Recruiting, Interviewing, Selecting, And Orienting In Hospitality Industry: A Case Study Of Sheraton Gateway Hotel

Sheraton’s Organization Culture and HR Planning

Discuss about the Recruiting, Interviewing, Selecting and Orienting.

The Sheraton Gateway Hotel in Toronto’s Pearson International Airport is one of the most reputable hotels in Canada and the North American circuit, according to reviews conducted by the Trip advisor website (2017). The hotel is the only full-service hotel located inside the Pearson International Airport. It boasts of amenities such as a climate – controlled walkway to the airport’s main terminal, a 24-hour fitness center, and a heated swimming pool. The hotel also boasts of a popular restaurant that serves international dishes, and an organizational strategy that looks to maximize the hotel’s location value in gaining more market share. Being located so close to a busy international airport is an important part of Sheraton’s strength, especially since it is the only such hotel in the vicinity of the airport. This gives it a huge advantage in attracting travelers (Sheraton, 2017).

Sheraton Gateway Hotel is also associated with the Sheraton Gateway Hotel, Los Angeles. It is commonly referred to as the Sheraton inside Canada, and by its full name for those not conversant with it. In completing this research, the group spoke with Goretti Moreno, who works as a meeting and event manager at the hotel. In this role, she manages events and meetings contracts generated by the sales department. She also reviews sales contracts and maintains relationships with new as well as existing clients. For the purposes of this discussion, the hotel will invariably be referred to as Sheraton, hotel, company, organization and firm (Sheraton, 2017).

We decided to research this company due to its reputation, and its relevance to the subjects we wanted to study. The hotel currently employs around 500 employees. They are spread across several departments including food and beverage, front office, housekeeping, maintenance, kitchen, sales and marketing, event organization and outside catering, and finance. The biggest number of employees is concentrated in food and beverage and kitchen departments, as well as housekeeping.

While the hotel has not received any awards on account of its human resource practices, it has received the Project ICARIUS Supplier Gold Medal from the Global Business Travel Association. The award is given to institutions which excel in the provision of meeting and conferencing services, as well as hospitality. The award also matches the event and meeting manager’s assertion, that the hotel is heavily focused on quality, above all else. It believes that quality will help it retain a significant market share, necessary as it moves into the future (Sheraton, 2017).

Job Analysis, Design, Description, and Postings

Sheraton’s organization culture is geared towards innovation and quality of service. The award won by the company is a testament to an organization focused on delivering the best quality service in the region. As Moreno (the event and meeting manager) explained, the company’s culture is aligned to cultivate and maintain strong relationships with its clients. The hotel has a modest following on Facebook, with the figure currently at around 1000. The page mainly has comments about past clients, who are very impressed with the level of quality of service they enjoyed during their visit. Employees stay at the hotel because of several reasons. The pay is competitive compared to other hotels, and there are opportunities for growth. Additionally, employees at the hotel are deeply involved in planning their work, meaning that they own their tasks and processes.

Sheraton does HR planning. HR planning refers to the set of processes that ensure staffing is not only sufficient and qualified, but that it is competent enough to achieve the organization’s goals, and enable fulfillment of the organisation’s strategic objectives. The results of this exercise are improved competency and employee motivation.

In forecasting how the organization will plan its human capital in a specific timeframe in the future, the organization uses both qualitative and quantitative techniques. The oft-used qualitative technique is the Delphi technique, accompanied by expert opinions. Also used is Markov analysis (Naff & al, 2001).

The Delphi technique is used to forecast staff needs, with the use of expert opinion. The opinion is gathered from all perspectives of the hotel’s environment, including economic realities, competition, availability of the desired human resources, and projected profitability of the business. The Delphi technique is a seven step process that is aimed at formulating recommendations and then implementing them. The planning starts with the choosing of facilitators, followed by the identification of relevant experts. The experts will be both from within and outside the organization. The problem is then defined. In this case, the problem may be a shortage of employees, and the resulting dilemma on how the vacant positions will be filled (Naff & al, 2001).

What follows are three rounds of questions. In this phase, the problem is broken down into several parts for easier analysis. Then, a further analysis – probability judgments, for instance, are carried out, after which a set of predictions is formulated. These predictions are further analyzed, and on the basis of the recommendations, planning is implemented.

Using Markov analysis follows a different channel. Here, the organization looks at the supply and demand of labor, literacy rate of the country, population growth, and other demographics, economic development and technological development, as well as wage level and growth. Using these variables, the organization comes up with a solution of how the future circumstances of the HR function will be (Belhaj, 2013). 

The objectives of the HR planning exercise is to come up with a sustainable model that takes into consideration current and future HR and business needs, as well as the prevailing environmental conditions. These are closely aligned with the organizational goals of high quality, and competitiveness in terms of attracting both clients and the best human capital. The organization realizes that to continue offering the quality of service that it currently does, an effective HR strategy is necessary, hence the need for planning (Naff & al, 2001).

Job descriptions refer to the official cluster of tasks that an employee is obligated to perform in an organization. The job description process at Sheraton is a multi – departmental affair since many roles affect more than one department. The human resource department takes the lead in this, offering guidance and referring others to best practice in the industry. The respective departments will thereafter detail the tasks they expect the incumbent to perform. This description is discussed with other departmental managers who are relevant to the specific role, after which they come up with a compromise. The human resource department is thereafter responsible for aligning the job description to the organization’s overall aims and strategic direction (Mangaleswaran & Kirushanthan, 2015).

Job analysis at the Sheraton is conducted periodically, after five years. The analysis is done to determine each job’s main duties, and how the duties are important to the job. This is done via a highly empirical process of data collection and thereafter considering the relevance of each task to the job. The job analysis exercise is an organization – wide affair and requires an external consultant to perform. The most used model is the Pearson – Chong Path model, which look at job satisfaction, among other important elements needed to perform a job satisfactorily. The exercise has so far succeeded in aligning the organization’s jobs with the market, as well as helping the job description process in alignment with organizational strategy (Bernard, 2000).

According to Moreno, the organization practices job evaluation. This is especially the case with employees who are not new to the organization, that is, less than 2 years old and are in the lower cadres. The employees are rotated periodically between a select group of departments, which are closely aligned with their general job description. For instance, those employees who are in the housekeeping department may also be posted to the front office and concierge roles, so that they can better understand how the hotel works. Those in sales may also be posted to event organizing, and in the process understand the whole process that is relevant to their specific roles. While employees are rotated at the organization to raise their skills and experience level, they also bring in new skills to their new tasks, in the process enriching those employees as well. According to DuBrin (2011), job rotation succeeds in ensuring that employees are truly competent in their roles and that they are better positioned to appreciate the organization’s overall strategic direction.

In order to come up with the best recruitment processes, the hotel has come up with a method of anonymous recruitment whereby the irrelevant details about the candidate are not presented. These details include gender, name, race, religion, among others. Candidates are appraised solely on the basis of their qualifications. To further improve the recruitment process, the hotel has implemented a policy of effectively selling their qualities to the best candidates. The hotel tries to get the best people; it faces strong opposition from the market. To address this, the Sheraton has tried to develop the skills of its recruiters in presenting their offer to potential highly qualified candidates. Recruiting processes are generally forward – looking. This means that the recruiters are not guided by history and past trends, but by the future needs of the organization, as well as the strategic direction (Arthur, 2012).

In advertising for vacant positions, the hotel uses its website, as well as popular job search websites that are well regarded by professionals. By doing this, the organization maintains its reputation, while also opening up its organization to as many candidates as possible. The organisation that does this is able to get the best employees to fill its positions while improving its reputation as a highly regarded employer (Ullah, 2010).

The company looks for a set of skills in its employees, as it tries to thrive in an increasingly challenging atmosphere. The basic requirement is the technical aptitude to work satisfactorily in the assigned role. Besides this, however, the organization has put measures in place to ensure that only employees with innovation skills are hired. Additionally, employees must be ready and able to work in an environment which promotes diversity. The hotel has a culture of constantly learning, as exemplified by its job rotation policy. New employees must, therefore, be ready to learn on the job, and constantly improve their skills (Ullah, 2010).

The employee value proposition for Sheraton does not currently exist. This is a major anomaly since the EVP would be crucial in showing employees what they stand to gain should they join the organisation. The ideal EVP for the organization would be employee – based. In other words, the EVP must be based on not what the organization feels is important, but on what is most likely to appeal to the employees. Secondly, the EVP must be able to present real and tangible benefits. Merely promising some benefits may not work for the organization, since the EVP may fail to convince the employees to join the organization. The EVP should have a description of what exactly is expected from the employees. This will prevent any ambiguities and confusion from arising in future (Collett, 2014).

New employees are still nervous about their new jobs. The first task of the organization is to put them at ease. The orientation process is essentially a first impression opportunity for the employer, and how they treat the employee will in future be used by the employees in judging their work environment. The orientation exercise should include a factual and honest presentation of the organization and task. The session should not be rushed, so that the employee may assume their new duties. Instead, the exercise should be well spaced out to give the employee enough time to internalize the information. The orientation exercise should not be all information about the organization and the job. Too much information may not be taken well by the employee. A better use of this time will be by giving the employee a chance to know their colleagues and build a social network that they can rely on for further orientation. These qualities are included in the orientation process conducted at the Sheraton (Peterson, Morrison, & Nilsen, 2000).

After the orientation process, employees are taken through quality training. This training helps them detect and correct any quality issues in their work, and enables them to point out any deficiencies in quality. At the same time, all employees undergo training to get them up to speed with the various technological tools they will be using in their jobs. These tasks include front office software for the front office staff, as well as kitchen equipment for the kitchen staff (Peterson, Morrison, & Nilsen, 2000).

While the company’s training modules have not been recognised publicly, their training modules are nonetheless very dear to the organization, as Moreno intimated to us. Using these modules, it has been possible to improve orientation, performance, and reduce employee turnover. The training modules have also succeeded in enabling the best employees quickly adjust to their new roles. This has boosted confidence, teamwork, and generally enabled the organization edge ever closer to its organisational strategy goals (Peterson, Morrison, & Nilsen, 2000).

The organization needs to be keener on its EVP and use it more effectively. While the hotel has been able to consistently get the best candidates to work for it, this may change in the future. Hotels with more financial muscle and better packages may attempt to not only lure valued employees, but they may become the preferred destination for the best employees. To help stop this, the EVP is critical. The process of getting and retaining the best is not just dependent on the EVP. The recruitment process is very important as well. Recruiters should be able to communicate the strengths of the organization clearly, to enable them to get the best employees. 

While the orientation process has been able to get the required results, this might not be the best results they organization can get. In addition to what the organization is doing, there should be a mentorship programme for new employees. The mentorship programme will enable employees’ learn their roles faster. It will also enable employees to build social networks in the organization while gaining valuable experience in their positions. 

Lastly, the organization should be able to involve its employees more in the job analysis exercise. They should have a say in how the external consultant analyses their roles, to help the consultant get a better perspective of the jobs in question.

References

Arthur, D. (2012). Recruiting, Interviewing, Selecting & Orienting New Employees. New York: Amacom.

Belhaj, R. (2013). A Markov Model for Human Resources Supply Forecast Dividing the HR System into Subgroups. Journal of Service Science and Managment , 2013 (6), 211-217.

Bernard, H. (2000). Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. London: Sage Publications.

Collett, A. (2014). Home » Insights & Blogs » Conversations » Global Practices » Four Key Steps to a Great Employee Value Proposition. Retrieved 04 01, 2017, from edelman.com: https://www.edelman.com/post/four-key-steps-great-employee-value-proposition/

DuBrin, A. (2011). Essentials of Management. Mason: Cengage Learning.

Mangaleswaran, T., & Kirushanthan, K. (2015). Job Description and Jopb Specification: A study of Selected Organizations in Sri Lanka. International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management , 41 (1), 30-36.

Naff, K., & al, e. (2001). Personnel Management in Government: Fifth Edition, Politics and Process. New York: Marcel Dekker.

Peterson, C., Morrison, E., & Nilsen, S. (2000). Multiple Employment and Training Programs:. Washington D. C. : GAO.

Sheraton. (2017). Home Page. Retrieved 04 01, 2017, from www.sheratongatewaytorontoairport.com: https://www.sheratongatewaytorontoairport.com/

Ullah, M. (2010). A Systematic Approach of Conducting Employee Selection Interview. International Journal of Business and Management , 5 (6), 106-112.