HR Planning at the City Hotel

The City Hotel is located in the middle of a medium-sized city.

It caters mainly for business trade during the week and for
holiday trade during the weekends and in the summer. In the
summer and at weekends there is, therefore, a greater demand
for catering and waiting staff as there is a greater demand for
lunches. During the same periods there is a lesser demand for
housekeeping staff as the customers are mostly longer-stay. The
hotel has been gradually improed and refurbished oer the past
fie years, and trade, although reasonably good to begin with,
has also gradually improed oer the period. There are plans to
open an e!tension with a further twenty bedrooms ne!t year.
Note 1
There has been a particular problem in recruiting kitchen
assistants, waiting and bar staff. This is partly due to local
competition, but also to the fact that early starting and late
finishing times make trael ery difficult. "ften there are no
buses at these times and ta!is are the only aailable transport.
"ne or two hotels in the area hae begun a hotel transport
system, and the City Hotel management hae decided to
inestigate this idea in order to attract a higher number of better
#uality applicants. $ second problem has been identified as the
lack of aailability of chefs and receptionists of the re#uired
leel of skill. It is felt that the local colleges are not producing
potential staff with sufficient skills, and therefore the
management of the City Hotel hae decided to consider%
&. $ training scheme, either run internally or in con'unction
with other hotels.
(. )etter wages to attract the better trained staff from other
employers.
*. Inestigation of other localities and the possibility of
proiding more staff.
Note 2
Haing mapped the enironment, the hotel management looked
at the demands and responses for each priority area. +or
,customers- the beginnings of the list are shown in Table *.&.
Table 3.1 Demands and responses for the ,customer- factor
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Customer demands Responses
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.olite staff "ur staff pride
themseles on being
courteous
/taff understand that we 0e will make procedures
#uick and simple,
are busy people and staff will
respond to needs
immediately
/ometimes we need facilities 0e will be fle!ible and
enthusiastic in
we hae not arranged in our response
adance
$nd so on.
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Note 3
The management of the City Hotel decided that one of their key
ob'ecties oer the ne!t three years was to become known for
e!cellence in customer serice. This was seen as a key tool to
compete with ad'acent hotels. 1anagers used brainstorming to
identify the staff behaiours that they wanted to see in place, and
summarised their ideas in the format in Table *.(.
Table 3.2 )ehaioural e!pectations chart% organisation goal 2
e!cellence in customer serice
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Behaviours needed How to create or reinforce
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$ddress customers by name $ customer serice training
course to be
deeloped
/mile at customer $ group incentie bonus to
be paid on basis of
customer feedback.
Customer serice meetings to
be held in company time
once per week
3espond to re#uests,
e.g. room change in
positie manner
$sk customers if eerything
is to their satisfaction
$nswer calls from rooms
within four rings
$nd so on.
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In addition to this a suggestion scheme was instigated to collect
ideas for improement in customer serice. $ payment of 456 to
be made for each successful suggestion.
Note 4
The City Hotel management has plans to open a further twenty
bedrooms in a new e!tension during the coming year. "n the
basis of this simple model the additional staff re#uired could be
worked out as follows%
+ifty-fie bedrooms re#uires 76 staff.
The ratio of staff to bedrooms is therefore &.68 staff per
bedroom.
If the same relationship were maintained 9i.e. without any
economies of scale: the additional number of staff needed
would be% (6 bedrooms
&.68 staff ; (&.< e!tra staff needed. Thus total staff needed
would ; <&.( full-time e#uialent staff.
Note 5
The managerial staff at the City Hotel e!ercised 'udgements on
the following human resource planning matters%
&. 1anagement considered the probable reasons for the
relationship between people demand and time. It was felt
that this was most probably due to the gradual
improement in the hotel oer the last fie years. /ince this
improement had irtually reached its potential it was felt
that the relationship between employee demand and time
would change.
(. =udgements had to be made on whether the occupancy of
the new wing would immediately 'ustify all the additional
staff to be appointed.
*. The management considered that since the weather had
been ery poor in the preceding summer, the bookings for
the following summer period might be slightly down on the
last year and this shortfall might not be made up by
increasing business trade.
>. =udgements were made as to whether staff could be better
utilised, with the effect that the additional numbers of staff
pro'ected might not be so great.
Note 6
The managers of the City Hotel decided to encourage greater
staff fle!ibility and interchangeability. This interchangeability
would be particularly useful between waiting duties and
chamber duties. $t the present time waiting duties are greatest at
the weekend and least during weekdays, whereas chamber duties
are the other way around. The effect of this is that waiting staff
and chamber staff both hae a number of hours of enforced idle
time, and the feeling was that there was some oerstaffing. )y
securing fle!ibility from staff 9by paying a fle!ibility bonus: it
was felt that the smooth running and efficiency of the hotel
would be considerably increased. It was calculated that the nine
chamber posts and eight waiting posts could be coered by
si!teen combined posts 9all +T?s:.
Note 7
1anagers of the City Hotel assessed the leels of customer
serice at present by collecting #uestionnaire data from both
staff and customers and conducting a series of interiews with
staff. They also asked in what areas serice could be improed
and asked staff how this might be achieed. $s well as specific
targets for improement, they found many e!amples of systems
and organisation that did not help staff gie the best customer
serice. /taff understood that getting the paperwork right was
more important than serice to the customer in checking out and
in. The paperwork systems were oer-comple! and could be
simplified. $lso, shift-change times were found to correspond
with busy checkout times. .lans were deeloped to improe
systems, organisation and communication.
Note 8
The statistical analysis of staff 9Table 5.*: was aimed at
occupation, age and full-time e#uialent posts. This analysis was
used primarily for three main purposes%
&. +ull-time e#uialents needed to be worked out so that this
figure could be used in other manpower planning
calculations.
(. To consider the occupational balance of staff and to gie
information which would be useful from the point of iew
of staff interchangeability.
*. To plan for future retirements and, in conse#uence, look at
recruitment plans and promotion plans.
Note 9
$t the City Hotel eighteen staff had left during the preceding
year. The annual labour turnoer inde! was therefore worked out
to be%
9@The aerage number of staff employed oer the year is
different from the ma!imum number of staff that hae been
employed and were desired to be employed.:
Note 10
$t the City Hotel, of the eighteen staff that had been recruited
oer the year, three had been replacements for the same kitchen
assistant-s 'ob, and two had been replacements for another
kitchen assistant-s 'ob. The stability inde! was therefore worked
out as%
9@$t e!actly one year before there were only 78 of the desired
A( staff in post.:
Note 11
$ histogram 9+igure 5.&: was plotted of leaers oer the past
year from the City Hotel. It shows how the ma'ority of leaers
had shorter lengths of serice, with periods of employment of
less than si! months being most common.
Figure 3.1$ histogram of the lengths of serice of eighteen
employees leaing the City Hotel in the preious year
Note 12
$nalysis of the age distribution 9Table 5.*: indicates that there
may be some difficulties with promotions. In particular, a
problem was identified for management promotions. There are
four general managers, the youngest being (&. In the past such a
'unior manager would hae been promoted after two years-
serice, which they had 'ust completed. The ages of the other
managers indicate that there will be no retirements in the
immediate future and management staff turnoer has, in the past
few years, been low. In iew of this it was thought likely that the
'unior manager would leae shortly. This was not desired since
they were particularly able, so ways of dealing with this
promotion block were considered, such as creating a new post,
which might retain the 'unior manager-s serices until a
promotion became aailable.
Table 3.3 /taff by occupation, number and age
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There are no direct actiities relating to this worked e!ample,
howeer there are some associated actiities%
Case study activity
)reak the students into small groups to begin to prepare a
human resource plan based on the information in the City Hotel
case study. It is essential that students hae pre-read the case and
are ery familiar with its contents.
$sk groups to specifically design, for the City Hotel, the
following in outline%
@ supply plan,
@ organisation and structure plan
@ employee utilisation plan
@ training and deelopment plan,
@ performance plan,
@ appraisal plan,
@ reward plan,
@ employee relations plan
@ communications plan
$lthough a number of clues are gien in the case study as to
actiities that can be included in the plan, there has been no
attempt to make these complete, to integrate them or to consider
the knock on effects of one plan on another.
The task for the groups is to propose an integrated set of outline
plans for the year ahead with an assessment of the financial and
other implications supported by a sound rationale.
/pecifically stress that each of these plans must not conflict with
any of the others and that they should be mutually supportie.
/tudents should be able to describe their plan in about 56 words
for each area, as the emphasis is not on the detail but on
integration and implications.
$llow plenty of time for groups to discuss, as this is a
demanding task. 3eport back could be in either of two forms%
"ption &
Bie each group the opportunity to present their plan to the
whole group and allow for time to #uestion and compare
different approaches to the same issues. 9The groups may hae
decided to meet in the meantime to do further work:. This
timing will be more appropriate to part-time students already
employed in the personnel function. +or full time students you
may wish to delay presentation until towards the end of the
course, and use this as a framework for their ongoing
interpretation and application of each session.
"ption (
The case could be used as an indiidual or group assignment to
be presented in written form.
Furt!er activities
&. 0ork out the annual labour turnoer inde! and stability
inde! for your organisation as a whole. If it is feasible,
carry out the same analyses by staff group. $ttempt to
e!plain your results. Compare your results with those from
another organisation and attempt to e!plain the differences
and similarities. Does action need to be taken, if so whatC
(. $nalyse the age distribution of either all staff in your
organisation or staff at a specific leel or in a specific
function, depending on what is feasible and useful. $ttempt
to e!plain the picture that you find and identify the
implications of your findings. Does action need to be taken,
if so whatC Compare this with another organisation if
possible