HR Policy in Hotel Organisation - Assignment Example

Swarna1 Word count: 2042 P.Swarnalatha ID # 5448 Order 211265 d 12th March 2008. Analyse the behaviour impact of one HR policy in hotel organisation in tends of: How it is perceived, Impact on motivation, how this policy affects team work. Introduction  Human resource development is an important component in the steady growth and performance of any organization. In general, the performance of any group activity gets improved only when all the team members are provided with better facilities and infrastructure. More notably, individual care from management plays crucial role. Human resource policies hence aim at providing higher psychological satisfaction to all the employees working in an organization. This in turn aids in motivating the employees for achieving the defined targets in a scheduled time period. Moreover, any organization’s commitment to staff development may include variety of programs and services designed to help staff achieve professional and personal growth and greater job satisfaction. General Out look at Hotel industry Hotel industry is one of the most important industries which has a structure of several employees working together to serve the interests and needs of the customers. It has been facing challenges like low occupancy rate and higher operational costs in lean seasons and attending and satisfying diversified nature of customers. For example, the hotel occupancy rate in 2007 in major cities of USA ranged between 47.2 and 78.4 % (US hotel performance data, 2008). Importance of human resource principles in hotel industry Human resource planning plays a salient role in enhancing the productivity of hotel industry as it is highly diversified in nature. For example, the management of hotels in the Republic of Ireland reflects both the diversity and the complexity of the industry, with some 660 units, primarily small, family-run businesses (Tom Baum, 1989). The challenges of hotel industry could be managed successfully with management effectiveness, management style and other human resource development principles. Similarly, hotel industry faces challenges in the form of low occupancy rate and it can be improved with efficient human resource principles. Hotel occupancy worldwide has not matched the growth of population and gross domestic product (GDP) in the industrialized western world implying the existence of a large untapped market. This was proved correct in case of hotel management companies of Europe and North America (Frank Go, 1989). Though several human resource principles help in encouraging employees to achieve the targets of the hotel industry, career development policy has a pivotal role as it motivates them to work whole heartedly for their industry. In short it positively influences both motivation and team building process. Providing educational assistance is certainly the best way of assisting employees in career advancement. The educational assistance programs may be made available for hotel staff in the form of following forms that can be useful in career development: Workshops and Seminars - offered through Organizational Development Services. Extramural Program - Academic courses related to human resource development in different universities online. Training Aid Program - training aid for hotel staff enrolled in approved courses and programs at other educational institutions. The human resource development policy at any hotel industry must focus on generating trust among the employees that the organization would look in to their needs and then they work wholeheartedly with out any doubt. Trust forms the foundation for effective communication, employee retention, and employee motivation and contribution of discretionary energy, the extra effort that people voluntarily invest in work. Trust certainly forms the foundation for effective communication, employee retention, and employee motivation and contribution of discretionary energy, the extra effort that people voluntarily invest in work. When trust is present, everything else is easier. Hence human resource planning helps in motivating the staff. As the sudden changes are witnessed by the hotel industry as in case of British hotel sector, the human resource policy must focus on how to adopt well to the international developments (Crispian Tarrant. 1989). The efforts must also be made to reduce the work place negavity and hostility. Similarly, the human resource policy of hotel industry must aim at minimizing the work stress. Stress is both physical and mental. It is caused by a change in responsibilities or expectations at work, and job promotions, loss, or changes. At the same time, make the employees sensitive to customer feed back so that hey feel more dedicated while serving the customers. There is a necessity of forming an employee education committee in hotel sector. Employees may be given assistance in selecting appropriate courses of interest which aid in motivation process. This would certainly aid in higher employee satisfaction. This will Create an environment where people enjoy their work and realize their full potential, they find opportunities to grow and focus their attention on satisfying the customers needs, thus creating commitment to customers and therefore to their parent organization. Career development must also be accompanied by some coherent working environment. For example, have an open culture, informal and non-bureaucratic which encourages continuous learning and enhancing the image of any organization. At the same time, emphasis must be given to team work, along with individual excellence, develop a sense of belonging amongst employees by caring attitude. They should be trained so that they believe in following well documented standard procedures and systems in the day-to-day working. The career development policy finally should aim at building enough flexibility to encourage and accommodate innovative thoughts. Establish fair and equitable system to reward employees according to their contribution. One should consider employees as valued assets. The hotel staff must be promoted in terms of commitment and creativity for better performance. For encouraging them in the process of team building, support employees to take, a part of superiors responsibility, while at the same time develop subordinate such that all the three would be ready to take up still more higher responsibility as and when required. Enough care must be taken in selection and initial probation period. The new employees must be examined thoroughly during their probation period. As a matter of increasing effectiveness whenever necessary transfer can be effected outside the area of the existing activity. This will enrich the job, and the employee will be inspired to learn new techniques/area that are assigned to him. This will enhance the employees motivation to perform better. All employees must be trained as per requirements by the H.R.D. Department either in-house or by sending through special seminars / courses which will help in motivating themselves and team building process.  Team Building is a very important process that requires to be boosted in hotel industry for better productivity. Hence the human resource policy in the form of career development should aim at improving all the following prerequisites for team building. The top leadership should clearly spell about its expectations to all the employees in the beginning itself. The clarity in communication plays a crucial role here. The very basis of the formation of a team in hotel industry has to be explained. It should also support the required resources of people, time and money1. Finally it should 1. Susan M. Heathfield. Twelve tips for team building. How to build successful work teams. http://humanresources.about.com/od/involvementteams/a/twelve_tip_team_3.htm. also answer whether the work of the whole team receive sufficient emphasis as a priority in terms of the time, discussion, attention and interest directed its way by top level leadership. Similarly, clear understanding about the context of the team and the objective for which they are working is more important. All team members must identify their team’s importance to the accomplishment of corporate goals. The team should also understand where its work fits in the total context of the organization’s goals, principles, vision and values. The necessity of commitment has to be felt by the employees of the Hotel industry. The team members certainly anticipate recognition for their contributions and hence they should be trained well to upgrade their skills accordingly. One important aspect of building motivation among the employees of hotel sector is in the form of assessing turnover cognitions of hotel managers. Several predictor variables of turnover intentions like perceived psychological contract breach and felt violation; organisational commitment; career expectations; perceived managerial competencies; job satisfaction, career identity and career satisfaction; demographic and human capital characteristics; and organisational characteristics were identified as important human resurce principles to be tackled effectively for better productivity of any hotel organization (Ronan Carbery et al., 2003). The employees must upgrade their competence in enhancing the productivity of the hotel organization. The team should feel that it has the appropriate people participating. The team should also feel that its members have the knowledge, skill and capability to address the issues for which the team was formed. At the same time, the hotel team must be assigned area of responsibility and designed its own mission, vision and strategies to accomplish the mission. The team must define and communicate its goals; its anticipated outcomes and contributions; its timelines; and how it will measure both the outcomes of its work and the process the team followed to accomplish their task. For exercising control over the different aspects of hotel maintenance, career development policy must emphasize on sufficient freedom. The career development plan and human resource policy will also affect motivational skills of the hotel industry employees in the following manner. The collaboration must be made from all the team members as and when required uniformly for higher motivational levels.. The team should understand team and group process for better organization of hotel organization. All hotel staff members should understand the stages of group development. At the same time, the team must approach problem solving, process improvement, goal setting and measurement jointly. Highest level of coherence and cooperation are required to accomplish the team charter and for better motivation. The team must establish group norms or rules of conduct in areas such as conflict resolution, consensus decision making and meeting management. The team has to an appropriate strategy to accomplish its action plan and for motivating other employees. Proper communication solves the major problems of the hotel organization. The team members must have clear knowledge about the priority of their tasks. They should also get important business information regularly from hotel organization for serving customers effectively. The necessary conflicts raised and addressed must be solved effectively for higher motivation of all employees. Based on the requirement of the market, hotel industry should be ready to change flexibly. The organization must recognize the team-based, collaborative, empowering, enabling organizational culture. Similarly, the hotel organization must plan to use rewards system to motivate and manage the employees. The relationship of the employees must be cordial with other industries so that the overall growth of hotel industry would be enhanced as in case of British hotel sector (John Bosman, 1976). All team members should feel responsible and accountable for team achievements. The organization must design reward systems to recognize both team and individual performance. Lastly, the teams should be coordinated by a central leadership team that assists the groups to obtain what they need for success. Conclusion With the passage of time, the hotel industry also witnessed several changes in terms of challenges at global level. One of the most important challenge is in the form of low occupancy rate and availability of professional staff to serve the customers effectively. Hence for achieving the higher productivity of hotel industry, the human resource planning in the form of career development plays a vital role in motivating and team building processes. All the possible human resource principles for creating motivation and team building among the staff members of hotel industry must be implemented for prosperous growth of hotel industry. References: Crispian Tarrant. 1989. UK hotel industry — market restructuring and the need to respond to customer demands. Tourism Management. 10 (3):187-191. Frank Go. 1989. International hotel industry — capitalizing on change. Tourism Management. 10 (3): 195-200. John Bosman. 1976. Prospects for the British hotel industry. Long Range Planning. 9 (6). 47-53. Tom Baum. 1989. Managing hotels in Ireland: research and development for change. International Journal of Hospitality Management.8 (2): 131-144. Ronan Carbery, Thomas N. Garavan, Fergal OBrien and Joe McDonnell. 2003. Predicting hotel managers’ turnover cognitions. Journal of Managerial Psychology. 18 (7) : 649-679. US Hotel performance data. 2008. Smith travel research. Hotels. The magazine of world hotel industry. http://www.hotelsmag.com/performance-data/us. Read More