Team Power: Managing Human Resources in the Hospitality Industry - Softcover

Cullen, Noel C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0130209465 ISBN 13: 9780130209467

Publisher: Prentice Hall, 2001

Synopsis

Based on the author's extensive personal experience in the field, this is the first book on human resources management to focus exclusively on the complexities of the hospitality industry. Definitive yet user-friendly, it deals comprehensively with the "ins and outs" of all the dimensions of caring/leading required of hospitality industry employees to achieve optimum performance. It explores the most relevant issues and modern approaches to HRM, with a focus on effective methods for building a winning team--the approach necessary to create the exceptional guest experience--the key to success in this highly competitive marketplace. Explores the full range of human resource management concerns and issues, all within the framework of team performance and current labor laws. Provides practical guidelines for recruiting and selecting qualified team members; training and motivating employees; creating a positive work environment; dealing with issues of respect, diversity, morale, and change; choosing effective methods for maintaining discipline, for writing performance appraisals, for problem solving and decision making; establishing and analyzing compensation, benefits and labor costs; maintaining effective communication; and utilizing time effectively. Practicing hospitality managers at all levels.

About this title

About the Author

NOEL C. CULLEN has over thirty years' experience in the foodservice/hospitality/education and culinary arts fields as a culinarian, chef patron, executive chef, trainer, director of human resources, manager, and professor of hospitality and culinary administration.

Noel holds the rare combination of culinary, foodservice, and education degrees, including the Licentiate of the City and Guilds of London Institute, a Master of Science degree in managerial technology, and a Doctor of Education degree from Boston University.

In 1995, Noel was named "ACF National Educator of the Year." Additionally he is the recipient of three "Distinguished Visiting Chef Chairs" from Johnson & Wales University. In 1997, CHRIE awarded Noel the "Chef Herman Breihaupt Trophy" for excellence in hospitality education. Cullen has presented seminars on hospitality human resources management topics both nationally and internationally.

Noel is an Associate Professor in the School of Hospitality Administration at Boston University, where he teaches culinary arts, food and beverage management, and human resources management.

From the Back Cover

In today's quality-driven hospitality workplace, practices that encourage greater employee performance have become integrated into the way a hotel, restaurant, resort, or any other form of hospitality service organization does business.

In order to succeed, and successfully grow, hospitality organizations are refocusing traditional approaches to "managing people." This refocus is necessitated by what has been referred to as the "paradigm shift" of hospitality human resource management.

This paradigm shift is driven forward by forces outside of the hospitality industry. They include new designs for flatter organizations, more information sharing, the concept of empowerment, new training and induction models, and the changed expectations of employees. However, and most importantly, it is driven by the concept of "king customer" upon which much of the quality management movement is based. Teamwork is the bedrock upon which all these concepts are based.

Teamwork has become the dominant form of organizational design. The need to learn to become an effective team player and, indeed, becoming a team leader is critical to successful teamwork. Team Power explores the modern approach to leadership?a new approach that requires traditional "personnel managers" to think in a different way.

• Total Quality Management and the "Paradigm Shift"
• Human resource planning?organizing, coaching, and championing
• Key aspects of labor law
• Building successful teams
• Empowerment and job enrichment
• Developing a positive team and work climate
• Respect, corporate culture, and diversity
• Motivation and elements of leadership
• Change: a step-by-step approach
• Recruitment and selection?avoiding discrimination in the hiring process
• Approaches to discipline
• Preventing sexual harassment in the workplace
• Problem solving and decision making
• Compensation, benefits and labor costs, and employment regulations

From the Inside Flap

Preface

When measured against the valid needs of the entire hospitality industry, success is determined by the employees. Regardless of how well a system of quality improvement, or production, or whatever checks and balances are in place to ensure compliance to rules, policies, or business and service philosophies, it is the responsiveness of the staff—interpreting the rules, serving guests, and producing high-quality product and service—that determines each organization's success.

In today's quality-driven, empowered, hospitality workplace, practices that encourage greater employee performance must become integrated into the way a hotel, restaurant, resort, or any other form of hospitality service organization does business. In simple terms, implementing "traditional personnel practices" is no longer a viable or, indeed, a sensible way to proceed.

In today's world of quality-driven, highly competitive organizations, in order to succeed and successfully grow, hospitality organizations need to refocus traditional approaches to "managing people." This refocus is necessitated by what has been referred to as the "paradigm shift" of hospitality human resources management. This paradigm shift is driven forward by forces outside of the hospitality industry, which include new designs for flatter organizations, teamwork, more information sharing, the concept of empowerment, new training and induction models, and the changed general expectations of employees. However, and most important, it is driven by the concepts of "king customer."

Getting it right the first time (one of the sacred tenets of total quality management) can only be achieved in the hospitality industry through a motivated, empowered, and trained team. At times guest problems are not foreseen; therefore, employees have to feel empowered to correct a problem on the spot. In a service business, you can't have a rigid set of rules. It is possible to have guidelines, but people must be allowed the freedom to make different interpretations. INVOLVEMENT

There must be a commitment to the development of employees, including recognition that they represent an asset that will appreciate over time. All available means must be considered for achieving a broad employee interest, participation, and contribution in the process of continuous improvement. Management must be prepared to share some of their power and responsibilities.

Part of the approach to quality management is to ensure that everyone has a clear understanding of what is required and how that participation relates to the hospitality business as a whole. The more people who understand the business and what is going on around them, the greater the role they can play in continuous improvement. People must be encouraged to control, manage, and improve the processes that are within their sphere of responsibility. USING A TEAM APPROACH

Teamwork (which is vital to successful quality management programs) has become the dominant form of organizational design. Critical to effective teamwork is the need to learn to become an effective team player and team leader. In this new paradigm, team designs require leaders to share more power with people they once regarded as subordinates, and team members of lower rank are now experiencing increased responsibility. This means people skills have become extremely important, and even leaders have to learn how to follow.

Team power explores the modern approach to leadership, a new approach that requires traditional "personnel managers" to think in a different way; it is about motivating employees to do what is best for the organization for their own reasons (creating a "win-win" situation). This new approach to leadership is also about managers becoming coaches, facilitators, and teachers, rather than administrators, inspectors, bureaucrats, directors, and control agents. They must move to becoming builders of teams and developers of strategies of commitment from employees. They maximize the value of employees by improving the organizational resources, by fostering teamwork, and by rewarding contributions by individuals and the team.

A mature, well-trained hospitality team is capable of making better quality decisions than a single individual. The use of a team approach improves the overall quality of decision making, and the level of commitment to the team becomes much higher.

When team members share the process of problem solving and decision making, they are more likely to become owners of the organization's plans, and to do everything possible to transform the plans into reality. Collective wisdom is virtually always superior to individual wisdom. PEOPLE AT WORK

The team approach outlined in Team Power, offers a distinctive set of guidelines to an industry so dependent on teamwork so as to be successful in all of its facets. The goal is to harness the team's collective wisdom, talents, and energies to achieve shared objectives.

This team approach offers to progressive, forward-thinking hospitality leaders a positive management philosophy that gets results while respecting employees, specifically their needs and their capabilities. Team Power traces the historical development of human resources management, and is set against the legal requirements of today's human resources practices.

Additionally this text offers practical guidelines in the areas of recruiting, selecting, training, and motivating qualified team members. It examines the issues of respect and diversity, labor law, and the origins of quality management. The important elements—so necessary to team success—of morale, leadership, change, and the creation of a positive work environment are discussed in detail.

Approaches to discipline, performance appraisals, problem solving, and decision making, compensation, benefits and labor costs, communication, and the effective utilization of time are outlined and set in the framework of team performance. The text provides the overview that all these activities are performed within the requirements of the applicable legal systems.

Team Power is different from most texts on human resources management in that it offers hospitality students a practical framework so as to understand the relevant issues and modern approaches to human resources management. As students progress through Team Power, they will find the text "user friendly" in that it uses a rich depth of treatment to the essential and desirable elements of teamwork. This text is appropriate for students pursuing bachelor-level degree courses in hotel, restaurant and institutional management, and practicing hospitality managers at all levels.

Noel C. Cullen
Boston University

Edition details

• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0130209465
• ISBN 13: 9780130209467
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 361