Change management processes within the hospitality industry business environment : a local perspective

Abstract

Businesses are currently operating in a time where their environment is constantly changing. This has led to a need for businesses to adapt to such an environment. Managers are making use of several change processes which are critical to both their business’ survival and success. These processes cover how businesses identify and investigate problems, how they plan to solve them, how these plans are carried out and how these businesses measure their success. For Malta, one of the most important industries in the country is the hospitality industry. This industry brings a lot of income to the country, hires a large number of staff and is especially influenced by international events. This thesis aims to understand what change management processes such businesses in this industry have, how they’re used and why these processes are used. The questionnaire used for this interview focused on what change management processes were used during a change event of the interviewees’ choosing. Seventeen interviews were held with top management of either hotels or tour operators. From these interviews, a clearer image was gained of the issues that businesses in the hospitality industry face. These changes were then categorised depending on the type of issues the hotels faced. Once the changes were categorised, the processes used were compared to see what tools did these companies use to help carry out the changes. The analysis of these tools also took note of how these tools affected the process, so as to identify where improvements needed to take place. From the results, it can be seen that managers weren’t able to identify staffing problems, until staff shortages were beginning to occur. Managers experiencing changes in strategy and technology also had trouble with involving their employees in the change process, despite the fact that the staff were affected by the changes. Some managers also didn’t provide a clear explanation as to how changes were planned, implying a lack of framework on how to plan for changes. These are aspects of current change processes which will need to be remedied in future. It is recommended that more proactive measures are used to identify staffing problems, that employees are given a bigger say in the change process and that managers develop frameworks for when changes need to be planned.