Introduction
The Four Seasons Hotel management and staff have one golden rule, which is ‘do unto others, as you would have them do unto you’. This means that everyone is treated with dignity, respect and compassion; be it a client or an employee. In order to cultivate such a philosophy and culture in an organization, it is cardinal to have the right people to implement it. To achieve this objective, the Four Seasons Hotels human resource department has a comprehensive program for recruiting, selecting and hiring new employees. Opportunities are provided openly and fairly to all qualified candidates interested in working for the company. These candidates must be dedicated and resourceful. They have to be talented and trained to meet the job obligations efficiently. More significantly, the company seeks to recruit and hire individuals who can think independently and naturally rather than those who follow instructions robotically irrespective of the circumstances. It is on this background that this paper seeks to discuss and analyze the company’s employee development program and whether it is relevant at all. Additionally, the paper will also canvas the costs related to voluntary turn-over and new employees’ recruitment. The paper will discuss these topics in detail giving justifications for each.
Employee development program
There are eight components of the employee development program. These include recruitment, selection, orientation, training, performance management, rewards and recognition, development, succession and promotions/transfers. To begin with recruitment, this entails having a number of sessions where the human resource managers brain storm ideas together with the candidates. During these sessions the company executives are more concerned with the attitude of the potential employee rather than their experience. The company`s philosophy is that attitude comes before intelligence. Indeed, you can teach any person to become a waiter or administrator but you cannot fundamentally alter a poor attitude to conform to the core values and principles of the company. To this effect, the company`s executives look for individuals who are internally motivated and have a natural desire to serve and help people rather than just get employed to earn a living. This is because it is the desire of the management that all employees have a high level of job satisfaction. Additionally, during the recruitment exercises candidates are taken through extensive interviews. This is a significant strategy as it will enable the company identify the talents how much the candidates are talented. It will also reveal their abilities, capacity, skills and leadership qualities.
The selection process follows after the recruitment. In this stage, candidates are selected by the human resource executives depending on how their can align with the company strategy. To this effect, the attitude of the candidate comes first. In fact, the management is one record stating that they are looking for a person who is proud to be a doorman. Therefore, they want someone who is comfortable in their skin. This is critical because in the hotel business, a company’s reputation is the most significant aspect. As such, clients should be treated by social comfortable employees. After the candidates with the right attitude have been selected, there CV’s are then interrogated to determine whether they meet the required essential competencies. Such a process is not only desirable, but also essential. It is crucial that a company hires employees depending on the assignments or the job that needs to be done. Therefore, the checklist should be informed by obligations that the qualified candidate would be required to meet. In order to make an objective analysis of the candidates, they are taken through a 4 stage interview process. They are grilled on their competencies. This is also synchronized with the attitude of the candidate. The ideal candidates are selected after the behavioral interviewing. It is vital that other organizations adopt such a methodology in order to hire the right people for available jobs to increase their productivity.
The next phase is orientation. The new employees are introduced into the system. They are inducted into the group dynamics of the company. This may in the marketing, administration or the human resource departments. They are taught how to be leaders in their respective fields and how to balance between individual differences but at the same time appreciating diversity. Indeed, this progressive approach is not only applicable to Four Seasons Hotels, but also in many organizations that lay emphasis on teamwork, attitude and quality service delivery. Moreover, such an approach is consistent with the global multi-lingual approach. Training goes hand in hand with orientation. New employees are trained on the new culture and given designated trainers to help them settle.
The next significant stage is performance management. In this regard, employees are aligned in departments that they can serve in extremely efficiently. This is a significant procedure because it ensures that employees work in departments or assignments that they are perfect in doing them rather than duties that they are just mediocre. The assessment of an employee once hired should never stop. It is essential that this evaluation continues until the state of excellence is attained. When this is possible, the company has put up measure the reward and recognizes high performers. This aims at boosting the morale of employees and ensuring that their well-being is taken care of. They get motivated and attain job satisfaction through such arrangements. Such rewards are usually in terms of bonus payments or paid vocations. However, the company should take into consideration other ways of ensuring job satisfaction and motivation.
Development and succession ensure that the company retains the best thus maintains productivity and profitability at large. There is always a succession plan to avoid any possible vacuum or dysfunction in the system. To achieve this objective, the Four Seasons Hotels CEO has established a taskforce that maintains a multi-ethnic set of workers with international exposure. Such a vacuum can also be caused by transfers or promotions. These are foreseeable events such as death or terminal illness and thus prior planning is necessary. The promotion or transfer of an employee is primarily based on three cardinal parameters. These are performance, destination and experience.
The selection approach adopted by the Four Seasons Hostels Company is extremely relevant. Currently, the hospitality industry is highly competitive because of an expansive nature of the industry and an enlighten clientele. Therefore, to become the best in the industry, one is not only required to have the best facilities, but also have the best human resource service. Indeed, the hospitality industry is more about service and the experience rather than the luxurious packages and expensive hostels. Furthermore, in order for the company to provide services that are in tandem with its principles it is vital that they conduct a thorough recruitment exercise to get the right people.
Costs related to voluntary turn-over and new employees’ recruitment
The computation of the costs related to voluntary turnover and recruitment of new employees is a complex process that requires a comprehensive analysis. Indeed, many organizations understate these costs because they ignore a significant amount of indirect costs that is hard to compute or quantify. A voluntary turnover donates when an employee of a company decides on their own volition to leave the company. The employee may or may not give reasons depending on the nature of contract of employment. Customarily, a notice to quit is given to the employer within a particular period before the employee finally quits. This leads to the company suffering both direct and indirect costs. First, it is vital to compute the direct costs. This involves calculating the employee’s enumeration costs which is inclusive of their salary, benefits and allowances. 30% of base pay is estimated to be equal in value to the on-costs and benefits that the employee derived from the company. Other costs include recruitments cost for hiring, recruiting and selecting a new employee. On the other hand, indirect costs include in-house hiring expenses, loss of productivity, termination costs and training costs. Achieving the exact amount of costs is extremely difficult. This is because the calculations are guided by obscure presumptions of costs. Therefore, analysts advised companies to adopt a slightly conservative approach towards these figures. However, all relevant determinants must be included in the calculation. Fundamentally, if a company has 100 employees and 15 voluntarily leave their jobs, the exact turnover for that company is 15%. However, employees may leave at different stages. The more spread the number of employees leaving the company, the lower the turnover percentage. It is cardinal that other significant factors, including those that made the employee leave, should be included. Some of these include new jobs in other companies, absenteeism, sickness or poor performance.
The calculated figure is critical as it is helpful in ascertaining the recruitment, training and hiring costs of new employees. In order to lower personnel turnover, a company should put in place measures to ensure that employees are motivated and are satisfied in their jobs among other things. Motivation can be achieved through rewards and recognition. Rewards can take the form of paid vocations or monetary means. On the other hand, recognition can be in the form of praise, certification or appreciation. It is critical to appreciate individuals for their efforts and hard work rather than just sending them a cheque. An employee would feel that his or her efforts are noted and significant to the company’s success. It can also reduce the rate of turnover by putting in place mechanisms that appreciate the group dynamics. It is vital to recognize individual talents and facilitate their development. However, this should not be at the expense of the diversity of the group. When everyone feels part of the team and their efforts are critical to the team’s success, they will develop a sense of loyalty to the team. More significantly, the treatment meted out to the employees by the senior managers determines to a significant extent the rate of turnover. If they are treated with utmost respect and understanding, as if they were clients, then this would significantly reduce the rate of turnover.
References
French, R. (2011). Organizational Behaviour. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Maseeha, S. (2009). Four Seasons Hotels Inc.’s HR Practices: Fostering a Strong Customer Service Culture. IBS Center for Management Research.
