Case study:The Portman Hotel

Fountain @ Portman Shanghai Centre

Portman hotel vertigo

English: Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman sta...

From the description of the case study, it seems that the reason lead the Portman Hotel to this terrible situation was that their HR policies were inconsistent with its strategies. The Portman Hotel's philosophy is that if they want their customers treated better, they must treat each other better. They also think the Portman Hotel is a place where they can make their employees feel satisfied with their jobs. Their jobs will be fun and they will fulfill their expectations. The employees will have the best work experiences. Besides, the Portman Hotel expects to be the best employer in San Francisco. They are willing to show their trust and pride in their employees. That's why the hotel considered their "associates" of the highest potential, and, thus, they could retrain associates rather than reprimand them. In addition, they wanted to help employees gain growth in both associates' personalities and their professionalities.

Although the Portman Hotel has unique philosophy, its strategies do not coordinate with it. Here are some strategies that I think have some faults in the hotel after I read this case.

Recruiting

There are several faults in how the Portman Hotel recruited their PVs (personal valets). First, they thought the most important measure of PVs' personality is "friendliness". Mene, vice president and managing director of the Portman Hotel, thought " if you want friendly employees, you have to hire friendly people-training and motivation won't achieve those standards for you." In my opinion, experience and skill may be more important than friendliness. If an organization hires experienced or skilled employees, it can save a lot of training costs. If the Portman Hotel images itself to be the best luxury hotel in San Francisco, it must require high quality PVs. SRI, a recruitment and development consulting firm, also emphasized "life...