Human Resource Management-a Case Of Huntsman Hotels

Running head: THE HUNTSMAN HOTEL

Human Resource Management: a case of Huntsman Hotels

Name

Institutional Affiliation

THE HUNTSMAN HOTEL

Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 4

2.0 Recruitment and Selection ................................................................................................................. 4

3.0 Training and Development ................................................................................................................. 5

4.0 Management of Employee Performance and Performance Appraisal ........................................ 5

5.0 Benefits and Rewards ......................................................................................................................... 6

6.0 Payment Systems and Working Hours ............................................................................................ 6

7.0 Safety and Healthy at Work ............................................................................................................... 7

8.0 Disciplinary Systems and Service Termination ............................................................................... 7

9.0 Career Management and Retention ................................................................................................. 7

10. Industrial Relations .............................................................................................................................. 7

11. Interview with the Human Resource Representative ..................................................................... 8

12. Opinion and Recommendation ..................................................................................................... 8

13. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 8

14. References ......................................................................................................................................... 10

THE HUNTSMAN HOTEL

Human Resource Management: a case of Huntsman Hotels

1.0 Introduction

The Huntsman Group of Hotels is a family owned chain of hotels founded by Gabriel and

Eunice Huntsman. The current headquarter of the business is placed at Galway city centre,

Utah. Currently, there are more than sixty hotel chains comprising the Huntsman Hotel Inn. The

business provides modern hotel rooms complete with TV, ironing supplies, hairdryer, coffee and

tea making facilities. Other facilities provided by the hotel include free parking space and free

Wi-Fi. There is breakfast menu which is provided in the morning, alongside seasonal dishes

employing local raw material. Further, there are also bar services with accommodation and a

wide range of beer and wine selections. The hotel’s main customer target includes business

men and women and weary travelers. Huntsman is currently the most luxurious and largest

hotel facilities serving dignitaries in Galway, Utah, United Kingdom. Despite its significant

growth of the years, the Huntsman hotel has experienced a considerable number of challenges

in human resource management.

2.0 Recruitment and Selection

Staff recruitment is major human resource matter inherent at Huntsman Hotel. To begin

with, the staff is in itself not only insufficient, but also consisting of many people without the

necessary skills and experience. This majorly owes to the culture of nepotism where staffs are

hired on the basis of who knows who. Accordingly, employees are brought in by the managers

and senior officials within the company. This has significantly resulted into hiring of unqualified

and inexperienced people who also lack the necessary skills to undertake the required

responsibilities. To make it worse, the formal process of promotion within the company is not

well highlighted and only blood relatives are positioned at the top management hierarchy. This

implies that employees with no relation with the top management will forever remain at their

bottom line, irrespective of which effort they put towards improving themselves.

This is contrary to the scientific management theory which stipulates that a company

ought to choose the right people who are fit for the specific jobs they are hired to do for efficient

and required performance (Bookwalter, 1918). If the right workers are employed, they will

according to this theory, enhance economic efficiency while also facilitating the transfer of skills

and experience between and among these staff.

THE HUNTSMAN HOTEL

3.0 Training and Development

Staff training and development is a critical factor in any business initiative owing to the

dynamic nature of each business. Nonetheless, Huntsman hotel has proved itself to be dynamic

considering the ambitions of the management team. On the current level, the management of

this business entity anticipates and has instituted plans to establish businesses in various parts

of the continent. This means that there is a probability of employees being transferred to new

areas. The transfer further translates that employees may be required to learn new culture and

languages in order to cope with the local people. With considerations that the business involves

catering, there is also a need to refresh the skills and knowledge of the employees involved

concerning the preparation and cooking of different types of meals for other cultures other than

of England. What is more, it also becomes imperative to train and motivate employees on

joining relevant worker unions which would cater for their duties and rights.

4.0 Management of Employee Performance and Performance Appraisal

Employees are the most important assets for any business firm. In this regard,

motivation of employees is a very vital aspect that can enable workers to undertake their

responsibilities effectively. Unfortunately, Huntsman Hotels harbors very poor workers

motivation strategies. Aggarwal et al (2001) explains that human resource motivations need to

be expounded using intrinsic and extrinsic theories. Extrinsic factors are those which enhance

the workers morale in fulfilling their responsibilities. These could be in terms of punishments or

rewards. Accordingly, Huntsman has made a significant level of effort of ensuring that its

employees are well motivated. For example, employees who show a sense of commitment and

loyalty have their pay increased to a certain extent. In addition, the companies go an extra mile

to retain those workers who show some signs of leaving the company. However, their level of

motivation is not definite. For instance, punishments are only offered to junior staff while

employees who are at the top rank are spared irrespective of the mistakes, commissions or

omissions they committed. The promotion plan is also not explicit or well elaborated at

Huntsman. There is certainly a necessity for any business company to draft a clear motivation

plan which incorporates all people in equal terms and which is applied without fear or favor. If

this is done, there the output will increase significantly. In this plan, any level of discrimination

should be excluded at all costs since equal measures need to be taking in rewarding punishing

workers for their efforts or mistakes respectively. Decisions on what form of punishments need

to be instituted and how need to be carefully construed as these have a tendency of affecting

the moral of workers. Huntsman management has sadly placed much focus on the punishment

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aspect of motivation at the expense of reward. The director and the senior management of the

company are quick to take action upon finding a mistake, commission, underperformance or

even laziness involving an employee. There is no doubt that this approach is effective to some

level. However, it is much over-used. Theory Y and X may be used to explain the approach

used by the Huntsman Hotel in management of employee performance. While theory X

stipulates strict supervision as a way of achieving intended results, theory Y records a

company’s success from employee job satisfaction (Sahin, 2012). It is therefore, important for

companies not to ignore the aspect of job satisfaction in their management approaches.

5.0 Benefits and Rewards

As already stated earlier in the paper, Huntsman does not harbor an official wage

structure that stipulates how employees are rewarded. The company’s chief executive officer,

Giuseppe who makes most of the firm’s important decisions raises wages in a manner that can

be considered ad hoc using factors such as employee loyalty, commitment and precluding

turnover. This is a clear indication on the insufficient human resource system at Huntsman and

which has contributed to low morale among many employees, as well as the high rate of staff

turnover. At this company, many staff seeks green pastures where they find favorable pay and

conducive work environment.

Having assumed many roles including that of the human resource manager, Giuseppe

puts his blood relatives at prime positions of the entity. This has subsequently created a culture

of “them verses we”. Other affecting the working environment, this form of culture has violated

the spirit of equal opportunities and equality. Eventually, employees involved get demoralized

particularly when they learn irrespective of their skills or the efforts they put into improving the

company, they might not get rewarded at all. These and other issues stir discontent and

employee turnover at Huntsman and firms using such structures.

6.0 Payment Systems and Working Hours

The average wages and salary at Huntsman for representatives of customer service is

approximately $48,420 per annum and $113,078 per annum for Process Engineer. The money

is paid at the workers account on a monthly basis. Generally, the wages and salary rate are

considered low. There are normally four shifts, those who 4am to 11.30am, those joining from

11.30am to 3pm, those from 3pm to 10pm and those joining from 10pm to 4am.

THE HUNTSMAN HOTEL

7.0 Safety and Healthy at Work

Safety and Health issues critical aspects for any company’s success. Companies need

to take great concern in assessing the health status of employees. Regrettably, there have been

at various times, cancelation of some room bookings at Huntsman because of employee illness.

The company is mandated to provide the necessary training to its employees on how to manage

the potential and associated health and safety risks. The firm is further obligated to protect all its

employees from any potential harm or safety risks. Majority of labor labors stipulate that

employers need to consider taking health insurance for their staff.

8.0 Disciplinary Systems and Service Termination

The issue of disciplinary system has already been tackled elsewhere in this paper. An

employee is terminated if found to have violated the company’s regulations pertaining to work

duties, responsibilities, ethical values, behavior among others. However, upon being hired, one

is required to sign a contract stipulating the agreement of the company, the employee’s

responsibilities, length of service, agreed wages among others.

9.0 Career Management and Retention

The subject of diversity and discrimination is an issue of great concern at Huntsman.

There is discrimination in awarding of employees. According to Ulrich (2013), issues relating to

employee management need to be dealt with in a just manner. Performance of an entity is

highly depended on how well human resources are handled. Considering the heightened

competition in this hospitality industry, it is imperative for Huntsman to give its employees better

offers in order to retain them and hence ensure consistent flow. This may also entail enhancing

working relations and conditions to encourage people to continue working for the company.

10. Industrial Relations

On the present level, the relation of employees with the management is course. This

therefore, creates a need for the managers to be trained accordingly so that they can be able to

co-exist and relate with junior employees. The managers need to be trained to be flexible to

deal and relate with employees from any culture or part of the world. The company should also

establish the best recruitment strategy such as the interview to identify employees who qualify

and fit the positions. In other words, the methodology used should be able to identify only the

THE HUNTSMAN HOTEL

most qualified personnel. This will help in addressing industrial relation issues experienced at

Huntsman. This will also improve the image of the entity.

11. Interview with the Human Resource Representative

According to Huntsman’s HR personnel, the company acknowledges the high rate of

staff turnover and is working towards alleviating the issue. However, she claims that the firm has

put in place a clear strategy on employee motivation and industrial relations. However, she

explains that despite claims of low pay to workers, it’s among the companies in UK that pays

workers reasonably. According to her, there are companies paying worse than Huntsman. The

company is as well working towards improving its image after being cognizant of its low image.

12. Opinion and Recommendation

From my perspective, the management of Huntsman should be trained adequately to

deal with human resources and industrial relations. This will help in reinforcing the employee-

management relations. It will also help in dealing with poor performance, and de-motivation of

employees. Further, the management should consider establishing team building measures to

leverage the negative relations between the workers and their managers (Buller and McEvoy

2012). Employees should be engaged accordingly and even encouraged to present their views

regarding the management, and operational issues. A clear structure an d chain of company

need to be formulated so that an easy supervision mechanism is created. It is not wise to leave

all the decision making responsibility to one individual as is the case currently. A clear

management structure will make it possible to simplify operations as individuals will be tasked

with responsibilities. Furthermore, the structure needs to be made in such a way that workers

are made answerable for the duties assigned to them. These measures will simply the

management process.

13. Conclusion

This report has focused on the issues relating to human resource management at

Huntsman Hotels. Accordingly, the issues identified include poor management, incompetency of

managers, and workers as a result of poor hiring process, poor reward and benefit system

resulting to demotivation of employees and unconducive work environment for workers. The

recommendations entail Huntsman putting on measures that will make it possible to improve

employee’s morale and improving the management system of the company. If the

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recommendations stipulated are fully adhered by this company, there is no doubt that they will

of great importance in helping the firm achieving its goals in the market. Apparently, goal is to

ensure that the worker’s performance will increase as well as the management abilities. With

motivated workers, any company can grow into new heights.

THE HUNTSMAN HOTEL

14. References

Aggarwal, Raj., Aggarwal, R. & Simskins, B.J.(2001). Open-boon management - Optimizing

human capital. Business Horizons. 44 (5): 5–13. doi:10.1016/S0007-6813(01)80055-0

Buller, P., and McEvoy, G. (2012). Strategy, human resource management and performance:

Sharpening line of sight. Human resource management review, 22(1):43-56.

Bookwalter, D. (1918). Scientific Management: a history and criticism. Studies in History,

Economics and Public Law (edited by the faculty of political science of Columbia

University). 22 (1): 274.

Sahin, F.(2012). The mediating effect of leader-member exchange on the relationship between

Theory X and Y management styles and effective commitment: A multilevel analysis.

Journal of Management and Organization, 18(2): 55.

Ulrich, D. (2013). Human resource champions: The next agenda for adding value and delivering

Results. U, K. Harvard Business Press.

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