Reference no: EM132733983

Case Study:

• He did it! Rabnit was so excited and pleased with himself. He really did it. Four years of hard work has paid off. He was the first in his family to go to university. His parents and grandparents are so proud of him. Of course his younger brother pretended not to be impressed. All the time he was doing his studies, he worked part-time at the Marriott doing all kinds of different jobs from cleaning to front desk to security.

• Now, Rabnit, having just graduated from his undergraduate programme in Hospitality and Tourism at Ryerson, has been invited to apply for an assistant manager position at The Drake Manor, a small eco-hotel, by the general manager, Mrs. O'Neill. Mrs. O'Neill was responsible for hiring and managing personnel, in addition to a number of other managerial duties related to staffing, supply management, and marketing. Mrs. O'Neill was friendly and easygoing. She had made the job sound appealing to Rabnit, although Rabnit sometimes wondered if she was just the kind of person who saw everything positively. When he was offered the job, he was looking forward to gaining more experience in his field, especially in management.

• The Drake Manor prioritized sustainable practices and had 16 rooms and a restaurant that served locally sourced organic food. The hotel staff consisted of 8 full-time employees: Mrs. O'Neill (the general manager), 3 assistant managers, 2 concierge employees, and 2 receptionists. Housekeeping and restaurant staff were made up of part-time employees. Other than Mrs. O'Neill, everyone was between 20 and 30 years old. The pay for starting assistant managers was $15.00 per hour with a 3 percent raise after one year. The one exception to this was Sarah, the assistant manager who had been at The Drake Manor the longest, and was still earning $15.00 an hour because she had started at $8.00 an hour when she was first hired 5 years ago. All full-time employees had the same basic benefits, which included 2 weeks of paid vacation, life insurance, and a health benefits package. Full-time employees worked 40 hours per week. Scheduling for vacations and days off were done strictly according to length of employment. The assistant manager seniority scale was as follows: Sarah - five years; Dave - two years; Lydia - 1 year; Jai - 6 months; and Rabnit - new hire.

• Rabnit knew Sarah from the neighbourhood and he had seen her working when he used to come by the hotel restaurant. He also knew the three other assistant managers - Lydia, Jai, and Dave - from the hospitality and tourism program at his university. Sarah had not attended university herself, but she had worked in the restaurant at The Drake Manor for several years and when the assistant manager position opened up at the hotel, Sarah had applied. None of the assistant managers looked down on Sarah for not having gone to university.

• Mrs. O'Neill's office was located in the basement of the hotel. Whenever she was at her desk, she was isolated from the work area and the other employees and guests. Most of the time she was at her desk tending to the many administrative duties related to running the hotel. Every once in a while, Mrs. O'Neill would come out of her office to meet with guests.

• For the first few months, Rabnit really enjoyed working at The Drake Manor. He valued the eco and sustainable practices of the hotel and found his work quite meaningful. Socializing with coworkers was accepted as long as the tasks were completed. Employees were assumed to be trustworthy and were thus given responsibility. There was no nagging or close supervision.

• One day Rabnit started to notice that Sarah and one of the concierge employees, Phil, began to take increasingly longer "smoke breaks" where they would go outside for extended periods of time making it difficult for hotel guests to place their order for breakfast. Some of the other employees also smoked cigarettes, but they did not take long and frequent breaks, so they began to get frustrated by the constant breaks Sarah and Phil were taking. Soon Sarah and Phil began to show up late for work in the morning and sometimes would not show up at all. They did not seem to notice any cues that their co-workers were getting frustrated with their lack of commitment to work. The structure of the job was such that when anyone was missing, the other employees had to take on an extra share of the workload and if people were late in the morning, it was difficult to have breakfast organized, prepared and delivered to the hotel rooms. When this happened, some of the assistant managers would have to step in and help with preparing breakfast in the kitchen.

• The assistant managers really disliked working in the kitchen because they were the type of people who enjoyed talking to people and interacting with others rather than working with food in the back of the kitchen. It was also an inefficient use of assistant managers' training and talents as the work was neither challenging nor fulfilling. Since they did not work in the kitchen routinely, tasks took them longer and often breakfasts were delivered late or incorrectly.

• "Do you think you could try and be a bit more punctual or consider taking fewer breaks? When you're gone for a long time it makes it hard for us to manage the breakfast orders. Maybe you could do it for us?" Rabnit asked Sarah and Phil. "Mind your own business. You're certainly not the boss of me," Sarah snapped back.

• Mrs. O'Neill became aware of the situation when she arrived early one day and saw Rabnit, Dave, Lydia and Jai in the kitchen while the part-time employees were frantically delivering food orders up to the hotel guests. She called a meeting with everyone present and reminded them that every person had a certain job to do, if everyone specialized in the tasks that allowed them to do their job well, they would have an efficient and effective system in place. Everyone nodded their heads in agreement.

• Although Phil began taking fewer breaks and making an effort to show up on time, Sarah began taking even longer breaks. She began forgetting to input the orders and on two occasions, the kitchen ran out of croissants because Sarah did not track the inventory correctly. On days when Sarah was not at work, the whole team worked well together. Rabnit really enjoyed those days and his growing friendships at work. But when Sarah was at work, she was argumentative, uninvolved, and disinterested in building relationships with her co-workers other than Mary one of the housekeepers, whom she tried to get to stay out longer with her on smoke breaks.

• By the spring, Sarah was barely attending work. Finally, Rabnit decided to approach Mrs. O'Neill about Sarah. However, when he told her what was happening, Mrs. O'Neill remarked: "That's hard to believe! The first time I met Sarah she was such a go-getter. Besides, I remember seeing her working in the kitchen last Tuesday." Mrs. O'Neill did not attempt to change Sarah's behaviour and Sarah's work habits continued in the same way.

• Dissatisfaction among the other assistant managers increased and Rabnit was considering leaving The Drake Manor.

Question 1. Which bias does Mrs. O'Neill have towards Sarah that prevents her from seeing Sarah's poor behaviour?

Question 2. Rabnit is losing trust in Mrs. O'Neill. Analyze why he is losing trust in her.

Question 3. Fairness is an issue at The Drake Manor. Analyze Rabnit's perceptions of fairness using distributiveness and procedural fairness theory.