Overview and Selection of the Company

Human resources management plays an important role in the functioning of an organization. The HRM is related not only to the selection, recruitment, and training of employees but it is also responsible for the well-being of employees from the organizational perspective. The report will explore the practical and theoretical sides of the relationship between operational planning and development of the organization and the strategies of the human resource department to determine the deep information of the subject. The text is based upon the relevant research, study of cases and literature provided by the various authors. For the purpose of determining this relationship, Hilton Worldwide has been chosen, a well-known brand in the hospitality industry in the present scenario. The report will describe the strengths and weaknesses of the human resource department in context with the operations management (Carlopio & Andrewartha, 2008). The whole structure of the report includes an overview of the selected organization along with the basis of selection, strengths, and weaknesses of the HRM, recommendations and conclusion. The conclusion is provided at the end of the report to summarize the key findings and to provide an overview to the report to increase the effectiveness on the reader’s mind.

Hilton Hotels Corporation is a conspicuous international hospitality organization having 5200 hotels with more than 640,000 beds in 105 nations. The Hilton Group is owned by a private equity firm known as Blackstone Group. Hilton is providing employment to the thousands of employees in the present scenario (Trejos, 2018). Thus, it is clear that the performance if the organizations in largely depends upon the strengths and weaknesses of its human resources. The hotel was established in 1919 and providing its services form approx. past 99 years in the tourism and hospitality sector (Hilton, 2018). Hilton is primarily known for its selection of customer services on the basis of the priority of customers.

Everyone wants to work with such type of big and emerging organization. It would provide a great knowledge to study upon the strengths and weaknesses of the human resource department of such a reputed organization. This reason increases the appropriateness of the selection of this organization for the purpose of this study.

The strengths of the human resources are directly linked to the performance of the organization especially in the hospitality services where everything is all about the customer services, which is provided the human resources only. The main strengths of the human resources department that helps in increasing the performance of Hilton can be listed as below:

Strengths

Evaluation of Existing Employees

This is considered as one of the best strategy or strength of Hilton. It evaluates the performance of the employees on the monthly, quarterly, half-yearly and yearly basis. The employees are provided with certain parameters to work within. At the end of the term, their performances are evaluated. This helps the management of the weaker sections of the employees (Marsick, 2007). Along with this, the hard-working employees capable of promotions are also identified and they are promoted at the end of the year. Evaluation of employees is done the basis of the percentage of responsibilities bear by them successfully, ratings are given by the customers, ratings given by the managers, and their internal behavior with the management and other colleagues. These approaches are found suitable for the performance evaluation as these include opinion from internal as well as from the external sources, which decreases the chances of biases. This strength helps in improving the motivation among employees to perform better to provide the best customer experiences and increase their ratings, which increases the satisfaction level of the customers ( Whetten & Cameron, 2011)

The opportunities are provided to the employees on the basis of their performance and not on the basis of religions, caste, races, sex, and cultures. It helps in creating a diversified environment within the companies. It also increases the fair work environment, which motivates the employees to perform better. As per the Maslow’s theory of needs, the employees feel motivates when they are provided equal opportunities and recognition at the workplace. The difference is also not made between male and female employees. Same employment benefits and opportunities for growth are provided to the female employees also. It increases the value of the organization in terms of providing fair employment opportunities (Bolman & Deal, 2013)

Managing conflicts in an efficient manner is a challenging task for most of the businesses. But, in the case of Hilton Worldwide, it can be considered as one of the main strengths of the organization. There is a separate team for handling different type of conflicts in the organization (Bolman & Deal, 2014). For example, if the conflict is regarding any operational and managerial function then the management department is managing the same. Similarly, if the conflict is regarding the breach of any type of legal and ethical framework of the organization, then the legal and human resource department is handling it. Along with this, all the employees are provided a chance to present their views so that the right decision can be taken. It increases the faith and trust of employees in the management, which decreases the employee attrition rate ( Dejanaaz, et. al., 2007 ).

Weakness

Budgets and Benefits Packages

The maintenance of budgets packages of the employees is another major strength of Hilton. The salaries are provided in time to the employees of all department. Along with this, all employees are provided with the benefits of medical insurance, which covers all the expenditure in case of any type of health problems. These benefits attract the employees to work in the organization (Robbins & Judge, 2011). It also creates a sense among the employees to be valued by their organizations. Thus, this tool act as a strength for the organization and its human resources. The organization also bear all the expenses of the dependent family members of the employees from the higher level to the lower level employees. This also helps in increasing the satisfaction level of the employees which motivates them to perform better in their workplace (Monday, 2017).

It is important to induct new employees for the proper management and functioning of the organization. The new employees bring new objectivity, ideas and new perspectives with themselves. Hilton loses these opportunities as it focuses on the development and training of the existing workforce instead of recruiting new employees. This limits the expertise of the organization in most of the scenarios (Olander, et al., 2015).

The human resource department of Hilton has garnered a reputation of being a bit slow in the process of adoption of new techniques and developing trends in the market. The HR department is strategic more in the internal management of the company instead of managing the external resources of the organization. For example, the HR managers often discuss how to hire the top performers or better talent, but they do not discuss that how these strategies can be related to the performance of the organization. HR department is often criticized for a universal lack of business judgment (Quinn, et al., 2008). This is one of the major weaknesses of the organization. The managers without the collaborations of the operations teams perform the HR functions separately. It decreases the chances of customer satisfaction especially in the hospitality industry.

Another major weakness of the organization is the disconnection between internal and external outcomes. For example, the KPI’s of the HR department related to the hiring and managing the workforce like the timing of hiring, productivity, and retention. Such KPI’s deployed focus on how these techniques can be positively influenced with better internal practices and technology to achieve the organizational goals. These KPI’s results in increasing the employee standards on the reports but leave a little bit of dissatisfaction from external audiences including customers and stakeholders. Though the HR managers of the company are focusing the productivity of employees, they are not considering the needs of customer or client who are affected by the productivity of internal adjustments. (Venkatraman, 2018)

Although Hilton spends a large amount and time on the training and development of its employees, yet there is a lack of employee retentions schemes for the employee who are not satisfied with their work and are willing to leave the organization. It increases the attrition rate of the organization. Also, there is a loss of organization in terms of moving out the experiences and trained staff of the hotel which can also be hired by any other competitors to take the advantage of the loopholes of Hilton (Pereira & Gomes, 2012).

To overcome the above weaknesses, the management of the Hilton can follow the below mentions recommendations, which can help up to some extent:

• The opportunities should be provided to the new talent also. For this purpose, the HR department should increase the number of openings as per the need of the organizations. It would increase the number of diversified employees and a number of a new innovative idea, which can help the organization provide better customer services(Thomas & Karodia, 2014).
• The HR department should frame its policies as per the strategic goals of the whole organization. By doing this, the goals of the organization would also get completed at the completion of the individual goals of the HR department. For example: if the HR department is going to hire new employees then it should discuss the number of new emerging operations by the operations department. Thus, it would be easy for the HR team to select the employees on the basis of the proposed business functions and operations(Woon & Kahl, 2015).
• The HR department should not focus only on the development of the existing and new employees. They should also focus that either their development is being helpful in providing customer experience or not. Because the employees are working for the organization and it is their prime duty to use all their skills and expertise in performing their duties. If the employees are not doing so, then their whole development is of no worth for the organization and it consumes the time and financial resources of the organization, which is not profitable(Yang & Cherry, 2008).
• The HR department is required to introduce some attractive and effective retention schemes for the potential employees so that their experience can be used in the organization for a long-term and attrition rate can be decreased. Also, this will not allow the competitors to use the expertise of the organization for providing any type of tough competition(Gilani, et al., 2012).

Conclusion

On the basis of the above study, it can be concluded that for getting success in the long run, an organization should primarily focus on the practices of its human resource department. The Hilton Worldwide is a well-known and reputed organization in the hospitality industry. Although the management is performing well its specialized industry because of the above-mentioned strengths of the human resource department, yet there are some differences in the performance of the organization and human resource management. These differences can be analyzed on the basis of the above-mentioned weaknesses of the human resource management of Hilton. The study is highly based on the secondary data derived from the literature proved by a number of the author in the context of human resource management of the retail sector. This increases the effectiveness of data and develops the expected understanding as per the ability of the reader. All the strengths and weaknesses have a relevant meaning in increasing and decreasing the financial, ethical and social performance of the organization and thus are included in this report. On the basis of the entire analysis, some recommendations have been provided that can be used by the management of Hilton to manage the weaknesses and to enhance the productivity and performance of its human factors which would directly impact upon the overall performance of the organization.

References

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