, vision problems, and strokes. Amy informed Greg of what she had learned. Greg stated, “Well, if Raul’s child has the disease so does Raul. We’ll cut our losses and terminate him as soon as possible. Thereafter, Raul missed two days of work because his child needed
HR in the HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY ASSIGNMENT NO. 1 Spring 2012 4 of 4
medical care and hospitalization for a transfusion. Raul missed calling in the first day as he was at the hospital, but he did call in that next day and explained. Greg instructed Amy to fire Raul as he violated the policy of failing to call in when an employee did not report to work.
QUESTIONS/TASKS: Number your answers. Give complete answers and use the proper terminology.
1.State and explain the options available to address each of the above situations. 2. Explain in detail who should be involved in resolving it.
3. Explain in detail what would be the best option.
4. Explain in detail the consequences of not addressing the problems and issues
raised.
4. Draft at least five (5) policies/rules/procedures to address the situation.)
SOLUTION
- In the above given case, there are a few situations which symbolize improper management, less transparent and vague HR policies and superposition of company’s policies on employees forcefully. All these situations could have been avoided and issues can be solved in easy way. In the first situation when TORI’S resignation and notice period was taken by her senior as a disloyalty and she was threatened to be misrepresented in her upcoming firm where the management will complaint of forced raid of employees for a change by SWI, Tori could have used the grievance cell for the firm and the supervisor for creating unnecessary hindrance in her job switch. Apart from this in the other situation where Tori performed extraordinarily but then also her performance was neglected and she was told to leave the firm on short notice, this is a case of poor HR policies where the firm is unaware of the rights of employees on the job and by paying the extra salary, they are asking the employee to leave without any ground. This could have been solved if HR department would have heard to the grievance of Tori that she has been asked to leave without showing any ground. In the third situation as that worker really broke company’s policy and gave the firm a chance to chase him, it is very difficult to say that company could be pointed out although such situations could be avoided if workers of all such hotels have their own union or employee collective bargaining so that rights of workers are not snatched. He could have been given a show cause notice and firing any worker for this reason on superficial level could be prevented if all workers could have risen against it as being a small reason for such punishment.
- The human resource department where grievance handling of employees is heard should be primarily involved. Apart from this the employees handled each situation on personal level, this should be decreased and they should be promoted or communicated to convey such bullies to top officials so that their problems could be resolved. The management must have conveyed their policies on the time of joining; they should review them and raise voice against their partiality. All companies in any country like U.K., U.S.A., India are having grievance redressal forum and even the small organizations or hotels are not exempt from making such redressal policy and procedures, it must be concentrated on, they should be communicated as any kind of threatening or resignation without any notice is very negative act from any company management point of view. Another fact that could be said is that any employee if want to raise voice against management, they must contact the country legislations which are made just to solve on the job problems and issues of various citizens of the country. If any company is not working on appropriate policies, those legislations like consumer court, labor laws they sue the firm or the culprit supervisor and will also let the employee resume their position in the firm with full respect. In case of Tori being asked to leave on the same day, she should have contacted the legal advisor and should have conveyed the whole situation and send a legal notice to the firm as she was being separated from the firm with no firm ground or justifiable reason or notice. Any employee on such senior designation cannot be asked just to leave on 1 day periods of time. In case of Raul, the worker he could have gone for collective bargaining or team supervisor or may be filed complaint through labor law where small negligence is being punished with firing of the worker. Company could be asked to justify why for a small mistake of so genuine reason is being starched to so long. All these things could only be done when the employees, workers and the managers are aware of their rights being given to them by the country and the HRD. [Daud, 242]
- The best option with the victim employees could be suggested on various levels starting from company level complaints and ending up to government made legislations. In case of Raul, it could be said that if worker union or collective bargaining exists then things could be normalized otherwise he had lesser options as compare to Tori who was a corporate professional and that too on senior level, she could have exposed inner weaknesses of the firm in the media or in court in front of judiciary depending upon the options mentioned below. The best option with the victim employees would be that they consult top level management firstly so that employee grievance is heard on genuine grounds, the top officials of the firm will take fair decision as they also have to think about company’s image and brand name in the media, so there the situation could have been handled better. If there was no help or option with the employee for top officials help then they should have gone to company legislations like labor union, grievance handling cell, HR compliance or may be some other legislation made to hear employee issues with the management. If from the company end there was no option found then employees should have gone to employee grievance handling legislations made by the government to protect rights of working class individuals in all countries like consumer forum, grievance policies, civil courts, media help could also be taken by Tori as she was a corporate professional and she could be the right person to expose the company for its vague HR policies and no leadership by the top officers of the firm or proper management.
- If there is lack in management it must be conveyed to the management also and to the country also because by suppressing the issue you are not only making yourself get cheated but also the people who would be actively being associated with this firm in future, therefore the consequences of not raising voice are very negative. Firstly in case of Tori when she was threatened in time of job switch, if she doesn’t raise voice and take action against it, it will bring a sense of superiority in the supervisor for bullying Tori that he will keep on practicing on others also which can be very negative for the firm. Secondly Tori were a senior level ardent employee of the firm, not taking action against such scrupulous activity was against the decorum of that employee as well. She could be bullied again and again if she doesn’t learn to rise against what’s wrong. The consequences to not taking action against the second issue i.e. Tori being asked to resign in the other firm in 1 day notice with full compensation is that the management could never be up to the mark in such a firm where resignations could be asked without any notice and genuine or strong grounds. It could demoralize Tori to high level such that she could never be a perfect manager in future as any employee likes getting rewards and recognition for good work but if even after doing good work resignation is being asked this means that the management is not feared of the powers of that respective employee. Apart from performing sincerely, she could raise complaint so that nobody in future could do anything of such sort to her. [Brewer, 3]
- The five procedure or policies to address the situation are as follows:
– Grievance redressal handling policy should be used where the unfair trade and business practices are addressed and resolved fully without any favoritism or special reference to any position of the employee.
– Collective bargaining policy where employees or workers should act singly against the management for firing any employee on small issue, the workers and their supervisor should ask for collectively sitting and talking on the issue and not firing the employee and just ask for show cause notice or so because forcing management collectively could increase the chances for fair judgement.
– Conveying the issue to HR department from where management at top level could be awakened on such bullying being taken place in the firm. The human resource department should be primarily being concerned as they are the policy makers and are liaisons between company management and the employees or the workers.
– Show cause notice is procedure which should be implemented here from the management side even if they want to expel Raul, they cannot fire any worker just for the reason that he could not convey his leave on the same day. They should ask for show-cause notice and procedure wise try to remove him from the work life.
– The procedure of separation from the firm should be communicated to Tori again or it should be reviewed by Tori that it is listed in company policy or not to ask for resignation without any mistake since she was an ardent employee and her being asked for resignation without any sincere ground should be raised voice against.
References:
- Zulkiflee Bin Daud, Khulida Kirana Yahya , Mohd. Faizal Mohd , shakiza mohd. Noor, Grievance handling system, international journal of humanities and social science, vol-1, no-7, june 2011, page no-242-246, http://www.ijhssnet.com/journals/Vol._1_No._7_[Special_Issue_June_2011]/32.pdf, 21st April, 2012
- Brian Brewer, Rising to the challenge, October 2006, page no-3-10, http://www.capam.org/_documents/brewer_addressingcitizenscomplaintseffectively.pdf, 21st April, 2012
KB82
But you can order it from our service and receive complete high-quality custom paper. Our service offers Human Resources essay sample that was written by professional writer. If you like one, you have an opportunity to buy a similar paper. Any of the academic papers will be written from scratch, according to all customers’ specifications, expectations and highest standards.”
Please Click on the below links to Chat Now or fill the Order Form!
