Executive Summary
The paper discusses the training needs and development required in Maritime Palms which is a four-star hotel located in Auckland. The hotel attracts both international and domestic clients. It provides the best services so far within the region amongst them being air-conditioned guest rooms. Despite these, the hotel is experiencing some problems which include working with two inexperienced staff whose performances are below expectations. Also, the hotel needs to change from the Fidelio program to the Quantum program for information recording and storage. There is a discussion on the specific training, the employees to be trained (Andrew, Bob, and Carla) and finally suggested solutions.
Introduction
Maritime Palms hotel is located on the coast of Auckland. It is a four-star hotel that offers high-quality services to guests. Due to its location near the seashore, it provides beautiful and relaxing scenery of the sea. The hotel is easily accessible by road from the major cities and only a distance of thirty minutes travel from the airport. The hotel offers air-conditioned rooms which are well equipped with television sets and telephone amongst other things that make guests comfortable.
Maritime Palm offers conference and leisure facilities like a swimming pool, full-service restaurant, and sufficient parking space for cars. The hotel receives visitors from every walk of life all over the world. The hotel records a high occupancy rate of between 80- 90 %, during week days. Despite all these luxury and good things it offers, the hotel has recorded a low turn-up of visitors in the recent past. This issue has been traced to the poor management and personnel organization of the hotel (Leigh et al, 2000).
Personnel Involved
Andrew
Andrew is 36 years old, has worked in the hotel for around three years. He had worked nowhere before he joined Maritime. Andrew holds a degree in Hotel and Management and also a certificate in human resource management. He is currently working full-time as the supervisor of the front door.
Bob
Twenty-six years of age holds a diploma in customer care and computer software application. Worked as an apprentice in one of the hotels within Aukland and is considered to be an extremely conscientious worker keen to progress to a higher position. He has worked with Maritime for one year serving full-time at the customer care desk.
Carla
She is the only lady in the front-door department within Maritime, twenty-four years of age, and married with two children. Has a degree in Hotel and Hospitality and has no work experience before this. She is only one month old in Maritime and serves full-time at the reception desk.
Specific problem
There is a performance problem on the side of the employees; Bob and Carla are not performing to the expectations of the hotel. They sometimes error when taking records; they cannot communicate fluently in some languages making conversations between them and some visitors difficult. The hotel has a problem with the program they use in making reservations. The currently used program Fidelio does not offer constant information updates. The system does not match the current technological changes and induces high risks to the hotel since sometimes it can easily be defrauded from any place in the world. They, therefore, plan to shift to the Quantum program, the problem is that no employee knows how to operate the program calling for urgent training. The program will cost the hotel a lot of money since its installation process is so much involving.
Training Induction
The training needs were identified by examining how the employees carried out their day to day tasks. The opinion of the employees was also used especially, Andrew, after discovering that something was not right with the level of performance. The hotel’s goals and objectives about their present and future position were also examined, including the financial performance of the organization. The human resource development need of the employees was identified through observing how they applied certain skills like typing and data entry. Andrew as the supervisor was used to closely examine the employees he worked with.
The employees will be exposed to forum presentations to determine their proficiency in language use. Each employee will be monitored through the hotel’s computerized system to identify their areas of weaknesses, hence subjected to appropriate training. Each will be required to have a copy of the company’s rules and regulations. The employees need to be made aware that any right thing they do at the first attempt reduces the costs used. They will be trained on the use of a quantum program, correct data entry methods, and needs to take appropriate actions (Anderson, 1994).
The organization will use one of the learning institutions for training purposes. Each employee will be allocated sufficient time for training depending on the resources available. After the induction both practical and written tests will be given to individuals before being fully accepted. The qualifying pass mark on both is set at 80%. In this case study, those that need training are employees in the front office department. Bob and Carla fail to deliver the required performance as they seem to have neither adequate induction nor proper training activity after joining the workforce (Goldstein, 1993; Holton et al, 2000).
Performance Appraisal
According to the company records, those at the front-door are at times careless when handling dignitaries. Bob and Carla are generally slow when it comes to receipting transactions, sometimes they are overwhelmed with work since they work twenty-four hours. The shifts between the workers are not indicated, this leads to time conflict between the employees. Carla is a mother of two, not yet mastered the working system, hence makes it difficult to incorporate her in most of the night shifts (Desimone et al, 2002). Andrew needs to balance the human resource plan together with the hotel’s plan in the processes of analyzing the training needs to avoid conflict with the organization’s policies.
There is no time limit set for the delivery of the services; the timing allocated to each employee is just based on speculations. There is no definitive system that helps Andrew to monitor, plan, and review the performance level of Bob and Carla. The approach should be different since Carla has just joined Maritime (Grau-Gumbau et al, 2002).
Suggested Solutions
The hotel should use classroom training and on-the-job training. In the case of the new equipment, the hotel is to use technology based training. The training needs for the use of the quantum database is to be determined, the potential training providers are to be identified together with the likely training costs. The employees are to be trained based on the appropriate training level.
Bob and Carla will be subjected to basic training which will enable them to start identifying possible approaches on how to perform their work with minimum supervision (Boydell, 1976). They should be trained on how to make workable decisions when faced with tough choices. Andrew as the current supervisor should be subjected to an advanced training program that will enable him to train and manage the other employees, hence producing positive results. He should know how to design working procedures and policies for the company. The training provider that to be utilized in this case is one of the higher learning Institutions (Grau-Gumbau et al, 2000; Nadler and Wiggs, 1986).
The basic intermediate courses to be offered to Bob and Carla should take one year. The training development should be conducted by the trainers from the learning institutions and taken separately from delivery. A competitive method of procurement should be used for the hotel to realize the best balance of quality and cost. The total cost for the full training of the employees will be approximately $ 7800.
Table; showing the breakdown of the costs.
The training committee should include experts from the IT department to provide employees with sufficient information on the use of the quantum program. The training developer has to work closely with the committee of experts. Training will help in improving the upward mobility within the Hotel and assist employees to adjust to technological changes (Deutsch, 1979; Noe and Winkler, 2009; Cornwell Management Consultants, 2004).
Conclusion
The absence of the Training needs assessment and analysis leads to a lack of experts within a firm. The training process helps in empowering employees towards planning and strategizing for effective performance. Most of the companies have not taken into account the employment of qualified professionals to manage their resources and this has been the cause of most crises. The company should design clear policies and identify the right training and development methods for its employees. In the analysis, the performance appraisals should be given by the individual employees or their managers to ensure accuracy.
References
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