My Company-Motel Inn, Research Paper Example

Introduction

In 1926, hotelier James Vail, along with the architect Arthur Heineman, coined the term “motel”, a combination of motor and hotel. Based in San Luis Obispo, California, the two planned to build 18 motor inns, or motels (Wood, & Wood, 2004, p. 19). Their first establishment, the Milestone Mo-Tel, opened in San Luis Obispo on December 12, 1925; its name later changed to the Motel Inn (p. 19). Billed as the world’s first motel, it served as one of San Luis Obispo’s best steakhouses and most popular watering holes. Guests stayed in separate bungalows facing a central courtyard. The now-boarded-up motel is slated for restoration to its original style.

Motel Inn, Inc., a maturing and innovative organization that has come of age and set the standard of medium-range travel accommodations in this country for several decades. Top level executives of Motel Inn affected no less than a role-making coup de grace in the hotel-motel industry. They identified a need for better interactive communications among their hotel-motel managers and owners. Then, they created and used new corporate roles that removed the need for managers in certain areas. Their communication and interaction with owners, operators, and general managers of franchised Motel Inns throughout the United States fostered the corporate franchisee alliance, motivated managers, and boosted the bottom line of corporate headquarters and individually owned motel operations.

Understanding how Motel Inn, a company that has grown in almost a complete century, can meet the demands of ever changing lodging industrial world in characteristics of its key players, motivation and reward system can develop a better understanding of successful organizational behavior.

Characteristics

Management communication is traditionally top-down, information and instruction comes from the CEO and CFO, to the manager and then to the employees. This pyramid approach is operative, but lacks conviction. Motel Inn is faced with continuous changes, from outside forces such as customer needs and competition in the emergent motel industry, to inside forces such as employee skill and retention. First, it is important to state the employee’s who do not have access to resources necessary to the job function—such as, developing the motel segmentation—are not able to perform the job required. “In the absence of necessary resources, even the most motivated of people cannot perform” (Kaliprasad, 2006, p. 22). This creates strong discontent with the job as well as disengages the employee from the functional aspect of the job. Secondly, employee’s who have access to information of interest about the organization are able to give more informed inputs about the job and functionality. Lack of resource access “could possibly lead to frustration, and lack of motivation and ultimately failure” (p. 22).

The top-down management strategy of Milton Inn allows employees to start at the bottom of the management career ladder and work towards upper management goals, however, base service employees such as housekeeping do not often have those opportunities due to educational constraints (Ruddy, 1990). L.J. Mullins (1995) shows that motel performance can be improved by better use of human resources, such as increasing employee opportunities through education. The assertion is that the performance of the organization is strongly relative to the managerial impact and structure of the organization (Mullins, 1995). Another component of the career advancement ladder is the criterion in which the motel industry generally evaluates management contracts and performance. Many owners are monitoring management through third party managerial companies while basing the management contracts on performance based criteria (Rainsford, 1994), which has an effect of increasing owner leverage and holding managers accountable for profitability. Shay and Tracey (1997) explain that the rate and reason of failure in the lodging industry are consistent with other top-down management industries, such as manufacturing. The cause of failures do exhibit different attributes, namely those considered emotional stress, maturity and communicative capability. This shows that programs in management strategy can enhance the emotional well-being and general happiness of employees which in turn affects customers, by understanding ways in which excitement, challenges and opportunistic energy can be enhanced within the motel industry.

Motivation Management

As a large company, however, Motel Inn is often imbued with strategic processes and policies disseminated from a formal planning system. Motel Inn has traditionally held high employee morale but is currently faced with low production and changes should be approached by open communication. As such, the “best strategic management team should include decision-makers from all of three levels of the company(the corporate, business, and functional)” (Pearce and Robinson, 2004, p. 15).

For example, some Canadian firms have implemented an every employee is a leader program, where all employees have equal and viable inputs towards the organization (Noe et al, 2002). As leadership incorporates communication into the organization to allow employees too openly and without fear of retribution deliver questions, concerns and ideas, the value of leadership increases. Employee’s commitment and trust towards the organization’s leaders grow as their voices are heard (Noe et al, 2002). The ability of management to communicate with employees, to develop a committed relationship and to foster unity is the foundation of leadership.

This is the growth approach of entrepreneurship, where Motel Inn should incorporate their strengths as a brand name, loyal employee and consumer segment base as well as established production and supply to value chains. The impact to employees is the changes in communication and expectations. The ‘growth perspective’ enables Motel Inn to exploit their scope to create enterprise-level value from activities related to “human resources development and to knowledge management” (Kaplan, 2003, p. 105).

Rewards Program

Motivation programs for Motel Inn’s employees involve a system of rewards and recognition. There is a distinction between recognition programs and reward programs.  Recognition is acknowledgement, appreciation and approval, and targets the psychological need of the individual. Reward, by definition, is usually something given in return for good or bad done, in particular that is offered or given for a service.  Rewards focus on the physical benefit, usually financial, however “self-esteem, respect, intrinsic motivation and dignity are not guaranteed by a competitive salary” (Boyle, 1995).

Both recognition and rewards are important in reinforcing intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, and provide positive reinforcement for desired behavior performance.  Motel Inn’s desired performances have a strong focus on innovation and customer relationship management. A customer-focused culture is enhanced when employees understand that the company will reward them for exceptional performance and customer service.

Motel Inn’s motivation strategy invokes the overall company goals to be innovative and maintain strong relationships with both business and personal clients. The company does this effectively by focusing not only on the monetary pay-for-performance rewards, but also by giving out recognition awards for employee performances. This is another strong success for Motel Inn, and correlates well with the open communication and organizational strategy.

References

Boyle, Daniel. (1995).Secrets of a Successful Employee Recognition System. Productivity Press.

Kaplan, Jack. (2003). Patterns of Entrepreneurship, 1e. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York.

Kaliprasad, Minnesh. (2006, June). The Human Factor I: Attracting, Retaining, and Motivating Capable People. Cost Engineering. Vol. 48 Issue 6, p.20-26, 7p.

Mullins, L.J. (1995). Hospitality Management: A Human Resources Approach. Harlow, UK: Addison Wesley Longman Ltd.

Noe, Raymond, & Hollenbeck, John R, & Gerhart, Barry, & Wright, Patricia M. (2002). Human Resource Management. The McGraw-Hill Companies. New York.

Pearce, Jack, & Robinson, Richard. (2004). Strategic Management: Formulation, Implementation, and Control, 9e. The McGraw-Hill Companies East Patchogue, N.Y., U.S.A.

Rainsford, P. (1990). “Selecting and Monitoring Hotel Management Companies”. Cornell Hoteland Restaurant AdministrationQuarterly Vol. 35 No. 2, pp. 30-37. ISSN: 0010-8804.

Ruddy, J. (1990). “Patterns of Hotel Management Development in South East Asia”. Hospitality Research Journal Vol. 14 No. 2 (1990) pp. 349-362. ISSN: 1096-3480.

Shay, J., & Tracey, J.B. (1997). “Expatriate Managers: Reasons for Failure and Implications for Training”. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly Vol. 38 No. 1, pp. 30-34. ISSN: 0010-8804.

Wood, Andrew F., & Wood, Jenny L. (2004). Motel America: A State-by-State Tour Guide to Nostalgic Stopovers. Collectors Press, Inc.