Cultural challenges and stress
Overview and demographics
Allure Cruise Line has three vessels in its fleet, with approximately 40 nationalities represented at any given time. However, this always fluctuates between 32 and 53 concerning contracts binding the crew and the company.
Nearly all the crew sign off each week depending on the time the Allure Cruise Line is within the home port. The same number of people come on board to replace others who have days-off.
- Communication is a critical issue in Allure, as the firm engages in service of hiring agents to handle interviews and screen potential crew members for English skills to reduce the time which could be spent on bridging the logistical difference to achieve this.
- Food is another difficult problem which Allure management has to cope with, making up the best menu to appeal and please everyone on board, as varying cultural backgrounds can be a really frustrating issue, not forgetting the high cost involved in meeting this objective.
- Social life aboard the cruise ship has a great influence on the morale of the crew, depending on their age, which varies from 19 to 40 years. Majority of the crew members date and once in a while undergo break ups; and because of the proximity of their living and working conditions conflicts might arise among them.
- Brotherhood mentality is another question capturing the diverse background and societal cultures on board the Allure, this characteristic is common for people from the same nationality and tends to depict a behavior resonating among them.
Solution
To avoid communication barrier among employees, Allure should continue to attract better employees by implementing a brilliant marketing strategy while developing a more competitive workforce. Allure should recruit the people in organizational-based teams and then induct the workers on skills based criteria.
This will go a long way to ensure that a strong sense of efficiency and productivity of Allure are upheld. Allure should make regular training on a normal part of human resource department’s responsibilities and integrate these functions into its human resource management strategy.
The food served to both, passengers and “internal passengers” is an issue, but Allure needs to focus more on their clientele than on the employees.
Social life within the crew members should be encouraged but with check and balances. A happier employee is more productive and more efficient at work than a lonely and demoralized one. Brotherhood disposition should be discouraged among crew members from the same race or background.
“Mafias” on board
Mafia is term used to describe the favoritism which occurs in the dining room aboard the Allure Cruise ships; the head server often portrays some passion and promotes only the crew from his or her own country.
The eastern and western Europeans hold leadership roles within the food service area and dining room. This dining room mafia phenomenon exists only in the dining rooms of the Cruise, where the top leaders are the dining room managers, supported by the head servers who wield a lot of power.
The dining room hierarchy is as shown below:
The head server exhibits a kind of experience in the dining room and creates a rapport with passengers by ensuring they are well catered and taken care of as they enjoy their experience aboard.
The servers are not well remunerated as compared to other staff; however, they make small salaries from the tips they receive from passengers who recognize their services.
Meanwhile, the tips received by the servers are divided among the servers themselves and the assistant servers. The benefits which accompany the server status make it one of the highly sought after positions on the Allure Cruise Ship.
Solution
Allure can improve employee performance by using more effective and efficient performance management programs. Allure has failed to correctly measure and confirm the conduct of their head servers, and this has been affecting the overall efficiency and productivity of the company.
Not only that, Allure has also failed to take into account the effect that the head server’s actions may have on the Allure’s representation among the passengers on board, and also the morale of other servers who feel cheated on board.
This has to change as Allure needs to give an independent person the task of keeping performance records and will need to constantly re-evaluate and assess the crew working in the dining room, alongside their regular superior.
This would allow the independent person a better opportunity to evaluate the servers without any degree of bias. This has come about as a highly significant change as now many companies require independent evaluations, as well as evaluations of employees by their superiors as essential (Cheverton, 2004).
These measurements help Allure to discover which of the crew members is engaged in working at quality level and, needless to say, becomes helpful in deciding who deserves a raise and bonus.
Meanwhile, it also keeps the crew members in controlling as they work harder and better to present themselves better. This also increases the level of enthusiasm in the employees and helps keep the business operating at a healthy rate (Boone, 2001).
In the current models of many organizations, the ones that are different from the more traditional ones, assistants are apportioned with tasks by the top managers as their authority is the best for the activity.
A contemporary approach is to arrange the chores and the workload by assigning up project crew consisting of crew members who join these teams because of their compatible to their competencies and trades like servers.
Allure can achieve this by reducing the level of hierarchy within the organization structure to limit bureaucracy.
Relation to real world
The image of Allure needs to be properly projected not only to attract more customers but also to attract the very best of human capital available. Enlisting reputable workers is becoming an extremely hard task these days, because of the continuously changing working environment and the massive degree of competition in the workforce.
The attitude and morals of the Allure workforce are a tremendously sturdy contributing factor to the company’s overall image in this competitive market.
The marketing department at Allure needs to be more involved in changing the way the company works and operates within the internal structures to determine the effect of the company on the local community and internationally.
Allure should advertise to attract clientele but also portray the right image worldwide. These factors are essential for Allure’s growth and success.
In the newer models of organization, different from the traditional ones, workers are assigned with work by the upper management on the basis of the management that is best for the job.
A new approach is to organize the work and the workload by setting up project teams consisting of workers who join these teams because they think they are compatible to their competencies and interests (Anshutz, 2006).
Companies that follow such models usually change the levels in the company’s organization, and mostly keep only three levels: project sponsors (the former management team); project leaders; and project coworkers.
References
Anshutz, J. (2006). How to successfully manage people. Hong Kong: Perfect Bound Paperback.
Boone, M. E. (2001). Managing interactively: Executing business strategy, improving communication and creating a knowledge-sharing culture. New York: McGraw Hill Professional.
Cheverton, P. (2004). Key marketing skills: strategies, tools and techniques for marketing success. Kogan: Page Publishers.