A Management Report on the Glenmore Hotels

A Management Report on the Glenmore Hotels

VERONICA COCHIOR

Affiliation

Date

Executive Summary

This is a report on Glenmore hotel. The Glenmore hotel is one of the leading hotels in the hospitality industry. The company’s performance has been stellar thanks to a dedicated team and management at the hotel. Nevertheless various challenges arose and an investigation into the problems was done. Communication is essential for effective coordination of activities in a hotel. The staff at Glenmore had various communication skills. These skills include empathy, active listening, report writing and email writing. Diverse cultures have also affected operations in the hotel. The cultural factors include stereotypes, individualism, prejudice and other factors. Various recommendations towards the same have been given.

Table of Contents

Background information………………………………………………………………………….4

Communication Skills Analysis……………………………………………………….…………4

Cultural Factors Causing Communication Breakdown…………………………….….…………6

Management Approach to Dealing with Issues Raised……………………………..……………8

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….…………10

Recommendations…………………………………………………………………….…………10

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………….…………….11

Background Information

Glenmore hotel is one of the leading players in the field of hospitality and events. The hotel believes that their success has been attributed generally to the diverse culture of the different employees that they employ. Nevertheless despite the success from this approach, handling personnel from a mix of cultures can be a challenge. The board of directors of the hotel clearly knows this and they know the impact that it may have on the hotels operations. Being part of the management’s team, my primary role is monitoring communication from various teams and giving back a comprehensive report to the board. The feedback given from different clients on the team is quite positive. Nevertheless just like any team that has diverse and different cultures, various challenges are experienced. In the hotel it resulted to frustrations and tension. The report outlines challenges, skills and various recommendations to dealing with the problem (Bowman, 2015).

Communication Skills Analysis

There are various skills that have been identified among the team at the Glenmore hotel. One of the skills that have been clearly manifested by the team of employees at Glenmore hotel is the skill of empathy. Empathic listening is defined as the process of availing undivided attention to other people with the aim of having an understanding of those  people’s emotions, feelings and thoughts in relation to a given situation or topic (Cullen and Parboteeah, 2015). Despite each and every team within the hotel being tasked with various tasks, the teams do not understand each other quite well. Vivien is empathetic that most of the sales staff in the hotel is not clearly understood by other teams in the hotel. She argues out that the sales team identifies all the needs from customers and clearly illustrates that the hotel can be able to fulfill them. (Samovar, Porter McDaniel and Roy, 2010).

                Additionally another skill that has been manifested and exhibited by the team at the Glenmore hotel is the actively listening skills and taking down notes. Active listening is where a listener or listeners concentrate fully, understand what is being said, fully respond and have the ability to remember what has been said. This skill that is part of effective communication has been effectively exhibited by max the chef. Max is an attentive listener as every time they are being briefed by their bosses he is always with a pen and a paper to take notes on what they are being briefed on. This is essential for him to remember what is required of him in regard to good menus (Bowman, 2015, p.24).

        Report writing is another skill that has been exhibited by the team at Glenmore. Writing of reports carries specific functions. One of these functions is communicating information effectively to any person who needs it. Jasmine communicates on various issues with regard to the hotel in the form of a report. The reports are comprehensive and detailed despite the reports having various issues (Cullen and Parboteeah, 2015, p.46).

        Another skill that has presented itself from the team at Glenmore is effective writing of emails. Email writing is a very casual and informal way of communicating and for correspondence on a personal level too. Nevertheless for correspondence at the workplace, letter writing conventions that are formal should be applied. Emails are part of the means that the different teams at Glenmore have utilized in their communication. Vivian uses emails in communication between her and other departments and teams in the hotel (Samovar, Porter, McDaniel and Roy, 2010, p.68).

Cultural Factors Causing Communication Breakdown

        There are a number of factors that are hindering effective communication and causing a breakdown in communication at the hotel.one of the highlighted cultural factors hindering effective communication is stereotypic factor. Stereotyping is described as quite a natural and a rather stereotypic aspect and is regarded as a subconscious way of handling various situations that are unknown. Vivien is quite stereotypic on jasmine. She says that Chinese people do not like black people as she has seen in the news and is relating jasmine to it. This is a factor that has led to a breakdown in communication between the two staff. This is shown where she does not see the point of talking to her (Wong, 2010).

        Another factor that has been attributed to having caused a breakdown in communication at the Glenmore hotel is prejudice. Prejudice is defined as an unfounded attitude that is directed towards a given out group and this attitude is based on a given comparison and behaviors of a given in-group. In the Glenmore hotel situation, jasmine has been prejudiced by Vivien. Just because there is a common attitude that Chinese people do not like blacks, and it is also common in the news. Jasmine being of Chinese origin, Vivian believes that she is just like the rest of the Chinese and she goes on to say that she sees no point in trying. This has caused a breakdown in communication between the two parties (Bowman, 2015, p.88).

        Individualism is another aspect that can lead to a breakdown in effective communication at the hotel. Individualism is a cultural emphasis that dwells on uniqueness and solidarity of each and every individual in a given setting or system. The aspect of individualism has affected communication in the Glenmore hotel. This has been manifested where Jed, who is part of the events staff, claims that he does not have time for other things as he needs to have his priorities on their five year business plan. Through this he takes an individual approach which has had a negative impact on communications between the different teams at the hotel (Wong, 2010, p.89).

        Another cultural aspect that has been touted as contributing to a communication breakdown at the Glenmore hotel is collectivism. Collectivism is described as the emphasis of culture on different types of groups communally that lie in a given social system. For collectivism the entire social group is given a lot of emphasis in comparison to individuals in the group. This has been exhibited by max where he claims he likes working with the team generally. Nevertheless there is a breakdown in communication in the team that he is advocating for way too much (Cullen and Parboteeah, 2015, p.98).

        Power distance can be described as another aspect that may lead to a breakdown in communication at the Glenmore hotel. Power distance can be related to the how the different cultures relate and deal with inequality. This aspect keeps focus on various norms that inform superiors on what level they can be able to determine behaviors exhibited by their subordinates and the general belief that subordinates and their superiors are basically very distinct and variant individuals. For Glenmore hotel this factor has attributed to miscommunication and breakdown in the overall communication at the hotel. The management at the hotel has been unable to effectively determine how the complex culture mix would hinder effective communication at the hotel. This implies that there is a distance between the hotel staffs and the power structures of the hotel (Bowman, 2015, p.106).