Scenario:
Meathop Hall Luxury Spa Retreat:
Set in the Herefordshire countryside, 6 miles from the market town of Hereford, Meathop Hall is a privately owned, adults only, luxury spa with 98 bedrooms, a 70 cover restaurant and two cafés. The Hall is renowned for its extensive spa and leisure facilities, including steam rooms, saunas, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a gym and a range of exercise classes. With the minimum stay of 2 nights costing £550 (basic package), guests staying at Meathop Hall enjoy breakfast in bed (pre-ordered) and a three course table d’hote lunch and dinner served in the restaurant. The Hall also hosts guests attending spa days, who receive an inclusive lunch, and there are 800 Country Club day members who have full access to the spa, leisure facilities and restaurants.
Service is traditional, efficient and friendly, with a strong emphasis placed upon customer care. The staffing levels reflect those of a five-star hotel. The owner of Meathop Hall, Vivienne Farrer, also owns 4 country house hotels and has acquired backing to develop these into all-inclusive wellness retreats.
Staff retention at Meathop Hall is excellent in comparison with industry benchmarks, and regular staff surveys indicate high levels of satisfaction. Results from the regular staff surveys indicate that staff training and development, the numerous perks and rewards, plus the ‘family’ feel of the hotel are highly valued by the staff.
Ms Farrer firmly believes in ‘growing your own’ managers and in order to have a constant supply of suitable managerial candidates for her expanding business, the company runs The Ultimate Leader Programme. Two posts are awarded each year and successful applicants follow a structured, 2-year management training scheme, designed to develop a pipeline of well-trained managers for the company
Ms Farrer has a passionate commitment to ensuring that her senior and middle managers are well trained, not only in technical skills but also in the soft skills required to lead, inspire and motivate the workforce. All senior managers receive ongoing coaching from an excellent, independent business coach. Feedback from management appraisals is fed back to the Director of People & Engagement, and form the basis for the in-house Learning and Development programme. Recently, it has been identified that middle management require support with dealing effectively with departmental people management issues. In response to this, the L& D Director intends to set up a range of learning interventions to support middle managers, including group training sessions and a range of online support.
Every four months The Ultimate Leader trainees are set a development task which must be presented at the virtual senior management meeting, also attended by Ms Farrer. You have been on The Ultimate Leader programme for four months, and your first task is as follows:
Task: Carry out in depth research to enable you to create a best practice ‘how to…’ people management e-guide that will support middle management when recruiting, developing and retaining staff at Meathop Hall. The guide must include persuasive analysis and credible evidence that will convince managers to utilize your guidance.
1. Key points when planning to recruit.
Give your manager guidance on the steps to take and considerations to make when planning to recruit at Meathop Hall. Create examples of relevant documents e.g. Job description, Person Specification. Indicate to the manager the significance of the Equality Act 2010, and how the wording of your examples comply with it. Convince your manager to use your best practice guidance.
2. How to attract suitable candidates to fill your vacancy.
Give your manager guidance about how to create a job advert for a vacancy at Meathop Hall, including all key considerations. Create copy for one social media advert and one in-house/ internal advert for a supervisory job. Indicate to the manager the significance of the Equality Act 2010, and how the wording demonstrates legal compliance. Convince your manager to use your best practice guidance.
3. How to select the right candidate?
Give your manager guidance on interview techniques and key considerations when conducting a face to face interview; create suitable interview questions that could be asked during an interview for a supervisory job role and explain how they comply with the Equality Act 2010; give guidance on how to use trial shifts to aid the selection process. Convince your manager to use your best practice guidance.
Next, choose 1 element from:
Employee engagement, retention and development (Learning outcome ii)
4. How to ensure effective on-boarding for new recruits in your department
Explain to your manager how departmental on-boarding and induction improves engagement and retention; create a detailed on – boarding plan for a new supervisor covering the first 4 weeks, and an outline of three developmental activities, that should be offered within the first year of employment, including justification of your choice to help persuade your manager of their value. Convince your manager to use your best practice guidance.
5. How to keep your team engaged?
Explain to the manager the concept of staff engagement and its link to staff retention and performance; Offer guidance on how to operationalise TWO different techniques to increase engagement and performance; one of the techniques can incur a cost – each manager can spend £50 per employee, per year, individually or as a team. Convince your manager to use your best practice guidance.
6. How to develop your staff to be effective team members?
Explain to the manager the value of learning and development and its link to performance.
Identify TWO learning interventions that a manager could implement to develop staff performance and offer guidance on key operational considerations when carrying out learning interventions.
Give guidance on how to deal with a staff member who is consistently too slow at their job. Convince your manager to use your best practice guidance.
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