QUESTIONS 1: 25 MARKS
CASE STUDY: IMPROVING PERFORMANCE AT THE HOTEL PARIS

The Hotel Paris’s competitive strategy is “To use superior guest service to differentiate the Hotel Paris properties, and to thereby increase the length of stay and return rate of guests, and thus boost revenues and profitability.” HR manager Lisa Cruz must now formulate functional policies and activities that support this competitive strategy, by eliciting the required employee behaviours and competencies. As she reviewed her company’s training processes, Lisa had many reasons to be concerned.
For one thing, the Hotel Paris relied almost exclusively on informal on-the-job training. New security guards attended a one-week program offered by a law enforcement agency, but all other new hires, from assistant manager to housekeeping crew, learned the rudiments of their jobs from their colleagues and their supervisors, on the job. Lisa noted that the drawbacks of this informality were evident when she compared the Hotel Paris’s performance on various training metrics with those of other hotels and service firms.
Given this and the common sense links between (1) employee training and (2) employee performance, the CFO gave his go-ahead for Lisa and her team to design a comprehensive package of training programs for all Hotel Paris employees. They retained a training supplier to design a 1-day training program comprised of lectures and audio-visual material for all new employees. This program covered the Hotel Paris’s history, competitive strategy, and its critical employee capabilities and behaviours, including the need to be customer oriented. With a combination of lectures and video examples of correct and incorrect behaviours, the behavior-modeling part of this program aimed to cultivate in new employees the company’s essential values, including, “we endeavour to do everything we can to make the guests’ stay 100% pleasant.” The team developed separate training programs for each of the hotel’s other individual job categories.
For example, it retained a special vendor to create computer-based training programs, complete with interactive scenarios, for both the front-desk clerks and telephone operators. As with all the new training programs, they had these translated into the languages of the countries in which the Hotel Paris did business. Lisa and the CFO were not at all surprised to find that within a year of instituting the new training programs, scores on numerous employee capabilities and behaviour metrics (including speed of check-in/out, percent of employees scoring at least 90% on Hotel Paris’s values quiz, and percent room cleaning infractions) improved markedly. They knew from previous analyses that these improvements would, in turn, drive improvements in customer and organisational outcomes, and strategic performance.
Questions:

1. “As HRM within an organisation one of their functions would involve employee motivation.” Describe the three (3) main goals employees need to maintain for them to continue being motivated in their occupation. (10)

2. Outline the various challenges that may organisations face during the process training & development, and what strategies can be employed to overcome these challenges? Provide examples to support your arguments. (15)

QUESTIONS 2: 25 MARKS
Compare and contrast the possible gains and costs of drawing up a business plan. You should also pay attention to a discussion of limitations to business planning as well as mistakes to be avoided.
In concluding this essay, you should make a well-justified argument for, or against, the synthesis and implementation of business plans. (25)
QUESTIONS 3: 25 MARKS
“South Africa is one of many countries in the world with a mixed economy.” Analyse various issues or problems that SA are currently facing in regards too much government involvement in the economy. Also include at least five (5) basic ways in which productivity improvements can be achieved. (25)

QUESTIONS 4: 15 MARKS
Standard Bank is a leading African banking group focused on emerging markets globally. With assets exceeding R1509 billion, it is the largest banking group in Africa (by market capitalisation) and operates in 33 countries worldwide. The group has been a mainstay of South Africa’s financial system for over 145 years. Standard Bank’s future objective (world’s fastest-growing economies today, Africa also has strong long-term growth prospects).
Questions:
Explain the strategic management process that Standard Bank needs to follow to remain competitive and to gain more market share. Use suitable examples to enhance your answer? (15)

Answers to Above Case Study Questions

Answer 1: The role of HRM in every organisation is to adequately motivate the employees so that they can contribute towards accomplishing organisational goals. Apart from HR manager, the employees are also required to maintain goals for them in order to remain motivated in their occupation. The important goals that they can maintain about them are in relation to achievement and recognition, job satisfaction and work life balance, career development and growth.

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