Goodwood Park Hotel and the Management of It - Case Study Example

Organization: The organization selected here for study is Goodwood Park Hotel in Chichester. The hotel is built in Goodwood e which covers around 12000 acres. The hotel is easily accessible as there are good infrastructural facilities. The hotel is located 35 miles and 50 miles from Southampton and London’s Gatwick and Heathrow International airports respectively. “The Goodwood Park Hotel is a wonderful place to stay, whether you want to enjoy the beautiful 12,000 acre Goodwood Estate or any of the sporting activities for which Goodwood is famous - such as the two stunning 18 hole golf courses and The Kennels clubhouse, horseracing and its great heritage in motor sports.” (Welcome). It is located in the West Sussex. Good Wood is one of the oldest hotels in England. The hotel has 94 rooms. Excellent service is what helped Good Wood to be one of the most preferred hotels in the country. There is also a well setup health club in the hotel. When the city develops the opportunities also grow with it. Major companies are showing investment interest in Portsmouth. This development necessitates the need for a conference center in the region. Since Good Wood is very much experienced in hospitality industry the project execution is not a complex task for them. Management and leadership, theory and practice: Development of management: “Management has been around since the dawn of civilization.” (21st century management, 2001). In the primitive years there were very less managers. Management functions were rest in the hands of urban population. There was a sole supervisor and numerous workers. Those times the function of managers is only to force people to work and to monitor whether the assigned task is being completed properly. Later in the 19th century the management style got wider in scope. But the approach remained autocratic itself. By the 20th century developments in every aspect of management came into being. Concepts like Total Quality Management (TQM) emerged in this period. 21st century management is the era of trends. The trends were mainly the results of growth in technology, competition and economy. Management of an organization like Goodwood Park Hotel is a challenging job. The nature of the industry is one of the major reasons for that. The major feature of the industry is that there is no product produced. Instead it is the service that is delivered. Managing of service business is very challenging when compared to the management of product business. The competitive situation of the sector adds more to the basic challenges. It is also very difficult to fix a quality standard for the services unlike products. There is no tool that can measure accurately the quality of the services. Unlike products pre testing before launch is also impossible in the case of services. Management and leadership: Management is the art of managing every aspects of a business in order to bring in more profits for the business. Management is involved in every functions of the business such as marketing, financing, human resources, etc. Leadership also involves management but is different from management in the sense that leadership is mostly concerned with the human resources of the company. Leadership and management when properly present constitutes to the success of a business. Thus both the terms are different in terms of concepts explained and similar in the case of the objectives to be achieved. Management is popularly termed both as an art and a science. The function of this art is to get things done through people by making them effective in their work. Art lies in making the people effective and science lies in the method of doing it. Management includes four functions planning, organizing, directing and monitoring or controlling. Planning is the first and the most important step in management. It involves making an outline for the activities to be done in future. A good planning makes the management activity half done. Proper planning comes from proper understanding of the goal. The plan should focus on the future or the goal of the organization. A good plan will help to bring together every component in the organization towards common goal. It is at the planning stage that the non profitable ideas are filtered out. Organizing is the second step in management. As the name signifies organizing refers to assigning the functions to different group. It also involves coordinating or bringing together all the activities to have coherence among them. Directing is the process in which the people or employees are taught what they should contribute to the final goal. Monitoring or controlling is the process in which the errors in execution are rectified. The main activity done in this process is to identify whether there is any deviation from the actual function. Such variations are sorted out in this step. Leadership skills and styles: Leadership is very much important for the success of any business. The leadership approach of the superior to the subordinates has very great influence to the behavior of an employee in an organization. In most cases leadership is an inborn trait. But there are persons who develop that through rigorous training. There are different types of leadership practiced in an organization namely autocratic, democratic and free reign. An autocratic leadership is the type of leadership in which the leader wants to get things done through people wholly based on his decision. An autocratic leader exercises full control over his subordinates without inviting any opinion from them. An autocratic leader permits only a one way communication that is from lower to the higher level. Democratic leadership is the type of leadership in which the leader takes decision after having discussions with the subordinates. The participation of subordinates is invited by a democratic leader. Democratic leadership style is the best for an organization’s success. Free reign leadership is the type of leadership in which the leader has fewer roles in the decision making. More freedom is enjoyed by the subordinates under this type of leadership. A leader should have certain skills for being successful in his venture. Free reign can be both advantageous as well as disadvantageous for an organization. It is advantageous for the organization in the sense that better ideas are received from the subordinates. The subordinates are also highly motivated in the case of free reign leadership. Some of the skills a leader should possess are good understanding of the needs and wants of the group, control of the group, problem solving skill, representing skill, counseling skill, evaluation skill, learning and listening skills etc. A person who possesses all the above qualities can be a successful leader. Management/subordinate relationship: While analyzing the leadership styles of Goodwood Park Hotel it was found that some of the top level officials in the organization practices high level of autocratic leadership. While in the lower level the executives are democratic in their styles. What happens in the current situation is that the democratic approach of the lower level managers will help them to manage the employees better. The real problems in the hospital are communicated to the lower level managers through this. But the problems do not reach the upper level because the upper level managers are autocratic. While analyzing on the basis of motivation, it can be found that the lower level managers are not motivated enough for better performance. Thus it can be seen that the management subordinate relation in the upper level is inefficient. The management subordinate relation in the lower level is efficient but its benefit is not carried upward in Goodwood Park Hotel. Organizational behavior: Corporate culture and ethics: As the name signifies organizational behaviour refers to the behavior of an employee or a group of employees in an organization. Organizational behavior has close association with the organizational culture or work culture. The behavior of employees in the organization is the result of their personal factors and the culture that exists in the organization. The organizational culture or corporate culture and ethics are very closely related. Unethical behavior in an organization spoils a good organizational culture and environment. There are unethical behaviors and practices in every management function, vis-à-vis marketing, financing, human resources, etc. It is the unethical practices in human resource policies that create more impact on the organizational culture. While analyzing the case of Goodwood Park Hotel it is found that the organization is superior in terms of ethics and culture. There are comparatively less disputes in the hotel compared to the general picture of the industry. The organization has also been good in business practices. Goodwood Park Hotel has maintained good quality in the services it provides. Moreover, the organization has also complied with the rules and regulations that govern the industry. Structures and staffing characteristics: Staffing is a very important function in an organization. Staffing should be done with high accuracy because the objectives of the organization can be achieved only by employing right employees at the right place. Right employees are the employees who possess the qualification required to perform a particular job. The financing department of an organization can achieve its objective only when a financing specialist is employed in that job. Good staffing not only contributes to the objectives of the organization but also will help to develop a good organizational culture. The core employees of Goodwood Park Hotel were analyzed and all of them possessed a valid degree in hotel and hospitality management. The top officials of the hotel had years of industrial experience in various hotels. Thus it was concluded that the staffing policies of Goodwood Park Hotel did not have much flaws. The employees in the technical section possessed good knowledge and qualification in the field. Given below is the staffing structure or organizational structure of Goodwood Park Hotel. Objectives, goals and strategies: The objective of Goodwood Park Hotel is to develop itself as a destination for its prospective customers. It has the objective to excel and be the leader the business sector in which it operates. The strategy of Goodwood Park Hotel is to grow through superior services to their customers. The organization is focusing on improving the performance of the employees in order to achieve its objective. Interrelationship and behavior of the people: The influence of interrelationship and behavior of the people to the organization culture has already been discussed. Interrelationship is very much important in an organization that operates in the hospitality sector. The customers of a hotel are greeted and impressed by the pleasant behavior and excellent services of the employees. An employee will reflect a pleasant attitude only when he is pleasant from inside and his environment allows him to be pleasant. This is where the relevance of better interrelationship lies. An employee who maintains good relationship with the co-workers will foster a good environment in the organization. Goodwood Park Hotel excelled in this criterion. But certain problems in interrelationship exist in the top level due to the autocratic leadership style. This should be improved in Goodwood because when the top level managers follow autocratic leadership style the managers at their lower level will get de-motivated. Business communication: Business communication has two aspects, mainly the internal communication and the external communication. Internal communication refers to the communication that take place inside an organization between the employees and managers. External communication refers to the communication that take place between the organization and outsiders. Outsiders refer to the organization or people outside the organization. Management of both the aspects is very important for the smooth flow of information in an organization. Better communication is very essential for all the functions in an organization. Apart from the general application of communication, in a hotel the interaction with customers is very much important for enhancing the reputation of the hotel. It is from the behavior of the employees that the customers judge the quality of the service of a hotel. Only after that the customers will examine the comfort. In such a case the employees should be a better communicator. Motivation and work performance: It is very clear that motivational theory is applicable in every organization. Motivational theory is not only applicable in the behavior of an employee in an organization but it is also a well structured theory in marketing. Therefore for a business organization motivational theory has dual application, one in the employee motivation and the other one in determining the customer buying motives. In hospitality industry motivational theory is equally applicable in employee motivation as customer buying motive. While taking the case of Goodwood hotel it can be seen that the behavior of employees is very much important for the customer satisfaction. Therefore the top management will have to take utmost care in motivating the employees. The customers of a luxury hotel are usually driven by the motives of esteem need. Thus the marketing strategies of Goodwood Park Hotel will have to deal more with the esteem needs of a customer. It is the behavior of the group that is analyzed by the customers. Employees are taken as one component. Therefore group development and behavior has more scope in the hospitality business rather than an individual behavior. But individual behavior is the important factor in the sense that it is the individual development that results in a group development. Organizational change and development: It was explained above that individual development contributes to group development. Thus it can be said that group development contributes to organizational development. Business arena is not stagnant. It keeps on changing according to the changes in the business environment. An organization that does not change according to the environmental changes is thrown to failures. Thus it is the quality of a good management to keep on upgrading according to the customer, market and economic changes. In fact management means getting the business adapted to the environment. Hospitality and tourism industry is one of the most challenging service sectors. The success of the business is purely based on the quality of services. In the present era where tourism is given higher importance in the economic development of a country, the industry has also become highly competitive. This makes the existing companies to introduce innovation in their strategies for withstanding the competition. Thus it can be concluded that the reputation of a hotel is not a sole factor for its future prosperity, but its continuous improvement in the strategies will only make its future secured. References 21st century management: Our Philosophy. (2001). Management 2008. Retrieved Jun 15, 2008, from http://www.manage2001.com/21m.htm Welcome, The Good wood Park Hotel. Retrieved Jun 15, 2008, from http://www.goodwood.co.uk/site/content/hotel/Welcome.aspx Read More