- Case Study Question You Are The Recently Recruited Human Resources Manager At The Sunset Inn A Hotel Based In Folkeston 1 (353.79 KiB) Viewed 41 times
these situations have occurred.
2. Think about ways of improving the situation by relating the
issue to the theory you have learnt
CASE STUDY QUESTION You are the recently recruited Human Resources Manager at The Sunset Inn, a hotel based in Folkestone in the South of England. It belongs to a larger chain and has room for 300 guests. Demand tends to peak in the summer months (June to August) when it reaches full capacity, but the hotel struggles to fill half of the rooms most nights in winter. . The chain pitches at being low cost and all-inclusive, offering food all day and entertainment in the evenings. Guests are a mix of families and retired couples from working-class backgrounds who travel in from other parts of the country, students, overseas tourists and occasional businessmen/women. The branch itself has 20 staff, including the Manager (Eileen), Deputy Manager, four Receptionists (two full-time, two part time), six housekeeping staff (all part-time and outsourced), a full-time maintenance officer, a Chef and three kitchen staff, Restaurant Manager and three waiting staff (part-time). Additional seasonal workers are brought in during the summer months. The Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown hit sales hard since mid-2020. The branch relied on Government business grants and support schemes, including furlough which helped them to pay up to 80% staff wages whilst they weren't working when the hotel was forced to close. Demand slumped when it was allowed to open up again after lockdown as customers were scared to return for many weeks. Trade picked up again in mid-2021, however those government support schemes were wound down meaning that the hotel is struggling again. However, demand is expected to rise sharply in summer 2022. The rise will be accounted for mainly by domestic visitors as the number of European guests has bottomed out since Brexit, even though visas are not required to visit the UK. As a result of the pressure on income, three other staff, including the Accountant, Procurement Officer, and Marketing & Advertising Officer were all recently made redundant and their jobs were centralised in a staff restructuring exercise. Because these happened during lockdown, there was little resistance from the workforce. A trade union exists, UNITE and it claims that half the current workforce belong to it. However, the occupational diversity among its members and low levels of skills among the majority of employees mean that its power is relatively weak. Another problem that the Hotel faces is high staff turnover. Half of the receptionists, housekeeping, kitchen and waiting staff have left in the last 12 months. This has affected quality of service and the customer reviews for the branch have gradually been getting worse, with reports of dirty communal areas, shortages of food at dinner time and rudeness from staff as the Manager has insisted that several undertrained staff come in to cover the vacancies on short-term (three month) contracts and who have little sense of loyalty or Organisational Citizenship behaviour. Brexit has led to several of its European workers and students returning to their countries of origin, so it has become harder to replace these staff. The workers who are left are stressed and concerned about their jobs and regularly off sick. CURRENT SITUATION Sunset Inn has not had a Human Resources Manager until now, but with staffing in such chaos, employee turnover high, complaints about the hotel rising and disputes between staff and Eileen, the branch manager growing, the national Sunset Inn chain's Chief Executive has released funds to hire a Human Resources Manager on a 2-year contract to sort out these problems and help turn the hotel's fortunes around. That is you! In the meantime, the Chief Executive, Bill Rowdy has warned Eileen, that if , performance doesn't improve soon, she will be replaced as he is very worried about poor management Prior to you starting in this post, no Turnover and Retention Analysis or Leaning Needs Analysis has been conducted, there has been little performance management either and no staff engagement surveys. Further, you suspect that younger employees tend to be using Sunset Inn as a stepping stone to move elsewhere in the hospitality sector and that employee morale is low because of all the issues above.