Ministry of higher and secondary special education of the republic of uzbekistan bukhara state university

Sydney Harbor Marriott Hotel: Management Planning and Control
Organizational Context and MCSs Marriott International is a global franchisor of hotels providing full-service in order to meet business and leisure travelers’ needs, generally, Marriott has 100 to 2000 guestrooms approximately and also has around 100 to 3000 full-time staff doing daily services. As the franchisor, Marriott International offers franchises to operate Marriott Hotels and set up several conditions to their franchisees, its aim to guarantee Marriott’s service quality and reputations. As the Marriott franchisees, they need to comply with these conditions such as completed the required training within a designated time period, operate one Marriott hotel in a specific size at a specific place which selected by franchisees and approved by franchisor, they also need to comply with the term of agreement which initial franchise term is 20 years and the managers’ appointment should be permitted by the franchisor.

1.1Organizational Context
1.1.1 ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY as the worldwide operator and franchisor, Marriott implement various business strategies in their different sectors, one of their famous but “generic” strategies are differentiation strategy which brings them benefits on cost, uniqueness and their competitiveness extent, and this strategy was widely used by Marriott to market their products in the highly competitive hotel industry. Marriott believes that only one brand of the whole hotel enterprise couldn’t be satisfied every customer’s need, therefore, they decide to create various hotel brands in order to offered services to varied customers in the hotel market (the products range from low-end to high-end services), it’s the extensive strategy of differentiation and really successful.
1.1.2 BUSINESS MODEL Sydney harbor Marriott hotel is one franchise of Marriott International, the franchise has authority to operate this hotel, and the franchisor does not account for franchised Marriott hotels’ profit, loss, loans, or other obligations, Sydney harbor Marriott hotel take charge of financing individually. Figure 1 shows the business model of Sydney harbor Marriott hotel: Figure 1 Business Model
1.1.3 OBJECTIVES as a company, Sydney harbor Marriott hotel focus on maximizing their shareholders’ profit and maintain the high quality of service and reputation of the whole Marriott International brand, as their slogan mentioned “putting people first, pursuing excellence, embracing change, acting with integrity and serving our world”. (Marriott, 2018)
1.2 Potential and Observed problems
1.2.1 MOTIVATIONAL PROBLEM We have been interviewed Sydney harbor Marriott hotel’s director, manager, front desk assistant and concierge, and we found that Marriott really doing well on employees’ training and welfare, so most of Marriott staffs are really satisfied with their current situations, but although Marriott doing so well on their “staff controls”, we still find some potential and observed problems such as front desk assistant and concierge are both more care about their own benefit than Marriott’s benefit, the reason they must care about Marriott’s benefit is the whole party’s profit or loss will influenced their own benefit, if Marriott performed badly in this quarter, their bonus will be decreased under this circumstance. And concierge does not like other jobs in front desk department, they don’t have bonus but receive customer’s tips, it’s unstable and optional to customer because it’s totally based on customer and concierge’s service, sometimes even concierge provides the perfect service to the customer, they still can’t receive any tips and you can’t force your customer to pay, this situation may reduce concierge’s motivation and should be brought to the forefront.
1.2.2 PERSONAL LIMITATION There is a common phenomenon in the hotel industry that in order to save the cost hotel will hire grass-roots staff to do the simple and specific jobs, such as front desk assistance and concierge employee can be holding these jobs after company’s training. And this situation causes a problem that grass-roots staffs’ capability and skills are inadequate in some circumstance, such as when they serve a foreign customer, but they can’t communicate with that client, and when they face the emergency and need them to replace other staff’s work, but they don’t know what they should do. These problems can be handled via training and raise recruitment requirements, but as corresponded, the company will increase their employment cost.
1.3 The Key Actions and Key Results That Wish to Control Sydney harbor Marriott hotel is the full-service hotel that caters to business and leisure travelers and also offer a variety of food and beverage options, including one or more restaurants and lounges, room service, catering, and banquet services, therefore, the quality of goods and services are significantly important to this hotel. As the front desk department, in order to help company maximum profit and become a success, the staffs in front desk department should provide high-quality service and positive attitude to their customers, take the training on time in order to learn more skills and learn more ways to solve the customer’s compliance. We should consider two factors to evaluate the front desk department’s success, profit and service score, so the high quality of service and goods, the special features in the hotel and convenient facilities provide to a customer, these make more customer willing to spend here and further achieve their success.


2. Description of the management control systems in Sydney Harbor Marriott Hotel
2.1 Organization structure and responsibility centers in room division department, the room division department director is doing the actual control of set goals, managers job allocation, and reinforce customer relationship. So, the department strategy implementation, customer royalty establishment, and the majority of maximize department revenue is accountable under department director execution. Furthermore, room division department are decentralized into housekeeping, front desk, concierge, and guest service managers. These three parts of room division department management includes front desk manager and supervisor, golden key concierge manager, and guest service manager. Specifically, the front desk manager is accountable for the front desk and even the lobby 24 hours 7 days’ day to day running of the customer stay affairs. Front desk supervisor also takes charge of the attendant and VIP service.
Figure 2: Organization Chart
2.2 Responsibility center The room division department mainly get profit from the room night sales. So the occupancy rate and daily occupancy revenue per room are the mirror that could reflect how this department doing well. Since director determined take responsibility of the revenue. Secondary management seems held accountable for the customer service quality, take responsibility to customer satisfaction. At supervisor level, with experienced abilities and skills, they usually take responsibility to serve VIP customer at the first line and also training the new staff and offer inquires answers. Front desk attendant and concierge are the lowest level and power in the front desk department, they only take charge in offer service under their duty.
2.3 Performance measurement systems in room division department, due to the staff always offer the service and complete duties stand out and present their performance under everyone’s eyes. So, the action performance measurement is explicated been watched by leaders. On the other hand, the performance measurement includes: Upsell (room type upgrade, breakfast upsell, executive floor service upsells) Closing balance (staff account in every shift, the balance should be 0, that means the transactions made by the staff are balanced, no issues) Customer feedback (Marriott offers online reviews system and hand write card to customer, so that customer could leave their feedback to show how is their stay and feedback of service quality) Marriott’s appraise (the seasonal and annually outstanding award staff or trainees are picked from every departments and sub team) Staff turnover rate (as hotel staff turnover rate usually at high level, however keep staff royalty is also a major purpose of Marriott, if the department team has strong cohesive force and staff feel their performance measurement been returned by appropriate rewards they would work better)
2.4 Action controls All room division department staff has chipped employee card. The employee card required to tap on a machine when staff enter the staff entrance and exist, which could record their attendance and accurately working hour. All staff in room division department has their own opera system account, especially the front desk staff, when they move any transactions in the system, the system will record who and when did this movement and the information of this transaction. Furthermore, the cash balance for every counter has a fixed amount, when work shift rotates, the attendant is required to verify the cash and submit the extra amount cash to finance department with their balance statement. If the shortage amount of cash is more than 5 dollars, the attendant needs to check his balance statement and find out which step went wrong that lead to cash shortage. In Opera system, different account has different authorization to access some functions. Room rate rebate function can only be used by manager’s level, supervisor and attendant do not have the authorization. Supervisor level account and beyond has stay package upgrade giving power. All staff has change room rate code function for the cooperation company businessmen stays, however they also need to claim the evidence, such as business card print work. At ground floor, there are lots of CCTV, especially at front desk counter, the CCTV could see everything happened at front desk, what staff is doing, and how they claim cash or credit card, and ID certification from customer, that prevent any illegal execution, the real-time pictures has been viewed by security department in their department office. Also, if the staff made mistake and had quarrel with customer, managers could check the picture recording to figure out the whole process. The reservation system Marsha could only be edited by supervisor and beyond level staff, any reservation cancelled, the night shift staff has to use all computer to progress a night rolling method after guest service manager check all room stay status. Room division director and other department director, even general manager usually leave their office to come to the lobby, they can see every staff working at lobby floor, they check everything goes correct and appraise service quality and staff attitude.
2.5 Result controls The directors and general manager committed the performance-dependent on customer satisfaction scores, also the increasing of occupancy rate and daily revenue per room. Front desk staff could through upsell to increase revenue, and they could get bonus on every upsell, if their salary compensation is high, which means they help the hotel make lots of money. Historical occupancy rate data is one of the useful information to help the director to set the occupancy goals in peak season and low season, however high occupancy rate cannot be the only performance-dependent. Because, the daily revenue per room and daily total revenue could show how the hotel profitability. Even sometimes, high occupancy rate is with cooperate company stays which with low room rate stay, so the cost still the same per room, but the room rate is not at rack rate level. On Marriott internal website, the system collects customer reviews to give room division department satisfaction scores, depends on the score, usually the goal on satisfaction is 90. Managers could see the current scores and identify the way to improve.
2.6 Personnel controls Marriott has periodical recruitment to fulfil the staff turnover. Every department has experienced staff usually arrange to train new staff three times for every different shift, also, if any service process changed, supervisors will inform to every attendant, basically staff get training during working time, learn from the more experienced staff.
2.7 Cultural controls According to hotel is a crowded place, so separate employees with customer is necessary. Marriott every staff has to wear uniform at work. Marriott treat its staff as a family member, and always give great benefits for every royalty staff, such as annual 6 free nights in any Marriott hotel all over the world, and relatives and friends stay discount. Human resource department train every new staff to familiar with the Marriott Hotel Group background, visions, purpose, and corporate employment culture.
2.8 Dimensions of management control system design Room division department relatively tight action control, result control to maintain the service operation running well, so that staff could create value to hotel reputation and keep customer royalty. As mentioned could figure out the control system is everywhere in the hotel, the large number of employees need an order and clear management structure to decentralize the power and duties. The management control also is diagnostic, the managers and directors analyze the report and data to reviews the performance and set goals, also refers to managers’ report to set up meetings before every shift, manager share problems and challenges coming to staff, they make duty check list for staff to follow.
3. Evaluation of the observed MCSs in Sydney harbour Marriott hotel Sydney harbour Marriott hotel is profitable and utilizes control package to gain its goals and discharge the controls. Thus, the assessment of the noticed MCSs will pay attention to each aspects of the control package respectively.
3.1 Action Controls for hotel (hospitability) industry, it is significant to control cost so that it can be distinguished from other hotels. Basically, to build premium brands and good reputation are also fundamental for hotel industry. Thus, action controls are quite important to implement in Sydney harbour Marriott hotel daily operations. For instance, adopting CCTV to monitor staff and customers, check in and check out systems, giving unique chip chard for customers to access their own rooms and elevators, staff have 15% off discount and front desk mangers will have bonus if they achieve goals, these integrations connect mangers with staff as well as customers and enhance work efficiency of employees. Therefore, the hotel can keep run well even if some employees quit their jobs. Furthermore, Sydney harbour Marriott hotel is located in a spectacular position with lots of visitors come every year. Then, during holiday season, hotel may need more shifts to cope with lots of visitors come and stay while off- season needs to reduce shifts to control cost. However, due to uncertain shifts may cause extra cost to the Sydney harbour Marriott hotel. For instance, uncertain weather may influence shifts cos Sydney has rain season in Autumn then It will increase human resource cost. Despite hotels can forecast occupancy rate it is difficult to assign appropriate shifts at reception desk to receive customers in season. Hence, it may have adverse impact on reputation of Sydney harbor Marriott hotel if they cannot provide customers especially some VIP customers timely service or resolution for some sudden accidents. After that, Marriott Darling Harbour may have to spend more time and money to deal with that and enhance reputation. Beyond of this assumption, employees need to be creative and adaptive to their work. While hotels management look like loose it is quite tight internally. So, staffs will have to remind of themselves that they need to accept this but in reality, employees would not think about it because they most of time just hope they can do well in their positions.
3.2 Results Controls Marriott Darling Harbour also applies the results controls in daily operations and employees’ performance assessment. Firstly, customer’s recognition and satisfactions are extremely vital for service industry. Under normal situation, hotels staff, in particular, front desk staff could provide good service to customers, such as greet customers with a friendly attitude with smiling face, finish the registration process by inputting and retrieving information from computer systems, some experienced staff can even remember some VIP customers’ name and their basic information, promptly and patiently answer the telephone call from customers and send food order to customer’s rooms in time. Above all, most of big brands hotel could do this, the point is how to do better than other competitors. Thus, customers could be satisfied with service. Secondly, it is about employees’ bonus, except for concierge have tips from customers, Marriott Darling Harbor would offer different types of bonus or benefit to front desk managers and front desk attendants when they achieve planned goals. In contrast, the first results control needs the front desk staff has to smile and welcome customers at any time, if it is out of season the busy level is acceptable but when it is in holiday season some staff may have had a night shift then the next day has a mooring shift, so they may be tired to repeat everything at all day, they might also make mistakes when they work overload. Another results control is related to front desk staff’s bonus, while finance department would give bonus front desk manager can decide how much front desk attendants can receive, so some staffs do not focus on how to enhance the organizational benefits and objectives, they may try to please their managers and choose to do some easily measured work while not focus on how to enhance the organizational benefits and objectives. Thus, the staff do not have enough motivation and congruence to think about the whole hotel benefits. Moreover, not all staff could have opportunities and time to travel in one year so actually free 6 nights living is not attractive, it can be changed as another reward or welfare as workers in Sydney harbour Marriott hotel. Moreover, concierge only have tips from customers but perhaps not every customer would give them tips or give different amounts of tips, therefore staffs of concierge may lack motivation to continue to work here.
3.3 Personnel and Cultural Controls Providing training can help staff gain elementary and newest knowledge of hotel industry. Firstly, uniform dress may increase employees’ recognition and enhance their loyalty. Secondly, it is an attractive way to attain the staff who are working for Sydney harbour Marriott hotel could have 15% off discount when they and their relatives book rooms, moreover, the employees can also live in any Marriott rooms for free at most 6 nights. However, Marriott has five different brands, the training is not applied to all Marriott brands hotels, so there is no specific analysis of specific issues. Thus, behavioral displacement would be caused by supplying inadequate training and eventually bright about the employees do not have prior knowledge and ability to be qualified at other position when emergent accidents happen or hotels with shortage of hands. Furthermore, it is necessary to put right people to work at an appropriate position and work with matched partner at most of aspects then front desk manager does not have to spend lots of time to guide front desk attendant to understand their jobs and deal with problems that may be caused by staff. Finally, it seems like that front desk manager and room division manager do not generate any common goals to connect staff with staff and managers as the interview does not show that the Sydney harbour Marriott hotel has provided any common beliefs. Therefore, it is believed that the staff care their self-interest only and do not act as the collective interests at all is a large risk and that might cause some costs.

4. Recommendations to improve the MCSs

4.1 Training in terms of the hotel’ s employees, due to the fact that the organization has faced numerous basic control issues, such as lack of direction, lack of motivation and personal limitation, it is necessary to improve the personal limitation of employees by training. There are very specific approaches to train the front desk attendant and concierge. For example, the hotel will arrange the old staff and the supervisor to train the new staff and trainees staff three times for every different shift, also, if any service process changed, the hotel will inform to everyone, basically, the staff gets training during working, which is able to learn more experience. On the other hand, the manager has trained by the organization. Such as management strategy, hotel regulation, organization profits. In fact, good performance of the employee is closely relevant to the level of the training of the manager, because the manager is responsible to the employee and teach them how to achieve the goals. Besides, according to the training, it is the best way to improve the employee’s behavior and reduce the flight between the employee of hotel and customer. In addition, it is beneficial for the hotel to keep the superior reputation and stable profitable.
4.2 Rewarding system Sydney harbour Marriott hotel utilizes the rewarding system, which is more likely to improve employee’ s motivation. from the hotel perspective, boosting the salary of the employee is the most direct way considered by the human resources department. Except from this way, there are a number of approaches to enhance the motivation of employees, such as bonus, benefits, perquisites. As an example of benefits, Employee and their relatives could have 15% off discount when they book Marriott rooms. Every year employees can have 6 nights to live in any Marriott rooms around the world for free. Those rewarding measures not only will allow the employee to work hard, but also are able to help employees understand what is expected of them. Although hotel management department is willing to adopt positive incentives, the negative incentives will be considered in some circumstance. For example, the employee has not handle the customer’ s complains correctly when customers were satisfied with the performance of employees. On the other hand, it is necessary for employees to finished work punctually and accuracy. For example, the employee should check the closing balance with the supervisor when they shift finished. They should guarantee the accuracy of data on the work statement. It is more likely to influence their reward if they are making some errors and cause some loss of hotel. Therefore, the utilizing of rewarding system is essential for hotel.