Crown Plaza Hotel’s Action Research Project

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Problem Identification

Crown Plaza Hotel is one of the leading hotels in Dallas, attracting both local and international visitors. The fact that this facility serves locals and international visitors means that it has to meet the diversified needs of its customers. According to Cletus, Mahmood, Umar, and Ibrahim (2018), major hotels, and resorts serving international customers are often under pressure to have a diversified workforce that can enable them to understand and meet the diversified needs of their customers.

Crown Plaza Hotel is facing the same problem. The company has made an effort to ensure that its workforce is a representation of the type of customers that they expect. However, it is emerging that the company is finding it difficult to manage a diversified workforce. In this paper, the researcher seeks to address the problem of diversity management that the company faces.

Description of the Organization

Crown Plaza Hotel is one of the leading hospitality companies in Dallas. The company has experienced massive growth over the past years as the management continues to invest in infrastructure, employees’ empowerment, and superior value delivery to its customers. The firm has over one hundred employees working in its various departments. The management has been keen to ensure that its workforce is as diversified as possible to ensure that it is in the best position to understand its customers’ needs. The hotel serves both local and international customers in Dallas.

Context of the Problem

The management of Crown Plaza Hotel decided to ensure that it employs workers from different parts of the world to reflect the face of its customers. Instead of just focusing on diversity based on the local American context, the firm has made a deliberate effort to hire foreign country nationals to meet the diverse needs. Although the majority of workers are Americans, others are from South America, Europe, Asia, Middle East, and Africa.

The strategy is to ensure that it can meet the unique requirements of its customers. The problem with this strategy is that the management is finding it difficult to manage the diversity of its workforce. It became evident that this is a problem when the human resource manager admitted that differences in values and cultural practices among employees are proving to be a major problem when it comes to coordinating and controlling activities of these workers.

The specific problem that the firm faces are the inability to manage diversity. The difference in the background of employees of the company makes it difficult for the management to develop a solid organizational culture that defines how workers should handle customers. For instance, some employees from Africa believe in maintaining close interaction with their customers as a way of understanding their needs and addressing them as and when they emerge.

On the other hand, the majority of American and European workers in this company believe in giving guests their space as soon as the needed services are offered, and only engaging them when they ask for help. Each group has their justification as to why they believe their approach is the most appropriate to ensure that customers’ needs are met in the best way possible. The management is struggling to address this diversity problem at this company.

Needs Assessment and Diagnosis

The researcher conducted an assessment at this company to identify the specific source of the problem. The assessment was conducted by engaging different members of this company as explained in the section below. The diagnosis revealed that it is true that diversity is becoming a problem at this firm. The decision to hire people of different gender, ages, nationalities, and religions among other demographical factors was meant to ensure that this company would be capable of meeting the needs of its diversified customers. However, it is turning out to be a problem because of the inability to manage a diversified workforce. The diagnosis revealed that the ability of this firm to succeed would be compromised significantly if this problem were not addressed effectively.

Data Collection

In this project, the researcher needed to collect data to understand the nature of the problem at Crown Plaza Hotel. As a consultant hired by the company to address the problem, the first step was to engage the management to determine the view of the company about the problem. As such, the researcher asked senior and mid-managers within the human resource unit to state their view about the problem of diversity at the company.

The researcher then focused on non-managerial employees to understand their views about the problem. According to Hudson (2014), the best way of understanding the source and nature of a problem within a company is to engage different groups that it affects. Collecting views of the managers and employees made it possible to find a model of solving the problem in a way that all stakeholders find to be acceptable.

Data Analysis

When data has been collected from various sources, Saxena (2014) explains that the next step is to conduct an analysis. The analysis involves processing the raw data into information that addresses the research question. In this project, the researcher considered qualitative analysis of data to be the most appropriate method. This approach allows respondents to provide a detailed explanation of a phenomenon beyond stating statistics. It made it possible to explain why diversity is a problem at this company, and how employees feel it can be addressed.

Proposed Organization Development Interventions

The approach that Crown Plaza Hotel took to diversify its workforce is a strategic move that would enhance its success in the market, especially at a time when it is continuing to receive customers from various parts of the world. However, the management must address the problem identified above, which is related to managing a diversified workforce. One of the interventions that the management should consider is to develop a strong organizational culture. Hudson (2014) explains that having an organizational culture creates a standard practice that defines what all employees are expected to do within the firm.

The management should explain its culture to all the workers so that they can understand their rationale. Every time a new worker is recruited, they should be made to understand the culture and they have to promise to abide by them before they can start working. The strategy will eliminate cases where the firm has to tolerate divergent views on how customers should be handled. The organizational culture should reflect the diversity of the workforce and customers that the company serves.

The second intervention is to organize regular team-building retreats. According to Saxena (2014), people often tend to focus more on what makes them different from the rest of the group, ignoring important factors that make them common. This strategy is meant to help these workers to identify their common interests and the way they can overcome the possible differences. Retreats should be planned during low seasons when the company receives a minimal number of customers. It would mean that when one team goes for the retreat, the other would remain within the facility to attend to the needs of the few visitors. Regular retreats where employees engage in activities such as sports would help create unity among employees despite the differences discussed above.

Required Resources

The management of this company will require some resources to implement the strategies proposed above. Finance is one of the critical resources that will be needed to implement the strategy. Developing an organizational culture is a time-consuming process that involves understanding internal forces within the firm and external environmental forces. The company will have to pay the consultant (the researcher) to develop an effective organizational culture that takes into consideration the diversified needs of stakeholders within the firm. Team-building retreats also require some form of financing.

The company will need to cater for the transportation of its workers and pay for the other expenses such as accommodation and food. Bedi, Lakra, and Gupta (2014) observe that in any major project that an organization takes, time is always another major resource whose significance cannot be ignored. The problem should be solved within the shortest time possible to ensure that the workforce at the Crown Plaza Hotel can work at their optimal level without getting distracted by the problems associated with their diversity. The activities will take about six months to be completed. The firm will need to invest about $ 250,000 to address the problem.

Timeline

The activities should be completed within a specific timeline to ensure that the problem is addressed effectively as expected by the management of Crown Plaza Hotel. The urgency of the problem means and the commitment of the management to support the project means that it has to be completed within the next six months. The main activities identified include engaging stakeholders to identify the problem and to find a common solution, developing an organizational culture based on information obtained from them, reviewing the relevance of the new culture to make changes if necessary, entrench the new culture within the firm, and engaging in team-building retreats to help promote unity. Table 1 below outlines the timeline of different activities that will be taken in this project.

Anticipated Resistance

When introducing a new system or policy within an organization, it is common to encounter resistance from a section of the stakeholders. Hudson (2014) explains that one of the major concerns is the fear that the new system may render their experience irrelevant, compromising their position within the firm. One of the anticipated resistance is that some of the current employees may be uncomfortable with the proposed changes in the organizational culture. The management may also be unwilling to finance the proposed team-building retreats unless it is assured of the direct financial benefits. Kurt Lewin proposes a way of addressing the problem.

The model shown in figure 1 below proposes a systematic way of introducing change in a way that would have little resistance among stakeholders. The first step is to unfreeze, where the manager explains to the stakeholders the relevance of the new system and prepared them for the change. The second stage is the actual change process where the new culture will be introduced within the Crown Plaza Hotel. The last stage involves entrenching the new values and ensuring that everyone understands what is expected of them.

*Figure 3. Lewin’s change model (Hudson, 2014, p. 78).*

Potential Benefits

The proposed solution has huge benefits for this firm in its effort to address the problem of diversity. One of the main benefits that this strategy will have is that employees will understand what is expected of them based on the set organizational culture. It eliminates time wastage often associated with cases where employees take actions without proper guidance (Foma, 2014). In this case, the culture will inform their decisions based on various departments where they work.

The strategy of having team-building retreats will promote unity among employees. They will understand and appreciate the uniqueness of every stakeholder based on gender, age, race, nationality, and any other relevant demographic orientation. When employees engage in such activities, they learn to work as a unit. They get to dispel stereotypical sentiments in society. The unity among employees will help lower the overall cost of production while at the same time increasing the productivity of the employees.

Suggested Evaluation Approach

The management will need an effective evaluation approach that will help in ensuring that the intended goals are realized. The selected approach should be capable of identifying potential weaknesses as soon as they arise so that necessary changes can be introduced. The most appropriate evaluation approach is the multi-stakeholder feedback program. Under this program, the management unit, employees, customers, and any other relevant stakeholders will be allowed to give their feedback on the program. They are expected to state whether it has helped improve the overall performance of employees, cohesiveness at work, and lowered the cost of production.

They will be advised to give their recommendations in case they feel that some adjustments would help improve the effectiveness of the plan. This approach of evaluation will ensure that the views of everyone are taken into consideration when making necessary adjustments to the plan. The management will need to evaluate the program after every six months to ensure that necessary adjustments are introduced.

Summary

Crown Plaza Hotel is a leading hospitality firm in Dallas, offering a wide range of services to its customers. However, the report reveals that there is a problem of managing diversity in this company. Although the management has made a good move of hiring workers from diverse backgrounds, differences in culture and values are proving to be a challenge to the management and among employees. The report suggests that this firm should consider introducing a solid organizational culture that is based on its diversified workforce and clientele base. The management should also consider introducing team-building retreats where employees can get to learn about the importance of diversity and the need to overcome negative stereotypes.

References

Bedi, P., Lakra, P., & Gupta, E. (2014). Workforce diversity management: Biggest challenge or opportunity for 21st century organizations. Journal of Business and Management, 16(4), 102-107.

Cletus, H. E., Mahmood, N. M., Umar, A., & Ibrahim, A. D. (2018). Prospects and challenges of workplace diversity in modern day organizations: A critical review. Holistica, 9(2), 35-52.

Foma, E. (2014). Impact of workplace diversity. Review of Integrated Business Economic Research, 3(1), 382-390.

Hudson, S. W. (2014). Diversity in the workforce. Journal of Education and Human Development, 3(4), 73-82.

Saxena, A. (2014). Workforce diversity: A key to improve productivity. Procedia Economics and Finance, 11(1), 76-85.

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