2. Case analysis: The Hotel Paris International

Starting as a single hotel in a Paris suburb in 1990, the Hotel Paris is now a chain of nine hotels, with two in France, one each in London and Rome, and others in New York, Miami, Washington, Chicago, and Los Angeles. As a corporate strategy, the Hotel Pariss management and owners want to continue to expand geographically. They believe doing so will let them capitalize on their reputation for good service, by providing multicity alternatives for their satisfied guests. The problem is, their reputation for good service has been deteriorating. If they cannot improve service, it would be unwise for them to expand, since their guests might prefer other hotels after trying the Hotel Paris.

Several things are complicating their problem. Elected in 2012, French president Francois Hollande has found it hard to halt or even slow the countrys economic decline. His attempts to impose incremental tax rates of 75% on wealthy citizens prompted many to contemplate leaving France. Furthermore, many touristsfaced with similar economic challenges elsewhereare increasingly staying at short-term rental apartments in Paris, found on the Web, (often through sites such as airbnb.com) for a fraction of what a fine hotel stay might cost.

The Strategy

Top management, with input from the HR and other managers, and with the board of directors approval, chooses a new competitive strategy and formulates new strategic goals. It decides: The Hotel Paris International will use superior guest services to differentiate the Hotel Paris properties, and to thereby increase the length of stays and the return rate of guests, and thus boost revenues and profitability. All Hotel Paris managersincluding the director of HR servicesmust now formulate strategies that support this competitive strategy.

The Strategically Required Organizational Outcomes

The Hotel Pariss basic strategy is to use superior guest services to expand geographically. For HR director Lisa Cruz, reviewing the hotels activities makes it clear that achieving the hotels strategic aims means achieving a number of required organizational outcomes. For example, Lisa and her management colleagues must take steps that produce fewer customer complaints and more written compliments, more frequent guest returns and longer stays, and higher guest expenditures per visit.

The Strategically Relevant Workforce Competencies and Behaviors

The question facing Lisa, then, is this: What competencies and behaviors must our hotels employees exhibit, if we are to produce required organizational outcomes such as fewer customer complaints, more compliments, and more frequent guest returns? Thinking through this question helps Lisa come up with an answer. For example, the hotels required employee competencies and behaviors would include, high-quality front-desk customer service, taking calls for reservations

in a friendly manner, greeting guests at the front door, and processing guests room service meals efficiently. All require motivated, high-morale employees.

The Strategically Relevant HR Policies and Activities

The HR managers task now is to identify and specify the HR policies and activities that will enable the hotel to produce these crucial workforce competencies and behaviors. For example, high-quality front desk customer service is one such required behavior. From this, the HR director identifies HR activities to produce such front-desk customer service efforts. For example, she decides to institute practices to improve the disciplinary fairness and justice in the company, with the aim of improving employee morale. Her assumption is that enhanced fairness will produce higher morale and that higher morale will produce improved front-desk service.

The Strategy Map

Next, Lisa, working with the hotels chief financial officer (CFO), outlines a strategy map for the hotel. This outlines the cause-and-effect links among the HR activities, the workforce behaviors, and the organizational outcomes (the figure on this books inside back cover shows the overall map). This map and its linkages reflect certain assumptions on Lisas part. For example, based on experience and discussions with the firms other managers, she formulates the following hypothesis about how HR affects hotel performance: Improved grievance procedures cause improved morale, which leads to improved front-desk service, which leads to increased guest returns, which leads to improved financial performance. The HR director then chooses metrics to measure each of these factors. For example, she decides to measure improved disciplinary procedures in terms of how many grievances employees submit each month. She measures improved morale in terms of scores on our hotels semiannual attitude survey, and measures high-quality front desk customer service in terms of customer complaints per month.

She moves on to quantifying the cause-and-effect links among these measures. For example: Can we show top management that there is a measurable, sequential link between improved disciplinary procedures, high morale, improved front-desk service, number of guest return visits, and hotel financial performance (revenues and profits)? If she can show such links, she has a persuasive case that shows HRs measurable contribution to the hotels bottom-line financial performance.

In practice, the HR manager may well just rely on a largely subjective but logical argument to make the case for such cause-and-effect linkages. But ideally, she will use statistical methods such as correlation analysis to determine if measurable links exist, and (if so) what their magnitudes are. In this way, she might find, for instance, that a 10% improvement in grievance rates is associated with an almost 20% improvement in morale. Similarly, a 20% improvement in morale is associated with a 30% reduction in customer front-desk complaints. Furthermore, a 30% reduction in complaints is associated with a 20% increase in guest return visits, and a 20% increase in return rate is associated with a 6% rise in hotel revenues. It would appear that a relatively small HR effort in reducing grievances might have a big effect on this hotels bottom-line performance!

Several things complicate this measurement process. For example, its risky to draw cause effect conclusions from correlation measures like these (do fewer grievances lead to higher morale, or vice versa?). Furthermore, its rare that a single factor (such as grievance rates) will have such effects alone, so we may want to measure the effects of several HR policies and activities on morale simultaneously.

The New Job Descriptions

The Hotel Pariss competitive strategy is To use superior guest service to differentiate the Hotel Paris properties, and to thereby increase the length of stay and return rate of guests, and thus boost revenues and profitability. HR manager Lisa Cruz must now formulate functional policies and activities that support this competitive strategy and boost performance by eliciting the required employee behaviors and competencies.

As an experienced human resource director, the Hotel Pariss Lisa Cruz knew that recruitment and selection processes invariably influenced employee competencies and behavior and, through them, the companys bottom line. Everything about the workforceits collective skills, morale, experience, and motivationdepended on attracting and then selecting the right employees.

In reviewing the Hotel Pariss employment systems, she was therefore concerned that virtually all the companys job descriptions were out of date, and that many jobs had no descriptions at all. She knew that without accurate job descriptions, all her improvement efforts would be in vain. After all, if you dont know a jobs duties, responsibilities, and human requirements, how can you decide whom to hire or how to train them? To create human resource policies and practices that would produce employee competencies and behaviors needed to achieve the hotels strategic aims, Lisas team first had to produce a set of usable job descriptions.

A brief analysis, conducted with her companys CFO, reinforced that observation. They chose departments across the hotel chain that did and did not have updated job descriptions. While they understood that many other factors might be influencing the results, they believed that the statistical relationships they observed did suggest that having job descriptions had a positive influence on various employee behaviors and competencies. Perhaps having the descriptions facilitated the employee selection process, or perhaps the departments with the descriptions just had better managers. In any case, Lisa received the go-ahead to design new job descriptions for the chain.

While the resulting job descriptions included numerous traditional duties and responsibilities, most also included several competencies unique to each job. For example, job descriptions for the front-desk clerks included competencies such as able to check a guest in or out in five minutes or less. Most service employees descriptions included the competency, able to exhibit patience and guest supportiveness even when busy with other activities. Lisa knew that including these competencies would make it easier for her team to devise useful employee selection, training, and evaluation processes.

3. Create a job description for the position, referring to the form introduced in the text book. Requirement: Clarify the way you get to know the activities/work of the chosen position. It is suggested to interview some familiar persons with similar jobs, referring to some hotels website. In a word, no matter which in which way you get the information, please clarify that.

2. Case analysis: The Hotel Paris International Starting as a single hotel in a Paris suburb in 1990, the Hotel Paris is now a chain of nine hotels, with two in France, one each in London and Rome, and others in New York, Miami, Washington, Chicago, and Los Angeles. As a corporate strategy, the Hotel Paris's management and owners want to continue to expand geographically. They believe doing so will let them capitalize on their reputation for good service, by providing multicity alternatives for their satisfied guests. The problem is, their reputation for good service has been deteriorating. If they cannot improve service, it would be unwise for them to expand, since their guests might prefer other hotels after trying the Hotel Paris. Several things are complicating their problem. Elected in 2012, French president Francois Hollande has found it hard to halt or even slow the country's economic decline. His attempts to impose incremental tax rates of 75% on wealthy citizens prompted many to contemplate leaving France. Furthermore, many tourists--faced with similar economic challenges elsewhere are increasingly staying at short-term rental apartments in Paris, found on the Web, (often through sites such as airbnb.com) for a fraction of what a fine hotel stay might cost. The Strategy Top management, with input from the HR and other managers, and with the board of directors approval, chooses a new competitive strategy and formulates new strategic goals. It decides: "The Hotel Paris International will use superior guest services to differentiate the Hotel Paris properties, and to thereby increase the length of stays and the return rate of guests, and thus boost revenues and profitability." All Hotel Paris managers--including the director of HR services-must now formulate strategies that support this competitive strategy. The Strategically Required Organizational Outcomes The Hotel Paris's basic strategy is to use superior guest services to expand geographically. For HR director Lisa Cruz, reviewing the hotel's activities makes it clear that achieving the hotel's strategic aims means achieving a number of required organizational outcomes. For example, Lisa and her management colleagues must take steps that produce fewer customer complaints and more written compliments, more frequent guest retums and longer stays, and higher guest expenditures per visit. The Strategically Relevant Workforce Competencies and Behaviors The question facing Lisa, then, is this: What competencies and behaviors must our hotel's employees exhibit, if we are to produce required organizational outcomes such as fewer customer complaints, more compliments, and more frequent guest returns? Thinking through this question helps Lisa come up with an answer. For example, the hotel's required employee competencies and behaviors would include, "high-quality front-desk customer service." "taking calls for reservations in a friendly manner." "greeting guests at the front door," and "processing guests' room service meals efficiently." All require motivated, high-morale employees. The Strategically Relevant HR Policies and Activities The HR manager's task now is to identify and specify the HR policies and activities that will enable the hotel to produce these crucial workforce competencies and behaviors. For example, "high-quality front desk customer service" is one such required behavior. From this, the HR director identifies HR activities to produce such front-desk customer service efforts. For example, she decides to institute practices to improve the disciplinary fuimess and justice in the company, with the aim of improving employee morale. Her assumption is that enhanced fairness will produce higher morale and that higher morale will produce improved front desk service. The Strategy Map Next, Lisa, working with the hotel's chief financial officer (CFO),outlines a strategy map for the hotel. This outlines the case-and-effect links among the HR activities, the workforce behaviors, and the organizational outcomes (the figure on this book's inside back cover shows the overall map) This map and its linkages reflect certain assumptions on Lisa's part. For example, based on experience and discussions with the firm's other managers, she formulates the following hypothesis about how HR affects hotel performance: Improved grievance procedures cause improved morale, which leads to improved front-desk service, which leads to increased guest returns, which leads to improved financial performance. The HR director then chooses metrics to measure cach of these factors. For example, she decides to measure "improved disciplinary procedures" in terms of how many grievances employees submit each month. She measures improved morale" in terms of "scores on our hotel's semiannual attitude survey, and measures "high-quality front desk customer service" in terms of "customer complaints per month." She moves on to quantifying the cause-and-effect links among these measures. For example: "Can we show top management that there is a measurable, sequential link between improved disciplinary procedures, high morale, improved front-desk service, number of guest return visits and hotel financial performance (revenues and profitsy?" If she can show such links, she has a persuasive case that shows HR's measurable contribution to the hotel's bottom-line financial performance In practice, the HR manager may well just rely on a largely subjective but logical argument to make the case for such cause-and-effect linkages. But idcally, she will use statistical methods such as correlation analysis to determine if measurable links exist, and (if so) what their magnitudes are. In this way, she might find, for instance, that a 10% improvement in grievance rates is associated with an almost 20% improvement in morale. Similarly, a 20% improvement in morale is associated with a 30% reduction in customer front-desk complaints. Furthermore, a 30% reduction in complaints is associated with a 20% increase in guest return visits, and a 20% increase in return rate is associated with a 6% rise in hotel revenues. It would appear that a relatively small HR effort in reducing grievances might have a big effect on this hotel's bottom-line performance! Several things complicate this measurement process. For example, it's risky to draw cause effect conclusions from correlation measures like these (do fewer grievances lead to higher morale, or vice versa?). Furthermore, it's rare that a single factor (such as grievance rates) will have such effects alone, so we may want to measure the effects of several HR policies and activities on morale simultaneously The New Job Descriptions The Hotel Paris's competitive strategy is "To use superior guest service to differentiate the Hotel Paris properties, and to thereby increase the length of stay and the rate of guests and thus boost revenues and profitability." HR manager Lisa Cruz must now formulate functional policies and activities that support this competitive strategy and boost performance by cliciting the required employee behaviors and competencies As an experienced human resource director, the Hotel Paris's Lia Crur knew that recruitment and selection processes invariably influenced employee competencies and behavior and through them, the company's bottom line. Everything about the workforce its collective skills, morale. experience, and motivatice-depended an attracting and then selecting the right employees In reviewing the Hotel Paris's employment systems, she was therefore concerned that virtually all the company's job descriptions were out of date, and that many jobs had no descriptions at all She knew that without accurate job description all her improvement efforts would be in vain. After all, if you don't know a job's duties, responsibilities and human requirements, how can you decide whom to hire or how to train them? To create human resource policies and practices that would produce employee competencies and behaviors needed to achieve the hotel's strategic aims. Lisa's team fine had to produce a set of uable job description A brief analysis, conducted with her company's CFO, reinforced that observation. They chose departments across the hotel chain that did and did not have updated job descriptions. While they understood that many other factors might be influencing the result, they believed that the statistical relationships they observed did suggest that having job descriptions had a positive influence on various employee behaviors and competencies. Perhaps having the descriptions facilitated the employee selection process, or perhaps the departments with the descriptions just had better managers. In any case, Lisa received the go-ahead to design new job descriptions for the chain While the resulting job descriptions included numerous traditional duties and responsibilities, most also included several competencies unique to cach job. For example, job descriptions for the front desk clerks included competencies such as able to check a guest in or out in five minutes or les:"Most service employees descriptions included the competency able to exhibit patience and guest supportiveness even when busy with other activities Lisa knew that including these competencies would make it casier for her team to devise cfal employee selection, training, and evaluation processes 3. Create a job description for the position, referring to the form introduced in the text book Requirement: Clarify the way you get to know the stevie work of the chosen position. It is suggested to interview some familiar persons with similat jobs referring to some hotelswebsite. Ionaward no matter which in which you get the information please. Slatify that