Analysis And Recommendations: Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group's Organizational Culture Essay.

Demonstrate interpersonal awareness including a clearer understanding of emotional labour, empowerment and occupation;

Assess positive leadership and the effective management of diverse work relationships with the context of hospitality and other service industries;

Discuss issues on the governance of the hospitality workplace and the employer/employee relationship within a tropical workplace and sustainability framework;

Demonstrate an awareness of ethical and social responsibility in professional practice;

Synthesise underlying principles and concepts for making business decisions;

CConvey information clearly and fluently, in high quality written form appropriate for their audience.

Background

Culture comprises of values, norms and beliefs of people. An organizational culture is the behavior, values and beliefs of the members of an organization. An organizational culture represents the nature of an organization. The organizational culture is an intangible aspect of an organization that can only be felt (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2015). An organizational culture is very important when it comes to managing an organization. The report describes the organizational culture of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. The objective of this report is to analyze the various organizational cultural issues faced by the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group and provide solutions to them.

Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group is an international hotel group with various luxury resorts and hotels in Asia, America and Europe. Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group has approximately 41 hotels in 27 countries. It has hotels and resorts in Atlanta, Bangkok, Boston, Geneva, Hong-Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Las Vegas, London, New York City, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo and many more places. The Mandarin Oriental, Singapore is located at Marina Centre. The mission of this hotel is to delight and satisfy its guests and get better every day in order to make themselves the best. It aims to build a motivating, caring and rewarding environment for its employees. It strives to bring out the best in their employees through training and development.

Organizational culture is a system of values, assumptions, norms and beliefs that guide the members of an organization during their performance of organizational roles and and facing the environmental challenges (Fu et al., 2015). Organizational culture provides basis for the routine organizational activities and helps in avoiding misunderstandings. There are two competing perspectives on organizational culture namely variable and root metaphor.

• Culture as variable: It refers to something that an organization already has and it is the by-product of the activities of an organization. It states that only management has the power to change and influence the organizational culture. A strong culture has four components namely values, heroes, rites and rituals and cultural network.
• Culture as root metaphor: It states that culture is a sense created through interactions and communication. It stresses on what an organization is and provides understanding of how the organizational members make perception of the world around them. It comprises of three elements namely complex, communicative construction and sub or counter cultures. Basically, it states that culture is influenced by all the members of an organization.

Edgar Schein stated that culture is not adopted by the organizations in a day, instead it is created over a period of time as various changes occur in an organization. Culture is formed as the employees face challenges, adapt to the internal and external environment and find solutions to the problems. According to Schein, the following are three levels in an organizational culture:

• Artifacts: It refers to the organizational characteristics that can be easily seen, heard and sensed by the individuals. Artifacts include mission, vision, facilities, dress code and behavior of individuals.
• Values: The values of the employees working in an organization determine the culture of an organization. The attitude and thoughts of the employee helps in forming the organizational culture
• Assumed values: The nature, beliefs and values of the employees which cannot be measured, contributes in the formation of the organizational culture of an organization.

Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group emphasizes on sharing the recognition, responsibility and accountability through teamwork. It lays stress on treating its employees with trust and mutual respect in order to increase the productivity. It aims to build a motivating, caring and rewarding environment for its employees (Rahimi, 2017). It strives to bring out the best in their employees through training and development. An organizational culture is said to be good when the employees feel satisfied and motivated. Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group has provided a good working environment along with decent pay to its employees in order to keep them motivated and satisfied.

Organizational culture theory

The culture of an organization also depends upon the structure, strategy, behavior of an organization that encourages communication and innovation. The following are the four elements that Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group tries to implement:

• Leadership and relationship: Leadership is a very important aspect that influences the working culture. The behavior and level of influence of the top management helps in determining the employee-employer relationship in an organization. The management team at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group tries to help its employees in case of any issues faced by them. This has helped in improving the relationship between the employees and the management, which indirectly had a positive impact on the organizational culture.
• Workload: Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group tries to evaluate the amount of workload that an employee would be capable of carry so that the employee is not over burdened with work and he remains satisfied. This has helped in increasing the loyalty of the employees towards the organization, which has created a positive organizational culture.
• Capability: Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group provides proper training to its employees for the development of the employees that helps in increasing their productivity.
• Control: The degree of control also determines the organizational culture. Both excessive control and no control are very harmful for an organizational culture. For maintaining a good organizational culture, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group tries to keep moderate control over its employees.

Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group has strict guidelines for maintaining a work environment that is free from any kind of harassment or discrimination. It provides equal employment opportunities to everyone. Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group tries to maintain ethical behavior within its organization, which has led to positive organizational culture. Hence, it can be concluded that the management of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group tries to maintain the organizational culture of the organization. In other words, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group considers organizational culture as a variable.

Internet reviews of the past and present employees of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group have shown a mixed reaction of the employees towards the organizational culture of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. Analyzing the reviews, we can conclude the following pros and cons of the organizational culture of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group:

• Co-operation among the co-workers
• Management is always ready to help
• Great hospitality skills and opportunity for the employees to interact with new people
• Good working environment
• Free lunch for the employees
• High standards for the employees
• Good relations between the departments
• Proper career development training
• Vacation and sick leave benefits
• Paid holidays
• Flexible management
• Attractive compensations
• Focused on delivery of its values and mission
• Opportunity for personal development of employees
• Opportunity to learn (Group et al., 2017)

• Long shifts and short breaks: The basic flaw in the organizational culture is the long working hours and absence of enough time for refreshment for the employees. This often makes the working schedule monotonous for the employees. Short breaks on busy days sometimes make the job tiring for the employees.
• Unprofessional management: Many employees of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group have reported about the unprofessional behavior and arrogance of some management people. This affects the organizational culture largely as Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group considers culture as a variable, which states that the management is solely responsible for the organizational culture of an organization.
• High rate of turnover of employees: The high rate of turnover of employees has a negative impact on the organizational culture.
• Understaffing: Due to low retention rate of the employees, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group often faces the issue of understaffing. The number of available employees becomes lesser than the number of employees required. This causes burden on the existing employees and also affects the service of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group.
• Increased workload: Lack of sufficient employees due to increased rate of turnover of employees increases the workload on the existing staff. It becomes very difficult for the employees to take the work overload and affects their mental as well as physical health.
• Inter-departmental disputes: In case of any inter-departmental issue, none of the department is ready to take the responsibility. Instead, they blame each other for any inconvenience occurred. This causes disruption in the free flow of quality services and affects the relationship between the different departments.
• Lack of actions in case of indiscipline: Some employees of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group have reported that the organization did not take any actions against the employees who caused indiscipline in the working area. This can have severe impact on the organizational culture of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group as the values of the employees working in an organization determine the culture of an organization. The attitude and thoughts of the employee helps in forming the organizational culture.
• Work-Life imbalance: Long working hours has made it difficult for the employees of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group to maintain a balance between their work life and personal life. Every human being requires some time for his personal life to relax but it becomes difficult for the employees of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group to enjoy their personal life due to long working schedules.   
• Hiring management only from external sources: Hiring management only from external sources causes de-motivation among the internal employees, as they are not considered for higher posts despite of possessing higher experience in the hospitality sector ("Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group "high turnover" Reviews", 2017).

The following are the recommendations for the improvement of organizational culture in Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group:

• The management must be more co-operative and responsible. Too much control and arrogance of the people in management often leads to dissatisfaction among the employees. Therefore, the management must strive to maintain cordial relationship with the employees in order to them motivated.
• The duration of working hours must be revised and the schedule must be such that it does not cause monotony.
• Proper working conditions must be ensured along with attractive pay scale in order to retain the employees and reduce the employee turnover rate.
• Strict actions must be taken against those employees who cause indiscipline within the organization so that a good organizational culture is maintained in the organization.
• The workload must be divided among the employees in such a manner such that none of the employees feel over burdened due to work.
• In order to encourage the existing employees of the organization, the organization must consider the internal employees for the higher posts. This will cause enthusiasm among the employees and will result in greater productivity.
• The organization must adopt a participative culture which encourages the involvement of the employees in case of decision-making regarding some important aspects of the organization.
• The organization must take steps to solve the issues of understaffing in order to ensure proper flow of qualitative services.
• The organization must work for the development of the employees and help in their career planning and development.

Conclusion:

The report described the organizational culture of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. The report analyzed the various organizational cultural issues faced by the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. Since organizational culture represents the nature of an organization therefore, it becomes very important for any organization to maintain a strong organizational culture. An organizational culture is said to be good when the employees feel satisfied and motivated. Internet reviews of the past and present employees of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group were analyzed in order to understand the various organizational cultural issues of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. The various pros and cons of the organizational culture of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group were discussed in detail and the recommendations to the issues were described in the report.

References:

Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2015). Changing organizational culture: Cultural change work in progress. Routledge.

Fu, S. L., Chou, S. Y., Chen, C. K., & Wang, C. W. (2015). Assessment and cultivation of total quality management organisational culture–an empirical investigation. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 26(1-2), 123-139.

Group, M., co-workers, F., work, S., away, S., benefits, C., & service, E. et al. (2017). Working at Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group: Employee Reviews about Management | Indeed.com. Indeed.com. Retrieved 17 April 2017, from https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Mandarin-Oriental-Hotel-Group/reviews?ftopic=mgmt

Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group "high turnover" Reviews. (2017). Glassdoor. Retrieved 17 April 2017, from https://www.glassdoor.co.in/Reviews/Mandarin-Oriental-Hotel-Group-high-turnover-Reviews-EI_IE12377.0,29_KH30,43.htm?countryRedirect=true

Rahimi, R. (2017). Customer Relationship Management (People, Process and Technology) and Organisational Culture in Hotels: Which traits matter?. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.