Griffith Hotel Case Study- Griffith Hotel

The Griffith Hotel is a luxurious hotel that opened in Tel Aviv during 2005. The Griffith Hotel attracts tourists and high ranking diplomats from around the world as guests. The Griffith Hotel is modernized and has a robust 560 rooms to accommodate its vast clientele. The general manager and the higher level management team believe that providing the best customer service is the key to present and future success for the Griffith Hotel. Recently, the front-office manager Simon and his staff have not been meeting the customer service standards.

Five major problems are plaguing Simon and his staff at the Griffith Hotel. The problems are Simon's incompetence as a manager due to the lack of interpersonal skills, a sub-par cross-training program, an ineffective front-office department, a front-desk dilemma, and incorrect use of the satisfaction surveys. An in-depth look of interpersonal skills has been researched and provided because this skillset is nonexistent to Simon. A close examination of Samantha's struggles to provide quality customer service to a patron is closely analyzed.

The outside consulting group has offered recommendations to Simon so that the problems can be solved. Simon's lack of interpersonal skills cripples him from becoming a good manager; it is recommended that Simon should undergo a training course in interpersonal skills. The sub-par cross-training program should be replaced by a more efficient single job training plan that will better integrate the new staff. The front-office department should receive better training, Simon should learn to trust his assistant managers and delegate authority to them, and Sharon should become a full-time manager or have some of her duties should be shared by Michelle and Bruno. The front-office dilemma can be solved by better training of the staff and a more competitive wage to retain the employees, thus avoiding high turnover rates. A brief training seminar will be provided so the employees have a better understanding of the satisfaction surveys; if the surveys are used correctly the data obtained will be both valid and reliable and allow the upper management team to make the appropriate changes.

The outside consulting group has provided Simon the information necessary to help solve the problems at the Griffith Hotel. Simon has scheduled a meeting with the general manager to share his findings, and to let the higher ups know that the problems will be resolved in a fast economically efficient and effective manner.

1. Introduction

The Griffith Hotel has been selected to be part of an in-depth case study. The Griffith Hotel opened in January 2005 and is recognized as the first five-star luxury hotel built in Tel Aviv. The hotel houses 560 rooms and attracts international clientele and worldwide travelers. The Griffith Hotel has a modern theme that includes a large banquet facility, three restaurants, a swimming pool, and an amazing view of the Mediterranean Sea.

Management at the Griffith Hotel believes that to achieve the most success they must provide the best customer service to their extensive clientele. The general manager of Griffith Hotel, Mr. Nissenbaum, expects his managers and staff to adhere to the customer service excellence the organization hope to achieve daily. Lately, front-office manager Simon and his staff have been underperforming concerning providing the highest standards of customer service. Simon's and his staff are experiencing a bevy of problems and issues stemming from the lack of interpersonal skills. The research provided will help identify the problems Simon and his staff are experiencing and offer recommendations or best practices to remedy them.

2. Problems and Key Issues facing Simon and Staff

Simon and his staff at the Griffith Hotel are experiencing a variety of problems and issues. The problems and issues have become so bad that Simon has received word from the general manager that he better have solutions or his job with the company may be in jeopardy. Many problem and issues exist at the Griffith Hotel explained; five of the major problems will be analyzed in detail. The five problems are Simon's managing skills, orientation, cross-training, front-office, front-desk, and the surveys of satisfaction.

The first major obstacle facing Simon and the Griffith Hotel is that Simon himself has poor management and interpersonal skills. According to experts Joan Margetta and Nan Dundes Stone management is an act of getting people to work together to achieve set goals and objectives by using resources efficiently and effectively (2002). A good manager plans, organizes, staffs, leads, and directs a business to help accomplish the set goals and objectives of the organization (Margetta & Stone, 2002)....

According to communications expert John Hayes interpersonal skills are an individual's ability to interact with other people and use skills such as active listening and tone of voice (2003). Interpersonal skills are also known as people or communication skills and often are a key determinant in a manager advancing his or her career (Hayes, 2003).
Simon has displayed poor management skills throughout his six-month tenure as front office manager. Simon lectures his staff about customer service, but his lectures do not motivate the staff and the performance gap continues to reccur. Simon has reprimanded his assistant supervisor Michelle in front of other employees and customers displaying inappropriate management and interpersonal skills. Simon often has displayed poor planning, organizational, and leadership abilities as the staff considers him snobbish and an uninspiring leader. Inspirational leaders often are charismatic and can communicate with his or her team member's n an effective manner (Daft & Lane, 2007). Employees and team members who are scolded and often shown little appreciation often underperform or do the bare minimum in a job situation (Daft & Lane, 2007). Simon's lack of leadership and inability to communicate has left his team members feeling as they are incapable of performing his or her job duties.

The second major issue at the Griffith Hotel is how the employees are trained. Dan, the training manager has a cross-training program for new employees; the employees are trained in room service, housekeeping, reservations, telephone service, concierge, and a full day on front-office training on a property management system. The six jobs offered via cross-training for every new employee are too much during the original training period. According to Kavita Singh "performance gaps refer to the gap between the expected and actual level of performance" and organization that have a high number of performance gaps endure major problems (p. 427, 2009). Dan's cross-training concept is an attempt to create a multi-talented staff, but it is more logical to have employees trained to excel in one area before advancing to five others, thus reducing potential performance gaps.

The third major problem occurring at the Griffith Hotel is in the front-office department. Dan the training instructor only allows one day of training for the front-office department. The day of training includes learning a new computer system (Property Management System) before spending the afternoon at the front desk. The front-office manager Simon has a high number of employees and department heads reporting to him, thus refusing to delegate some responsibility to other assistant managers and department heads. Simon takes on a great deal of responsibility, and because of this works long days. Simon also offers little help to his front-office employees and has little confidence in Michelle and Bruno as hotel managers. The front-office department has an assistant manager Sharon who only works two days a week, but she has a vast amount of responsibilities including assistant manager, front-office trainer, overtime pay specialist, and aiding in training programs. Sharon's job duties are very difficult to perform on a limited part -time schedule.

A fourth issue causing problems at the Griffith Hotel is the front-desk dilemma. The main dilemma occurring at the front-office was that the trainees received only one day at the front-desk shadowing an experienced employee. The Griffith Hotel has a high volume of customers checking in and out daily; often 200 patrons checking-in and 200 checking out over a typical day. This high volume does not allow the experienced employees to instruct properly the new trainees correctly in performing daily duties expected of the front-desk employees. An undertrained staff will experience a high number of performance gaps leading to many mistakes that a manager will have to intervene and correct (Rees & Porter, 2008). The front-desk also has a high turnover rate due to ill-trained frustrated employees who receive only a minimum wage payment for his or her job. This has a dual effect, first it is hard to retain employees because they are frustrated and underpaid, and second it is hard to recruit new employees at a minimum wage pay scale. The ability to retain and recruit the most talented employees is a skillset that every human resources management staff tries to maintain for the organization to achieve the highest amount of success (Mackay, 2007).

The fifth issue occurring at the Griffith Hotel is the satisfaction survey misused by the employees. Griffith Hotel expects their employees to provide the highest level of guest services at all times. Employees should practice being courteous and polite while trying to make the guests' visit enjoyable, and the receptionist…