Question

Case 114 - THE TRUNP TAJ HOTEL

The Trunp Taj Hotel is a five-star hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. The hotel was established fifteen years ago by a local consortium of investors and has been operated by a Thai general manager throughout this time. The hotel is one of Bangkok’s most prestigious hotels and its 700 employees enjoy the prestige of being associated with the hotel. The hotel provides good employee benefits, above-market rate salary, and job security. In addition, a good year-end bonus amounting to four months’ salary is rewarded to employees regardless of the hotel’s overall performance during the year.

Recently, the Trunp was sold to a large American hotel chain that was very keen to expand its operations into Thailand. When the acquisition was announced, the general manager decided to take early retirement when the hotel changed ownership. The American hotel chain kept all of the Trunp employees, although a few were transferred to other positions. Mike Muller, an American with 10 years of management experience with the hotel chain, was appointed as the new general manager of the Trunp Taj Hotel. Muller was selected as the new general manager because of his previous successes in integrating newly acquired hotels in the United States. In most of the previous acquisitions, Muller took over operations with poor profitability and low morale.

Muller is a strong believer in empowerment. He expects employees to go beyond guidelines/standards to consider guest needs on a case–by-case basis. That is, employees must be guest-oriented at all times so as to provide excellent customer service. From his U.S. experience, Muller has found that empowerment increases employee motivation, performance, and job satisfaction, all of which contribute to the hotel’s profitability and customer service ratings. Soon after becoming general manager at the Trunp Taj, Muller introduced the practice of empowerment so as to replicate the successes that he had achieved back home.

The Trunp Taj hotel has been very profitable since it opened. The employees have always worked according to management’s instructions. Their responsibility was to ensure that the instructions from their managers were carried out diligently and conscientiously. Innovation and creativity were discouraged under the previous management. Indeed, employees were punished for their mistakes and discouraged from trying out ideas that had not been approved by management. As a result, employees were afraid to be innovative and to take risks.

Muller met with the Trunp’s managers and department heads to explain that empowerment would be introduced in the hotel. He told them that employees must be empowered with decision-making authority so that they can use their initiative, creativity, and judgment to satisfy guest needs or handle problems effectively and efficiently. However, he stressed that the more complex issues and decisions were to be referred to superiors, who were to coach and assist rather than provide direct orders. Furthermore, Muller stressed that while mistakes were allowed, repetition of the same mistake more than twice could not be tolerated. He advised his managers and department heads that they should not discuss or consult him on minor issues/problems and decisions. Nevertheless, he told them that they are to discuss important/major issues and decisions with him. He concluded the meeting by asking for feedback. Several managers and department heads told him that they liked the idea and would support it, while others simply nodded their heads. Muller was pleased with the response, and was eager to have his plan implemented.

In the past, the Trunp had emphasized administrative control, resulting in many bureaucratic procedures throughout the organization. For example, the front counter employees needed to seek approval from their manager before they could upgrade guests to another category of room. The front counter manager would then have to write and submit a report to the general manager justifying the upgrade. Soon after his meeting with managers, Muller reduced the number of bureaucratic rules at the Trunp

and allocated more decision-making authority to front line employees. This action upset those who previously had decision-making power over these issues. As a result, several of these employees left the hotel.

Muller also began spending a large portion of his time observing and interacting with the employees

at the front desk, lobby, restaurants, and various departments. This direct interaction with Muller helped many employees to understand what he wanted and expected of them. However, the employees had much difficulty trying to distinguish between a major and minor issue/decision. More often than not, supervisors would reverse employee decisions by stating that they were major issues requiring management approval. Employees who displayed initiative and made good decisions in satisfying the needs of the guests rarely received any positive feedback from their supervisors. Eventually, most of these employees lost confidence in making decisions, and reverted back to relying on their superiors for decision making.

Not long after the implementation of the practice of empowerment, Muller realized that his subordinates were consulting him more frequently than before. Most of them came to him to discuss or consult on minor issues. He had to spend most of his time attending to his subordinates. Soon he began to feel highly frustrated and exhausted, and very often would tell his secretary that “unless the hotel is on fire, don’t let anyone disturb me.”

Muller thought that the practice of empowerment would benefit the overall performance of the hotel. However, contrary to his expectation, the business and overall performance of the hotel began to deteriorate. There had been an increasing number of guest complaints. In the past, the hotel had minimal guest complaints. Now there were a significant number of formal written complaints every month. Many other guests voiced their dissatisfaction verbally to hotel employees. The number of mistakes made by employees had been on an increase. Muller was very upset when he realized that two of the local newspapers and an overseas newspaper had published negative feedback on the hotel in terms of service standards. He was most distressed when an international travel magazine had voted the hotel as “one of Asia’s nightmare hotels.”

The stress levels of the employees had been continuously mounting since the introduction of the

practice of empowerment. Absenteeism due to illness was increasing at an alarming rate. In addition, the employee turnover rate had reached an all-time high. The good working relationships that were established under the old management had been severely strained. The employees were no longer united and supportive of each other. They were quick to “point fingers” at or to “back stab” one another when mistakes were made and when problems occurred.

Questions

1. What is the implementation plan and recommendation for this case study according to the organizational behavior concepts?

Answer 1

What is the implementation plan and recommendation for this case study according to the organizational behavior concepts?

As per my opinion Muller has to make the procedures as per the marketing plans and human resource plans. Because if gives freedom for all the decisions employees will not have control which leads to dissatisfaction of customers in terms of services and responses they needed.

so i think the plan should be all the decisions whether it might be a customer query, customer change, closure of customers or adding new customers everything has to be documented so that employees get a hold of control through documents which they communicated so this can avoid employees pointing fingers with each other and back stabbing one another. Documenting things will create a fence of control within employees and create the responsive behaviour between peers and restaurant customers.

Muller has to make a model which has both freedom within employees but it should be documentable in each phase . However in every aspect they should have that creating proofs for all the changes which they do.

so that it will create a responsible behaviour between employees and get hold for there duties with proper control but physically they don't have control but still this email and messages will create the proofs which has a fence for them to play within grounds properly.