Keith Johnson

Labour productivity in hotels: an empirical analysis

Abstract Among the current issues confronting hotels that of improving productivity is one of the more compelling and challenging. For while the need to secure greater productivity becomes increasingly evident to hotel managers the elusiveness of the concept persists. Not only have managers frequently been at a loss to understand it but also to know how to measure it satisfactorily. This paper introduces approaches to the measurement of hotel productivity and, within the context of one hotel companys quest to manage labour productivity, concentrates upon two particular factors which have made hotel productivity elusive -productivity measurement and productivity evaluation.

Personnel management in hotels - an update: A move to human resource management?

This paper reports research on the conduct of personnel/human resource management in large and foreign-owned UK Hotels. The findings are compared to a similar study undertaken by the authors ten years previously, in order to examine the extent of change which has taken place. The extent to which human resource management has been implemented is also assessed. Broadly speaking, the results found evidence of a broader and more sophisticated approach to personnel management being taken, but there was only partial evidence of human resource management being implemented

Personnel management in hotels — some empirical observations

Abstract This article details the results of two, recently-conducted surveys into the performance of personnel management within hotels. One survey used a postal questionnaire distributed to a stratified sample of hotels throughout the U.K. The aim of this research was to examine how the role of the personnel function was viewed by managers in the industry as a whole. In the second survey structured interviews were conducted with those managers responsible for personnel activities, within all hotels of 50 bedrooms or more, in one city centre locality. The aim here was to examine, in some detail, how the managers attempted to discharge their responsibilities. By combining these two contrasting approaches a comprehensive view of the conduct of personnel management within hotels can be achieved. For although these surveys were conducted independently and differ in their aims, structure, size and scope they have generated very similar observations of personnel work in this particular context. Furthermore, these empirical findings are in marked contrast to the view of hotel personnel work constructed by a recent literature survey. Theory and practice appear discordant.

Socialization control and market entry modes in the international hotel industry

Relates the type of expansion strategies used by international hotel groups to approaches to ensuring organizational cohesion within these organizational settings. Achieves this by exploring dimensions of control and co‐ordination of managerial resources. Uses a case‐study approach which concentrates on the human resource management function to highlight current experiences in six different hotel companies and identifies their engagement in high degrees of social control. This result may be easily understood where the company both owns and operates its properties; however, the evidence suggests that franchising, a mechanism which is often seen as allowing hotel unit investors or franchisees considerable latitude in running the operation, is also susceptible to social control through management transfer and development policies.

Humour in commercial hospitality settings

‘What is hospitality?’ has been a question which has been scrutinized and hotly debated by senior UK university academics within the hospitality research forum during the latter years of the second millennium (Lashley, 1999). Prior definitions of hospitality excluded direct reference to humour. At best connection between humour and hospitality could only be implied from indirect associations between such aspects as hospitality and friendliness and from the part that humour plays in enhancing mutual wellbeing for the parties involved through the provision of food and/or drink and/or accommodation. The ignorance of humour is somewhat surprising given that humour might in certain circumstances be regarded as an important constituent of hospitality itself and that humour abounds in the hospitality industry and other contexts where hospitality is provided.

Trade unions and total rewards

Abstract In an attempt to develop a comprehensive understanding of the remuneration of hotel employees, Mars and Mitchell have used the concept of a ‘total payment system’. This article gives details of research which has been conducted into certain elements of this remuneration package. In particular, the influence of trade unionism upon these elements is examined. Three distinct types of additional reward are constructed and the suggestion is made that trade unionism influences one particular type of reward. The implications of this suggestion for two categories of hotel workers are outlined.

Using GNVQ core skills in a degree programme

Examines the experience of final year students from the BA (Hons) hotel and catering business course who were conscripted for participation in a university‐wide, local TEC‐funded, pilot scheme. The aim of the pilot was to assess the feasibility of making a range of GNVQ core skills units available as “add‐ons” to degree programmes. These units could then be accredited via a formal certificate of achievement. Active participation was high, while ultimate success was quite modest. The location of the pilot, in the final year, highlighted the tension between activities directed towards the achievement of academic credit and those facilitating personal skills development. Also of significance was the strong positive correlation of degree classification and GNVQ success.

The reaction of degree students to GNVQ

Final‐year students, numbering 124, from the BA (Hons) hotel and catering business course participated in a GNVQ core skills scheme over two academic years (1993‐94, 1994‐95). Their reactions towards participation were captured and recorded, primarily by questionnaire. Initial hostility gave way to gradual acceptance. A combination of a growing awareness of the extrinsic value of a GNVQ unit and a greater level of tutor support account for this change. Previous experience of a GNVQ type of approach influences initial reaction but not ultimate success. A traditional A level background enables students to cope with a “vocational A level” approach, provided that the students are convinced of the value of doing so. As expected, as hostility declines, successful completion of GNVQ units increases. More favourable resourcing of the scheme, in its second year of operation, eliminates a previously observed correlation between degree classification and GNVQ success.

A future for wages councils in the hospitality industry in the U.K.

Abstract In 1974, in an effort to stimulate discussion on the role played by the Licensed Residential Establishment and Licensed Restaurant Wages Council, Mitchell and Ashton (1974) posed the following question; ‘Wages councils: do they matter?’ The article below attempts to provide a contemporary answer to this question and to widen the scope of the discussion to include the other wages councils which operate within the hospitality industry. The passage of a decade would appear to mark a suitable point at which to carry out such a review. Furthermore the timing is appropriate in that the imminent expiry of an International Labour Office convention has initiated a debate over the future status of the whole of the wages council system in Britain. Consequently it is interesting to consider how the hospitality industry stands in relation to this debate particularly in view of the recent attempts made by the Employment Minister to influence the latest award made by the L.R.W.C.