Module Assignment Industrial Orientation Report 6. Human Resources 6.

1 Organisational Structure To be seen on the next page, is the organisational structure of the Abe Lenstra Stadium Catering Management, Private Limited Company. On top is the Director Mr. F Kuperus. This man has the overall control of the company. Underneath him we can see two managers. Which are Back office manager Ms A. Hoekstra, and her colleague Mr. W. Adema who is Front office manager. Mr. Adema coordinates front-office operation within the company. One of his main jobs is handling reservations or unusual requests and inquires from guests. Further he assigns duties and shifts to personnel and observes their performances. Finally he also cooperates with other departments like the Back office. (http://www.job-descriptions.org/front-office-manager.html) In this case Mr. Adema is in direct contact with the Executive Chef Mr. J van der Wal. The job of the chef is creating the menu, the control of food preparation, managing the employees, and maintaining contacts with vendors. (http://www.allculinaryschools.com/faqs/culinary). The Back office manager Ms. Hoekstra does all administrative work, concerning financial aspects employees and Human Resources. Both the Front office manager and the Back office manager report to the General Manager. Then underneath Mr. Adema, it can be seen that the responsibility of the restaurants and skyboxes is split up in two parts, which are the West-wing and East-wing. The West-wing is under supervision of Floor-manager Mr. A. Bron. On the other side, which is the East-wing, is under supervision of Floor-manager Mr. A. Bruinsma. Both Floor managers from the West- and East-wing report to the Front office manager. The Floor managers take care of the daily operations on the work floor, which are the skyboxes. These people make a planning on short term. This planning will tell the tasks that have to be done. Further the Floor managers check the progress on the basis of their planning. Besides that these people are the first point of contact for employees. Under these Floor managers we come directly to the agencies like Young, Marnic, Pro Equipe, Randstad and Adecco. The Abe Lenstra stadium gives command to these

Module Assignment Industrial Orientation Report agencies to provide the stadium with personnel especially during soccer games but also for other occasions. This all happens under a special order confirmation, based on the function of the personnel, agreement on availability of temporaries, costs for the Abe Lenstra stadium and the duration of the order. (ABU, 2009) Some of these agencies have there own Floor manager like Marnic, because these agencies are quite big within the company and they ensure a large number of personnel.

According to the chamber of commerce the Abe Lenstra Catering Company, employs only 14 employees. (Kamer van Koophandel Document 2009) This is quite a small number in this company, but very logical with so much agencies that provide employees to the stadium. So within the organisational structure of this company there are not many job positions to full fill.

Figure 4: Organizational Structure of the Abe Lenstra Stadium Catering Company LTD (Source: Abe Lenstra Stadium Briefing Uitzendkrachten 2009 PDF) The position of the author as employee within this Organizational chart, is under the

Module Assignment Industrial Orientation Report level of Agencies. Ober! is one of the companies like Marnic and all other Agencies, who provide Abe Lenstra with personnel. As employee the contract is made with Ober!. And Ober! submits with Abe Lenstra about how many employees are needed. Then employees of Ober! are contacted and asked if they want to work on a certain day and time. When the employee agrees to work, then a car is arranged to drive the employee to the stadium on the agreed date and time. By arrival the employee is written down as present on the attendance list. After the shift the employee has to log out. In this way the hours of workers are well registered. The work provided as employee in the Stadium, is working as a waitress. When the work is completed the employee is taken home by car as well. The same evening or next day, the working hours of the employee are passed to Ober!. Then Ober! can make sure the hours are paid correctly to the employee.

6.2 Human Resources Figure 5: General Human Resource Model

(Source: Workshop HRM, Stenden University 2009)

Module Assignment Industrial Orientation Report

The chart above is from the Human Resource lecture, also used in the Module book for Resources. This chart explains the steps of Human Resource Management within a certain company. Human Resource management can be explained in many ways, like Dessler does:

The policies and practices involved in carrying out the people or human resource aspects of a management position. Dessler (2008, p. 2) As seen in the chart, human resource management includes many aspects like recruiting, screening, training, rewarding and appraising. In the following the steps of human resource management will be explained by meaning, and its connection to the Abe Lenstra Stadium. Firstly the chart is supposed to be read from the left to the right side. Which means that all begins with planning, or in other words personnel planning. This means the process of deciding what positions the firm will have to fill, and also how to fill them. In order to decide what positions have to be filled, the company has to forecast how many employees are needed. When looking in the planning step of the Abe Lenstra Stadium, it is noticeable that there is a specific method for this planning. The company makes it on the basis of soccer games and reservation for other events in the skyboxes. The Back- and Front office manager determine how many employees they need for a certain soccer game or event. Then they give this information to the Agencies. Then the Agencies take care that the number employees needed, will be available for that day. Concluding that the Abe Lenstra stadium only plans the number of employees needed (for one day), and then they outsource the task for getting employees to the Agencies. Then the next step in the human recourse chart is recruitment and selection. As told before, the Abe Lenstra Stadium does not have to do recruitment and selection for the biggest part. Only for internal vacancies it is needed to do recruitment and selection. When this is needed, the Back- and Front Office manager will do this job. For the major part the recruitment and selection is done by the agencies themselves. As an

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Module Assignment Industrial Orientation Report employee of Ober!, the recruitment and selection will be told according to their procedures. When somebody would like to start working for Ober!, the person is obliged to register. Before registering, the person has to follow training. In this training the qualities of the person are estimated. On basis of this training and a personal talk the solicitant will be accepted or rejected. Further the working method of Ober! is explained. There will also pass a number of practical issues in the review. There are a certain things that Ober! expects from its employee. For example that the employees have affinity and experience in the Hospitality industry, own working clothes, enthusiasm, being spontaneous, and of course hospitality plus a positive work attitude. When an employee of Ober! does not apprehend, the Abe Lenstra Stadium (or another company) can contact one of Ober!s supervisors. In order to be sure that every employee does its job correctly and cannot mess around. Ober! recruits its employees via advertisements in local newspaper and magazines, and on their website where good information can be found. By this can be concluded that the requirements to work in the Abe Lenstra stadium for Ober! are not very high. This is not very necessary because the work in the stadium is not that difficult. With a little experience in the Hospitality industry, employees can work their way through. (Ober!, 2009) Moving on to the next step in the human resource model, which is Introduction and Socialization. In other words this can be described as employee orientation. Which means the procedure to provide new employees with basic background information about the firm and also assisted on difficulties or been showed how everything supposed to be done. The basic background depends of course on the company. After this being introduced in to the in the team is very important. Because when the employee feels left out, then he or she will not feel well at work. This often means that the employee will not perform at its best. Applying this theory to the Abe Lenstra stadium: it can be said that the procedure is not the same. When an employee arrives for working, the person has to go to
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Module Assignment Industrial Orientation Report employees office. There is starting time noted and told where (in which skybox) the employee works for that day. So no background of the company is told to the new employee, only the procedures to start working. Which are logging in, getting a shawl (tie for the gentlemen) and an apron. Then is told in which skybox the employee is working, and on which floor to find it. Then the employee is expected to go there. By arriving at the workplace some colleagues introduce themselves, others not. This really depends on the persons you are working with on that day. But most of the time people do introduce themselves. Also depending with whom you are working with, there is a short briefing. In this briefing is told what the set-up for the evening is, and also tasks are divided. If the employee doesnt know how to do his tasks, he or she can always ask somebody. But it is not always asked if an employee knows how to do its task, or the task in not always explained immediately. Concluding, that in the Abe Lenstra Stadium there is not much attention for introducing and socializing new employees. This is also not reasonable looking at the number of employees and not knowing how many days or how long one of the employees will work in the stadium. All employees for the work floor are almost outsourced. This makes it almost impossible and not interesting to give more attention to this stadium of human resource management. Because the management of the stadium does have to be concerned about getting employees, the Agencies do it for them. The next step in the chart is Employee Performance. This step is linked to all further steps in the model, and further steps are linked to each other. Employee performance concerns the way employees are performing. People can find this out on the hand of Performance management. As it says in the name, the management of a company is evaluating an employee performance, and decides whether these performances a good enough to set the companys goal. In the Stadium the management of the company does not evaluate the performances of employees. At least, they do not do this for the employees on the work floor. The company is also not meant to do this, because most employees that work in the

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Module Assignment Industrial Orientation Report company are not contracted to the stadium. Only the agencies can evaluate their employee performances. For example Ober! does this, through communicating with the Abe Lenstra Stadium and vice versa. Then we come to Performance Appraisal, which is connected in the chart to Employee Performance, Training & Development, Compensation, Transition Career, and Working Conditions. The Performance Appraisal can actually be considered as a part of the Performance management. This step in the human resource chart concerns an act of assessing the employee. The performance appraisal itself contains three steps: Define the job, appraise performance and provide feedback. Those three steps can be performed through different methods, such as: the graphic rating scale method. With this method a list is used with a number of traits and a range of performance for each. The employee is then rated by identifying the score that best describes his or her performance for each trait. Dessler (2008) In the Abe Lenstra stadium the performance appraisal is not used for its workers. Because, as told before the organizations are not responsible for the employees that do the work, the Agencies are. Also the agencies do not something as performance appraisal. When there is an issue with the Stadium about an employee, then Ober! will directly discuss this with that certain person. In this way problem are being solved as soon as possible. Concluding that no occasionally performance appraisals are used. Under the Employee Performance in the chart, there is the block Working Conditions. This is a very important step in the human resource chart. For this reason, that working conditions can have a great influence on the performances of employees. Talking about working conditions does not only concern material thing, such as the working area (skybox), the used means (trays, glasses, seats, tables), but also the mentally and physically involved issues. Like how many hours is the work taking? And how do team members treat each other, and is there a nice working atmosphere? The factors like working hours, work atmosphere, salary, and other can influence the employee enormously. If the conditions are bad, a great chance that the employee will
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Module Assignment Industrial Orientation Report feel bad to, resulting in not happy and motivated working, results in unhappy guests, which can lead to a bad name of the company. The employees of a company are the face of company. If the employees feel good, they will deliver good work and are motivated, this will often lead to happy guests who will be good for your company. In the Abe Lenstra Stadium the working conditions are not very stable. Everyday an employee starts working in the stadium, he or she doesnt really know what to expect, because the working conditions depends mostly on where the employee has to work in the Stadium. Every time this can be different. Starting with the working hours, these will start mostly at the same time. But however the ending time is never fixed, and differs every time. This depends on how late the employee is finished with all tasks. The breaks are quite when there is a soccer game. During the play guest are not allowed to order drinks. Which means that during two times 45 minutes the only activity is cleaning and having a break. In the second break the staff is provided with sandwiches and soup. Unfortunately the soup is not always at good quality, the sandwiches however are. The working atmosphere and the team are most of the time pleasant. In some occasions it is not always a good atmosphere depending on the people who you are working with. It is noticed that the team always tries to make the best of it. The last three steps are hanging tightly together. These three are influenced by any circumstances if the performance appraisal is negative or the employer is not satisfied with the way an employee is performing, he can go to the next step, which is Training and Development. This part also concerns new employees who are introduced in to the company. Training means giving new or present employees the skills they need to perform their jobs well. This will also develop the employee. Dessler (2008) Training plays also an important role in Performance management. Because through training an employee, he or she will work more efficiently, which will help achieve a companys goal. There are many ways to provide training to an employee. In this case the OJT- training is highlighted.

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Module Assignment Industrial Orientation Report The so-called On the Job Training (OJT) means having a person learn a job by doing it at the same time. This is also the case in the Abe Lenstra Stadium. The employees learn how to do their job while doing it. There is no extra training for them. People learn by asking questions if they do not know how to do a certain task, or another employee will explain it. As said earlier, Ober! does provide an internal training. In this training the basic skills are explained, which every employee should be able to do. But further no training is given. Dessler (2008) Moving on to the next step in the chart: Compensation. This part is about all forms of pay or rewards to employees, arising from their performance. The compensation can be direct (wages, salaries, bonuses) or indirect (financial benefits, vacations). A good compensated worker is more likely to work harder (and vice versa), thus compensation is very important for your employees and for the company. A company can also reward its staff based on time (how many hours of work) or on performance (how many produced). Time-based paying is still the foundation of most employers, as it is in the Abe Lenstra Stadium.

The employees get paid, based on their working time. As told before, the hours are registered for each employee, by logging-in and out. It is the responsibility of the employee itself to make sure everything noted correct. For example if someone forgets to log-out, the Stadium does not know how much hours are made, and can not give through in a correct way to the agency. The agencies are in the end responsible for paying the salaries. The author noticed that all working times were correctly given to Ober!, and all salaries were paid out. The salary is not outstanding, but still good. Then the last part of the human resource chart is Career Transition. This step means that is a possibility for employees to grow within the company (promotion) or going to another position (transfer). Within the Abe Lenstra Stadium, there are possibilities to make a promotion or transfer. View employees have a transfer occasionally, from one skybox to another skybox. Like the author changed position many times, for example

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Module Assignment Industrial Orientation Report from the EAS-energy room on the third floor to the Rabobank room on the second floor. Further there are possibilities to make promotion. For example, an employee that makes a promotion from a waiter or waitress to an Agency Floor Manager. These Floor managers are still in contract with an Agency. When a Floor manager wants to make promotion, the person has to apply with the Abe Lenstra Stadium, for the reason that the job position in under the supervision of the company. This will mean that a Floor manager makes promotion to Floor manager of the East or West side of the Stadium. Within the company of the Abe Lenstra Stadium, there are certainly more opportunities to grow. A small addition for this chart is the part of Training, Performance Appraisal and Career Transition. All these steps can work in both ways, for this reason. If employee has to have a better working performance, the appraisal sets training. But if I a career transition occur, the appraisal can also recommend training. So as can be seen, a recommended training is not always a negative thing. Training not only means that an employee does its work poorly and has to get better in order to achieve companys goals. Training can also be positive, for example if someone getting get a higher position in the company through training. Concluding both ways are for the greater good of a company.

6.3 Strengths and Weaknesses of HRM 6.3.1 Strengths of the Human Resource within the Abe Lenstra Stadium

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Module Assignment Industrial Orientation Report First of all the whole building of the Stadium is very beautiful. This is a very strong point for the whole company. Naturally not everybody is able to go easily in to a skybox of a Soccer Stadium. This makes being in the company a very and in the skyboxes a special thing, every time again. Especially working during a soccer game, there is a certain atmosphere that is very nice. The guests are mostly relaxed and enjoy themselves very easily. Because they do not attend a soccer game everyday, so better enjoy it! The workplace is also a strong point of the company. With the workplace is meant the place where work is done, which is the bar store rooms, and actually the whole skybox. It all looks very professional, which makes working easier and more pleasant. It was noticed that something was not working, like the beer tap or fridges. Last thing are the Agencies. Although it can be sometimes a weakness, it is more a strength of the company. Due to the fact that the company does need staff members occasionally, but never at the same time. If the company hired all their workers, they never could ensure their employees enough. Because most working hours are made during soccer games. If FC Heerenveen is out of the competition, there will be not anymore games in the stadium. Which simply means that there will be no (or less) work. Concluding that it is a good choice of the company to outsource the staff. For both parties it works mostly in their benefit.

6.3.2 Weaknesses of the Human Resource within the Abe Lenstra Stadium
Although outsourcing the staff to agencies has multiple benefits, it also has some disadvantages. Like it is noticed that working sometimes becomes impersonal, especially when it is a persons first time working. It can be imaginable that people can feel a little bit lost. This can be improved by trying to plan the personnel in the same skybox every time they work. Secondly the employees can be trained better. For example, one time the author was working with another employee that had not many basic skills. Tapping a beer was for instance something the employee was not able to do. In this working efficiently

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Module Assignment Industrial Orientation Report together gets harder. Unfortunately this is something that the Abe Lenstra cannot control, this is the responsibility of the agencies that sent these employees.

Finally an improvement point is that it would be nice to have in each or two skyboxes some kind of Floor manager. Because when something is not clear or there are problems, a manager is sometimes hard to contact. It would be more efficient to have one person responsible where other employees can go to if they have questions or issues.

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