Case Analysis Of Portman Hotel

Improved Essays
John C Portman is the designer and developer of the Portman Hotel under whose brand name the management runs the hotel. The hotel model is to serve the niche market and set new standards by adopting the Asian standard of hospitality. Portman hotel hard bargain tactics dissuaded the unions from representing the employees. In order, to maximize the service and reduce the overhead there is a lean middle management team and more personal valets facing the guest. The hiring process selected the talented candidates with an expectation of earning extra tips with the service. A sound contract is in place to address performance, grievance procedure and a general rule of conduct. Training provided to personal valets with an expectation to consider any …show more content…
The huge effort to interview 9000 applicants gave priority to the talent rather than candidates’ values and with no career plan the hotel became a foot on the door for the employees. The flat hierarchy structure did not allow the time to engage with the personal valet and address the grievances. Without the proper set of operational guidelines, the floaters are not able to be productive as PVs. The shirking behavior of the middle management against the non-performers leads to a situation where personal valets don’t rely on each other affecting the team spirit. The lack of appreciation culture affects the morale and productivity of the PVs. The multiple job assignment and departmentalized working style create friction between the employee’s relationship resulting in chaos. American customers being unfamiliar with the concept of personal valet system did not know the appropriate tips. Consequently, the false hope of earning extra $200 tips lead to a situation where personal valets started looking floaters as threats. The organizational set up for developing long term relationship with the guest did not materialize due to the constant changing of personal valet’s assignment. The legally binding contract with two weeks of training is not sufficient to …show more content…
Michael Kay needs to clarify and reiterate the hotel’s vision and philosophy. A clear job description and a better understanding of the candidates’ values should be in place prior to the hiring of the new candidates. The competency model for measuring the KPI identifying responsibilities and penalties needs to communicate to the PVs. The introduction of the team captains collaborating with PVs will potentially resolve the staffing problem and facilitate in handling grievances. The replacement of floaters with maids for cleaning works will allow the PVs to provide better services to the guest and earn additional perks in the form of tips. PVs are the backbone of the hotel’s revenue strategy and therefore by providing training and having a career plan in place will motivate them to take additional responsibility. An employee of the month and customer loyalty program will have a positive effect on word of mouth marketing which will increase loyalty and overall profit. However, for implementing some fundamental changes in the organization, requires a high budget with enormous potential risks if the new strategy’s implementation

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    Maverick tried to increase the financial yield, to stimulate the performance of hotel’s managers, to retain 100% of the existing franchisees and boost their portfolio to meet the goal of managing 65 hotels with total revenue $225 million by 2001. Maverick’s BSC and its bonus plan was a great step; however, there were a few issues in implementing this tool: • BSC applied on part of Maverick Lodging’s structure – hotels’ managers. Regional managers & top management are excluded; Top management’s role was to set the goals & objectives. BSC was a reflection of top management thoughts only, and hotels’ managers had to implement the BSC. Also, hotels’ managers have no control in determining their hotel’s budget.…

    • 1100 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A final challenge is that Hollywood Orchid Suites has tried to differentiate itself by providing high-quality service and construction, but it is being pushed into competing on price instead. Customers often do not understand why the hotel does not have provisions that are up to the three-star hotels around the place. Furthermore, with few employees, there is delay in serving them; hence complaints arise in the course of the serving time. For this reason, trying to compete on quality is more expensive for the company, but not appreciated by the customers.…

    • 1285 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The first step that I would take, prior to conducting the Needs Analysis, is to determine what the actual performance gap is in this situation. On the surface this problem is clearly that salespeople are not available when needed by customers and when they are available they are not interested in helping the customers. Working in retail myself, the common expectations of all employees are to be visible and to keep a positive attitude when dealing with customers. These principles should hold true for any retail firm, no matter their vision or strategic objectives as that is the norm of the industry. There is clearly some sort of performance gap here because these common norms are not being adhered to.…

    • 1079 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Performance Management Plan Mr. Bradley, our firm Atwood and Allen Consulting will give you a basic structure of a performance management plan for Landslide Limousine suggesting what you can do for your employees. The management plan can help your company set precise guidelines that we advise your company to help create opportunities for your employees. For this company to succeed, a sensible plan for Landslide Limousine for the twenty-five employees is expecting to generate $50,000 annual net revenue for the first year. The company then is expecting to have a 5% increase for the next couple of years.…

    • 1241 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Danny Meyer: Summary

    • 1325 Words
    • 6 Pages

    When his first restaurant deal concluded in 1985, he conducted staff interviews and was searching for personal styles that were compatible to his. While his brain was searching for people with restaurant styles; his heart on the other hand was searching for staff to create and cultivate a restaurant family. His ways of looking for the right staff according to personalities has tremendously helped him succeed. As a business owner/manager it is imperative to have the right staff working for you in order to deliver excellent hospitality. Moreover, on the job application on the hunt for staff, one of the questions was.…

    • 1325 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Case Study Portman Hotel

    • 1964 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Lack of management involvement and motivation played a key downfall in the Portman Hotel. Management was over trusting in their belief that PVs were able to self-manage and self-motivate themselves. Also the PVs inability to move up, yet their broad job descriptions were a key to their high turnover rate. The concept shows that although this concept was popular in Asia, it doesn’t always “translate” to other cultures. Asia’s cultural differences, differences in costs, difference in labor systems, all played a role in their lack of initial success.…

    • 1964 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Human resource issues in the NHS The articles show a number of human resource issues that NHS have been facing for years. It can be identified into four major problems: 1. Unfit management approaches The changing organization system such as implementation NPM (New Public Management), performance target and talent management. Managers expected to increase the efficiency and control cost by those tools.…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Recommended Solutions For the purpose of maintaining the hotel business and gaining more revenue, it is crucial to reach guest satisfaction which is considered as the key reason to build the loyalty with the hotel guests. Thus, the first decision should be taken by the management is to instruct the hotel staff to achieve the guest’s perspective and handle it as the top priority. Therefore, the researcher sees that the following recommendations are so significance for achieving the hotel success: • Recruiting the qualified staff with having the right attitude and experts in hotel service.…

    • 821 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Portman Hotel Case Study

    • 1525 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The system was designed with very minimal layers of management. Each PV was considered equal with only one manager between the PVs and upper management. Its intention was to lower management overhead, but was a key downfall in its overall success (Heckscher, 1986). The Portman Hotel’s belief that “the caliber of service depended directly on the caliber of the people” (Heckscher, 1986) demonstrates that recruiting played a key role in the original strategy of maximizing service while minimizing overhead. Training was supposed to play a large role in this strategy.…

    • 1525 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Four Seasons Hotel builds one series of talents pool within the organizations, devoting to cultivate the global talents with professional knowledge to be suitable to the international hotel jobs (Michael, 2008). When one hotel of one certain country, Four Seasons Hotel will firstly consider the proper employees within the internal talents pool to allocate the international assignment, of course, the compensation and benefit for the international assignment is very attractive to ensure their employees to achieve work-life…

    • 2279 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Four seasons is synonymous to providing high quality and personalized service. This has helped distinguish themselves in the industry and has become their competitive advantage and company value. Its mission is to be the world’s leading operator of luxury hotels. Four Seasons operating model is each property is a profit center. Furthermore, to achieve their objective they have set very high standards to achieve and maintain in each department.…

    • 2038 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Introduction Grand Hyatt Macau is convention hotel and Butterfly on Prat Boutique Hotel is boutique hotel. Both they are famous in the world. Their type is different, so their facilities are different to suitable for their target market. In this project, will comparison this two hotel from facilities and services. Also, will introduce the hotel and their hotel group background.…

    • 1197 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Summarize the relevant background information from the case. Company recognition and customer service awards are great evidence of success in quality. With the vision of “inspiring life’s most meaningful journeys”, Ritz-Carlton is recognized as one of the most prestigious hotels and resorts in the world (Marriott, 2016). As the first and only hotel company to win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, Ritz-Carlton employees take pride in their renowned customer service skills.…

    • 1435 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Front Office Case Study

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages

    When we talk about the front office, the public may think that it is responsible for handling the check-ins and check-outs only. However, the front office also has the functions other than checking-ins and outs, such as maintaining balanced guest accounts through the property management system (PMS), checking on the room status, handling the mails, faxes, messages and parcels as well as offering the information services (Walker, 2014). The coverage of service to the guests is extensive since the front office can assist the guests on not only the issues about the accommodation, but also their personal issues during their stay at the hotel. Comparing to other departments within the hotel, the front office is the only one which can offer such wide range of services to the guests, including assisting the guests on the personal…

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    OUTSOURCING HOUSEKEEPING DEPARTMENT FOR SAUCY HOTELS 1 Introduction The Saucy hotel chain is a success story. For a long time, the Hotel has been in place; it has achieved a lot, both monetary and through CSR activities. Among the factors that can be attributed to this massive success is the recognition of the significance of its different departments, and stakeholders.…

    • 1574 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays