Translating Strategy Into Hr Policies and Practices Case: the Hotel Paris [62
The New Career Management System
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 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, by elic- iting the required employee behaviors and competencies.
Lisa Cruz knew that as a hospitality business, the
Hotel Paris was uniquely dependent upon having com- mitted, high-morale employees. In a factory or small re- tail shop, the employer might be able to rely on direct supervision to make sure that the employees were doing their jobs. But in a hotel, just about every employee is “on the front line.” There is usually no one there to supervise the limousine driver when he or she picks up a guest at the airport, or when the valet takes the guest’s car, or the front-desk clerk signs the guest in, or the housekeeping
clerk needs to handle a guest’s special request. If the hotel wanted satisfied guests, they had to have committed em- ployees who did their jobs as if they owned the company, even when the supervisor was nowhere in sight. But for the employees to be committed, Lisa knew the Hotel
Paris had to make it clear that the company was also com- mitted to its employees.
From her experience, she knew that one way to do this was to help her employees have successful and satis- fying careers, and she was therefore concerned to find that the Hotel Paris had no career management process at all. Supervisors weren’t trained to discuss employees’ de- velopmental needs or promotional options during the performance appraisal interviews. Promotional processes were informal. And the firm made no attempt to provide any career development services that might help its employees to develop a better understanding of what their career options were, or should be. Lisa
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 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, by elic- iting the required employee behaviors and competencies.
Lisa Cruz knew that as a hospitality business, the
Hotel Paris was uniquely dependent upon having com- mitted, high-morale employees. In a factory or small re- tail shop, the employer might be able to rely on direct supervision to make sure that the employees were doing their jobs. But in a hotel, just about every employee is “on the front line.” There is usually no one there to supervise the limousine driver when he or she picks up a guest at the airport, or when the valet takes the guest’s car, or the front-desk clerk signs the guest in, or the housekeeping
clerk needs to handle a guest’s special request. If the hotel wanted satisfied guests, they had to have committed em- ployees who did their jobs as if they owned the company, even when the supervisor was nowhere in sight. But for the employees to be committed, Lisa knew the Hotel
Paris had to make it clear that the company was also com- mitted to its employees.
From her experience, she knew that one way to do this was to help her employees have successful and satis- fying careers, and she was therefore concerned to find that the Hotel Paris had no career management process at all. Supervisors weren’t trained to discuss employees’ de- velopmental needs or promotional options during the performance appraisal interviews. Promotional processes were informal. And the firm made no attempt to provide any career development services that might help its employees to develop a better understanding of what their career options were, or should be. Lisa