Human resource management at Tangerine Hotels to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic





Introduction

Tangerine Hotels (TH) is one of Sri Lanka’s oldest and best-known hotel operators. TH comprises of five Four Star hotels in Sri Lanka (TH, 2020). Employee cadre of TH is approximate 500 employees. TH offers a full range of facilities to its guests in Sri Lanka. The facilities include meeting and banquet facilities, bar and restaurant facilities, gymnasiums, spas, swimming pools, deluxe and luxury rooms, and hotel suites (TH, 2020).


Objective

Like all other companies in the Sri Lankan tourism and hospitality industry, TH has been greatly affected by the Covi-19 pandemic. This has forced it to introduce several cost reduction strategies including strategies focused on reducing employee costs. This report describes the human resource cost reduction strategies adopted by TH.


Research Methodology

Research methodology in this study was a qualitative research strategy. In this research methodology, qualitative data was obtained from semi-structured interviews with four senior human resource executives at TH and was analysed using thematic analysis.


Findings

Based on the findings from the data analysis it can be concluded that the change model adopted by TH to mitigate Covid-19 induced cashflow problems is a recreation change model. Nadler and Tushman (1980) in their Organizational Change Model identified four distinct approaches that could be adopted by organizations in implementing organizational change. These approaches are namely tuning, orientation, adaptation, and recreation. Further, as Nadler and Tushman (1980) classification of the change approach adopted into one of these four models is based on the extent of change i.e., incremental change or transformational change, and the approach to change i.e., anticipated and planned change, or reactive and unplanned change (Figure 1). TH organizational change approach can be classified as recreation as its reactive i.e., reacting to the massive impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the industry and transformational i.e., resulted in transformational changes in human resource management (Figure 1). Transformational changes include massive retrenchment of employees, introduction of stringent health and safety regulations, work from home policies for marketing, finance, and other support staff, 40% reduction in employee salaries, and 50% reduction in monthly service charge payments.  These human resource cost reduction strategies have been successful and have eased the financial burden on TH.


Figure 1: Categorization of organizational change adopted by TH



Source: Nadler and Tushman (1980)


Conclusion

The recreation organizational change model adopted by TH to reduce employees cost and ease the financial burden on the company caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has been successful, however, no research has been conducted to determine employee reaction to these strategies. Further, research should be conducted to determine the impact of these human resource cost reduction strategies on employee motivation and satisfaction levels.

 

References

Nadler, D., and Tushman, M., (1980). A Model for Diagnosing Organizational Behaviour. Organizational Dynamics 9(2), pp. 35–51

Tangerine Group of Hotels, (2020). Annual Report 2019/2020. [Online] Available at: https://www.cse.lk/home/company-info/TANG.N0000/financial

 







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