Introduction
This paper reviews organization culture within motel environment. It addresses issues dealing with appropriate leadership scenarios within the hospitality industry, motivation of junior employees, perception in communication and barriers to effective communication. Recommendations made on areas which require improvement are well presented for implementation purposes. There is need of analyzing other organizations intentions and strategies in order to find the best counteractive approach towards risks within management. The need for good management team enhances provision of good brand and articulation of all the elements which comprises of marketing mix. The services provided and the way of delivery should change for growth and improvement to be realised.
Physical changes towards improvement of the Job
Physical changes to be initiated at the motel have to consider various attributes which includes wages increments, excellent working environment and job security. Basic needs are essential for survival hence requires preference compared to other needs including secondary needs (Schultz & Schultz, 1994). Employees at Western Motels operate at lower levels of hierarchy needs; hence improvement in their wages should be reviewed. This is because money always presents one of the superior motivating factors to employees of this cadre. Payment for performance strategy should be incorporated since this might ensure work is done diligently and more productively.
Conducive working environment at the motel enhances the ability and instills self esteem amongst workers. This could be provided through provision of free meals and use of Institution’s facilities for the purposes of creating some sense of belonging amongst the employees. On the other hand job security could be enhanced by putting maids on permanent terms and accord them incentives like access to credit facilities which accrue to the status. One is more comfortable working for an institution if there is a guarantee of job security.
Employees’ personal identity
Changes to enhance the employee’s personal identity at the motel should comprise actions such as enhancing effective communication channels between management and the employees. Removing barriers to communication enhances self esteem and behavioral component such that views of all employees are articulated. This could be enhanced through establishment of regular meetings.
Secondly is to review their extrinsic rewards including payment rewards and opportunities in career advancement. A system in which employees are paid according to performance provides good base for hardworking culture within the institution. Lastly there should be a provision for career advancement among the employees including promotion granted within their line of duty. This enhances self sufficiency and sense of appreciation from the organization.
Training and development is the most important method that could be used to equip the employees enabling them to cope with the change, competition and some of the business challenges. Training needs analysis need to be conducted for the purposes of determining areas where training is required, what need to be taught, and who needs to be trained. In this case study, those that need training are maids manning the front office section. They need to have adequate induction and proper training with respect to their work.
Induction should be implemented in the Motel for the purposes of educating staff members and giving them basic knowledge necessary for running the organization. In the process of induction the management should monitor and check closely the abilities of the new employees, their behaviors and humble reactions towards the working environment.
Leadership Style that would work best
The best leadership style in this context will be hybrid leadership style. The kind of leadership style and the effectiveness of interactions between leaders and their subordinates are important determinants of team success in any hierarchical organization. Participative leadership in this case will seek advice from all members including subordinates and try to reach consensus within their teams (Hollander, 1986). Views of employees expressed wholly and decided based on their welfare will imply that the organization values everybody for their contribution and as such cultivate a sense of belonging to the organization. This motivates them that the organization is sensitive to their needs.
Management leadership should have the ability of motivating and uniting employees working in all sections within the motel. The managers should possess the ability to control and cope with major changes and challenges within the industry. The leadership need to adopt the organization’s espoused values in line with valuable information on the current trends, and avoid relying so much on their past performances. They need to improve on their level of interaction and communication with maids in various departments.
Transformational leadership should be implemented whereby management team should take employees through all the risk items within the motel and give each member opportunity to think of possible solutions. Employees should be taught on ways of decomposing scopes to appropriate depths, ways of building and integrating programs and ways of developing master plan documents. They should also be taken through efficient estimation processes, costs calculations, ways of drawing schedules and making appropriate decisions.
Good leadership should focus on training the employees on ways of building group cohesiveness by working as a team based on the principles of humility, honesty and integrity. Making training mandatory for every employee on a regular basis could guarantee improvement in the level of skilled manpower. This could be used to enhance marketing effectiveness as well as the level of performance. Recruiting experienced maids ensures that proper tactics are implemented in winning the confidence of customers. This will also ensure that the human resource have the right people for right duties
Democratic kind of leadership has to be hybridized with administrative leadership and non-discriminative rules, where the leader gives specific instructions within the scope of work and keeps close supervision to ensure that the instructions are followed. Such kind of leadership style is strongly motivated by efficiency concerns (Charness and Rabin, 2002) and more likely is goal-oriented. As much as the employees are accorded democratic space the management should have a system which closely monitors their execution of roles in conformity to the motel’s culture. This will ensure that work is effectively performed and well rewarded. So long as employees have a feeling of belonging they will always strive to work to satisfaction.
Motivation
Intrinsic motivation arises when one does an activity for personal satisfaction. They move into action for the purposes of fulfilling individual goals and rewards (White, 1959). The maids at the motel seem not to be intrinsically motivated because of the low morale producing low grade and careless approach to job leading to loss of room charges by customers. They do not find internal satisfaction in their roles at the motel such that even repeat customers never bother to acknowledge and appreciate them for their exemplary services, a sense that will show to them that they have grown in knowledge and skills.
Extrinsically motivated behaviors are those executed because they are instrumental to some separable consequence (Deci and Ryan, 1985). Clearly one extrinsic motivational factor lacking is attractive wages as a benchmark in the industry. The maids want to feel appreciated for their hard work in terms of monetary compensation. When this is factored they will instead shift their goals in offering excellent services to the institution as they will be introjected to perform flawless duties in respect to their financial rewards. When this is achieved it will be internalized as part of their roles in performing tasks.
In this scenario, extrinsic motivation is the most appropriate. Indeed considering that they are identified as professional in the hospitality industry intrinsically they feel there is no more room for exploration and will need external factors to perform for satisfaction. Provision of external factors will always make the maids to develop an attitude of performing their duties with diligence so as to prove their worth for the payment. Consequently when this is met they will strive for self satisfaction within their various duties of which intrinsic factors will be part of them.
Role of Organization Culture
The organizational culture at western motel seem to be non cohesive and seems to have significant impact on the overall performance of the organization, this results into cognitive dissonance on the part of employees. There seems to be no overall core values for the employees which could help in checking their behaviors at work place. This has since resulted into careless approaches by the maids as they perform their work, and also the manner in which management handles their issues. Since maids form an integral part of the motel their work execution displays the motel’s culture and image to the public.
The overall culture at the motel does not seem motivating to the employees. This could be viewed in terms of better working conditions and competitive remuneration owing to the kind of services rendered by employees. These external factors are critical since they determine to greater percentage, employees perceptions about the motel. This determines the level of self satisfaction and in turn self esteem which enhances productivity and ultimately overall revenue (Khan, 2005).
Organizational culture defines the way members of an organization work towards specific goals. This could be derived from the principle objectives the organization operates under. Other values attached to these, determines intrinsic behaviors among individuals. Several dimensions towards culture within organizations include social and task oriented dimensions. Culture is ultimate determinant in the process of rewarding employees and management should focus on critical sources of motivation including good pay, enhanced working environment and opportunities for growth. These factors should be closely integrated for the benefit to an organization’s productivity (Khan, 2005).
The use of cross-functional management teams assist in the process of deciding the kind of aspects which requires close monitoring and measurement. Organization culture provides perfect framework for realization of progress within the business since it incorporates all the sections under the motel. The culture could also be used in reorganizing the organization towards achieving its mission, provision of accurate responses on performance levels and also identification of areas requiring improvement. Western motel could use contingency approach by incorporating the use of business score card within its culture as a management tool; this could be used for the purposes of motivating employees towards increasing the value of the organization. This helps in giving the organization the ability to appeal to shareholders and all employees.
Effects of perception on Communication
Good interpersonal skills and relationship between workers is vital for effective management and running of any business. Communication is a very important factor which ensures smooth running of activities within the company. This must be encouraged amongst all employees regardless of the positions they hold. This may as well act as a very important tool for designing communication marketing mix outside the business premise.
Perception is defined as the process by which sensory data is interpreted (Lahlry, 1991). Structural influences on perception come from the physical aspects of the stimuli to which we are exposed. Functional influences are the psychological factors which influence perception and therefore introduce some subjectivity into the process. Selective perception is the tendency for people’s perception to be influenced by wants, needs, attitudes, and other psychological factors. Selective perception plays vital role in communication of any kind, this is since people react differently towards information.
Barriers to effective communication comprise people’s actions which interrupts smooth information flow. These hindrances could be reinforced through stressful circumstances. They easily interfere with other’s self-esteem and could lead towards dependency, withdrawal, feelings of defeat, or of inadequacy. They lower self or corporate drive towards achievement and solution to problems.
In this scenario communication between the administration and motel maids could be improved through listening to the concerns of employees. This ranges from job conditions and having predetermined perspective on employees needs. This could be identified on the verbal reaction of one of the managers who claimed that the whole idea was “just a waste of time and money” in relation to the employees concerns. This if not checked could lead to stress at work with underperformance as the ultimate result. Utilization of proactive integration could help in improving communication. Proactive personality and integration relates to communication because it involves exchange of information from one source to another. For information to reach the desired target, communication channels have to be utilized. Conveying information concerning programs could be done either through writing or speaking. Proactive integration involves interaction between the manager and the team.
Recommendations
Management need to employ people with common values and share the same vision of the organization. This could help in preventing un-productivity and reduce the amount of money used in training. Secondly the management needs to develop a culture which could encourage employees to focus on higher level achievement as they perform their work. This could be implemented through the belief that everyone has got something worth contributing to the organization and decision making should involve people at all levels within the organization.
Information concerning work place improvement needs to be clearly communicated to all employees. This makes them accountable towards making every employee comfortable. These expectations should be supported by actions, whereby managers are required to lead in every section on a regular basis, and alert people on the progress of the organization through daily meetings. The organization should assign duties in accordance to employees’ areas of interest and training (Khan, 2005). This ensures that the organization operates responsibly towards achieving its goals and objectives.
References
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Deci, L., & Ryan, M. (1985). Intrinsic Motivation and Self-determination in Human behavior. New York: Plenum.
Hollander, E., P. (1986). The Central Role of Leadership Processes. International Review of Applied Psychology, 35 (1), 39-52.
Khan. A. (2005). Matching people with organizational culture. Khan organizational culture. NY: Newport Beach.
Lahlry, S. (1991). A blueprint for perception training. Journal of Training and Development 45 (8), 21-25.
Schultz, D. and Schultz, S. (1994). Theories of personality. (5th Ed.). Pacific Grove. CA: Brooks/Cole.
White, R. W. (1959). Motivation reconsidered. Psychological Review, (66), 297-333.