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Introduction

            Delta Hotels, one of Canada’s largest hotel management companies, was founded in 1962 in Richmond, British Columbia and had its humble beginnings as a low priced sixty-two room motor inn.  Originally owned by Canada Pacific (CP) their properties were eventually split into two chains, the Delta and the their sister company the Fairmount.  As of 2004 Delta Hotels has over thirty-five hotel and resort properties and employs over seven thousand workers across the country.  Delta Hotels only has properties in Canada and currently has no plans to expand internationally.  They currently only add one to two new properties per year.  There was a Delta in Florida but it has recently been sold due to the high cost of maintenance.   Delta has also been included in the Globe and Mail’s “50 Best Companies to Work For in Canada” which is an award given to companies based on how the employees view them.  Delta Hotels sees itself as a modern, trend setting, fair and caring organization and has maintained a strong quality commitment to both its customers and its employees.  In this paper we will examine some of the human resource strategies and policies that Delta has used and still uses to maintain this commitment.  We will be speaking to human resource manager, Shelly O’donnell, at the Delta Hotels customer service centre in Fredericton, as well as getting information from their employees, and comparing the two sources to see if the corporate human resource strategy is in sync with employee perceptions.

Recruitment and Employee Relations

At the Delta properties there are four or five management staff, including kitchen facilities and the rest are front desk workers, maids, maintenance, etc.  As well as having multiple hotels and resorts across the country, Delta also has multiple reservation offices.    The Delta Hotel customer service center in Fredericton employs close to one hundred and twenty workers during peak season.  In the off-season the number of employees does not decrease by much, with only about a five percent turnover rate, Delta Fredericton usually retains around one hundred and ten employees in off-season.  Some employees are laid off during the off-season and hired back when it is finished.  The employees at the reservation centers consist of line staff, who work the phones, and around twelve management staff.  Ms. Odonnell claims that the attrition rate of management is only around one percent, if that.

             Through our discussions with Ms. Odonnell it was easy to determine that Delta uses a commitment based control system with their employees, fostering a sense of common goals, shared vision and common values.  The Delta mission as relayed on their website states, “The mission of Delta Hotels is to be the full service, Canadian, hotel management company of choice with the dominant first-class brand. In carrying out this mission, Delta will be guided by our Quality approach” (deltahotels.com) This mission statement is divided up into 3 parts, the owner, the guest and the employee. In the employee section the mission states that Delta will be known to employees as: “A company where employees can contribute and grow, a great place to work where a culture exists that recognizes "the way we deal with our employees will be reflected in the manner that they interact with our guests, and a company that demonstrates and encourages an attitude that is supportive of the social needs of the community” (deltahotels.com)  It is because of this commitment to employ welfare that Delta uses a very modern recruitment process.    Recruitment is usually not an issue at Delta, they claim there are always people applying and their reputation gives them a constant workforce of people excited to be working for the company.  When hiring employees, Delta uses several techniques and assessments that allow them to hire the right people.  One tool they use is called a “Gallop”.  The Gallop technique measures personality, strengths, and competencies.  Once profiles are taken of potential employees phone contact is made and interviews and assessments are done.  If everything checks out then reference checks are made and the employee is invited in to meet with their peers.  The human resource department is very employee focused and they often conduct town hall meetings to get employee feedback about working conditions and other issues bearing on the company.  Delta fully believes in 360-degree feedback at all times.  At the customer service centers teamwork is not as important because of the individual work environment and that is one reason why town hall meetings and other similar methods are used to ensure quality.  Delta also uses several methods for keeping employees happy working hard.  Some of these include getting a week off of work after meeting certain objectives, thirty-day training programs as well as mentoring and coaching programs.  There are also employee guarantees such as “All delta employees will have their development review within thirty days of their anniversary date.  Otherwise, they will receive a weeks pay”.  Another guarantee states that all employees will receive twelve hours of job related training per year or they will receive a week’s pay.  As well Delta has several employee awards such as the Community Ambassador Recognition Award, which recognizes outstanding achievements of individual team members and teams who take an active role in the community/professional associations/societal issues.  Other awards include the Quality Team Achievement award, the Safety and Wellness Recognition Award and the Individual Achievement Award.  Delta fully believes that it’s employees are some of the strongest customer service center and hotel employees in Canada and that it is their employees who give them a competitive advantage over other hotel chains.

Environment and Forecasting

            For delta hotels the environment plays a huge role in how their business is conducted.  Delta continually scans the environment new and emerging trends.  They have had to keep on top of issues such as the increasing use of online reservations, and the changing knowledge of the workforce.  There are literally a million things that happen in everyday life that can effect how the hotels operate.  One of the most recent and most devastating external events that turned Delta’s industry upside down was the terrorist attack of September 11, 2003.  This event caused the airline industry to almost go belly up.  The hotel industry is very dependent on the airlines.  Millions of passengers fly on airlines every year and stay in hotels.  With the newly formed fear of flying, hotels were feeling the pinch; nobody wanted to fly so hotel guest numbers were steadily decreasing.  Once the airline industry had finally gotten back on it’s feet the hotel industry started to come around, however if you were Delta and owned many properties in Toronto and surrounding areas your worries weren’t even close to being over.  In the summer of 2003 an outbreak of the SARS virus led to a decrease in business that was unprecedented in Delta’s history.  Not only were people not willing to travel to Toronto, many international guest refused to travel anywhere in Canada.  This downturn eventually led to an unfortunate but necessary downsizing, which will be discussed later.  Although Delta uses many forecasting techniques including looking for attrition trends and business volumes, events such as 9/11 and the SARS outbreak are almost impossible to forecast.  As well as scanning the external environment and providing forecasts, Delta also does a lot of internal forecasting, trying to look for trends in competitor’s staffing numbers, satisfaction, hiring practices.

Human Resource Systems and IT

            The HR department at Delta Hotels Fredericton uses a basic computer system that merely keeps employee records and is a branch within the payroll system.  This surprised us quite a bit, especially after hearing about Delta’s employee commitment programs.  Because of it’ simplicity it is easily integrated with other systems at the reservation center and consists only of prepackaged software.  According to Ms. Odonnell there has been much discussion as to whether this system needs to be updated.  Her and many other of the HR managers across Canada feel that this is a necessity.  The upper management has informed them that they could get one within two to three years.  The HR department is actually quite isolated from the rest of management and does not usually have a say in many of the major decisions made by head offices.  Again, this seems to be contradictory to all their efforts of maintaining a commitment based control system.  It has to give one pause to wonder if it is possible that employee commitments on paper aren’t always lived up to in real situations.

            Delta does not have an IT department and usually management who are versed in computers handles any computer problems.  If the problem is too large they will contract out to get it fixed.

Diversity

            Delta Hotels employs people from all races and religions throughout Canada and tries to maintain a diverse workforce.  For many years bilingualism in French and English was a requirement when working at any of the customer service centers or at any of the hotels in New Brunswick.  Over the last few years this requirement has been relaxed somewhat and there is an English only section in the customer service center in Fredericton.  If a caller needs assistance in French they can be easily transferred.  At the hotels all front desk staff must be bilingual, but it is not necessary for line staff.  At the moment Delta only adheres to basic regulations considering the hiring of ethnic minorities.  Over the next few years, however, they plan on implementing an equal opportunities program where they plan to capture the native and visible minority market.

Succession Management

            Currently Delta Hotels do use a form of succession management.  They have a few different methods for doing this. Some of these include employee development, which includes individual development with goals, job shadowing, mentoring and a six-module program for potential leaders.  The Individual Development Plan (IDP) is a plan designed to increase the skill, performance level and career potential of each employee.  The mentorship program is a partnership between two individuals who desire mutual growth.  The mentee benefits from the experiences of the mentor.  Even with programs like these, Ms. Odonnell claims that there is still some elitism among management staff.  The promotion ratios are lower than most and many times in order to get promotions employees need to be transferred to hotel properties.  All managers are hired internally first through their succession program but Delta will hire externally if necessary.  Hiring externally, however, can be very time consuming, as it is required that all employees know how to work the basic systems first.  So in essence if a manager is hired externally, they still have to be trained as though they are working at an entry-level position.  Management has a thirty-day turnaround where they have to learn a mixture of all positions at the company.  Self-evaluations are used regularly as are opinion surveys giving management the necessary feedback required to do a good job.

Downsizing

            After the attacks of 9/11 Delta Hotels was forced to make a tough decision and downsize in both their customer service centers and their hotel properties.  Further downsizing was required in 2003 after the SARS outbreak.  Ms. Odonnell stresses the point that this “rightsizing” was absolutely vital and that all other options were looked into.  Due to the seriousness of the terror attacks and the virus outbreak a very good case for downsizing can be made.  It was definitely not a case of institutionalism.  Although almost all hotels and airlines had to take drastic measures there was no real alternative if the industry was to survive.  During Delta’s downsizing no line positions were cut, all cuts began at the top and worked their way down.  Management became much smaller and chains of command were less complex.  As well as not laying off any line positions Delta also did not hire any new employees during this period.  Along with the lay-offs for management, certain jobs were redesigned to take on different roles and be more flexible.  Much of the IT department at their head offices were laid off and the human resource departments were dismantled and set up differently.  Ms. Odonnell claims that there was a certain amount of survivor syndrome present after the downsizing took place, mostly among management.  Even though there had been no line staff cuts many of the line staff felt that their jobs were the next to go even though there had been communication stating the otherwise.  Of course the downsizing did not come as a surprise to any of the employees.  The external events made it seem inevitable and Delta were certainly not the only chain to take this action.  A certain amount of insecurity manifested itself in the customer service centers especially.  The survivor syndrome did not last long and no serious implications were reported.  Eventually the employees returned to normal routines and moral went back up to previous levels. 

            For the employees that were laid off, there were certain programs set-up to help with the process such as the Employee Assistance Program (EAP).  Career support was given to departing supervisors and some managers were encouraged to move to hotel properties.  There was a severance package offered, within what Delta felt, were reasonable limits.  

The Employee

            As well as having the opportunity to talk with the human resource manager in Fredericton we were also able to interview an employee of the customer service center and find out if the claims made by Delta hotels really meshed with how employees felt.  The person we interviewed was a young lady by the name of Tina Gaudreau who has worked for Delta for approximately four and a half years.  Some of the things she revealed were in line with Delta claims but some things were quite surprising.  When she was hired the process was exactly the way Ms. Odonnell had described it with phone interviews and a serious of personal interviews.  After hiring she underwent a three-week training period.    We asked Tina if she was aware of the two employee guarantees and she told us that she was but couldn’t remember what they were exactly.  After informing her she told us that they had kept their guarantee in her case.  Tina believes that Delta generally does have the commitment to employees that it claims to have.  When the downsizing took place, Tina confirmed that no line positions were cut and no one hired and that the downsizing process was communicated clearly to her and her fellow employees.  The survivor syndrome was not severe and did not last long.  Tina says there is a lot of back and forth feedback between management and line staff. She has done many employee opinion surveys but claims that she has never attended a “town hall meeting” or filled out a self evaluation, both of which are touted by the HR department.  According to Tina management opportunities have been offered to her and are offered to every employee should they opt to undergo the training.  She personally was not interested in a management position but she did inform us that there was a certain amount of favoritism at play when promotions are handed out. Tina has been the recipient of the Individual Achievement Award four times.  She says after receiving the award an employee gets a balloon and a free casual dress day!  After learning that Delta had pretty much kept up it’s commitment to employees with a few small deviations we were very surprised to learn that Tina hated her job and felt that many of the people who worked with her felt the same way.  Her biggest complaint was the constant policy revision and strict enforcement rules.  Delta is a very mechanistic organization and this usually does not translate well for employees.

Recommendations

            There are a couple of things that Delta could do to improve its human resource efficiency and effectiveness, the first being the change to the HR technology systems.  As mentioned earlier the HR department has been pushing for a new system and the current one does not seem to mesh with their commitment based employee program.  The most important step that should be taken, however, is to find out what why employees like Tina hate their job.  All of Delta’s employee development programs, awards, and commitment-based policies all look good on paper but there is evidently a larger problem when employees are saying they hate their job.  Delta needs to find out what this problem is and solve it.  Rather than being such a mechanistic organization, they could use a more lenient system and not enforce policy so strictly.  The Human Resource department should also play a larger role in company policies and the decision making process, this could be one of the reasons for such an inconsistency in employee opinions and management opinions.  Otherwise Delta seems to run a pretty tight ship with modern forward-looking human resource policies.