Assessment

100% Coursework

Case Study
Daphne Jones has recently been appointed as personnel manager of the Cavendish Hall
Hotel, a 200 bedroom, four-star county house hotel located in rolling hills a few miles south
of a major northern industrial conurbation. The hotel provides a wide range of conference
and banqueting facilities and is a popular wedding location. It employs a range of full time,
part time and temporary seasonal staff across 5 departments: Events and Banqueting,
Rooming and Reception, Housekeeping, Food and Beverages, HR and Administration.
As part of a new performance management system the hotel introduced an individual
performance related pay scheme three years ago and the hotel manager would like Daphne
to review the effectiveness of the scheme. Each member of staff receives a one per cent
salary increase irrespective of performance to take account of the increased cost of living.
Each line manager then scores each member of staff in their team based on their individual
performance over the pay year. There are four options:

Excellent
Good
Satisfactory
Unsatisfactory

Staff scored as excellent receive a four per cent pay rise (three per cent plus the one per
cent cost of living increase), those marked as good receive three per cent and those as
satisfactory two per cent. People who are marked as unsatisfactory simply receive the one
per cent cost of living increase.
Despite the scheme the hotel manager has discussed ongoing performance problems with
Daphne. The hotel has received some poor reviews from guests concerning levels of
customer service and room cleanliness on Trip Advisor UK:
The staff try hard but lack the professionalism of a 4/5 hotel to compete. I will stay
in the hotel over the road next time as much better value for money in my opinion.
Yesterday I forgot my key. After running miles to the reception, they gave me
another key which still didnt work. No fresh orange juice at breakfast.
Booked four nights for a very special occasion but checked out after two truly
disappointing days. Service was not friendly or prompt. Our room had a flickering
bathroom light that was never replaced.
I was surprised that standards have slipped so much. Staff are no longer friendly
and on the ball. I couldn't relax in my room as I was repeatedly interrupted by staff
checking the room. Indifferent service in the bar, very slow checkout caused by only
one member of staff being available to serve many customers. When an extra
member of staff did appear to help with checkout and I mentioned the long delay she
commented that she was busy on the phone.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given these reviews, the hotel is also suffering from declining room
occupancy rates which is now attracting negative attention from head office.

As a starting point to her investigations, Daphne has reviewed staff opinions of the reward
strategy based on the results from the latest employee engagement survey and has noted
some apparent problems:
REWARD

Strongly
Disagree

Disagree

Neither
agree
nor
disagree

Agree

29. Overall, I think I am rewarded fairly

compared with other people in the
business who hold similar jobs
30. Overall, I think I am rewarded fairly
compared with people in similar jobs in
the hospitality industry
31. The balance between the separate
components of the employee reward
package (e.g. pay, occupational pension
scheme, holidays etc.) is appropriate for
my role
32. My work gives me a sense of
personal accomplishment

10%

23%

24%

38% 5%

13%

30%

32% 25%

16%

24%

23%

37%

27%

32%

14%

15% 12%

Strongly
Agree

Adapted from Torrington D., Hall L., Taylor S., Atkinson C. (2011) Human Resource Management, 8th
Ed, Harlow, Pearson Education Ltd

Coursework 1: Reward management report (50%)

This coursework is designed to assess learning outcome 1:
Critically evaluate the contribution of reward principles, policies, practices and decision
making to performance management in organisations

Task
Prepare a management report to provide Daphne with a critical evaluation of
individual performance related pay (IPRP) and the possible barriers to its effective
implementation at the Cavendish Hall Hotel. Provide recommendations on alternative
reward strategies she could consider.

Submission guidelines
Your answer should be presented in a management report of between 1,500 and 2,000
words. It must be supported by reference to relevant academic literature using the Harvard
Referencing system.
Your response should consider:

The advantages and disadvantages of individual performance related pay as a

performance management tool in the hotel sector
o How can IPRP improve organisational performance?
o How suitable is IPRP to the business environment of the Cavendish Hall
Hotel?
Barriers to the effective design and implementation of IPRP schemes
Alternative reward approaches which could be used to complement, or replace IPRP
and why these may work more effectively.

You must check and edit your work carefully and complete and attach a copy of the
submission check list (Appendix D) as the front page of your report.
The work can be structured effectively in a number of ways but an example management
report structure is provided to guide you in Appendix C. Please note this is just one
POSSIBLE way to structure the report and you may choose your own approach if you are
uncomfortable with this format.

Formative Feedback
Students will take part in a group based case study and presentation activity in weeks 6 and
7 and will work together to explore how the themes from this can be linked to the assessed
case study. Time will be spent using these themes to develop report plans during class time
and the opportunity will be provided to receive peer and tutor feedback on these during the
sessions.

Assessment and Feedback

Work will be assessed using the Undergraduate marking scale (Appendix A) and the
assessment rubric (Appendix B).
Assessment hand in deadline Monday 16th November 2015 4pm