Corporate Culture Profile at Hilton

Table of Contents

1. Strategic Use of Models of organization Culture to achieve the Business Objectives
2. Differences between the National Culture and the Organization Culture

1.3 Analysing the Corporate Culture Profile at Hilton

1.4 The impact of an organization’s corporate culture in achieving its Objectives

2.1 evaluation of the existing climate of an organization

2.2 recommended ways to improve corporate climate in an organization

2.3 A framework of organizational values that meet the specific strategic and operational needs of an organization

3.1 The corporate cultural profile in an organization

3.2 The impact of an organization’s corporate culture in achieving its Objectives to development a new communication strategy for stakeholders of an organization that address differences in belief, values, customs and language.

3.3 The existing climate of an organization to development a new communication strategies for stakeholders of an organization that address differences in belief, values, customs and language.

4   Conclusion

5   References

Executive Summary

Hilton was a very small city with about 70,000 residents. It served as an outer suburb to a large Midwest metropolitan area twenty years ago. The government treated their employees as family and provided them with unlimited autonomy in their day to day work. Every person in the municipal organization agreed implicitly that the leaders and supervisors of the organization should rise through the ranks based on their experience. Learn the job skills; continue a reasonably better work record and stay patiently for your turn for promotions was the rule of employment at Hilton.

With the changers of all aspects of Social and Economic, Hilton rapidly grew over the past decades. With this change and city expansion mostly focused on infrastructure building and few cost controlling. This focus was mainly on the hard services within the council. The management made the organization to face unexpected results from both production and service side of the employees.

New recruitments, change of the management and newly formed organizational structure disappointed some of the senior employees, as they were expecting promotions and some other fringe benefits according to the seniority and experiences that they held at the organization for nearly twenty years. The disappointments of employees led the organization to handle a massive turnover ratio and to find suitable employees for replacements.

The rest of the employees of the organization could not actually understand the strategies of the newly appointed management team. They had always been in a problematic situation to act as there was no proper mechanism for communication. The mismatch between communication and ideas of the employees always failed to act well for a better service proving.

Municipality authorities were totally unaware of the duties and responsibilities of each employee and they had always been in confusion for the sorting out of this complex situation.

The imaged new culture had differences in areas such as, Recruitment, Promotions, Way that the Employees were Treated, Values and Coast controlling aspects. These changers had both positive as well as negative impacts which are been discussed in this study. This report reveals enough information for Hilton to utilize their available scares resources to the maximal and to recreate their municipality to a satisfactory level.

1.1STRATEGIC USE OF MODELS OF ORGANIZATION CULTURE TO ACHIEVE THE      BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

“Organizational culture is civilization in the workplace.” – Alan Adler

Organizational Culture

Organizational culture can be simply identified as the own unique personality that the respective organization practices.  The group of people who works for the organization shares a system of Assumptions, Beliefs, and Values which governs them both individually and with the organizational needs.

The following model developed by Jhonson and Schloes in 1993 is an important one, in which six dimensions of the organization culture are defined.

Elements of the cultural web of an organization

The corporate culture consists of six major components, as structure, power structure, symbols, stories, rituals and control systems. They provide clear guidelines for the employees, about how things are performed within the organizational context; providing influences for the better change management. Cultural elements can be organized in the company to achieve productivity is described accordingly.

Structure

Mainly refers to the structure of the company, in terms of the management layers and supervisory control. The Hilton is thereby advised in adjusting to more flat type organization, structure with lower supervisory control, and with higher empowerment created within the organization allowing for higher creativity.

Power structure

How power is distributed in the organization is stressed here. The personalities or positions that tend to exercise more power are featured from here, which can have a significant influence in the organization.

The company is advised to, design higher ranked job functions in a manner in which, the respective leaders would be having a higher willingness towards acceptance of change, whilst driving others as well towards a change.

Symbols

The symbols with high uniqueness are considered here. Where the symbols associated with the readiness of the organization to accept change can be promoted via communications, which proactively engage the employees with regard to responding to any change.

Stories

Various stories on the organization, nurtured from the history can be drawn up, here specially the ones which would motivate the employees, in order to accept the change. The success stories could act as a guarantee among the audiences such as customers, publics, competitors, lenders showing a higher credibility of the company capacity and reliability.

Rituals

Rituals are practices, which have been maintained, periodically in a sequential manner. The ones promoting or encouraging the acceptance of change are to be prioritized. Hilton could be benefitted by encouraging acceptance of change via the practice of various rituals.

Control

This is the control of management over the activities of employees, where authority, and seniority not being used to force others to work, having a more participative style, but with the intention of necessary controls (like the modifying of the employees ideas to a certain level) can achieve better generation of productivity, while enhancing higher employee retention rates initiate accepting the change by the employees.

2. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE NATIONAL CULTURE AND THE ORGANIZATION CULTURE

Organizational Culture:

    It is the personality and civilization of the organization. It is the sum of values and rituals which serve as glue to integrate the members of the organization. It refers to the philosophies, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors and practices that define an organization. Culture is the organizations immune system.

National culture

The set of , , and that exist within the of a . International and other in accordance with the national culture they are in.

National culture relates to the deeply held values within the people which they regard as, good &. evil, normal and abnormal, safe and  dangerous, and rational vs. irrational. National cultural values are learned early, are deeply rooted and change slowly over the course of generations. Organizational culture, on the other hand, organizational culture or organizational practices are learned on the job. , it`s agreed that changing organizational culture is difficult and takes time to understand.

And the most important is that one corporate culture never trumps the national culture.

A model developed by Hoftsede, provides several criteria which is common to many national cultures in the world, the criteria used to assess the national culture are mentioned below, where the differences too are described.

Element in the national culture	Level of presence of that element in the organizational culture
Masculinity vs. Femininity- Masculine societies have different rules for men and women, less so in feminine cultures.	Equality is more concerned in the culture of Hilton, as per the recent developments where the status to men and women at work is given, irrespective of the gender.
Power Distance – The distance maintained when interacting with peers in terms of influencing each other in work.	Power distance is balanced in this company as major issues like deciding on the type of developments to be made in the town, as per the business, “Hilton” more collaborative type work between the employees of each level.
Uncertainty Avoidance- How comfortable are people with changing the way they work or live or prefer the known systems.	As the situation in Hilton considered, as per the culture within them, the uncertainty avoidance is considered to be low, which stresses that at all the time, the similarities between the two cultures may not be effective.
Individualism Vs. Collectivism- How personal needs and goals are prioritized vs. the needs and goals of the organization.	A more collectivism type culture exists in the country, but as per the current work roles are defined, a more individualistic type approach is there in Hilton.

(1.3) ANALYZING THE CORPORATE CULTURE PROFILE OF HILTON

In the analysis of the corporate cultural profile of Hilton, the corporate culture can be defined as, “The shared values, attitudes, standards, and beliefs that characterize members of an organization and define its nature. Corporate culture is rooted in an organization’s goals, strategies, structure, and approaches to labor, customers, investors, and the greater community”.

(Organizational Culture, 2015)

The onion model would be used, related to this where the model is an analysis and decision based model of corporate culture.

Figure 2

According to this model values are more deeply underlying meanings of the organization, which can act as basis for various organization policies and procedures. But where Hilton is concerned there is confusion in the ideas of those who were old to the organization and fresh, accordingly the core values are in a disorderly status.

Rituals – collective activities, which can represent signals about the corporate culture, and currently since most of the earlier practices are being changed, the rituals are in a confused status. The public, to whom certain rituals were projected, could be now in a status believing that those traditions are over. The adverse impact of such is that unnecessary level of rumors or stories with negative impact like, signs of bankruptcy is talked by the residents in town.

Heroes – the key persons who are well accepted by the employees and publics, along the values of the company Hilton. As the current management has drastically changed within an inefficient culture, any historical figure with regard is discouraged. The recent management’s concern on new approaches or the use of technology alone would not work; as such heroic models in the past had been perceived by several generations of works as well as residents.

Symbols – the corporate logo, front line employees can be found as incompetent as at now. No upgrading or any job enrichments are being carried out, recently enhancing the symbolic value of, specially the frontline staff of Hilton.

l.4 The impact of an organization’s corporate culture in achieving its

Objectives

Corporate culture is the pervasive values, beliefs and attitudes that characterizes a company and guide its practices. Culture is a social control system. Here the focus is the role of culture in promoting and reinforcing “right” thinking and behaving, and sanctioning “wrong” thinking and behaving. There are 04 types of culture, which help the organization to achieve their objective

Clan Culture

This working environment is a friendly one. People have a lot in common, and it’s similar to a large family. The leaders or the executives are seen as mentors or maybe even as father figures. The organization is held together by loyalty and tradition. The behavior of individuals is shaped by tradition, loyalty, extensive socialization and self-management. There is a strong concern for people. Group loyalty and sense of tradition are strong. Long term employees serve as mentors.

Adhocracy Culture

This is a dynamic and creative working environment. Employees take risks. Leaders are seen as innovators and risk takers. Experiments and innovation are the bonding materials within the organization. Prominence is emphasized. The long-term goal is to grow and treat new resources. The availability of new products or services is seen as success. The organization promotes individual initiative and freedom.

Market Culture

People are competitive and focused on goals. Leaders are hard drivers, producers, and rivals at the same time. They are tough and have high expectations. The emphasis on winning keeps the organization together. Reputation and success are the most important. Long-term focus is on rival activities and reaching goals. Market penetration and stock are the definitions of success. Competitive prices and market leadership are important. The organizational style is based on competition.

Hierarchy Culture

This is a formalized and structured work environment. Procedures decide what people do. Leaders are proud of their efficiency-based coordination and organization. Keeping the organization functioning smoothly is most crucial. Formal rules and policy keep the organization together. The long-term goals are stability and results, paired with efficient and smooth execution of tasks. Trustful delivery, smooth planning, and low costs define success. The personnel management has to guarantee work and predictability.

2.l evaluation of the existing climate of an organization

According to Campbell, “Organizational climate can be defined as a set of attributes specific to a particular organization that may be induced from the way that organization deals with its members and its environment. For the individual members within the organization, climate takes the form of a set of attitudes and experiences which describe the organization in terms of both static characteristics and behavior outcome and outcome- outcome contingencies.”

There are several approaches to the concept of climate they are:-

Cognitive schema approach

The cognitive schema approach regards the concept of climate as an individual perception and cognitive representation of the work environment. It is proposed to help manage complex business activities, based on continuous awareness of solutions and real-time decisions on activities.in this approach, the business environment is seen as capturing events that occurred and the state of tasks and resources, business logic involving process routing, operational constraints, exception handling and business strategy to used determine which actions are appropriate for the current situation. By extending process management from process logic to business logic, the methodology offers flexibility, agility and adaptability in complex business process management.

Shared perception approach

The shared perception approach emphasizes the importance of shared perceptions as supporting the belief of climate. Researchers have pursued the shared perception model of organizational climate.  Their model identifies the variables which moderate an organizations ability to mobilize its workforce in order to achieve business goals and maximize performance. When an organization and its leaders cannot remove every stressor in the daily life of its employees, organizational climate studies have identified a number of behaviors of leaders which have a significant impact on stress and morale.

Climate surveys

Theories of cognitive and Neuropsychology and Emotional Intelligence provide additional scientific rationale for why leaders should improve stress and morale in the workplace to achieve maximum performance. Climate surveys can provide concrete evidence of how this works in action.

Organizational climate surveying enable the impact of Human Resource strategies to be evaluated to create HR Return or invest (HRROI) calculations. If the organization is not working properly than evaluation of climate is necessary the organization will be able to find out the loop holes in their culture and implement it with the help of climate evaluation.

2.2 recommended ways to improve corporate climate in an organization

“The essential task of management is creating opportunities, releasing potential, removing obstacles, encouraging growth, and providing guidance.” -douglas mcgregor leadership and motivation

There are many ways to improve the corporate climate in an organization. “Climate” is people’s perceptions and feelings about their work environment. It is measurable and much easier to transform. It is the shared perceptions and attitudes about the organization. Climate can be locally created by what leaders do, what circumstances apply, and what environments afford.it is the process of quantifying the culture of an organization; it precedes the notion of organizational culture. It is the recurring patterns of behavior attitudes and feelings that characterize life in the origination. It is the umbrella term to indicate the process of quantifying the organizational culture of an organization. It is a set of properties of the work environment, perceived directly or indirectly by the employees, that is assumed to be a major force in the influencing employee behavior.

There are six dimensions of climate that influence work environment and employee

Clarity

A person’s degree of understanding of organizations goals and policies, as well as the requirement of the job.

Commitment

The expression of continuing dedication to a common persistence and to accomplish goals.

Standards

The emphasis management places on high performance standards and the amount of pressure it exerts on teams to improve performance.

Responsibility

The degree to which people feel personally responsible for their work.

Recognition

The feeling that people are recognized and rewarded for doing good work, and that they receive accurate performance feedback.

Teamwork

The feeling of belongings to an organization characterized by cohesion, mutual support, trust and pride.

Positive organizational climate is not a goal unto itself. It is a key link in a company’s ability to maintain and improve performance. Successful leaders take pains to ignite a chain reaction that improves climate, increases motivation, and enhances performance.

2.3  A framework of organizational values that meets the specific strategic and operational needs of an organization

The Competing Values Framework received its name because the criteria within the four models appear at first to convey conflicting messages. The Competing Values Framework developed from a sequence of empirical studies on the notion of organizational effectiveness (Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1983). These efforts were an attempt to make sense of effectiveness criteria. Quinn and Rohrbaugh (1983) discovered two dimensions of effectiveness. The first dimension is related to organizational focus, from an internal emphasis on people in the organization to an external focus of the organization itself. The second dimension represents the contrast between stability and control and flexibility and change. The framework has four quadrants

Human Relations Model

This is based on cohesion and morale with emphasis on human resource training. People are not seen as isolated individuals but as cooperating members of a common social system with a common stake in what happens.

Open Systems Model

It is based on an organic system, emphasis on adaptability, growth, resource acquisition, readiness and external support. These processes bring innovation and creativity. The people are not controlled here they are inspired.

Internal Process Model

It is based on hierarchy, documentation, emphasis on measurement and information management. These processes bring control and stability. Hierarchies seem to be functioned best when the task to be completed is well understood and when time is not an important factor.

Rational Goal Model

This is based on profit, rational action and emphasis. It assumes that planning and goal setting results into productivity and efficiency. Tasks are clarified, objectives are set and action is taken.

These models seems to be four entirely different perspectives, they can be viewed as closely related and interwoven. They are four subdomains of a larger construct organizational and managerial effectiveness. The four models in the framework represent the unseen values over which organization die.

3.1 The corporate culture profile in an organization

Deal and Kennedy’s model of culture is based on characterizing different four types of organization, based on how quickly they receive feedback and reward after they have done something and the level of risks that they take. Deal and Kennedy identified four distinct types of cultures and two marketplace factors that they felt influenced cultural patterns and practices by examining these cultural elements across a variety of organizations. They were

The degree of risk associated with a company’s key activities.

The speed at which companies study whether their actions and strategies are positive.

They believed that the risk involved in making a poor decision and the time it takes to find out if the decision is the accurate one both has a bearing on how cultural elements develop and influence an organization’s employees.

Deal and Kennedy identified the four culture types. They are

Tough-Guy, Macho

This culture contains a world of individualists who enjoy risk and who gets quick feedback on their decisions. This is a win-or-lose culture where successful employees are the ones who enjoy enthusiasm and work very hard to be stars. The entertainment industry, sports teams and advertising are examples of this cultural type. Not highly valued in team work and it’s a difficult atmosphere for individuals who blossom slowly.

Work Hard/Play Hard

This culture can be known as the world of sales. Employees themselves take very few risks. Employees have to maintain high levels of energy and stay positive and high volume salespeople. The culture identifies that it is team effort and everyone is focused to top and that one person alone cannot make the company. All employees are driven to reach new heights as contests among employees are very common here.

Bet-Your-Company

Here the culture is one in which decisions are high risk but employees may wait for years before they know if their actions actually paid off. the necessity to make the right decision is so great, the cultural elements evolve such that values are long-term focused and there is a collective belief in the need to plan, prepare and perform due diligence at all stages of decision making.

Process

The feedback and risks are low in this culture. No single transaction has much impact on the organization’s success and it takes years to find out whether a decision was good or bad. Employees find it very difficult to measure what they do so they focus instead on how they do things due to lack of immediate feedback. Employees will pay attention to get the procedure and the facts right without necessarily measuring the actual outcome as technical excellence is often valued here.

Using Deal and Kennedy’s cultural elements and cultural types, we can start the process of thinking about the workplace and shaping it into one where human interactions thrive. By creating and encouraging a consistent and cohesive culture, we will be able to build a strong foundation for important and entertaining work. That is the type of culture that breeds high performance, loyalty and commitment.

3.2 The impact of an organization’s corporate culture in achieving its

Objectives to development a new communication strategies for stakeholders of an organization that address differences in belief, values, customs and language.

By identifying the weaknesses of the communication process of Hilton it can be identified and suggest a better model of communication which cater and serves all stakeholders of the organization.

Stakeholders of Hilton

By identifying and analyzing the Stake holders of the organization it’s visible that the communication process that should be introduced to Hilton should be able to cater both internal as well as the external customers of the organization. By such situation the communication process should be designed where it should be more simple and easy to understand and deal with.

A key objective to be raised is to address the differences in values, beliefs and languages when dealing with the key stakeholders as per the current context. The following stages would be discussed. The development of communications is aligned with the overall development of objectives with regard to the stakeholder management.

1.  IDENTIFYING PLANS ON KEY STAKEHOLDERS

A critical challenge in managing the stakeholders is the conflict of interests of several stakeholder groups, upon certain issues raised as; an issue might be beneficial to one stakeholder group, whilst it may create a negative impact on another. As an example the introduction of a twenty four hour hotline in the Hilton, being introduced to enhance the quality of service to the residents in town, as they can report any complaint or any requirement, where the current CEO wishes to have a voluntary supervisor on a roster basis to monitor that, there may be a reluctance and resistance from most of the employees (belonging to the internal stakeholder group), as this causes some additional work.

Further the stakeholder related issues should be identified in advance as a last moment approach or a situation where an issue is consulted after it has occurred should not be practiced. The stake holder groups with likely problems to arise within a reasonable time period should be identified at this stage. Stakeholder related objectives should be set accordingly. The impact of communications management is important here as the stakeholders, specifically subjected to review. Various methods could be used and more personal type information could be maintained via company intranets, and when informing some of the external stakeholder groups like journalists, government, community, a method like company websites, social media can be used.

2. DEVISING PERFORMANCE REVIEWS

The reviewing of planned performance should be done periodically in a continuous manner. Opposed to the traditional methods, where the company itself does the reviewing, and then communicating about the developments with the relevant stakeholders where a communication system is suggested using online methods like an online real time processing link of the company activities with key stakeholders. In addition the related stakeholders can be engaged in monitoring the progress. Accordingly better suggestions can be generated or rectifications could be done from relevant parties, prior to informing from Hilton, as performance is indicated online.

3. MONITORING PEFORMANCE

The performance with regard to, set goals with each stakeholder group would be done within shorter review periods.

A special team equipped with information technology and communications would be used to deal online with each stakeholder group. Stakeholder forums held online would be encouraged as physically meeting each stakeholder would be a rare situation as well as many distractions and a large cost is incurred, with such methods.

4. IDENTIFYING CHANGES TO ENHANCE THE RELATIONSHIP WITH STAKEHOLDERS

Real time communications are prioritized along with extensive use of social media to check the healthiness of relationship with major stakeholders of the business. Specialists would be used to identify, any area where stakeholder requirements had not been properly maintained.

5. REVIEW PERFORMANCE

Periodically the performance should be evaluated.

Criteria should be selected, such as the success rate reducing conflicts among stakeholder groups, drop in complaints rate, improvements in the customer standards.

Profile communications should be developed in which most of the success stories in stakeholder management should be readily communicated to each stakeholder group.

3.3 The existing climate of an organisation to development a new communication strategies for stakeholders of an organization that address differences in belief, values, customs and language.

Communication: can be simply defined as the process of transferring information, which can be both Verbal and Nonverbal signals and symbols.

(Communication Process (Effective), n .d)

Communication is the most effective means of success within the organizations. It’s important and vital to communicate effectively within the organization. Communication is the means the way that the information is been distributed within the organization. The information which is needed for development, decision making and problem solving should be flown between the top and the lower levels of the organization by using proper and appropriate ways and means.

All communication means such as, Oral communication, Written, Visual, Non-verbal communication skills and improving such skills is important in dealing with both top and lower level employees of the organization.

In general it’s visible that the clear, effective communication by improving the language both oral and written as help to communicate effectively between both the top and lower levels of the organization more effectively in order to achieve organizational objectives more efficiently.

The effectiveness would be discussed, within each main stake holder group.

The groups are internal, external and connected stakeholders.

COMMUNICATION EFFECTIVENESS WITH INTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS

A hierarchical control is there, by managers (one group of internal stakeholders) over the other employees. Accordingly top down communications only tend to take place. As per the consequences, where employees may not get a proper chance to discuss their problems, a higher rate of lower productivity and a tendency to leave the organization could happen.

COMMUNICATIONS EFFECTIVENESS WITH CONNECTED STAKEHOLDERS

Falls within the criteria are shareholders, customers and lenders, whose involvement is highly related to the services generating capacity of the business. The lapses made to these parties are readily identifiable, but as per the current situation, an effective two way communication system is not maintained, therefore the issues like customer complaints tend to reach outside parties like journalists, social media which in turn would create a negative approach on the business, which is much harder to eliminate.

Further the communications with suppliers too do not carry a higher level of interactivity. In most of the supply chain management issues measures like virtual stock updates, intranets, joint decision making over internet technologies are maintained to have a smooth flow of both goods and services supplies, but such approaches are not taken by Hilton.

COMMUNICATIONS EFFECTIVENESS WITH EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS

The communications with the community is low, as the company tends to have a view that participating in public forums or having a manager to manage public relations and especially publicity is of unwanted costs.

Further the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) measures too are neglected as it is considered as an additional measure.

Accordingly the company website is maintained without much relationship with the communities and journalists. No dedicated person appointed to manage the social media based relationships as well with the said external stakeholders.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that corporate culture is a measure that could be used to control and redefine the strategy of a company as well. Even some changes may take comparatively higher time to be implemented within the corporate culture, with regard to strategizing a change, the corporate culture is an effective tool.

They had always been in a problematic situation to act as there was no proper mechanism for communication. The mismatch between communication and ideas of the employees always failed to act well for a better service proving.

Municipality authorities were totally unaware of the duties and responsibilities of each employee and they had always been in confusion for the sorting out of this complex situation.

Thus as a whole the impact of all these problems made the municipality works to be a great failure.

Thus, this is an evaluation and fact finding for the problems which aroused at Hilton village municipal council, to give solutions for better management policies to match the management formed strategies.

This report reveals enough information for Hilton to utilize their available scares resources to the maximal and to recreate their municipality to a satisfactory level

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