8 activity? ,and follow up formal coach- e Study ne the Performance Bar s ago, L

Question

8 activity? ,and follow up formal coach- e Study ne the Performance Bar s ago, Laverne Wilson was excited when she started her new posi- rutve housekeeper at the spectacular Melrose Hotel. The Melrose on ater away from a competing property with the promise of higher s execu r nrestige, and more responsibility. With her eye for detail, however, ly noticed major housekeeping oversights at the hotel. In fact, had entic Laverne immediately aher frst day at the Melrose, she was greeted by an overflowing trash can near the main entrance and cigarette butts on the lobby floor As Laverne reviewed guest comment cards and results from guest satisfaction s, the problems seemed to multiply. Guest complaints ranged from stained inens to crumpled and soiled stationery in the guestrooms. Worst of all, guest property had been reported missing from rooms on a number of separate occa- sions-without resolution. To top it off, guest satisfaction reports over the last six survey months showed consistently low ratings for the housekeeping department. The real challenge emerged as Laverne read through the past year's perfor- niance appraisals of the housekeeping staff. Performance ratings were based on a

Explanation / Answer

1. Laverne approached her supervisors’ way too harshly and critically in their very first meeting. Instead, she should have kept the first meeting to better understand her team of employees, how they do their work, and why they think that is the right way to do it, and whether they can think of ways of improving the current processes they were following. This would have enabled Laverne to form a more trusting relationship with the supervisors, without killing their morale.

Laverne was herself overwhelmed with the problems at hand after her meeting with the CEO of the hotel. This made her anxious as she believed that she needed to stir the status quo. Hence, when she first approached the supervisors, she went right to the point and critically questioned them for their current performance levels and negative customer feedbacks. This agitated the supervisors, and gave them the perception that, since Laverne is new to the hotel and they have served there for many years now, she fails to understand their approach towards building a cooperative work environment and she is finger pointing to single them out.

Laverne instead should have first built a relationship with the team, by asking them to highlight the issues they face, work on resolution of those issues if genuine to build the team’s trust on Laverne’s abilities. Once that trust was established, Laverne could individually meet with each supervisor to discuss the current processes they follow and the scope of employee re-evaluation and their views on the same. Based on their feedback, she could go ahead with her goals of performance improvement.

2. Now Laverne needs to the train her supervisors and their teams to improve the overall employee performance in their units. Since, these supervisors and employees have the served the hotel for many years now, they are accustomed to the working methods and processes they follow. Hence, she needs to change the status quo. For this, she needs to understand the current processes being followed and based on the gaps in the current process results and desired results indentify the training needs for each unit. Once training needs have been identified, Laverne needs to ensure every unit gets the training it needs, and the training is taken seriously and is effective in improving the results.

As for the employee re-evaluation, in an organization where the employees have been working for so long that they have developed relations with their co-workers like friends and family, re-evaluation is difficult to implement. Hence, Laverne needs to find a way to communicate to the employees, the benefits of re-evaluation to them and for the hotel. To do so, Laverne needs to assure the supervisors that they are not going to lose talented team members in this process, and their unit’s employee and skill needs will be fulfilled by the management.

Once the units have received the training needed, Laverne should set achievable but ambitious performance goals, both long and short term for the units to achieve and evaluate their performances based on their performance in regards to the goals set by the management. She can also think of a part variable compensation system, where part of the salaries of the employees can be fixed and part can vary to match their performance level in context to the goals defined for their units in the that time period.

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