Foundations of Management
Font : Verdana Points: 10 paragraph line spacing: 1.5 Page numbers: included Question: Evaluate whether rational work design provides the ‘one best way’ to manage and control work in contemporary organisations. Using the case study below for information, apply rational work design to the reception area at Junction Hotel, explaining how it could be applied in practice, and evaluating its potential impact on the hotel and on the workers. Case study: Walking into the vast reception at Junction Hotel feels like entering a world of luxury and glamour. The ornate glistening chandeliers, the plush red carpet and the mahogany panelledreception desk all add to the calming, luxury experience offered by the hotel.The staff also add to this experience. The reception staff, led by head receptionist Jane Foster, are immaculately dressed and presented, and greet guests with the utmost politeness. They know instinctively if the guests would like to chat for a while, or whether to check them in with the minimum of fuss. Even if guests are rude or abusive, nothing seems to ruffle them.Behind the smiles and small-talk, the check-in process itself is fairly repetitive. [unique_solution]If there is no one at reception, the guest rings a bell and a receptionist will appear from the back office behind reception and meet the guests wherever they are standing at the long desk. They take some identification from the guest and then return to the back office to pick up the file for the guest. The guests are asked to fill out their basic details and some credit card information. The receptionist then returns to the back office. On the wall is a row of pigeon holes for each room – the receptionist places the file in the pigeon hole, then takes the key from the pigeon hole and hands it to the guest. When reception is not busy, the receptionistsreturn to the back office to prepare the files and keys in advance for other guestsThe porters, led by head porter Steve Long, are stationed on the opposite side of reception to the reception desk. If guests need help with baggage, a receptionist calls them over. The porter collects the bags, then takes them across reception again to the list. Just like the receptionists, the porters are dressed immaculately, and will engage their guests in pleasant conversation. To the side of the reception is the desk of David Chang, the concierge. Equally well presented and able to chat pleasantly with guests, Chang’s job is to deal with any requests made by the hotel guests. Chang needs to be flexible and use his knowledge and network oflocal contacts to respond to these requests. He could be booking a taxi one moment, ordering flowers to be delivered to a room the next, or dealing with something much more out of the ordinary – on one occasion a guest needed him to source a particular component for his vintage car that was parked in the hotel car park, for example. The system generally works well, and the receptionists, porters and concierge all feel that they work well together as a team. However, the system often breaks down when the reception becomes busy.On one holiday weekend, there were 50 guests waiting reception to check-in. All three receptionists were at the desk, dealing with the guests. Guests were lined along the desk, like customers at a bar, and the receptionists moved from one guest to another, with no idea who was next in line. The receptionists were unable to speed up the process, and became increasingly fraught as they kept moving to and from the back room to get files and keys. They started to leave files and keys on the front desk as they tried to move as quickly as possible between customers, only to find later that some of these had gone missing. With all three receptionists out front, there was nobody in the back office to prepare files and keys, and as the time wore on guests were arriving with no paperwork and keys ready for them. This meant that processing each guest took even longer as new paperwork had to be generated from scratch, and so the queue built up even more.The porters found that they were having to fight their way through the scrum of guests to reach the baggage and then fight through it again to get to the lifts. Often it was hit and miss as to whether or not there would be a porter free, and so a group of guests and suitcases began to form in the middle of reception, causing even more congestion. Arguments began to break out between guests, and between guests and staff. Staff no longer had time to make pleasant conversation with the guests, and instead were starting to snap back at guests who, understandably, were complaining about the slow check-in process. Meanwhile, David Chang stood at his concierge desk. He didn’t know the reception procedures, so was unable to help out, and the crowd was putting off other guests from approaching him. With nothing to do, he simply stood and observed the chaos.At the other side of reception, Simon Chance was also observing the chaos. Surely there must be a better way to design the work process in reception to avoid all of this? Links and resources: KING, D. and LAWLEY, S (2019), Organizational Behaviour (Third edition), Oxford University Press, Oxford See Chapters 2-6, 10 and 15 (in previous editions see chapters 2-6 and 16) MORGAN, G (2006) Images of Organization London: Sage See chapter 2 – ‘Mechanization Takes Command.’ RITZER, G (2015) The McDonaldisation of Society (8th edition) London: Sage. See especially ch. 2 – The past, present and future of McDonaldization FREY, C and OSBORNE, M (2017) ‘The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?’ Technological Forecasting and Social Change 114, pp 254-280 MACEACHERAN, M (2017), Henn-na Hotel: What it’s like to stay in a Japanese hotel staffedby robots, The Independent. 18 December 2017. Available at https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/asia/japan-robot-hotel-booking-location-hennna-sasebo-tokyo-what-is-it-like-a8103766.html BOND, S (2018) Amazon teams with Marriott to put Alexa in hotels Financial Times 19 June 2018. Available at https://www.ft.com/content/84e8f960-736c-11e8-aa31-31da4279a601No