Star Hotels Case Study Feedback and the Decision to Act

¶ … Star Hotels that needs to be addressed and data I used to make this diagnosis

There seem to be several problems evident with the Star Hotel. These include decreased customer loyalty; greater shareholder expectation, low levels of job satisfaction and commitment; high turnover and difficulty recruiting talent; and lack of an integrated "people strategy." Reducing to any one single explanatory factor, we may say that perhaps the main problem lies with the characteristics and performance of senior leadership who, in turn, fail to motivate their staff.

The performance management process itself, for instance, is only given to exempt employees, not to hourly ones, and there is no link to compensation. Leadership development too is shifty with developmental plans being optional at the discretion of department managers whilst approximately 35% of exempt staff have their own optional developmental plan. Small wonder then that the majority of employees (41%) have no confidence in their leaders and with a huge 62% lacking, or possessing unfavorable reaction to leaders in senior positions (such s the Vice President and above). 56% consider the senior leadership to be making no, or ineffectual, effort to competing effectively; 57% are dissatisfied with the way company data is transmitted; The problem seems to lie with the leaders in senior divisions rather than with supervisors who 43%, 50%, and 47% say, consecutively, listen to them, leads by example and provides with feedback. There is lack of cohesion too in the workplace (45%) and lack of recognition of performance (54%) as well as lack of opportunity to improve skills (52%) and lack of promotion (41%). 40% also said that they lacked resources needed to perform their task, although training and required information was satisfactorily provided. The main problem, in short, is that motivation is lacking in the workforce and workplace due, primarily, to characteristics and performance of senior leadership.

Recommendation for how to address the key issue

I would restore fuzzy employee goals, lack of communication, and poor motivation by ensuring that senior leadership possesses the following characteristics: (Eicher, www.pignc-ispi.com): Empowerment; Risk-taking; Participation; Development

The senior leaders would empower the employees, listening to their ideas regarding how the hotel can work. The leader too would need to have the skills to inspire the employees to work independently and to gain their own knowledge.

Leaders would inspire an atmosphere of innovation so that employees together decide how to modify and alter the situation. Finally, senior managers would foster an environment of continuous learning and growth that is constant across the workplace. The leader's presence would be demonstrative and a reward program would be put into place to provide incentives for enhanced performance. In this way, motivation would be reinforced and poor vertical communication (and poor cross-functional collaboration as well as poor teamwork) would be addressed by introducing polices such as weekly group meetings, an immediate condensed and intensive workshop on workplace performance, and a series of training programs.

A psychological theory that supports recommendation and why it would achieve success of recommendation

Edwin Locke's (1968) model of motivation centers on the perspective that individuals have to set for themselves specific and challenging goals (rather than vague or easy goals) in order to garner satisfaction and that this has to be reinforced by recognition of their achievement. Lotham's research, supporting Locke's thesis, stated that goals must have the following characteristics: clarity, challenge, commitment, feedback, and task complexity.