Category: Ritz-Carlton

Introduction

This assignment will be based on management. Mr. Jeff Brower, the general manager for Ritz Carlton, Georgetown, is the manager who was interviewed for this case study. The phone interview was conducted on 16^th February, 2013. The research was able to gather enough facts and figures needed for the assignment. Additionally, the internet played an imperative role in providing supplementary information. For instance, the internet was vital in verifying the information provided by the general manager for this commercial institution.

Short history of Ritz Carlton Georgetown

The name Ritz Carlton refers to a hotel company which is parent to a chain of luxurious hotels spread across the globe. It is important to note that the chain name of these hotels is an auxiliary of Marriot International. Ritz Carlton Georgetown is located 3100 South Street Northwest in Washington DC.

The luxury hospitality outlet is situated at the intersection of K Street and Wisconsin. It is only a ten minute drive north of the famous Ronald Reagan Washington International Airport. That notwithstanding, the hotel is only eight minutes from the USA white house and next to the National Mall and the Smithsonian Institute amongst other historic places (Zibart, 94).

The company’s management structure

Ritz Carlton Georgetown has a well defined organizational structure with all its key employees having definite responsibilities. The company is headed by the general manager.

He is assisted by the executive secretary. Other members of the top management of the company include the director of sales and marketing, chief engineer, resident manager, financial controller, human resources manager and the food and beverage director. Members of the middle management under the residential manager include the front office manager and the executive housekeeper.

On the other hand, members of the middle management who fall right under the food and beverage manager comprise of the catering director, executive chef, restaurant manager and beverage manager. Officials in the junior management include the reservations manager, front desk manager, guest service manager and the PBX manager. Other officials in this category are the housekeeping manager, laundry manager, sous chef, steward, banquet chef and the administrative assistant (Prideaux, and Laws, 123).

Flow chart of the organizational structure for Ritz Carlton Georgetown

Skills needed for hiring and promoting managers in terms of human skills, technical skills and conceptual skills

Human skills for hiring and promoting managers

The human skills needed for promoting or hiring a manager in this facility include perfect communications skills. This not only involves the ability to talk and be heard but also the ability to command respect amongst juniors. This aspect is very important for a candidate aspiring for a managerial position as it enables him/her to implement organizational policies through his/her juniors.

Aside from the communication skills, the company also focuses on general hygiene and the level to which a candidate is presentable when hiring or promoting employees to managerial positions (Prideaux, and Laws, 129). A hospitality outlet is always considered as an image industry and hygiene comes first. Since managers normally act as a reference point to junior employees, personal hygiene is mandatory. Other human skills observed include ethics and outgoingness.

Technical skills for hiring and promoting managers

The technical skills needed for promoting a manager here include the ability to develop job-specific and technical vocabularies. This is always achieved by being present at quite a number of professional meetings and reading widely (De, 86).

Through this, an employee is always kept at a fresh outlook of his/her job and is able to learn recent technologies that can play an imperative part in enhancing customer service and company operations. Good tecnical skills needed for promotions and hiring also include the ability to meet guest needs by unequivocally explaining procedures and giving directions.

These include rate assignment, guest registrations, establishment of guest payment methods and room assignment amongst others. A good manager should also have excellent planning and evaluating skills. The company focuses on these factors to enable the managers incorporate viable emerging technologies into the systems of the company in order to enhance guest satisfaction (O’Fallon, and Denney, 74).

The management at Ritz Carlton Georgetown also takes into consideration other general skills like operating company equipments. These include vacuum cleaners and buffing or polishing machines. A competitive candidate for a managerial position at Ritz Carlton Georgetown must also be familiar with general cleaning procedures and routines of the company.

Conceptual skills for hiring and promoting managers

The conceptual skills needed by the company include the ability to come up with innovative ideas. People who possess strong conceptual skills must have good cognitive abilities that enable them to tackle problems in a creative manner. The company’s management needs people who have the capability to examine complex situations and come up with precise, efficient course of action (Evans, William, and James, 293).

The company’s approach to developing employees and managers

The company has managed to standardize its services for decades now. This has been championed by the fact that it is a chain of the mother Ritz Carlton Company. Chain hotels normally have universal services across all the available outlets. Maintaining olden trends is not an easy thing to do. However, this is a setback that can be overcome by a dedicated team of managers from the general manager to the junior managers. This is exactly what happens at Ritz Carlton Georgetown.

The company uses well tested managerial policies to train their employees. Considering the fact that quite a number of Ritz Carlton chain hotels have been in operation since time immemorial, they have laid down certain viable, standard procedures meant to be observed by incoming employees and this includes managers. This has thus played a significant role in fostering the commendable managerial skills at Ritz Carlton Georgetown.

The company’s culture

The Ritz Carlton as a company has a unique culture that applies to all its outlets including the Ritz Carlton Georgetown. It bases its success on three fundamental aspects. These include the right location, the right product and the right personnel. Ritz Carlton Georgetown has since applied these three vital aspects to stay at the helm of hospitality industry in this region.

The hotel is strategically located to attract just the right clients and ensure that it always has business. Additionally, it offers just the right food and beverage products and services needed by its clientele. That notwithstanding, the company also thrives to employ just the right personnel needed to offer utter satisfaction to its clients. These cultures are the key elements to the success of Ritz Carlton Georgetown.

SWOT analysis of the company

The SWOT matrix is a planning strategy used in the evaluation of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a business organization. Ritz Carlton Georgetown has quite a number of strengths and opportunities. For instance, the most outstanding strength is its strategic location. It is located next to historic places including the white house, the Dulles International Airport, Ronald Reagan International Airport, the National Mall, the Smithsonian Institute and many others (Evans, William, and James, 72).

Besides, Ritz Carlton Georgetown enjoys an international fame due to its links with the mother Ritz Carlton. As a result, clients are more likely to spend their time here as compared to other hotels in the surrounding. Another advantage the company enjoys is the fact that it is a five star hotel and thus offers top quality services and products.

On the other hand, Ritz Carlton Georgetown has weaknesses and threats too. One of the main threats is the flocking of hospitality outlets in the market. This is quite a challenge. However, the company has formulated measures to counter this. It has since ensured that the quality of its services and products are superb. Another challenge is the emerging trends. This is a challenge because the hotel has to undergo renovation especially in its management systems in order to conform to the current technologies (De, 28).

Industry trends of the company and the manner in which management has reacted towards them

Emerging trends in the company include the incorporation of computer systems in the management of hotels. Today, managerial decisions in hotels are aided by computers. This is indicates that if a hotel was built before the emergence of these systems, relevant upgrading has to be done in order to meet the emerging trends.

Ritz Carlton Georgetown was built before some of these systems were first used in the industry. As a result, it has to do necessary adjustments in order to incorporate the systems in its daily operations (Zibart, 334). Even though this is quite a challenge, the company has successfully fitted into the new trends.

Conclusion

Ritz Carlton Georgetown is a luxury hospitality industry that faces challenges just like every other commercial enterprise. Despite the challenges, the company has beaten all odds and thrived to be at the helm of the industry in Washington DC. In conclusion, therefore, amidst all the difficulties, ranging from management to external setbacks, the company still stands tall (O’Fallon, and Denney, 34).

Works Cited

De, Bono S. Managing Cultural Diversity. Maidenhead: Meyer & Meyer, 2011. Print.

Evans, James R, William M. Lindsay, and James R. Evans. Managing for Quality and Performance Excellence. Mason, OH: Thomson/South-Western, 2008. Print.

O’Fallon, Michael J, and Denney G. Rutherford. Hotel Management and Operations. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley, 2011. Print.

Prideaux, B, G Moscardo, and E Laws. Managing Tourism and Hositality Services: Theory and International Applications. Wallingford: CAB International, 2006. Print.

Zibart, Eve. The Unofficial Guide to Washington, D.c. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Internet resource.

Recommendations

Having considered numerous problems, connected with the human resource management in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, a number of recommendations may be given to cope with them.

Even though all the separate disadvantages of human resource management do not create any troubles for the company functioning, if to unite those, it becomes problematic for the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company to function properly. Here are some specific recommendations the human resource manager should take into account while organizing such procedures as recruitment, induction and retention.

One of the main mistakes the human resource managers make in the Ritz-Carlton Hotels is the attraction of too many candidates at the time of recruitment. Thus, there are too many people in the company who should perform the same functions. This leads to the problem that some employees who have been working in the company for many years remain unoccupied.

The main purpose of recruitment is “not just to attract any candidates – it is to recruit the right candidates (and hopefully put off the wrong sort of candidates)” (Yeung 2008, p. 66). Moreover, the attraction of too many candidates at one and the same time is also a bad idea as it is rather time consuming and costly to sort out applications.

It is also unreasonable to advise the organisation to attract too few candidates as this leads to choice limitation (McKenna & Beech 2008). Thus, due to the fact that the company got used to work with the professionals, it pays much attention to human resources (Sucher & McManus 2001).

So, it may be recommended to attract as many candidates as possible but to recruit them by means of small groups. This will help the organization to consider as many people as possible and to choose the candidate which perfectly fits the company requirements without rush (Billsberry 2007).

It is important to recommend the company to reduce the turnover of employees as this process negatively influences the services in the Ritz-Carlton Hotels and is rather costly (Jackson, Schuler & Werner 2008). At the same time, it is important to understand that turnover is an inevitable and crucial process in the company.

Functional turnover is vital for the Ritz-Carlton Hotels as it gives an opportunity for poor performers to leave their workplace. Such turnover is really useful for the company as the Hotel requires only the best performers (Sturman, Trevor & Boudreau 2003).

Each new employer should be trained. Such procedures cost too much. At the same time, the company fails to train new employees properly that may be the main reason for the high turnover. New workers are unable to learn how to perform their tasks that leads to misunderstanding in the staff and people do not want to work anymore due to the inability to provide their tasks in a proper way.

Employee turnover influences productivity greatly, so one of the main purposes of the Ritz-Carlton Hotels should be an attempt to reduce the turnover to minimum. Moreover, there it is obvious that the reduction of turnover of the employees can result in “significant savings to an organization” (Bohlander & Snell 2009, p. 94).

Having considered the situation in the Ritz-Carlton Hotels, it was noticed that the company cares of their staff and always tries to show its appreciation. This appreciation is sees via some gifts which are given from the whole company. An employee does not have a person he/she can turn to.

The induction of the employees at the workplace is considered to be impersonal. Such policy in behaviour is wrong as having been trained for a short period of time, employees do not have an opportunity to get all the necessary information. New employees do not have an opportunity to get used to the atmosphere at the workplace.

A specific person who can help them in this process is extremely important. Bratton and Gold (2003) are sure that new employees should feel welcome from time to time, but, still, it is also important to see a concrete person.

Thus, our recommendations for the increase of the company production at the workplace may be reduced to the following. First, there should be a concrete person to whom people can turn to if some problems appear. Second, it is important to reduce the turnover of the employees not by means of attracting too few candidates but by searching for an appropriate candidate.

The recruiting policy should be also changed as well as the change of the very procedure of induction (the employees are offered too little time for training and obtaining skills necessary for work in the Ritz-Carlton Hotels). Having considered these recommendations directed at the change of the system of the human resource management in the Ritz-Carlton Hotels, it is possible to state the following solutions the company should consider.

Solutions

One of the main problems the company faces is the employees’ recruitment. The company needs more employees but the methods it uses for recruitment are poor. Attracting too many candidates, the company is unable to cope with them and it leads to numerous problems discussed above. One of the ways to cope with the problem is to use the website as the means for advertising and candidates’ selection.

This will help the Ritz-Carlton Hotels to reduce the costs on employees’ selection and will help to choose the most appropriate candidates. Beardwell and Claydon (2007) offer tests which may be implemented at the company website and this is going to be one of the main measures which help understand whether the candidate is exactly what the company needs or not.

They say that testing “is essentially an attempt to achieve objectivity, or, to put it more accurately, to reduce subjectivity in selection decision-making” (Beardwell & Claydon 2007, p. 209). The main idea of these tests should be the understanding of a candidate background and checking of his/her knowledge in the sphere.

The results of the tests may be analysed by the special software which will filter the candidates’ portfolios by experience, qualifications and aptitude (Beardwell & Claydon 2007). The absence of this strategy in the company has created the problem of high turnover in the staff.

To reduce the turnover in the company is possible in a number of different ways. Taylor (2006) offers the company to implement employees’ job security at the workplace.

One of the main reasons of the turnover may be uncertainty of the candidate in their future. Being unsure whether they will be offered this specific job, they still continue to search for other vacancies and if they feel that another offer is more convenient and gives more assurance in the future employment on the constant basis they go there.

Thus, to solve this problem the human resource managers should train only people who perfectly fit the position and have a great desire to work in the company. It is obvious that it is impossible to eliminate turnover absolutely, but this may help to reduce it.

If the managers of the Ritz-Carlton Hotels show a new employee that his/her work is really important for the organization and it is satisfied with the productivity new employee can offer, this may also reduce the turnover in the company (Garvey 2001). Phillips and Connell (2003) offer to create a good team which can improve the atmosphere at the workplace.

There are a lot different methods aimed at teambuilding, and many scholars consider those strategies as the most effective for reducing retention failures. When people have good relations with other employees, they feel happy in the company and they may have no desire to leave.

Training is one more problem which requires solution. As it has been mentioned above, one month is established in the company as the period between recruitment and commencing. Some employees consider this as a too long period, still, if to use this time to advantage in the employee training, this my solve another problem the company has – too short period for training, just one week.

Thus, if the employee was trained while the period when he/she was recruited but was not commenced to work, so the problem with training would be solved as well (Simms 2005). Having accepted a position, a new employee has to attend a week training course.

The background knowledge he/she has already accepted may be a good background. A week training courses may be more productive if the employee is already aware of the main processes in the organization and has already acquired some simplest skills (Hollinshead 2009).

One of the main problems which the Ritz-Carlton Hotels as well as others organizations have is the consideration of training as the afterthought process. That is why the level of performance of new employees is too low, as well as the productivity that leads to employee turnover. Lawson (2006) is sure that in spite of the fact that “an effective new employee orientation takes time and effort” (p. 2), it is considered to be the well-worth instrument.

The well-planned and perfectly structured program may help an employee to understand his/her role in the company better, to get more knowledge and to be ready for the working conditions in the company (Lawson 2006; Boudreau & Ramstad 2007).

Thus, it may be concluded that the Ritz-Carlton Hotels has a number of problems which may be solved in complex, as increasing the company productivity by means of the new employees, the company should increase the training of the candidates and change the recruitment procedure that, in its turn, will result in the reduction of turnover in case the necessary activities are provided.

If the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company attempts to provide all the changes and follow the recommendations to problems solution mentioned in the paper, it will be able to increase its productivity and the number of clients who will desire to stay at the hotel with high level of serving provided by highly trained and experienced staff.

Reference List

Beardwell, J & Claydon, T 2007, Human resource management: a contemporary approach, Pearson Education, Oxford.

Billsberry, J 2007, Experiencing Recruitment and Selection, John Wiley and Sons, New York.

Bohlander, G & Snell, S 2009 Managing Human Resources, Cengage Learning, Stamford.

Boudreau, J & Ramstad, P 2007, Beyond HR: The New Science of Human Capital, Human Resource Development International, Oxford.

Bratton, J & Gold, J 2003, Human Resource Management Theory and Practice, Palgrave McMillan, Basingstoke.

Garvey, C 2001, ‘The Whirlwind of a New Job’, HR Magazine, June.

Hollinshead, G 2009, International and Comparative Human Resource Management, McGraw Publishing, London.

Jackson , P, Schuler, RS & Werner, S 2008 Managing Human Resources, Cengage Learning, Stamford.

Lawson, K 2006, New Employee Orientation Training, Elsevier, Oxford.

McKenna, E & Beech, N 2008, Human Resource Management: A Concise Analysis, Pearson Education, London.

Phillips, JJ & Connell, AO 2003, Managing employee retention: a strategic accountability approach, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford.

Simms, H 2005, Human Resource Planning, Select Knowledge Limited, Boston.

Sturman, MC, Trevor, CO, Boudreau, JW & Barry, G 2003, ‘Is it worth it to win the talent war? Evaluating the utility of performance-based pay’, Personnel Psychology, vol. 56, iss. 4, p. 997.

Sucher, S & McManus, S 2001 The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston.

Taylor, S 2006, ‘Are you keeping your employees happy?’ The HR Director, vol. 28, pp 8-13.

Yeung, R 2008, Successful Interviewing and Recruitment, Kogan Page Publishers, New York.