Recommendations for Management Plans of Local Staff and Expatriate Managers

To: Jim Johnson, General Manager, West Indies Yacht Club Resort

From: Patrick Dowd, Management Consultant

Date: 27 October 2018

Subject: Recommendations for management plans of local staff and expatriate managers

1. Introduction

This report provides recommendations for management plans of local staff and expatriate manager of West Indies Yacht Club Resort(WIYCR). WIYCR had issues on high turnover rate of managers, unmotivated local employees and increasing tension between local employees and expatriate managers. The problem is worsening that the number of customer complaints received surges and started to affect the operation of the company. This report contains strategies to ease the problem as to improve the corporate image.

I reviewed the case and visited the resort for 3 weeks to talk to different stakeholders, both local employees and expatriate managers. Consulting different stakeholders provided better insights on the problems and its underlying causes.

Owing to the time limitations, I focused on communicating with local employees and managers. I seldom chatted with customers who may have different concerns or opinion. However, plans for management plans of local staff and expatriate managers is necessary to regain customers’ trust, thus WIYCR can operate profitably.

This report includes the conclusions, recommendations and findings and analyses.

2. Conclusions

Based on my findings and analyses, the business have yet to:

2.1. Retain managers and lower the manager turnover rate, thus to save the training costs of new managers and lower the tension between local employees and managers.

2.2. Motivate local employees to improve quality of services, and thus restore the corporate image.

2.3. Build stronger bond between local employees and expatriates to improve relationships and reduce the tension between locals and expatriates.

3. Recommendations

Improving such problems and thus to restore corporate image and boost staff morale are ultimate goals of WIYCR. To implement plans to deal with the issues, cooperation between different parties is required to achieve it. To do so, I recommend:

3.1. Provide concrete guidelines and training workshops

3.1.1. The company can provide employees with employee handbook. Concrete guidelines should be provide to employees to improve the service quality. Local employees do not receive concrete guidelines and instructions. They do not have clear directions and feel frustrated when providing service. Clear and specific guidelines is an effective tool to help improve quality of work life for employees1.

3.1.2. The company should provide training workshops to educate both the employees and managers. Some employees are confused about their duties. Training workshops should be held for employees to demonstrate the ways to deal with complicated situations. Interactive and informative workshops are useful for employees to learn and apply in workplace. Cultural workshops should be given to managers. Local culture and American culture are disparate that barriers exist between local staff and expatriate managers. Workshops can be set for managers and thus to narrow the cultural gap.

The company should from a committee consist of managers from all departments. Included general rules and business ethics should be discussed by managers from different departments. Responsibility and authority of employees from specific departments should be mentioned in the handbook by respective department manager. Company structure should be included in the handbook so employees have the insight to seek help from specific person when encounter problems. The handbook should be prepared within a month. After creating employee handbook, training workshops should be arranged. Handbook can be distributed during training work workshops. The first workshop should be arranged within 2 months.

3.2. Hold programs to strengthen bonds between local and expatriate staff

3.2.1. The company should conduct monthly gathering to narrow the cultural gap. Regular