International Hotel Management
- Executive Summary
The managing director at Taj Hotel Krishna Kumar is expected to make a verdict on whether a promotion choice made earlier should be reassessed. In order for the organization to achieve supreme service quality level that fits within the international principles within the company’s Indian based branch. The managing director had initiated fresh personnel performance management methods at the organization. In this regard, the board was obligated to make decisions on whether the company’s administrators deserved elevations to higher positions for better operations and to facilitate international growth and efficiency. This created a conflict amid the managing director and the company’s COO who requested that the decision by the board should be inverted. In this context, given that the COO is an esteemed official Kumar is torn amid respecting the choice by the board or embracing the suggestion to reconsider the decision for the betterment of the company.
- Brief Overview of Key Case Facts
The international company Taj operated for several financial years without dignified procedures for assessing, enhancing and tracking employees conduct and operations. In order to facilitate its growth in the international market, it became a necessity for the company to enhance services delivery (Delong & Vijayaraghavan, 2002). This was the case because the organization is mainly focused on creating consumer satisfaction by delivering quality at meeting preferences and demands of its diverse consumers. Being a consumer-centric organization the managing director established the need for performance evaluation which would help in the identification of training and promotion needs. The HRM department, therefore, implemented a fresh performance model that was more focused on services and operations development (Delong & Vijayaraghavan, 2002).
To begin with, despite the fact that the model was introduced in the quest of delivering fair performance review on every staff in the organization, it was expected to identify development opportunities (Delong & Vijayaraghavan, 2002). In this, context employees would be involved in training as well as promotions as a mode of supporting better and higher development and productivity. This is a strategy that created more clearness something that worried the executives. In that, the model was not only associated with benefits given that there were several costs in return given that the culture would be altered to fit into the fresh demands. In addition, given that the company was characterized by more staffs than required this meant that based on performance some staffs would get into voluntary exit something that was not easy for the administrators given that its values would be affected. Most of them stated that the system worked against its strong value on employee’s contributions and role (Delong & Vijayaraghavan, 2002). The company had created good relationships with the workforce and even went further to re-accommodate those that had retired to the Indian chain to maintain this relationship and such moves would destroy its image, performance as well as revenue.
- Identification of the Case Problem or Central Issue
Given that the organization has introduced a performance evaluation model that seeks to promote skills development and employee’s promotion the central issue seems to revolve around whether the current strategies for appraisal and managers promotions are operative and reliable. In addition, the company is more focused on delivering superior services to all its consumer's something that cannot be achieved without an operative and motivated workforce. This became its major focus given that the violent growth under Kerkar guidance led to quality deterioration which in turn affected consumer satisfaction and revenue generation (Delong & Vijayaraghavan, 2002). Despite the rising concerns that the system will destroy relationships amid staffs and the administration, the company is already overstaffed which hinders its revenue generation growth and leads to high costs of operations. With it revenue status it is apparent that the company cannot afford to accommodate more staffs despite the fact that its salary rate is quite low when being equated with the average rates in the hotel industry (Delong & Vijayaraghavan, 2002).
In the quest of achieving quality in India and increasing its revenue generation, it became apparent that the fresh manager’s evaluation model required more modifications to retain a desirable image and performance. Besides the fact that managers were not willing to alternate the new system lacked expertise guidance. In that, the model was mainly seeking to create better evaluation grounds and to award those that were performing better with promotions but failed to acknowledge the fact that other systems were required to support and enhance their skills. The system was not implemented professionally which implies that the underlining threats were not highlighted to establish how best it should have been implemented to overcome the resistance and performance hurdles. The system created more threats given that the expectations from the company’s consumers would not be met in accordance (Delong & Vijayaraghavan, 2002).
- Discussion of 2-3 Alternative Solutions to Resolve the Problem
The company’s main concerns lie on quality and performance assessment. In that, the company should first ensure that the performance evaluation model is implemented with the guidance of an expert. In that, it should note the benefits and the disadvantages in order to make a more informed decision. In addition, it is worth noting that the ratio amid employees and staffs should be balanced given that overstaffing leads to high operating expenses thus affecting the general revenue generation of the company. Achieving international standards demands transparent and accurate decisions from the company (Feng Stocklin & Wang, 2015). In this context, a balance should be created amongst the capability to achieving transformation, employee’s association’s value and familiarity.
In addition, the board’s decision should be inverted given that the company is more focused on internal promotions, training, and skills enhancement for a healthier attitude. In addition, the promotion strategy is mainly guided by personal interests rather than the capability of the managers to relate well with the workers and operational responsibilities. The company should, therefore, focus on performance evaluation that seeks to establish development and training opportunities. This will be essential in supporting its quality goal given that the employees will be highly skilled in the operations rather than focusing on promotions (Feng Stocklin & Wang, 2015).
- Selection of the Preferred Solution and Explanation of How It Solves the Problem
It is apparent that the Taj Hotel is a consumer and employee centered organization. In this case, in order to improve its quality status, it should not be focusing on promotions given that is objective revolves around improving performance and productivity to fit into its consumer’s demands. The best solution which is both effective and feasible is to implement a performance system with the guidance of an expert. The system should not only be objected at evaluating the general performance of the staffs but should identify training opportunities that will protect the company’s image as well as increase the performance of all its staff. In this context, providing training to the staff will provide more expansion opportunities by creating a quality product that is grounded in the consumers’ needs in general (Enz, 2010). In turn, quality will be achieved along with consumers and workers satisfaction which is equivalent to efficiency.
References
Enz, C. A. (2010). Hospitality strategic management: Concepts and cases. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons.
Feng, J., Stocklin, S., & Wang, W. (2015). Educational strategies for the next generation leaders in hotel management. Hershey Publishing.
Thomas J. Delong & Vijayaraghavan, V. (2002). Taj Hotel Group. Havard School Business Publishing. Pp. 1- 11. Pdf.
