Free «The Role of HR Management in Accor Hotels» Essay Sample

Introduction

With a corporate illustration throughout the globe, Accor Hotels (Accor) has turned out to be one of the biggest players in the industry. Accor is a global hotel group, owning, managing and franchising about four thousand hotels in more than one hundred and forty countries. Its branch offices and headquarters employ a huge number of employees worldwide. Accor runs a portfolio of economy so as to upscale the hotels that are luxury class in both leisure and business. The Hotel is as well at modern pace. This is perfectly illustrated by its advanced use of information technology to get clients and is still investing substantial resources in getting a leading position in the present online position (Singh 2006).

The cost of competition and operation has made it crucial to for the operators of the hotels to identify and register customer demand and market development. The small lead-time that exists between production, sale as well as consumption also shows the issue of dynamic pricing. Accor Hotels has created optimal pricing at every location of their various customers which is a principle operational element in their management (Bhatt 2006). Therefore, even though Accor Hotels are operated by the small hotels, every individual hotel normally operates in respect to the common revenue management practice and system.

The Role of HR Management in Accor Hotels

The role of the Human Resource Management normally parallels the needs of the developing and the changing Accor Hotels. The Accor Hotels are becoming resilient, more adaptable, customer-centered and quick to change direction. These hotels perfectly understand that their competitors will vie for various talents in future. This recognition has initiated the need for the employee oriented programs and work places that often meet the needs of the Accor employees for meaningful communication, growth, work, challenge and effective leadership.

The organizational structure of the Accor Hotels involves the coordination of organizational activities to achieve their goals and objectives. The Human Resources then coordinates the staff and physical resources to make sure that accomplish organizational targets. For this reason, the HR managers of the Accor Hotels divide the tasks into groups, specifying the appropriate department for each and every task and determine the optimum number of tasks in each department. Nevertheless, the HR managers of the Accor Hotels face some challenges at different intervals, especially in formulation of adaptive organizational structure in the modern world, which is committed to total quality (Hayes 2004). The scaffold of departments, sectors and tasks that make up the Accor Hotels ought to be directed towards achieving its goals. The organizational structure of these hotels is also aligned with the formulated strategic plan.  

The executives, HR managers and supervisors organize the structure of the Accor Hotels through job specialization, establishment of authority patterns, organization and span of control. This elaborates the hotel’s organizational design that entails the location, marketing channels, customer base, ideals, product, functions, service and departmentalization. This helps determine which structure best suits the selected needs in the Accor Hotels (Bhatt 2006).

The main challenge the Human Resource Management of the Accor Hotels faces is the diversity of employees in the hospitality sector’s departments. Organizing is therefore an important issue in all departments that include the administration, finance, marketing, human resources, logistics, transport, production and general operations. The key responsibility of all managers in the Accor Hotels is to make sure they meet and exceed the customers’ expectations (Hayes 2004). 

Accor Hotels allows various people to enjoy a concept of innovation accommodation for short, medium and long stays. It has admirable and perfectly designed apartments that have fully equipped kitchens, sitting rooms that have modern flat television screens that show international channels, bathrooms with bathtubs, direct line telephone, air-conditioning, individual deposit box for safety, broadband internet access and depressive rates that are determined by the length of stay of the client (Rutherford 2002).

The Accor Hotels HR managers are always fully dedicated in customizing their hotel services. In this case, they have employed a reception that operates during the day and the one that operates during the night. This makes it easy for the client to enjoy full time service regardless of the time that they arrive in the hotel. Moreover, for a peace of mind and greater comfort, Accor Hotels provides a huge selection of services that are optional (Rutherford 2002). This is wholly offered in various hotels. The services include launderette, car park, daily cleaning, breakfast, dry cleaning and others. It also offers take away services. Accor takes enough time in advertising its hotels to make sure that the information about the cities of their locations is known. A genuine welcome as well as service with a smile that is strengthened by the presence of the Accor teams throughout the day and night ensures complete safety that helps a client in solving any kind of problems. The Accor Hotels concepts normally meet real customer needs for their stay in the cities. It offers home comfort and the chance to retain its own habits in a particular city that a client doesn’t know. At the same time, the Accor Hotels teams ensure a total safety and peace of mind to their client. In the Accor hotel, one experiences the city in rhythm.  

For a good number of years, Accor Hotels has been employing partnership as a form of team working. Since the year 1998, the Accor Hotels HR managers has been coming up with partnership activities with big firms. This alliance has manifested strategic determination for adopting an overall approach known as group-to-group which is advantageous for both customers and partners. Naturally, this type of team work is concerned with institutional segments that normally offer a probability for synergies or aim at the same customer base well known for its mobility: leisure activities, travel-related services, information and transport (Rutherford 2002). 

The aim of team work is to increase the market share of the Accor Hotels in a profitable way, share the available resources so as to cut the time and cost, increase the recognition and visibility of their brands, and at last, create value for the clients, for instance, by creating new services and providing fast and easy access to various services and products. Since this team work is global, the Accor Hotels’ brands create targeted alliances in order to refine their marketing positions. Most customers’ anticipations differ in respect to the brand that is the reason as to why a good number of them create their personal partners network. Being strategic partners for the past few years, the Accor Hotels and Europcar have come together to offer their respective clients their travel arrangements. The Accor Hotels clients normally benefit from car rental discounts and A/Club members benefit additionally from exclusive advantages. The Europcar is as well implemented in most of the Accor Hotels to offer more services to their customers. In parallel, the Europcar clients normally take advantage of the discount of the hotel when travelling (Rutherford 2002). 

Accor Hotels HR managers initiate strategies that allows them to works with various customers; local and international tourists, politicians, entrepreneurs, performers. Most of their clients are corporate organizations, in other words, multinational enterprises that send their employees to Sydney for firm affairs such as conferences, meetings, convections or trade issues. The complex of the hotelier gives them a huge competitive advantage as a result of its strategic location in the heart of the Central Business District in Sydney (Mathews 2008).

The Human Resource Management that is in charge of retaining, selling and augmenting clients categorizes three differences in the customers. This includes Domestic Wholesalers or Domestic Travel Agencies, Professional Conference Organizers and Inbound organizations rather foreign travel agencies that place business for the three properties (Kainthola 2009).

The Domestic Wholesalers and Travel Agencies are well established agencies that normally operate in Australia and locate a significant amount of clients in the three properties of the hotel during the year. Most of the customers are local tourists. Nevertheless, they locate some tourist groups from Canada and United States that normally visit Australia for summer or winter vacations. Examples of this kind of clients are the Flight Center as well as the Qantas Holidays (Hotel management 2008).

International Wholesalers and Inbound Companies are the leading wholesalers of hotels as well as services in the globe. They allocate customers from large corporate companies that include Creative Technology, Toyota, Hyundai Group, Mitsubishi, Fairfax, TYCO and BlueScope Steel to mention but a few. This is normally done when these big companies hold international conferences as well as other events in the city. It is also vital to highlight that these customers are some of the big companies with which Accor Hotels possesses a given agreement; therefore, the hotel provides them the allotments (Hayes 2004).

The Accor Hotels also has a different type of customers well known as the Professional Conference Organizers. These are the agencies that are specialized in organizing all types of meetings for national and international companies, even the government authorities. Some of these Professional Conference Organizers include the Info Travel & Accom, Tour Hosts as well as the Lido Group (Bhatt 2006).

When the Human Resource Management of the Accor Hotels is performing their businesses with an affiliate who has come from another country, they highly consider the differences in culture that may be presented. This normally includes the basic custom, gestures and mannerism. For instance, when the Accor salesperson approaches a particular meeting when having the knowledge of the client’s cultural background, then salesperson words, actions and body language are adapted to suit those of the client in perfect way. This makes the Accor Hotels ones of the favorite hotels in the world, ultimately raising the opportunity of the salesperson to close the deal (Bardi 2003). 

The Accor Hotels Human Resource Management has studied the speaking culture of different customers from various countries. They have realized that in some countries like Germany and the United States, it is very common for individuals to speak loudly and be more aggressive and assertive when giving directions or when sharing ideas. In other countries like Japan, individuals have the tendency of speaking softly and are quite passive when making suggestions or sharing ideas. Therefore, when the salespersons from Accor are interacting with people from various cultural backgrounds, they speak in neutral tone while making conscious efforts so that they may be considerate of other people’s input (Tjepkema 2002).

The HR managers of the Accor Hotels are always keen while dealing with the customers. They inquire from the customer if there are any cultural traditions that are supposed to know or abide by before they serve them. They offer enough time to the customers so that they can communicate and express the rules of their homes. They often communicate all their needs to the clients, especially if they suspect that the customer’s needs might clash with the values of the cultures. The staff also holds some meetings that regularly take multicultural workshop or classes. These classes normally teach the service providers how they should communicate effectively with their customers to accomplish their targets without offending anyone. They also learn how to be polite at all times. They are urged that they should often use ‘thank you’ and ‘please, and never be afraid to ask for any clarification. For this reason, the service providers of the Accor Hotels are always clear about their intentions. They do not use jargon but speak as if they are talking to a pal who does not know anything about what is going on in the hotels. As a result of embracing every culture of their clients, the Accor Hotels has won the heart of many customers all over the globe (Thomas 2008).

The Accor Hotels housekeeping department normally deals with cleanliness as well as the ancillary service that is attached to that. This department normally plays a vital role in reputation of the hotels. It is the one that is responsible for the good order and cleanliness of the hotel. Accommodation is actually the biggest part of the hotel. For the Accor Hotels, it is taken as the largest revenue generating department (Pohl 2010).

For effective housekeeping and maintenance, the Accor Hotels offers laundry, shoe polishing facilities as well as dry cleaning facilities for the customers’ clothes. This makes the environment of the hotel become very comfortable as the guest receives specialized service. Accor Hotels also tries to make the atmosphere as pleasant as possible by use of attractive furnishing, nice color scheme as well as a skilled staff. Accor provides fine service and accommodation to the guests so that they may get pleased with the hotel. The satisfaction of the guest is its principle object (Segreto 2009). The hygiene factor is also a vital presentation in the hotel. 

The Accor Hotels applies three levels of housekeeping and maintenance. These include the routine maintenance, preventive maintenance and schedule maintenance. The routine maintenance involves the maintenance activities that are performed in relation to the general hotel upkeep. They normally occur frequently on daily and weekly basis. The ones that need minimal training skills are the most recommendable since they save a lot of time that is used for other development. The maintenance activities never call for the creation of a formal order and there are no records that are maintained for them. A good number of the routine maintenance activities are normally performed by housekeeping. Good care of materials and surfaces by the housekeeping personnel is the initial step in the total maintenance plan for the property. This includes cleaning of floors and windows as well as the replacement of the fused bulbs (Markelj 2008).

The preventive maintenance involves a system approach towards maintenance in which most situations are corrected after being identified on regular basis in order to control cost and prevent occurrence of the large problems. Preventive maintenance is also responsible for inspections, initiation of work orders and minor corrections. During inspection of the Accor Hotels, the housekeeping personnel normally carry out thorough inspection of every area in the hotels. Room supervisors and attendants regularly check for the faucets that might be leaking, chipped caulking in the bathroom fixtures, AC malfunctions, fused bulbs and so on (Luc 1999).

When the initiation of the work order is being performed, the preventive maintenance often identifies a problem that appears to be beyond the limit extent of minor corrections. Necessary piece of work is then directed to the maintenance department throughout a system of former work order. The chief maintenance officers of the Accor Hotels then schedule the maintenance work to be performed. The problem of huge magnitude is often avoided especially if the minor repairs are promptly attended. If the communication that exists between the maintenance and housekeeping is efficient, minimal repairs are going to be rectified by the department in charge of maintenance even as the attendants of the room are cleaning the guestroom (Douglas 2001).

Schedule maintenance is also a form of maintenance that is perfectly applied by the Accor Hotels. It involves maintenance work that is initiated by the order of the work. Work order in the Accor Hotels is observed as the principle element in the coordination and communication between maintenance and housekeeping. When personnel from housekeeping detects a problem that needs some attention from maintenance; he/she has to contact the housekeeping control desk, keenly stating the nature of the problem, the type of the assistance needed, as well as the location where it is needed. The control desk then fills out an order of work form in triplicate, while every copy is made by a different color (Connor 1999). A copy is then sent to desk of the executive housekeeper as the other two copies are sent to the maintenance desk. The chief keeps one of the copies and then gives the other one to the tradesperson who is assigned to perform the repair. When the work has been performed, a copy of completed work order by the tradesperson is taken to the executive housekeeper at the most appropriate time, housekeeping gives out another work order that signals maintenance to give a status report on the ordered repair.

In conclusion, Accor is an intricate company that offers hotels services as well as supplementary services and products. The Human Resource Management of the Accor finds it vital to incorporate the medium and small-sized hotels in order to manage various customers’ requests and needs as they happen to be the direct link to the clients. The medium and small-sized hotels could also play a good role in improving the financial state of the whole organization by delivering their services at the right time, right place and to the right client.