HR Management in Service Sector

Emma Zoe

HR Management in Service Sector

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HR Management in Service Sector

Introduction
The selected organisation for this HR management in service sector assignment is
InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, which is also informally known as
InterContinental Hotels or IHG. InterContinental Hotels is based in Denham, UK,
and it has multinational hotel operation. IHG is considered as the largest hotel
company in the world in terms of room counts. As of February 2014, the hotel
operates more than 687,000 rooms across more than 100 countries. The group has
more than 4,600 hotels located across the globe. On an annual basis, the hotel
reportedly serves 161 million guest nights. The hotel manages a number of brands
including Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Even,
Candlewood Suites, and Hotel Indigo. Most of the hotels under the group are
operated under franchise agreements, and the rest hotels separately owned by the
company. The brands are primarily held through franchising model, which enables
the company to transfer the expertise in three fields including systems, hotel
management, and marketing to the franchises. The real estate investment which are
mainly the hotel properties are owned by the franchises. The company has
formulated a common goal to be followed by all the franchises and partners, which is
Great Hotels Guests Love. The company has aligned al its functions and activities to
the common goal. All the human resource related activities are also aligned to the
common organisational goal.

Task 1
A) Briefly define the concept HRM and examine
the role of human resource function in the
service sector organisation. Discuss how it is
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HR Management in Service Sector

contributing to the success of your chosen

organisation
Human resource management (HRM) is a planned and long-term based approach of
going on the subject of the people management related aspects in an
organisation,rather than the old approach of simply managing the employees. In
service industry, people or the employees are considered as the most valuable assets
of an organisation. The role of the human resource management practises are
identified by the service sector companies in order to attain competitive advantages
by utilising the employee pool efficiently. The purpose and role of human resource
management is multi-faceted and it has a long-ranging approach in its applicability.
The concept and the driving principle behind the human resource management
practices in service sector organisations are to run the people management process in
the best way possible, and efficiently aligning the forces working with the
organisation. In the UK labour market context, HRM practices have been responsible
for taking care of various issues like providing equal opportunities to all, maintaining
fair practices of employment, offering better benefits and compensations to
employees, and developing the employees by training them properly. The role of
HRM is also useful in the outside matters including maintaining the labour
relationship and taking care of safety and health matters in the organisation.
The chosen organisation is InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, which has been
practising the HRM exercises keeping the companys long term strategic approach
lined up with the proper employee management tactics. The HRM approach has been
helpful for InterContinental Hotels in terms of increasing the effectiveness and
expertise of the people working with the organisation across various geographical
locations. The purpose of human resource management practises at InterContinental
Hotels is broadly to make sure that the organisation is following in every part of
the employee management system. The hotel has a solid approach towards the
recruitment process (so that the best people are recruited to serve the purpose of
organisation), managing and developing people (which makes sure that the
employees are shaped in the best possible way possible), and also towards the
employee reward process (to keep the employees motivated). With an overall
approach, the hotel group has been able to taste success because of the employee
commitment and employee motivation. The group has created an image in the sector
for its better employee interaction, which is exhibited in the way customers and
guests are treated at the hotel facilities. Better employees are attracting more
customers, and hence the business is also doing better (Dowling et al, 1994).

B) Outline a brief human resource plan for your

chosen organisation by analysing the supply and demand for
service sector personnel in your business environment. You
should be able to determine your future requirements and say
how you plan to meet the needs
InterContinental Hotels Group PLC is the largest group of hotels in the world
in terms of rooms (as of February 2014, the company had a room count of 687,000
globally). The hotel group operates over about 4,600 hotels located across more than
100 countries across the world. For such a big scale of operation, it is very important
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HR Management in Service Sector

that the human resource planning is well sketched out in terms of supply and
demand. If we consider the employment-related situation in hotel sector, then we
need to examine the latest trends in the European market scenario, at the time of
various market and economic strains and crunch situations. The hotel industry, in
overall global market scenario, is relatively more worrisome in terms of the
employment opportunity. Specifically the European market is seen as an inelastic
employment market; in terms of employees mobilisation and employers affinity
towards hiring certain group of population. As a result, this trend results in high
unemployment rate in certain European markets. The inflexibility in the job market
is reflecting in finding out proper employee for various positions at InterContinental
Hotel. InterContinental is operating in such an industry, which has been traditionally
suffering from high rates of employee turnover. Stricter work routine and excess
work pressure have resulted in higher employee turnover. Hence, the hotel group
needs to examine the requirement of better approach towards managing human
resource and planning amidst the difficult market conditions in the Europe and
other geographical locations across the globe.
The mode of managing hotels at InterContinental is different. It primarily manages
various hotels owned by the franchises and makes sure that the global brand is kept
intact, even though they are owned by other parties. The hotel group basically tries to
sell its proficiency and expertise in the hotel management field to the franchises. This
model requires skill intensive and people specific systems that are managed directly
by the organisation. The hotel annually serves about 161 million guests nights
through its various hotels and facilities across the locations. Moreover the goal of the
company is to create the Great Hotels Guests Love theme across its facilities. In
order to make everything fall into places, the hotel group needs to plan its future
leadership trend. The growth at global scale will also result in demand for more work
forces, and the human resource planning will be to fill up the vacancies amidst the
tight European conditions. The hotel group can divide its workforce broadly in to
four categories: Europe, America, Australasia and Middle East, Chinese territory.
This will help in identifying the regional trends of employment, and help the
management to take region specific steps to serve the purposes. In order to fill up the
future leadership positions, InterContinental Hotels Group needs to groom the
graduate recruits and shape them properly into future leaders. The group has to find
the talents from the above mentioned four geographical groups and groom them with
the local culture and guest needs. However, each future leader at InterContinental
Hotels Group must have cross cultural mind set in order to serve the global
customers (Wood, 1999; Storey, 2001).

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HR Management in Service Sector

Task 2
A) Examine the history of employment relations in the UK
briefly and analyse the current state of employment relations in
your chosen travel and tourism or hospitality organisation
InterContinental Hotels have ample setting up in the companys organizational
Behaviour that regulates the relationship between the employee and the company.
The company has focused mainly towards providing its employees with individual
freedom at work. The managers play crucial role in maintaining the relationship with
the employees and the company. The company practices equal opportunity at the
work place, and it starts right from the recruitment and selection program. The
company runs graduate programs which are long term based plan to capture future
leaders and groom them into shape. The hotel discourages any act of discrimination
at work, and tries to maintain vibrant workplace. The hotel communicates its
employees and the outsiders about employment and other key policies. The
employment problem related grievance system is present in the hotel, which takes
care of issues arising from misconduct by employees (Hollenbeck et al, 1997; Lucas,
1995).

B) Discuss how employment laws in the country affect the

human resources management function in your chosen
organisation
In terms of abiding by proper rules of conduct, the hotel tries to maintain fairness at
workplace, and ensures that its employees are also abiding by the outlined rules. In
unfamiliar situations, the employees can raise the concern which may arise from his
or her manager or fellow colleagues. The concerns are raised through grievance
methods at InterContinental, which are useful if the employee feels that there has
been any form of misconduct. The employee must follow a formal procedure of
complaint to the human resource department and the following steps must be
coordinated with the employee. The grievance process assures the employee of ample
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HR Management in Service Sector

confidentiality, and the employee has to offer his or her full support so that fair
settlement can be done (Hoque, 1999).
Task 3
A) Analyse the recruitment and selection policies and procedures in your organisation and
discuss how job description and person specification can be matched for a specific job in the
chosen organisation

The InterContinental Hotels group gives much importance to diversity and tries to
implement inclusion across all aspects of its business located across various locations
globally. The hotel practises the recruitment process and promotes the individuals in
the organisation solely on the basis of their suitability. The hotel discourages any
form of discrimination which may arise from various grounds such as gender, colour,
sexual orientation, disability, race, ethnic, religion, or marital status. The company
also modifies its principles based on certain national or local legal requirements in
some countries. The company provides opportunities for employee development and
provides proper and ample training programmes which include management and
leadership training to its employees. The company also provides succession planning
for identified high-potential contenders in the company and provides
development programmes specifically designed for women. The company has been
acknowledged by the UK Government for its Positive about Disabled People
initiative. The company also has a Disability Advisory Committee which takes care of
recruiting proper candidates with any sort of physical disability. Because of its
affinity and ability for recruiting people with disabilities, the hotel group won
Springboard Award for Excellence award in the 'Diversity in Employment' category
in 2008 (InterContinental Hotels Group, 2014).
We will discuss job descriptions and personal specifications for hotel receptionist job
at InterContinental Hotels. The company publishes employment advertisement for
the position in various print and online mediums. The candidates are then screened
based on the matching criteria with the below mentioned requirements:
Job Title: Hotel receptionist
Department: Administration
Work and Responsibility: Full time permanent front office administrative work. The
hotel receptionist will report to the Administrative Head of the particular hotel
facility in London.
Location and Purpose: Hotel receptionist will handle the administrative works and
front office reception related formalities of the hotel. The person will work with the
administration and human resource department to in order to make the customer
reception work go smoothly. The location is at the hotel facility located in Hamilton
Place, Park Lane, London.
Person specification: The person be proficient in managing communications and
have a pleasant personality. He or she must possess great amount of professional
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HR Management in Service Sector

ethics. The person must have the qualities to meet the customer demand, and the
efficiency to meet their complaints with priority. The candidate should be passionate
towards managing people and should enjoy while interacting with people. The hotel
reception should be open to interact with people from various social and physical
backgrounds. As the hotel will have a large number of Asian and Latin American
visitors, the candidate should have a fair idea about the cultural background of the
people coming from different geographical locations (Dowling et al, 1994,; Goldstein,
1993).
B) Compare and evaluate the different selection process in your chosen organisation with
another tourism or hospitality organisation

The InterContinental Hotels group mainly follows external recruitment

method to attract candidates. The company prefers to advertise its positions on
certain online sites which are intended to get a diverse mix of candidates. The
selection process mainly follows the following flow:

Initial screening the company can discard the misfit profiles through bio data
filtering or primary interviews

Application the screened employees will be asked to fill in the required application
form in order to give overall idea about their personality and other personal things.

Employment test for the job of hotel receptionist, the test should have
psychological tests: which would include intelligence test, personality test, ability
test, and aptitude test.

Interview- after the candidate clears all the tests; it is the time for one to one
interview. The panel of line manager and administrative practice head should take
the interview of the hotel receptionist. The process will be helpful in knowing the
original and first-hand experience side of the candidate.

However, the company also follows various internal methods to fill up positions
available within the organisation:

Promotions or transfer- with promotion, the individual is offered employment level

movement from a comparatively lower level to higher one. The transfer method
involves moving internal employees in lateral movement from one grade to another,
but in a different department or location.

Job posting: by this method, the hotel can publicise its job openings (which are hotel
receptionist and cleaning staff in this case) on the companys electronic or physical
bulletin board.

Referrals: the company can escalate emails to its employee asking for referrals from
them.

On the other hand, Hilton Worldwide focuses more on retaining its employees. The
company has 100,000 employees across the globe, which are often referred as team
members and the hotel ensures that the selection process is designed more towards
identifying the long term based candidate who can be maintained with
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HR Management in Service Sector

the organisation. The company practises similar method of internal and external
recruitment. All the steps described in the case of InterContinental are same for
Hilton Worldwide (InterContinental Hotels Group, 2014; Becker & Gerhart, 1996).

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