Hilton Storage

Introduction

Food and beverages form an immensely significant part of a hotel’s business and business existence in general relies on sale of these products to customers. It implies that quality of the products must be outstanding to ensure that there is uniformity, consistency in quality without compromising the profitability objective. A hotel must therefore critically consider all the processes the foods and beverages pass through from in-bound logistics to storage before arriving at customer contact centers. With these points in mind, this paper analyzes food and beverage control process in the workplace with a specific focus on Hilton Chain of Hotels.

Overview of Hilton Hotel & Resorts

Founded in 1919, Hilton Hotel and Resorts boasts of a long history of operation and transformation that spans over 90 years (Hilton 2014). The hotel is a chain of hotels and resorts with presence globally and which also offers franchise opportunities in the international hotel and resort industry. The hotel chain has more than 540 branded hotels operating in about 80 countries all over the world. The hotel chain deals in hospitality and tourism industry with hotels and resorts serving holiday makers (Hilton 2014). Actually Hilton targets customers in diverse market segments although it is generally considered to be a provider of premium pricing products and services. With reference to age in terms of segmentation and market targeting, the hotel chain does not target customers of particular age group. However, its segmentation is basically focused on income, family life-cycle, occupation and socio-economic group without looking at the age, race, religion and gender of target market.

Storage and control methods relating to health and safety

Safety and health management is a critical aspect of business operation and this does not just apply to the hotel industry alone but all industries (Meiselman 2001). However, in the hotel industry there is an additional concern for stringent health measures given the fact that the foods and beverages processed and prepared are served to humans (Lindoe & Olsen 2004). Given the extent of international operation of Hilton and Resorts that covers a global scale; it is not without expectations that the hotel chain encounters various storage and control measures relating to health and safety that are extremely diverse depending on the country of operation. For instance, in the 2008 recommendations for safety and good ergonomic performance of waiters and waitresses by the Workplace Safety and Health Council in Canada in conjunction with the Canadian Ministry of Manpower, the guidelines are based on the understanding that while waiters and banquet servers regularly carry trays of dishes that routinely call for bending and reaching distances to clear or wipe tables, repetitive lifting, carrying or awkward positions can compromise the health and safety of the employees and their customers.

This means that Hilton Hotel & Resorts branches in Canada have to adhere to the standards and guidelines about the above highlighted issues. On its part, Hilton Hotel & Resorts has an employee training program and safety measures that ensure employees get the knowledge on how to make sure that minimum standards on health and safety are met at all times and during all processes (Mathews et al 2001). The hotel trains employees on proper lifting when employees are using manual lifting and also proper use of trolleys and workplace equipment such as gloves to prevent sustenance of injuries and strains to the employees or third parties.

Storage and control methods relating to quality control

Looking back at the training issue, Hilton hotel uses employee training as a way to improve quality and ensure total quality management through effective training plans that transmit information to the employees and demand assessable performance improvements that match predetermined goals relating to quality control measures (King & Cichy 2006). While the main of these training and development programs is to boost effectiveness and bolster competitiveness among employees, it works perfectly by ensuring continuous quality improvement (Middel et al 2007). This in turn allows Hilton Hotel to achieve its minimum quality control standards and aim higher in terms of the quality of food and beverages served or stocked. In order to bolster the aspect of total quality control at Hilton Hotels & Resorts, the hotel chain ensures that there diverse categories of training and development plans that are generally grouped as either formal or informal and which aim at creating a healthier-performing workforce.

When employees demonstrate any sign of deficiencies in their performance, the hotel’s management organizes for remedial training to correct this (Ottenbacher & Harrington 2009). This can be achieved in several ways including training through the Hotel’s internal training staff, training through the department that deals with employee management (the human resources department section dealing with employee training programs) or by contracting external training organization. Ramdeen et al (2007) offer great support to the training plans in the hotel industry by arguing that if a hotel does not provide training for its customers and benchmark minimum standards to ensure consistency in quality of food and beverages then that hotel is likely to encounter highly dissatisfied customers and employees that consequently leads to costs of attracting new customers due to many non-repeat customers. In addition, the hotel will have to grapple with the consequence of high employee turnover that include high training costs, especially training of new employees. This is in addition to supporting views from Kincaid et al (2010), who argue that customers and hotel patrons are held to the hotel by the tangible quality the hotel creates and maintains. In fact, Kincaid et al (2010) provide proof that repeat-customer in the hotel industry is increased by maintenance of consistent quality standards and they do this by carrying out a case study on what brings customers back in the restaurant industry. These realities will then compound and lead to high costs of operation for the hotel.

Another aspect that Hilton Hotel uses to ensure that quality is consistently maintained is the adoption of ISO 9000 certification and other working standard quality systems. This step taken by Hilton in adopting a standard quality system is supported by Karapetrovic and Willborn (2001), who provided a summary of the benefits that accrue to putting into operation a successful quality system. The authors provide a point showing that doing this allows Hilton Hotel to garner increased confidence in the quality services, gain from lessened paper work and red tape, and gain from improved training of employees with higher morale being realized and assured job security (Manning et al 2006). They further show that an organization that implements a successful quality system stands to have added value hence rating higher in the industry and gain from minimized quality costs hence maximized revenues (Karapetrovic & Willborn 2001). There is also the aspect of improved operational control since a similar task can be performed in exact similar way by anyone and get similar products following similar procedures that are laid down. According to Oakland (2003) adoption of the quality standards helps organizations to be competitive, have an enhanced company image and attract new customers. The last part shows that adoption of the quality standards by the Hilton Hotel and Resorts helps the hotel chain to cut costs by cutting down on costs of customer retention and costs related to attracting new ones (Longart 2010).

The Hilton Hotel chain has a quality control measure, which ensures that there are standard recipes and procedures for all foods and beverages. This not only ensures consistency in quality but also ensures that operational procedures are streamlined by removing all non-essential procedures. In addition, Oakland (2003) adds that having standard recipes ensures better total quality management since anyone can produce the same quality of the products. To guarantee quality consistency, Hilton Hotel has a standing rule that directs chefs to use the same ingredients, same operating equipment and same procedures in the exact way each time they prepare food. In addition, they have standard recipes to follow. The recipes also provide all details beginning from preparation to service for every food item prepared and served in the hotel.

Minimum regulatory standards for quality control stipulate that a control target needs to be established for each vital control point that has been recognized or acknowledged. The critical points established should now enable the hotel to set controls that should be monitored regularly to ensure that the minimum standards requirements are not being flouted. Hilton Hotel sets frequency of checks for every identified control and it also measures critical points each time a critical step is performed. Other steps that are not so critical are subjected to checks at regular intervals. Another important aspect of Hilton Hotel food and beverage storage in respect to quality control is the record keeping of whatever measures are taken and all aspects of the activities taken. Keeping of records is a good step that is highly recommended in most food safety and quality control guidelines. For example, in the UK Food Safety and Quality Control Guidelines, even though the guidelines do not put it mandatory for keeping of records when it comes to performing checks on control points, the guidelines recommend that it would not only be an added advantage to do so but it would be appropriate to conduct checks at intervals and also keep records where necessary (CHADWICK 1995). With reference to these points, Gadelrab (2010) points out that keeping records relating to quality control check points is important and significant to the hotel’s quality control objectives because these records act as reference points and may help in identifying any step that was not conducted correctly.

Meanwhile, in respect to quality measures in the hotel industry, initial study by Kimes (2001) had established that hotels generally evaluated their quality through inspections that may either be internal or external; as well as through customer feedbacks that touch on product quality. Customer feedbacks are typically gathered via customer comment drop-boxes, surveys or customer interviews among other methods. All these necessitate keeping of records for follow-ups and reference.

Storage and financial control methods

Businesses operate with at least an expectation that profit should be realized at the end of the entire process. It would be surprising to find that Hilton Hotel does not attach any financial control measures to its operations with respect to food and beverage storage and financial control methods put in place. The Hilton Hotels and Resorts has an internal audit department that carries out audit tasks that review established financial controls, operational controls and testing of compliance risks across the hotel chain’s global portfolio that comprises all the business units and hotels of the chain. Besides ensuring that there is efficient execution of assigned projects as included on the hotel’s departmental risk-based internal audit plan, the internal audit departmental engages in regular testing of key financial controls, which are based on the company’s US Internal controls on financial reporting (Hilton 2014).

The internal audit department at Hilton Hotel also conducts autonomous and goal-driven assessments of internal controls, evaluation of financial results corporate processes, operations of the hotel and assessment of it compliance requirements. The department is also tasked with partnering with management of the hotel to come up with action-based corrective plans to appropriately respond to every Internal Audit observations and succeeding follow-ups to guarantee closure (Hospitality 2014). The department has another task that makes it a requirement for it to regularly interact with process owners and senior management and this allows it to establish any possible quality issues beforehand. Hilton Hotels also contracts independent auditors by a regulation established in its audit charter (Audit Charter 2014).

Summative Conclusion

Based on the assessment of Hilton Hotel and Resorts with focus on its food and beverage storage quality, it has been established that the hotel chain has put in place very standards that are backed by adoption of several successful working quality systems such as ISO 9000, ISO 9001 and it has put in place measures that ensure quality control at all levels. With respect to storage and controls methods relating to food and beverage quality control, the hotel has directives for monitoring of refrigerated foods and beverages to ensure constant temperature monitoring (Manning & Baines 2004). The training programs availed by the hotel for all its employees are also another important way of ensuring quality maintenance. To ensure constant monitoring, the hotel has an internal auditing department that carries out continuous audit of all processes for quality maintenance and control purposes.Reference List:

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