Principles of Management for the Hospitality Industry

Dana V Tesone, Dana Tesone

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781856177993
• eBook ISBN: 9781136436437
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

It is vital for hospitality management students to understand key management concepts as part of the complex and intimate nature of the services industry. Principles of Management for the Hospitality Industry is designed specifically for hospitality students who need to be able to use management tools and techniques to become successful hospitality managers.

By placing you at the heart of an imaginary workplace this book offers the opportunity to work through all of the items of discussion for each topic. The chapter begins with a scenario to prompt an exploration of a given topic, and concludes with the outcome of this scenario to reinforce the lessons learnt throughout the chapter.

Highly practical in approach, this is an up-to-date and skilful integration of all core areas of management. It is packed with tools and techniques to aid learning and understanding:

• improve your professional management vocabulary with definitions in each chapter, and a complete glossary of terms
• visualize key concepts with over one hundred explanatory diagrams
• gain confidence by testing your understanding on the accompanying website
• practical applications of theory are illustrated in international case studies throughout the book
• discussion questions prompt an exploration of key concepts.

PART 1

Management Knowledge

Chapter 1

Managing Service Enterprises

Objectives

In this chapter you will learn to:

1. Describe service, service enterprises and servant leadership.
2. Identify management hierarchy levels and management functions.
3. Describe an overview of management and supervisory practices.

Real World Experiences

It has been a long time since you and your friends started attending classes at the College of Hospitality Management. Finally, you are all taking courses in the final semester of your senior year. While talking with some friends, the topic of postgraduation plans comes up.

Many of your friends are sharing concerns about leaving school to enter the real world. While the prospect seems scary, it also appears to be an exciting time for all of you. The conversation turns toward different opinions concerning the ‘ideal job’ after graduation.

All of you have completed your required industry internships as part of your program. Monica mentions that she is being considered for a full-time position with a meeting planning company. George reports that the restaurant he has been working at for the past three years is willing to put him through the chain’s management in training (MIT) program. Tara is nervous about an upcoming interview for a few cherished MIT openings with a large hotel chain.

Eventually, the conversation focuses on the mixed reactions from a recent career fair held at the school. Some of your friends express disappointment that most of the companies were seeking applicants for line jobs, such as front desk agents and restaurant servers. Your best friend, Alexis, tells everyone that she thought that was true as well, but mentions that she ran into a contact she had met during a guest lecture series who invited her to apply for a supervisory position at the local convention center.

After awhile, you start to notice that those classmates with work experience and networks of contacts seem to be getting better job offers than your friends with no work experience. You think to yourself, ‘Boy, I am lucky to have two job offers to become an assistant manager in my sector.’ You continue to think, ‘I guess that job experience and networking is really paying off.’

INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides us with an overview of management and leadership in hospitality enterprises. We will discuss the nature of services provided to customers, guests and clients, and how we may learn the skills required to effectively manage these services. Why do we need to know about management? The answer to this question comes from the career opportunities that exist for college graduates and entry-level employees. Where are the higher paying jobs? In our business, all of these jobs have title of ‘manager’ attached to the position description.

Some individuals may intend to pursue careers in service operations such as restaurant, lodging, recreation, entertainment, events and other sectors. In this case, the objective would be to become an operations manager. Others may prefer to work in human resources, marketing, sales, accounting, finance or information technology specializations. The best jobs in these areas include titles of manager, director or vice president. So we can see that careers in hospitality, tourism or other service industries will inevitably involve being promoted into management positions.

Many service enterprises do not provide thorough training for management knowledge, skills and abilities. Their expectation is for individuals to enter the workforce with this level of training from universities, colleges, schools and vocational institutions. In most cases, an individual will be promoted from a service or production position into management. But without proper training that person will be unlikely to become a successful manager. The reason this is so is that service jobs and management are two different practices. Service jobs require technical skills to perform job functions. When we become managers, however, we are responsible for other people who perform these functions. This is a totally different skills set and one that every service enterprise worker needs to learn in order to enjoy a successful career. Even if you do not want to manage large groups of people, the success of your career will rely on your ability to manage yourself and administrative assistants.

This chapter begins our journey of attaining knowledge, skills and abilities in service management. It provides an overview of services and the management of those services that will become the template for exploration in every aspect of becoming a manager and a leader in service enterprises.

WHAT IS SERVICE?

If someone were to ask the question ‘what is service’? The manager’s initial answer would be to say, ‘it depends…’ In this case, it would depend on the nature of the industry providing the service. Most businesses focus on the distribution of products to customers. So in manufacturing, wholesale, and retail sales, customer service is ensuring product delivery to the customer and handling any problems that may arise with the performance of the product. This is not the case in the service sector of business. In this sector, the physical product is really a by-product of the services being rendered. For instance, in a quick service restaurant (QSR), the product is the meal provided. The service consists of those interactions and transactions that occur between the customer and members of the staff from the time of entry to the restaurant through the time of departure from the restaurant. Hence, service consists of interactions and transactions that result in relationships among customers and staff members, which is called customer relationships. Hospitality service enterprises are organizations that regularly engage in customer relationships.

Customer relationships may be measured by two factors. The first is the intimacy or the intensity of the interactions. For instance, a QSR or retail worker merely takes the order and packages the product, so the intimacy with the customer is limited. However, a physician or a luxury hotel operator must know every detail about the client to provide the expected levels of service; thus a high level of intimacy exists with the customer during these interactions.

The second factor used to measure the level of customer service is duration of time spent with the customer. The customer spends a few minutes with the QSR or retail worker, while she or he spends 30 minutes or so with a physician or a tax accountant, spends hours in an airplane or full-service restaurant and perhaps days in a luxury hotel. Figure 1.1 demonstrates examples of customer interactions in terms of intimacy and duration.

Figure 1.1 Customer service relationship model

THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

While all service enterprises focus on service as the main product, the epitome of a service operation falls within the domain of the hospitality industry. The hospitality industry includes services in the areas of lodging, food service, travel, tourism, recreation, entertainment, personal health and fitness, attractions, social events, meetings and conventions. The complexity of these services is quite high in both intimacy and duration levels relative to the interaction with the customer (who is referred to as a ‘guest’) in this industry. While the information in this book prepares all service industry personnel to practice effective management and leadership, the examples presented in it are taken from the hospitality industry. This is because a person with the ability to manage in this industry is capable of effective management in any industry of choice.

COMMITMENT TO SERVICE

Workers in any industry are famous for slogans and campaigns claiming quality service. The focus is usually on customer service. Very little emphasis seems to be placed on services provided to members of other stakeholder groups (shareholders, employees, the community). Interestingly, some hospitality/tourism organizations that claim high levels of customer service provide the exact opposite to their employees. Managers in some firms say they focus on the worker as an internal customer.¹ Closer inspection of these companies often reveals unrealistically limited resources, antiquated systems and stagnating bureaucracy. In fact, one of the incentives for promotion in some organizations is the opportunity to escape the customer by dwelling in offices and managing reports. Reports and forms, while necessary to some degree, serve as diversions from the ‘business of the business’, which is to provide service to internal and external customers.²

In some cases, reports and forms are used to feed an already bloated corporate bureaucracy that is upheld by senior-level managers. As the bureaucracy grows, the business becomes inverted, focusing inward toward the senior management group and away from the customers and other stakeholders. Because these organizations are out of touch with the stakeholder groups, they are reactive to changes in the external environment (factors outside the organization). This is contrary to the proactive approach of healthier competitors. Fortunately, this scenario is becoming more and more the exception to the rule; …or is it? You decide the answer based on your own customer service and work-related experiences.

SERVICE VERSUS SERVITUDE

One term used to describe the services provided by leaders is called ‘stewardship’.³ Stewardship describes the intrinsic duty of leaders to provide services to their followers every day without being asked for assistance. They do this because they are truly concerned with the welfare of those individuals with whom they interact. In the hospitality/tourism industry, we are trained to anticipate the needs of our guests (customers) and proactively act to satisfy those needs.⁴ We don’t do this because we ‘have to’ do it; we do it because we personally and professionally enjoy the challenge of creating memorable experiences for our guests. That is why we hire new people for ‘attitude’ in our industry. We seek those individuals who genuinely like other people enough to engage in providing them with intimate levels of service for long durations of time. These individuals possess the security within their being to recognize the difference between making a professional choice to serve others, as opposed to an insecure attitude of being in a position of servitude, in which they feel they ‘have to’ serve others. The difference is a mental paradigm of personal security versus personal insecurity. The insecure individuals will move toward bureaucratic industries and positions that are mostly self-serving, as they pursue their careers.

Think for a moment about the great leaders in history throughout the world. Without exception, they all practiced ‘servant leadership,’⁵ regardless of their specific calling. Now think about those not-so-great names in history. Were they individuals who provided services primarily for the benefit of others or just themselves? Those who choose to provide service to others have chosen the highest path to self-fulfillment. They join the ranks of the likes of Buddha, Tao, Christ, Gandhi, Mohammad, Abraham, Socrates and others. Consider the status of current day professions; the physician provides service by touching sick people in peculiar places; the teacher is a servant of knowledge; the architect creates aesthetic structures for peoples’ enjoyment, while ensuring their safety and so on. A path of service is a choice we make, while one of servitude is forced upon us.

WHAT IS MANAGEMENT?

Simply defined, management is the accomplishment of an organization’s objectives through the activities of others. This leads us to ask the question, ‘What is an organization?’ An organization is a collection of individuals brought together to achieve a common set of goals or objectives, which for our purposes mean the same thing. An organization is made up of people, who provide goods and services to customers. These people perform their job functions in physical locations such as offices, lodging facilities, restaurants and storefronts.

When groups of people work together in an organization, there are certain expectations for behav...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Part 1 Management Knowledge
• Part 2 Management Functions
• Part 3 Strategic Applications
• Part 4 Leadership Applications
• Part 5 Sustainability
• Glossary of Terms
• Index