Club Management Chapter 8 HR Case Study

It was a sweltering August evening, the hottest night of the hottest summer in recent memory. It was a night when those who ventured far from air-conditioning paid a heavy price in discomfort, and it was certainly a night when no one wanted to cook. Perhaps that was why it was the busiest Saturday night of the year at the Sandstone Country Club's main dining room. Servers and cooks wilted in their uniforms as they struggled to keep up the frantic pace.

Roberto, a server who had been with the club just nine months, was having more than his share of problems. The dining room manager had already corrected him twice for improperly serving two tables. Tips had not been generous, and he'd taken a lot of grief from the cooks. Most of the diners were impatient"Where's our food?" "Tell the chef to pick up the pace in there!"and when Roberto dutifully went to the kitchen to check the status of orders, the cooks would brandish knives in their sweaty hands and tell him to go away.

The party that just sat down in his section was one group he didn't dare make a mistake with. Dr. Steele, his wife, and three other couples were all dressed up for a night on the town. Roberto knew that Dr. Steele was a big tipper, but he also knew the doctor was hard to please. Roberto put forth his best effort, took the order, and got it to the kitchen quickly. About ten minutes after the appetizers had been cleared, Dr. Steele stopped Roberto on his way to another table and asked him to please check on his table's order. "Yes sir," Roberto replied, and hurried to the kitchen.

When he opened the kitchen door he had to dodge two servers charging out with loaded trays. A wave of heat enveloped him and the noise was deafening: shouted orders, dishes clattering, oven doors slamming, the hissing of steam from the warewashing station. He located Steve through the maze of rushing bodies and yelled, "How we coming on the order for table 10?"

Steve, the club's assistant executive chef, looked up from stirring a boiling pot and wiped his glistening forehead with a white coat sleeve. "We've got a problem," Steve yelled back, "we've eighty-sixed that special."

"You're kidding!" Roberto wailed. Wouldn't you know itthe other seven diners had ordered something else, but Dr. Steele had ordered the whitefish special. "It's not on the board! Why didn't you tell me when I placed the order?" The cooks were supposed to write on the board any items the kitchen was out of, so the servers could stop promoting those items. If they were too busy to write it on the board, they should have said something. The stupid cooks always forget, Roberto thought, and the servers always get the grief.

"Hey, look around!" Steve jerked his head at the cooks bustling all around him. "We don't have time to baby-sit every order back here. Just go tell 'em to choose something else."

I ought to make you tell him, Roberto thought grimly as he left the kitchen. The other seven orders at Dr. Steele's table would be ready in five or ten minutes, but Dr. Steele's meal wasn't even started. The orders for the rest of the table would have to sit under heat lamps while Dr. Steele's order was prepared. No one was going to be happy at table 10; Roberto could see his big tip disappearing.

Roberto was right; no one in the Steele party looked very happy when he broke the news. Through thinly pressed lips, Dr. Steele ordered his second choicea rack of lamb, medium-well. Roberto knew that would take a long time to cook, but he didn't want to give Dr. Steele any more bad news. Roberto practically ran back to the kitchen to get the order in as quickly as he could.

Twenty minutes later Roberto was filling the water glasses for guests at another table when out of the corner of his eye he saw Dr. Steele impatiently waving him over. "Yes sir?" "Listen, we've got tickets for the play tonight. How much longer is it going to be?" "Well, Dr. Steele, it will probably be another fifteen minutes at least. It takes time to properly make a rack of lamb. I'm very sorry, I would have told you before, but I didn't know you needed to leave so soon." "Well, we certainly can't wait another fifteen minutes. Do you have anything you can serve quickly?" "I'm sure we have something you'd like, sir, let me check for you. I'm terribly sorry." As he left the table he saw Dr. Steele sarcastically muttering something to his guests.

Back into the chaos of the kitchen, weaving through servers, cooks, and buspersons, Roberto found Steve and told him that Dr. Steele wanted to change his order again. "Damn it!" Steve turned harassed eyes to Roberto. "The lamb's already half-cookedwho's going to pay for it?" "I don't care!" Roberto said angrily. "What can you give me in five minutes?" "I know what I'd like to give you," Steve said under his breath while he wiped his brow. "It'll have to be pasta," Steve said aloud. "Tell him the pasta primavera is good tonight." Roberto went back to the Steele table with this news. "Oh, forget it!" Dr. Steele threw his napkin on the floor. "We're running late, and everyone else's meal is probably ruined by now anyway. We're leaving." Everybody gave Roberto dirty looks as they pushed back their chairs and left in a huff.

Roberto stalked angrily back to the kitchen, found the seven orders for table 10 under the heat lamps, and started scraping them into the garbage with savage strokes. "I hope you're happy!" he yelled at Steve's back. "Dr. Steele just left, madder than hxxx! Forty dollars in tips just walked out the door because you couldn't get it right!" Steve turned suddenly and lunged across a countertop at Roberto, clutching at him. "You think it's so easy back here?!" he bellowed, his face mottled with rage. "We never get tips, just a lot of crap from jerks like you! I'm sick of your attitude!" "Keep your hands off me!" Roberto pulled away and made what witnesses later said was "some sort of racial remark" in Spanish to Steve.

Steve ran around the end of the counter, grabbed Roberto, and hurled him against a wire storage rack; pots, pans, and kitchen utensils rained down with a metallic crash. Steve was moving in to throw a punch when bystanders restrained him.

Lloyd Marlowe, Sandstone's general manager, sat at his desk Tuesday morning with two employee files in front of him and two decisions to make. Last Saturday's incident had surprised him; at least he was surprised that Steve was involved. Tension between cooks and servers was an age-old problem present in every food service operation since the world began, but he never expected it to erupt into violence at his club. Lloyd had been out in the dining room that Saturday night, chatting with club members, when he had heard the big metallic crash in the kitchen.

When he arrived on the scene, Steve and Roberto were yelling insults at each other, held apart by what appeared to be half the staff. Lloyd called the manager from the mixed grill and had him report to the kitchen to help restore order and resume production, then took Steve and Roberto, one at a time, to his office. He kept the interviews brief. He suspended both of them without pay for three days and told them he would take that time to review the incident. He would get in touch with them after he had made a decision on what disciplinary action to take. After escorting each of them separately to their cars and watching them drive away, he had returned to the dining room and pitched in to help the staff get through the rest of the evening.

The three-day suspensions gave Lloyd time to question witnesses and review Steve's and Roberto's employee files. Steve had been employed at the club for three years and had an excellent record. He was never late, always volunteered to work extra hours, and had been employee of the month four times. There were two letters in his file from club members praising him for his work at special events they had hosted at the club. All three of his annual performance appraisals were excellent and he had received a substantial raise each time. He was well-liked by his co-workers in the kitchen; indeed, Lloyd liked him too. Steve was a key member of the staff and it would be hard to be without him, even for a short time, because the rest of August and all of September were absolutely jammed with banquets, weddings, and other special events, not to mention the regular dining-room workload Steve carried.

Roberto, on the other hand, had been something of a problem ever since his hire last December. He was habitually late for work and had already passed from the oral-warning to the written-warning stage on the tardiness issue. The club had high standards and strict service procedures that Roberto was having trouble mastering. He was also something of a loner and didn't really fit in with the rest of the service staff. At times he tended to be rude to other staff members; his supervisor had noted in his file that she had met with him informally to discuss the problem. All of these issues were reviewed with him at his six-month performance appraisal (new club employees received two appraisals their first year), but instead of inspiring Roberto to try harder, the appraisal seemed to embarrass and anger him. After his appraisal, his attitude took a noticeable dive. He was still careful to be polite with club members, but with his co-workers he was usually sullen and uncooperative. His supervisor had kept him on, however, in part because she thought Roberto had the potential to become a good employee despite his problems and in part because the labor market was tight and servers were very hard to find.

Witnesses to the incident Saturday night emphasized how incredibly hot it had been in the kitchen and how much pressure everyone felt because of the unusually large dinner crowd. Roberto had "had an attitude" with the cooks throughout the evening, they all agreed. On the other hand, everyone agreed that Steve had grabbed and shoved Roberto and seemed ready to throw punches. "Sure, Roberto was out of line," was the consensus, "but no more than usual, except for that last racial remark after Steve went for him." The heat and the pressure, coupled with Roberto's attitude, apparently had just made Steve lose his head momentarily.

Lloyd drummed his hands nervously on the employee files and sighed. He didn't need to review the files yet again; he needed to make some decisions. He reached for the phone and called his secretary. "Call Steve and Roberto and tell them I'd like to see them tomorrow morning. Be sure to set up separate appointmentseight o'clock and ten o'clock would be best. Let me know if there's any problem." He hung up the phone and shoved the files in a desk drawer. He was pretty sure what he was going to do, but this gave him one more night to sleep on it.

Chapter 8 Case Study DB Assignment A. Read over the Chapter 8 case study about human resources (HR) issues. B. Provide answers to the case study here on the Discussion Board (DB). Write your answers in complete sentences. 1. Should Lloyd fire Steve? Why or why not? If he shouldn''t fire Steve, what disciplinary action should he take? 2. Should Lloyd fire Roberto? Why or why not? If he shouldn't fire Roberto, what disciplinary action should he take? 3. What messages will Lloyd send to the rest of the staff by the disciplinary actions he takes with Steve and Roberto? C. What are your overall thoughts about the case? What is your major "takeaway" from this case