In the era of diversity organisations are no more operating in an insular environment; they are striving hard for their survival and growth (Lituchy and Rail, 2000). In this high paced business environment organisations drift towards advanced technology whereas with lesser number of employees involvement. These aspects highlight business competitiveness in the economic market and thus enabling them for more growth and development (Hjalager, 2007). However, numerous techniques are being involved in order to analyse and increase the level of interaction with the labour market.

In this regard a renowned technique was developed and known as the Zero hour contract. According to Adams, Freedland and Prassl, (2015) zero hour contract are known as the type of contract between the employer and employee where employer is not obliged to set any minimum working hours requirement for the employees. Various analysts are of view that zero hours contract provide a more flexible approach of working and enables employees to get more time for its life reduce work stress whereas also enables to gain work experience (Pyper and McGuiness, 2013; Gielen, 2008). This approach issued in many industries such as agriculture, hotel management, health care and catering etc. The inclination of employers towards the zero-hours contract is quite positive. In this case employers are benefited through calling employees only when they are needed. While the employees show attraction of zero hours contracts because of its flexibility through balancing a life between the work life and enabling personnel life as well (Brinkley, 2013).

Beside all the positive aspects of zero hour contracts numerous researchers have highlighted its challenges of zero-hours contract. The undesirable aspects regarding this approach come under certain circumstances. The present study is about challenges faced by the Marriot Hotel due to zero-hours contract and identifying differing Human resource management practices and leadership techniques for reducing challenges.

 Marriot Hotels is an American Multinational, diversified hospitability company and a franchise of broad portfolio and lodging facilities. The company is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland in the Washington, DC metropolitan area established in the year 1993 in America by J.Wilard Marriot where as it has 4000 hotels in 80 different countries and territories. In the hospitability Industry Marriot International Inc. holds a significant position. The company has generated a US$12.786 billion in the year 2015 (Annual Report, 2015).

Being one of the best brands in hospitability industry the company has taken several measures for its improved performance and operations. The company holds a good reputation in highlighting its employee’s problems. This MNC takes several constructive steps for managing their Human resource through different techniques and practices one such practice is zero hour contracts (Adams, Freedland and Prassl, 2015). The company has taken one portion of its employees through zero contact hours which include the Marriott’s catering service. The zero-hours contracts help the employees to be more productive while analysing their own time schedule (Fleetwood, 2007).  Besides its various benefits the zero contact hours also possess challenges to the management for the smooth operation of the business. Therefore certain human resource and leadership techniques are acquired that helps in facing those challenges and to ascertain better work environment.

According to Ruth, Warhurst, and Haunschild, (2007) this zero contract guarantees challenges of smooth operation of all the business activities. It should be carefully considered and securitize that how many hours the employees will be available and will be working. Similarly in zero hours contract prior notice should be scheduled done in order to manage the time for meetings and other coordinating activities between the staff (Adams, Freedland and Prassl, 2015). In addition some of the concerns also generates such as the employees availability and the requirements of the customers many not get fulfilled accordingly.

According to Fleetwood, (2007) the employees for zero-hours contract which involves with the temped work week increase the burnout rate of employees. This Burnout however significantly affects the employees’ performance and also results in low productivity in the Hotel. This susceptibility to errors different deviant behaviours of employees can be observed such as moodiness, laziness, no good working relationship between the other co-workers and also loses its concentration on their work ( Ham and Reilly, 2002; Brinkley, 2013).

1.Main Body

1.1.Human Resource Management HRM techniques

Management of the human resource is requires much greater skills than any other department. The Marriot Hotels Int. has adopted policies to allow the zero hour contractors to both the individual employees and departmental settings. They enabled every employee with the personnel officer which helps in managing the workers at the time of their needs. As with the change in schedule of ant supervisor or manger they should be noticed to the human resource officer (Lucas, 2002). This procedure will helps in not disrupting the office work and thus enabling smooth operation of the hotel activities.  

The Marriot hotel should accommodate the requirements of the ones who have several benefits of the alternative work schedule, whether for some of the causes like phased retirement, family, children’s schooling, religious obligation, and transportation or any other such requirements (Jones et al., 2009). Supervisors should be motivated in enabling the requested for scheduling and also enabling a proper work environment without impairment of effectiveness in the hotels management and operational activities.  It is incumbent on all of the supervisors for reporting working times exactly as attended for ensuring equity among different workers and consistent with the regulations, procedures and governing policies (Casey, Keep, and Mayhew, 1999).

1.2.Leadership Approaches

As, with the increasing pace of development in large Multinational organizations a desire for more outgoing and self-actualized leaders are with great demand (Lowe, Kroeck, and Sivasubramaniam, 1996; Judge and Picolo, 2004). Bass and Riggio (2006) described leadership as it’s a process which includes interaction among group of members that commonly involve arrangement and rearrangement of situations as well as views and prospects of members. Through a Transformational Leadership employees and leader engage in such a way that they increase the motivation of each other it has a great role in the success of an organization. They commit such behavior and a practice that improves employee’s satisfaction with leaders and employee’s perceptions about leader’s effectiveness emerges (Judge and Picolo, 2004). Bass and Riggio, (2006) contended that the transformational leaders helps in giving guidance and enabling better approaches where employees are assigned with zero contract hours.

The mangers should enable these leadership strategies as to ascertain the better work environment with will help in increase employees motivation and reduce Burnout. Marriot hotels also tries on working on transformational leadership style as to ascertain that employees should not feel burnout and does not feel stressed while also get more motivated.

1.2.1.Training

Training is an important criterion which helps the Marriott Hotel Zero contract employees to know what does actually ascertains this contract positioning. According to Casey, Keep, and Mayhew, (1999) education provided to the employees about the contract positioning and also helps them learn that participating in such type of activities will help in the career development of the employees. This type of contract fails when the management uses some procedures of analysis and arrangements in the work position. An experience less than full-time work bases over the cultural values of workers of Marriot Hotel (McGowan et al, 2012).

Marriot Hilton which institute zero-hour contract should develop training programs and resource materials for managers. Organizational zero-hour contract need the managers to create new skills as stated by Lituchy and Rail (2000). In addition in most of the situation, managers are assumed the ones who need to balance out between the work assignments and zero hours contracts. Managers training in this regard are assumed very important. The mangers should learn how to actively involve the employees and assign works to them which can get completely in prescribed time limit. Similarly in catering services peak hours needs to essentially manage with the higher work load.

1.2.2.Control

Guaranteeing control is another measure that needs to be carefully ascertained in this business. Control help to ensure that the work is properly done however, in zero contracts it is necessary to let the hotel strategic and production activities remain paramount. Control to the work helps to ensure that the functions of the hotel are properly achieved. The controlling of any work activity reduces dysfunctional and thus enabling work teams to properly work and mange things respectively. However, according to Lockstone, Smith and Baum, (2007) the too much control also enables the workers efficiency and does not allow for flexible work environment.

1.2.3.Evaluation

The challenges of the Marriot Hotel Zero-hours contract policies will be minimized when more comprehensive approach of evaluation will take place. The focus on HR activities and the prescribed policies relevant to the zero-hours contract will help analysing the issues and will help taking constructive steps accordingly. According to Agarwal et al., (2013) involvement of the employees in evaluation procedures will help in identifying the flawed policies and programs and thus enabling better planning and coordination system. Similarly focusing on continuous feedback from employees helps in better management of the zero-hours contracts. This will ensure better working environment and the employees thinks that they are being valued. As Bass and Riggio, (2006) contended that giving value to employees will ensure high productive results as they think that they are part of the organisation which is a more psychological aspect of satisfaction.

2.Conclusion

This can be concluded from above analysis that technique of zero-hours contract has been developed in business market. Different organisations use this management approach I order to increase its productivity and efficiency. This approach is also best considered when employees be benefited with more flex time and can be able to create a balance between their work life and private life. However, in addition to numerous benefits this approach has certain challenges as well. Therefore the management should ensure different human resource policies and leadership techniques for handling the approach in a more comprehensive way such as providing training, executing better control system.

3.Recommendations

The success of the zero-hours contract lies on analysing its advantages and disadvantages. Every organisation enables different kind of requirement based on their working environment. On the bases of their requirements the company’s should properly consider the aspects accordingly and modify the contract with the needs of the company. It should more comprehensively include the strategic decision of the company. Need assessment consideration is best approach in describing the requirements of the company work assignments.

Analysing the zero-hours contract policy properly will help to highlight all the prescribed issues and benefits. A strong focus should be made on employees to let them openly communicate their problems and also listen to their problems. This will help to change policies regarding to the employee requirements and thus enable the employees with better work motivation. In case of the zero-contract hours the organisation should also focus on team work and better communication approaches. Proper arrangements must be made in order to ensure team works in the organisation. The employees’ appraisal should be conducted and communicated on regular basis as to assemble record of their performance trends which will help in future to change policies when found any discrepancies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.References:

Annual Report, 2015. Marriot International [Online] Available at: http://news.marriott.com/2016/02/marriott-international-reports-fourth-quarter-2015-results/

Awards and Recognitions 2016. Marriot International [Online] Available at: http://news.marriott.com/p/awards-and-recognition/

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Agrawal, A., Horton, J., Lacetera, N. and Lyons, E., 2013. Digitization and the contract labor market: A research agenda (No. w19525). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Bass, B.M. and Riggio, R.E., 2006. Transformational leadership. Psychology Press.

Brinkley, I., 2013. Flexibility or insecurity? Exploring the rise in zero hours contracts. The Work Foundation, London.

Casey, B., Keep, E. and Mayhew, K., 1999. Flexibility, quality and competitiveness. National Institute Economic Review, 168(1), pp.70-81.

Fleetwood, S., 2007. Re-thinking work–life balance: editor's introduction. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 18(3), pp.351-359.

Gielen, A.C., 2008. Working hours flexibility and older workers’ labor supply.Oxford economic papers, p.gpn035.

Ham, J.C. and Reilly, K.T., 2002. Testing intertemporal substitution, implicit contracts, and hours restriction models of the labor market using micro data.The American Economic Review, 92(4), pp.905-927.

Hjalager, A.M., 2007. Stages in the economic globalization of tourism.Annals of tourism research, 34(2), pp.437-457.

Jones, P., Herbert, D., Hudspeth, S., Soni, S., Tarry, C. and Walton, T., 2009. Impact of the global recession on the hospitality and tourism industry.Tourism and Hospitality research, 9(4), pp.363-367.

Judge, T.A. and Piccolo, R.F., 2004. Transformational and transactional leadership: a meta-analytic test of their relative validity. Journal of applied psychology, 89(5), p.755.

 

Lituchy, T.R. and Rail, A., 2000. Bed and breakfasts, small inns, and the Internet: The impact of technology on the globalization of small businesses.Journal of International Marketing, 8(2), pp.86-97.

Lockstone, L., Smith, K. and Baum, T., 2007. Flexibility in the tourism sector: Do organisations and events need to be flexible in order to recruit and retain volunteers?. Australian journal on volunteering, 12(2), p.37.

Lowe, K.B., Kroeck, K.G. and Sivasubramaniam, N., 1996. Effectiveness correlates of transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analytic review of the MLQ literature. The leadership quarterly, 7(3), pp.385-425.

Lucas, R., 2002. Fragments of HRM in hospitality? Evidence from the 1998 workplace employee relations survey. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 14(5), pp.207-212.

Pyper, D. and McGuiness, F., 2013. Zero-hours contracts. London: UK Parliament.