Induction Training at Marriott International (Grosvenor House Hotel based)

I. Introduction 2II. Training analysis

II.1 Case Study. Induction training 3 II.2 Disadvantages 7II.3 Advantages 8

III. Literate review 9IV. Conclusion 16V. Recommendations 17VI. References 17

Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

1

I. Introduction.

In my assignment, I will discuss about orientation process, also known as Induction training, at the Grosvenor House Hotel, which is a part of Marriot International. Let me give a quick introduction to background of the hotel and company. The Grosvenor House was opened as a hotel in 1929. Nowadays, It is owned and managed but the Marriot International. It is a five star hotel with 495 guest rooms and it has one of the biggest ballrooms in the Europe, and it can accommodate up to 2000 people. The hotel contains of indoors fitness centre, executive business lounge, high quality French cuisine restaurant, café, exclusive bar and lounge for afternoon tea. All these facilities make it different from other competitors in this industry. There are around 950 employees in the hotel.The Marriott family started Marriot International in 1927. It contains of more than 3500 properties in more than 70 countries around the world. The company itself has 18 hotel, vacation ownership and corporate housing brands. Therefore, it receives 220,000 room reservations in a typical weekday and from this makes average 15 billion US dollars in worldwide sales per year. Marriot International employs 128000 people. In order to keep existing costumer Marriott implemented reward members system, and now they have 18 million members.As a part of business strategy, Marriot has vision, and it is as follows:

“To be the world’s leading provider of hospitality service.”

(http://www.marriott.com/corporateinfo/culture/heritageJWMarriottJR.mi, accessed on 1.12.10)

Since satisfied costumer is a product in hospitality business. In order to meet goal of strategy, they understand that being number one in production of satisfied guest means being leader of hospitality provider. Guest might be satisfied because of hotel facilities such as swimming pool, location such as close to their city centre or because of skilled staff such as pleasant and customer focused receptionist. Within organization Human Resources team mostly responsible for employee trainings. Therefore, they organize staff training and then highly trained employees will contribute to realize business strategy.Training for employees are various from basic trainings to job specified trainings. I will discuss about Induction training, one of essential the job training in all organization.

Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

2

II. Training Analysis.

2.1. Case Study 1. Induction training at Marriot International.

After six steps of recruitment process, the vacant position will be offered to the last remained candidate, and during this offer they will explain about next step which is orientation process also known as induction training. And it is as follows: - A new employee required choosing one of given dates that suitable for them to

stay night at hotel, have dinner and breakfast at the hotel she or he tended to work and it is a complimentary.

- After breakfast they are asked to go meeting room to have three-day induction course with other new employees.

- Then it will continue with their supervisor and colleagues.

This type of approach gives a lot of experience and information about hotel and its facilities. When new employee visits to hotel as a guest, he or she familiarizes with hotel services, procedures and it facilities. New starters have opportunity to assess following key point while they stay at the hotel:- Efficiency and customer service of front desk.- Cleanness of the hotel, and to learn more about room appliances such as using

air controller system, safe and TV.- Learn more about restaurant and ect.

Next three days, they attend to induction course. At the beginning, they will receive employee handbook (sign for it) and course book contains of general information (see figure 1). There are two types of employees in the Induction course: - Employee who has worked in the company before, they are who filled new

vacant positions and considered as a new employee.- New employee who has not worked in the company before.

And, employees worked before finish this course in one day while new employee does it in three days.The induction training consists of following tasks:

Firstly, they will be orally informed what they are going to do next three days.

Knowing each other within the course, all participants introduce themselves to others and give a little background information.

Presentation about followings: - Company history – who they were yesterday - Company values and mission – what they need to achieve

What benefits they can get and what are company policies. Basic hotel information such as prices for parking and Internet connection

facilities – improve their knowledge about hotel if any guest asks employee could answer them.

Tours around the building – opportunity to know more about building structure such as location of each department offices, public toilets, restaurants, fitness center, rooms in different levels and staff area including canteen and staff changing rooms.

Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

3

It also covers trainings required by law such as basic fire training, health and safety at work, bomb awareness.

Also trainings improves employee skills such as customer service, telephone techniques, up-selling training, food safety training and brand standards of the company such as answering the phones within three ring, enhance the interaction with guest as you approach to them and more others.

All these tasks are carried out in following methods:- Group discussion- Video clips- Presentation- Guest simulated examples- Through game learning methods- And others

At the end of training, trainer evaluate the trainees by questionnaires, they divide trainees into several groups and let them to compete to answer the question, and receive self-filled certificates (see figure 2). Then, all trainees are asked to give their feedback about the whole induction-training program.

At the final stage, new starters will be directed to their supervisor for further training.

Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

4

Figure 1.

Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

5

Figure 2.

2.2 Training analysis: Disadvantages

I would like to state followings as disadvantages:

1. The company offering to the new employee free room for one night worth £150, free dinner worth £40, free breakfast worth £25 and cost for induction includes cost of course tutor’s time, time to prepare it and time of trainees as they get paid for attending to course. All these investments will be lost if new employees leaves the company very soon after this training, which is happens sometimes.

Example 1.

Local cafes never give any induction training to new employees, so it means no investment for it. They will be trained on-the-job training basis. If the new starter leaves, employers do not lose anything.

2. There is no cross training as a part of induction, and this means that new employee have no any knowledge in other department.

Example 2.

K-West Hotel give 4 days cross training after 1-day induction based on virtual classroom and lecturing method. It helps company, because overtimes can be done by Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

6

member of different member, and department can help each other during busy period hence they gained work experience.

3. Weak analysis step of the training – there is no assessment of trainees’ knowledge before they start training. All trainees have different level of knowledge. Example 3.

There is no overview at the start. Trainers do not explain why all trainees are there and what they will do here during this program.

Example 4.

From my experience, trainees at the induction of Sanderson Hotel, at the beginning all trainees receive list of schedule for the whole training day. It states at what time they go for break and do training, and finish it.

4. They do not do apprenticeship training. It would help company to have more skilled employee.

Example 5.

In 2010, Coca-cola offered new apprenticeship program for Beverage Engineer. It is one-day work in a week. Some math, pc, and higher national diploma required. This role gives all necessary skill to become technical operator.

(http://www.apprentices.co.uk/employer/show_job.cfm?ref=120 , accessed on 1.12.10)

5. Job Instruction training method not used at all. This method gives employee step-by-step training and leads to perform his job independently like his co-workers.

Example 6.

Toyota uses job instruction method to train and advance its employees. It provides your employees with the tools and techniques needed to develop exceptional talent in your workforce. Trainees gain an understanding of the need for good quality training, and explore training techniques. Each student learn how to use the 4-Step method to break down jobs into teachable segments and to identify critical information that must be taught to employees to ensure safe work, a quality product, production rates, and maintaining low costs. In addition each student will learn how to make a training needs assessment plan, and will be required to demonstrate the 4-Step training method on an actual job in the work place.

(http://www. 1 thetoyotaway.org/services/job_instruction.html accessed on 9.12.10)

8. Audiovisual based training was not used through the induction.

1

Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

7

Example 7.

It is obvious to everyone, many people, who wish to learn foreign language, listen to audio recorded lessons while they drive, do household tasks and etc.

(Armstrong, 2009)

9. The induction training does not have any part that used vestibule training.

Example 8.

Talktalk, broadband company, uses old voice record customers’ enquires in staff customer service improvement training. These record hold information how complaints were handled by Talktalk employers, and new employees learn from their conversation and be familiar with customers enquires. (Armstrong, 2009)

10.Teletraing and videoconferencing methods were missing in the induction training.

Example 9.

London school of business and finance enables its students to learn the subject through recorded videos. On these records, lectures explained all necessary subject chapters. Students login their student portal and watch it as many as they want. It gives them opportunity to replay it if they do not understand the lecture.

(http://www.lsbf.org.uk/school/why-choose.html, accessed on 2.12.10)

Example 10.

Electronic Data System trains its employees with teleconferencing wherever they are in the world rather than to travel one location. The company has a “coaching skills for leaders” program that was enabled to 1500 managers in 41 countries.

(George et al, 2009)

10.The induction training does not support any computer-based training.

Example 11.

This type of training used in Driving Standard Agency for new learners. It is on DVD disk and contains of all necessary information to do test and several videos to asses learners’ skills how to respond to daily road activities.

2.3 Training Analysis: Advantages.

1. They used lectured training method very well. One of the trainers explained about the Marriot Company to the group with writings on the board. This training method known as quick and simple way to give training.

Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

8

2. It is easy to see that the virtual classroom training method was used. Videos and presentation slides are used to deliver information.

3. Evaluation step of the training was good too as trainers assessed trainees with questionnaires and acknowledged their knowledge with self-written certificate.

4. Another advantage of this training is on-the-job training method applied at the final step of the training.

III. Literature review.

High quality job recruitment do not lead organization to success if next step, which is orientation process or induction training, is not delivered to new employee in professional manner. The main aim of induction training is to provide new employee with all necessary skills and information that can be helpful to him or her to perform within organization as other colleagues do it. It could be information such as showing toilets, procedures of check-in and out workplace to skills and also job related skills. Moreover, this training gives new starter knowledge of organization such as company mission, value, structure of company and company policies and benefits.

(Beardwell, 2010)

We can divide orientation process into to two following parts:1. General orientation- provides information needs every employee.2. Job specified orientation – provides information for only specific position such

as up-selling technique for reservation team. (Price, 2007)

Oriented training gives following benefits to organization:- Efficient adaptation of new employee to new job and creates good working

environment for co-workers and supervisors.- Reduces cost of damages from new employee mistakenly action.- Reduces employee turnover

The length of the training is different in each organization, it depends how much information you want to deliver to new employee.

Example 12.

Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

9

Toyota Company offers one weak orientation training to its employees. It contains of: videos, seminars from company officers, and exercises to learn about company values, history and vision.

(Dessler, 2010)

Example 13.

Most of boutique hotels in London give 8 hours induction training only, and it covers brief information about company. Usually trainings method is lecturing.

There are main four steps to conduct training as follows below:

We will give deep explanation for each section below:

1. Analysis step – in this step trainee’s weak areas identified and full-filled.

Analysis step can be done following step-by-step way:

a) In general, task analysis helps to do it. Task analysis scans job description and job nature, and shows what skills and knowledge employee should acquire to perform their role well.

b) Performance analysis. So, after task analysis, we know what employee should know to do the job. Now we need to asses the employee’s knowledge, then we will be able to fulfill the gap with our training. Below we can show it in graph.

(Beardwell, 2010)

Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

10

All skills and knowledge needed to do job

Current knowledge of traineeTraining need

2. Designing the structure of training.In last step, we indentified what trainee should learn. Now, we need to decide what activities, exercise, topic discussions and presentations will be effective to learn it. In other words, what will be easy to understand training?

(Price, 2007)

3. Implement it. We indentified trainee’s needs and what activities are efficient. And it is time, to deliver them in the most efficient way, or training method, to be clear and easy to understand for trainees. Below we list all possible training method: a) On-the-job training. This means employee learns job by actually doing it

with their supervisors in formal manner. It could be followed by concrete list of tasks, and this ensures all aspect of job is trained. It could be explained in following way:

Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

11

(George et al, 2009, 321p)

Example 14.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines uses on-the-job training to train new cabin attendants. First, trainee spends some time in classroom for training and then participates to test evaluation flight as an additional training. On these flights, trainers provides new employee with on-the-job training, based on list of indentified for job description.

(George et al, 2009)

b) Apprenticeship training. By taking this training, employee will become skilled personnel. It is usually long-term on-the-job training; it could be 12, 24, and 36 months training. Employee required spent time in classrooms and to do job with experienced employee or supervisor.

Example 15.More than 460,000 apprentices available for 28,000 programs, and registered programs can receive federal and state contracts and other assistance.

(Dessler 2010)

c) Informal training. This is on the job training in informal manner. Employee starts their job, if difficulties arise colleagues come to help

Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

12

them. According to American Society for Training and Development, 80% of employers apply informal training.

Example 16.

Siemens Power Transmission and Distribution in Raleigh, North Carolina, cafeterias for staff designed to discuss work-related issues, such as board and makers can be used for informal learning.

(Dessler 2010)

d) Job instruction methods. Any job training contains of sequence of several trainings. The best sequence is called job instruction training. It has a sheet shows trainees what to do and how it should be done.

Example 17.

Samsung gives pictured installation instruction with its products. Customers see pictures and it makes easy for them to get started with the product. Samsung train its customers with instruction method.

Example 18.

UPS train its driver employees to take a box from van with job instruction method at the picture below.

(Dessler, 2010, 302p)

e) Lectures. This is training method where knowledge is presented to group of trainees. Lecturing saves time, since several employees are trained at same time.

Example 19.

Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

13

HP sets staff meetings in every month and train them how to deal with enquires about current new products from customers. HP uses lecturing method to accomplish it efficiently.

f) Program learning. Mostly, this training is based on programs on paper or PC, it is for self-study purposes and contains of following steps:

Showing the factors that trainee will learn. Letting trainee to reply it or do test. Assessment their reply or answer.

Example 20.

Myhotel Bloomsbury, in London, introduces its self-study program to gain Opera software to new front desk employee. This is program that teaches new employee all aspects of software.

g) Vestibule training – trainee uses actual or simulated equipment.

Example 21.

Life-sized learning lab used for driver candidates by UPS, and it provides 40 hours in 5 days realistic training.

(Dessler, 2010)

h) Tele training and video-conferencing – This training is trained remotely, usually trainees and trainer are located in different cities.

Example 22.

Satellite trainings were used to train new employees in Honda America.

(Dessler, 2010)

i) Electronic performance support system (EPSS) – computerized tool and displays that automate training, documentation, and phone support.

Example 23.

When you call Dell’s customer centre, Dell represent questions you with EPSS help, and this will lead you sequence of question, at the end your problem is solved.

(Dessler 2010)

Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

14

j) Computer-Based Training – trainers are interactive based on computer or DVD.

Example 24.

In training physician, hypothetical patient’s medical history can be taken through interactive multimedia system. Then, by pressing “examine chest” button, chest examine type can be chosen and hear heart beating of person.

(Dessler, 2010)

k) Simulated Learning – trained in simulated mode.

Example 25.

US Army uses this type of training intensively. Full-spectrum command and Full-spectrum Warrior is one of video-game-type training that uses to training troops. It gives realistic features that trainer improve their decision making skills and leadership.

(Dessler, 2010)

Example 26. In Environmental Tectonics Corporation, Advanced Disaster Management simulation used to improve students’ response for emergency situation. Plane crashing into runway is one of scenarios in the training, and trainers should act accordingly.

(Dessler 2010)

Example 27.

Southwest Airline boasts that it has the most advanced technology in the airline industry. It has Boeing 737-700, worth 10.8 million USD, placed in 111000 square foot. It can accommodate up 300 trainees at the same time. This center has 110 trainers.

(George et al, 2009)

l) Internet-based training – training delivered via internet

Example 28.

Customer service personnel of Delta Air Lines receive their annual required FAA training through then Internet and it can be taken at one of training centers and would last at least a day.

(Dessler 2010)

m) Virtual classroom.Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

15

Example 29.

With Elluminate Live! Learners can communicate with two-way audio, live video, chat rooms, shared whiteboards, and also shared applications like Power Point slides.

n) Audio Visual-Based Training.

Example 30.

Videos were used in dealers training session to simulate issues and reactions customers’ complaints, in Ford Motor Company.

(Price, 2007)

4. Evaluation the training effort.This section is designed to evaluate the effects of training was implemented. It actually measure four basic points of training outcomes: One. Reaction – assess trainees’ reaction to training.Two. Learning – test trainees’ knowledgeThree. Behavior – whether on-the-job behavior changedFour. Results – if result is as the same as expected

Evaluation Training

ReactionLearningBehaiviorResult

IV. Conclusion.

A range of training methods is available for training employees. Some of them have been used for long time while some have been started to use recently such as Internet based training. Latest methods have emerged over the years out of a greater understanding of human behavior, particular in aspects of learning, motivation, and interpersonal relationships. Technological improvements led to more efficient training

Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

16

method by using latest hardware and software as training instrument. It is much more efficient than traditional methods.

The induction training for new employees of Marriott, have been applied virtual classroom and lectured training methods. However, trainers ignored number of other training methods, which could be used in right way. Although limited training methods were used for training, on-the-job training method, one of the most common ways to train, was used at the end of the training. Moreover, evaluation part was organized well as trainees received certificate.

V. Recommendations.

I would like to recommend following points:

To create and expand company-training centers that deliver trainings through teleconferencing method from another city. I would express my idea, to create one training center for the UK trainees only and this center trains all trainees in the UK via Teleconferencing. It would decrease number of trainers and increase company profitability.

Internet based training could be useful for this training. Some part of trainings can be stored in company web site in textbook format, and new employee read it from the Internet.

Simulated training method could be used in the training. Coffee machines could be displayed for new employees in Food and Beverage team.

Video clips from daily hotel activities would be helpful too. From these clips trainee get familiarized and gain some skills.

At the beginning, list of training timetable is useful for trainees for brief understanding about training.

Cross training is useful for new employee as he/ she will have brief work knowledge in all departments within hotel. Then, any employee will be able to help to another department during busy period and to cover holidays of other department team member. This approach leads to profitability and efficiency of the company.

VI. References.

Books:

1. G. Dessler, (2010), Human Resources Management 12th edition, Global edition, Pearson Education.

2. J. Beardwell and T. Claydon, (2010), Human Resources Management sixth edition, New Jersey, Prentice Hall.

3. A. Price, (2007), Human Resources Management in a Business Context third revised edition, Cengage Learning CMEA.

Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

17

4. M. Armstrong, (2009), Armstrong's Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice 11th edition, Kogan Page.

5. George et al, (2009), Human Resources Management, Cengage Learning, 372p,

Websites:

1. Apprentices, (2010), Available from: http://www.apprentices.co.uk/employer/show_job.cfm?ref=1201 [Accessed on 02 Dec 2010]

2. Toyota, (2010), Available from: http://www.thetoyotaway.org/services/job_instruction.html [Accessed on 9.12.10]

3. LSBF, (2010) [(http://www.lsbf.org.uk/school/why-choose.html, accessed on 2.12.10]

4. Marriott, (2010), [http://www.marriott.com/corporateinfo/culture/heritageJWMarriottJR.mi, accessed on 1.12.10]

Otabek Tashmuratov HR Assignment, 2010

18