Castle's Family Restaurant Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Castle's Family Restaurant - Research Paper Example However, smaller from should outsource such activities and the choice of the vendor should be done after evaluation of its past performance. Introduction Castle’s Family Restaurant, a small group with under 350 workers has eight units which require the HR manager to travel frequently to each of the units to interact with the workers. Human resources are the greatest asset of the firm and an organization would need to invest in it to develop the capabilities. In the hospitality sector particularly, human resources must have unique capabilities to be able to deliver excellent service. Staff retention is a critical issue in the hospitality sector. The organization is considering implementation of HRIS which could help the organization save costs while reducing staff turnover. This study evaluates the types of HRIS that would best help the organization to retain staff. Stage I Business Assessment Family restaurant, a part of the hospitality sector, is a high potential, high-compet ition sector. While demand is high, staff attrition rate is also high. Prolonged job stress and high employee burn-out lead to high staff turnover in the sector (Buick & Thomas, 2001). It thus becomes absolutely essential for Castle’s Family Restaurant to attract, motivate and retain staff. This perhaps prompts the HR and the operations manager to travel to each of the eight restaurants every week to take care of scheduling, recruiting, hiring, and interacting with the staff. While the number of staff is not very high, managing staff at eight different locations can be challenging. It is essential to satisfy their queries and listen to them. Travelling every week is not cost-effective apart from the time taken in travelling. Therefore an alternative feasible solution has to be devised. Identification of problems The main HR functions that need attention at Castle’s Family Restaurant include task scheduling, recruitments, payroll preparations and answering the questions of the staff. While each of these tasks can be handled through the implementation of HRIS, staff retention is critical to service in this sector. Most of the staff is part-time, which adds to the challenge of retaining staff. The hospitality industry requires staff with strong practical skills and soft people management skills rather than analytical skills (Connolly & McGing, 2006). The staff has queries of day-to-day operations as well as queries related to personal issues. Each of these needs to be addressed timely as it makes the staff feel their concerns are addressed and paid heed to. Staff retention implies staff motivation and talent management to ensure continuity. Listening to their concerns is a great motivator and a good listener is one who encourages the people to express. Staff retention is essential to ensure service quality in the hospitality sector. Lower staff attrition also results in higher base of organizational knowledge and less deterioration of experiential l earning (Bontis & Fitz-Enz, 2002). Constant turnover also impacts the dynamics of staff interaction. High staff turnover also results in recurring costs in recruitment and training. HRIS needs assessment HR functions have now been transformed to digital formats and technology is yet to be optimally

Critically discuss how THREE selected environmental tools or methods Essay

Critically discuss how THREE selected environmental tools or methods could be applied to minimise the environmental impacts of - Essay Example Wind farms with many of such structures occupy a lot of space on the landscape. Onshore wind farms are always about three kilometres away from the shoreline. The turbines in these farms are located in hilly areas since wind blows heavily on hilly areas. Wind turbines cause landscape and visual effects depending on their number at a particular area, their height, size and colour. The effects may also depend on their site tracks, buildings, their grid connection, and â€Å"transmission lines† (Murgante et al., 2011). According to Ottmar et al (2011), wind turbines have a number of impacts on the environment. These include visual impacts, noise impacts, effects on land use, and effects on the birds that live around the wind farms. In addition, there are electronic interferences and constraints on the natural reserve areas. During the construction of a wind turbine, there are some pollutants that released into the atmosphere. The wind turbines are seen to be very noisy and they ar e also unsightly, thereby interfering with the natural beauty of â€Å"the landscape.† Sustainable Development Commission (2009) disagrees that wind farms are noisy and explains that the levels of noise from wind farm is equal to the background in rural places at night. Despite their negative impacts on the environment, onshore wind farms play a crucial part in achieving renewable energy targets. However, the many advantages that come with the farms can only be realised if proper planning is done. The contemporary wind farms are mostly large and not only help in environmental conservation, but also bring a lot of benefits to the communities that live around the farms. Among the advantages of using onshore wind farms is that wind is available free of charge and appropriate technology is available to harvest energy from wind as noted by Sustainable Development Commission (2009). Moreover, although the initial costs of installing wind turbines are high, maintenance cost are rela tively low after installation. It can also be used to generate power in rural areas where there is no power connection. Given the varying impacts to the humans, landscape aesthetics and the surrounding environment that implementation of such project poses; it is critical that environmental managers employ tools to manage this impacts. Thompson (2002) lists various tools and methods that can be used for environmental management and environmental performance improvement. To manage the impacts of the 40 turbine onshore wind farm project; EIA, LCA and GIS as the most appropriate environmental management tools. EIA has been selected because it helps to predict the impacts of a project and propose mitigation measures while GIS allows environmental managers make decision based on spatial relationship of features. LCA allows decision makers to carry out a comprehensive assessment of the life cycle of the project thereby facilitating decision making. Environmental Impact Management EIA is a tool used in decision-making whose main purpose is to not only identify and evaluate the likely environmental impacts of a given project (Glasson et al., 2005). EIA is