For your analysis,provide a description, explanation, evaluation, and critique of the legal issues represented, the arguments presented, and the court decision made. Finally, outline a plan of action to prevent liability for a subsequent occurrence. Reference elements of STEM in the plan.

• As an industry professional, outline your course of action to prevent injury and liability in a subsequent occurrence.
• As a legal advisor, identify legal concerns and how they would be addressed within the plan
• Both provide supporting resources to validate, corroborate, or provide a contrast for your plan elements.
• When possible, cite previous court cases to show how liability may be incurred.

Objectives

Analyze the interrelationship of the decisions made as managers and leaders in the hospitality industry and their legal implications.

Evaluate operational activities and procedures in various hospitality operational structures and theirimpact on guests and property.

Case Analysis Details

The expectation is that you identify the primary elements of the case [facts, allegations, arguments, decisions, etc.], describe the outcome following the case or a forecasted outcome of a current case, and evaluate and critique the arguments, decisions, and outcomes.

• Identify facts, allegations, arguments, court decision
• Describe the relevance or significance of decisions based on actual or possible outcomes in relation to the hospitality industry
• Evaluate and critique arguments, decisions, and outcomes

You are being tasked with providing evaluation, analysis, or critique. The assignments in this class are not only providing an outline, timeline, or case brief. The writing does not need to convey agreement with any decision and should be an objective, unbiased assessment of the legal issue, relevant law or precedent, and the outcome. The aim is to demonstrate your understanding of the law, how it is interpreted/implemented, and how it affects the hospitality industry. The focus is on the law in the United States. You can compare and contrast with the law and court cases of other countries, but there has to be a foundation of American law in the writing.

Standards

The analysis will be presented in essay form using APA writing standards. The following segments can be used to organize your writing; introduction to the case, the issue, the facts, the court's decision and the reasoning for the decision (1 section), your analysis, and conclusion, BUT these are just a suggestion to help organize writing.

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From Common to STEM

Moving from common law into how the industry is regulated, preventative legal management and ethics have become cornerstones of the contemporary industry. These cornerstones are an important of structuring how an organization is managed, from top to bottom. The decisions from higher, leaders and manager, will reverberate throughout the organization. The size of the waves and the ripple effect will be related to how the decision or behavior started. At the core, the listed duties of care illustrate that decisions and actions should be based on limiting harm and increasing gain. An aspect of this is being preventative or creating an environment where the organization is operating within the law and not exposed to litigation, which starts with the team and how they are trained. It is in this regard that proper attention must be given to selecting and developing the team. This is the basis for this presentation, which is taken from the author's chapter review presentation and will provide additional commentary on decision making in relation to the team.

Barth (2012) presented a framework for defining diligence in selecting and developing the team through the use of Select, Train, Educate, and Manage (STEM). Operating within the framework of STEM provides a basis for making decisions that will relate to the core of the organization, the people, and help reduce employee errors and omissions, which will affect liability and litigation. The key is increasing awareness and providing an environment that is supportive and enabling to assure that awareness is applied. Employees that are doing what they feel is best for them without regard to the organizational standards or because they do not know the organizational standards will create discrepancies and leave the organization susceptible to legal action. An example would be the employee that steps over the small puddle of water on the floor because they have to get to their table to serve their guests in order to not lose their tips. Because that server is so focused on what is theirs, they are not identifying with the organization and considering the overall risk and exposing the restaurant to a possible slip and fall lawsuit. They may have noticed the water, but are unaware of the steps they need to take to address the issue. They may have decided that rather than ask the manager who always seems to never want to answer questions employees should already know, the employee continues on with what they were doing.

This scenario presents several elements to consider. The first is if intention matter. The worker may not have had selfish intentions with their focus on their guests. They may be distracted by not understanding their job completely and are focused on not making any mistakes or just focused on earning the money so they can go home. It may also be that the last place they worked may have not allowed servers to clean floors because of the image it portrayed, thus it never even registered that something should be done. A variation of this is the worker simply does not know what to do.

The problem with any of the above is that their innocent oversight would not change the outcome if a guest or coworker slipped and fell.

If the worker does not understand the risk and actions to be taken, the focus narrows in on the manager. Like workers should be trained and knowledgeable, the manager should also be trained in their role and capable of managing. In this scenario, the manager may not be fully aware how reasonable care affects liability and what negligence constitutes. Since the manager does is not aware that foreseeability will affect liability, the team has not been taught to keep an eye on specific areas and to act when there is a problem.

Another concern is that the worker doesn't care. As long as it is not their guest that slips, it doesn't matter. Assuming the best of the worker, they may not want to show the mean manager and then be chastised and delayed for not knowing. Someone else will see it and someone else will take care of it.

Regardless of intention of any involved party, the result is that the water was not removed and a guest may slip and fall, exposing the restaurant to litigation. Preventative management is process and approach used to mitigate these conditions be ensuring the right people are hired for the right job and training workers effectively to recognize and mitigate potential risks as a part of their job roles.

As presented by Barth (2012), STEM is as follows;

• Select

When making the decision to hire, applicants can come from a variety of sources with a wide range of experiences and skills. "Select" means the right person is chosen for the right job. It seems simple enough, but many of the mistakes and problems experienced within operations starts here.The proper attention and diligence are not afforded to selecting employees and the burden is placed on training and supervision.

Using restaurants as the example, the nature of the work and the flexible scheduling makes shift work a viable opportunity for part time work for a wide range of people, from those looking to supplement income from a full-time job to students working their way through school. Applicants will note they have been very successful in past work, but that work may not correlate with the position they are applying for. Many perceive restaurant work as an easy job without a lot of responsibilities, but there are certain skill sets and personality traits that will influence success in the position. It is the manager's responsibility to assure that only those workers that can work the position and are teachable are chosen for the roles that are needed.

Since the decision to hire was more than likely a response to an unplanned need, the tendency could be to hire anyone that is interested that seems ready to work without really considering if the applicant is ready for the specific role. Rather than wait and see what all of the options will be, hiring is based on a first come, first serve basis.

When making the decision to hire, the position being hired for should be used to determine who is best for the job. Develop an outline or chart to objectively assess applicants based on how they match up with necessary skills and experience. Set a realistic timeframe to receive applications and choose an employee once that time frame has ended in order to restrain from choosing on a whim or based on subjective impressions. As with any element of managing, create plan and keep with the plan as much as possible.

• Train

Once the best suited for the work employee is selected, train is the next step and is where being teachable comes into play. Applicants will come from all areas, including other hospitality organizations or service-based roles. They have already been taught a specific way to do things and may tend to stick what they know, are familiar with, or are comfortable with to continue doing things their way instead of adapting to the organizational standard or values. Training methods and practices must be developed to ensure that the employees are learning, adapting, and identifying with the organization. A part of this is to develop checks on learning to assure that the training is effective.

As overused as the phrase may be, the bottom line is training costs money. There will be direct (recruiting/advertising opening) or indirect (loss of productivity/time allocated to interviews) costs associated with hiring and training, so it is necessary to assure that there is a return on investment for the selection process. Ineffective selecting and training will expose the organization to liability and litigation as well as lead to extra costs.

The obvious takeaway is that assets are used to train the worker the right way the first time, but an overlooked aspect is that a failure to train properly could be a failure to act with reasonable care. If the employees and managers do not know what can cause harm, the organization can be held liable. Even if the business did nothing wrong intentionally. The outcome of the case will be based on the evidence and a failure to train adequately will be evidence of neglect. It is possible for improper training and education to affect the outcome of a lawsuit. Neither walking a new employee through the employee only areas and handing them a manual nor reading the manual to them verbatim during set hours are considered effective training.

• Educate

Educate is like training, but it reverses the perspective to the managers. Managers and leaders must also ensure that they are learning as well and staying knowledgeable on the laws and regulations for their industry. It is more difficult to make decisions to stay within the law if the law is not known. This knowledge in turn will filter through to the whole team as best practices are developed to prevent legal issues.

The relevant concept here is ongoing development. As established with common law and as we have all experienced, laws and regulations evolve to meet the needs of society. There is always a chance that something will be modified, added, or even removed based on what is needed or how the existing regulation is applied. Ongoing development for managers and employees is a means to assure that the organization has mechanisms in place to maintain knowledge and compliance.

Like creating a plan for hiring, there should also be a plan in place for ongoing education. The plan should dictate how and when training takes place in order to maximize its effectiveness (such as not starting training at the start of a shift) and should include common elements of teaching, such as an introduction, demonstration, practice, and review. There should be feedback from those involved in the training as well as checks on learning during and after the experience.

Having a plan established and followed provides a record that can be recorded. That record allows the organization to show that they have addressed key concerns, assured that there was learning, and considered what could cause harm and provided instruction on how to mitigate that harm. An established and documented training program can help to protect the organization if there is a legal issue.

• Manage

The final component is to manage and motivate. The standard definition for managing is to manage a system. In contrast, motivating a team would be associated with leading; however, a positively motivated and supported team will be a component of managing a system as those employees are more likely to follow the system and work effectively, reducing errors and negligence. If comparing managing systems to leading people, think of positive motivation as preventative maintenance; "a happy worker is a productive worker".

Though there are scenarios and circumstances that will warrant a more authoritarian approach to management, which could simply be telling the team what to do & expecting it to be done, using a positive management style as an alternative in order to motivate the team is more likely to strengthen their loyalty and identification with the organization and induce more self-regulation and accountability to prevent problems.

A positive management style is using a variety of styles and methods to fit the circumstances and used to positively affect employee morale and self-esteem. The aim is not to reprimand or punish, but to coach and enable. There will be some instances where reprimand may be necessary, but more often the opportunity is to instruct, coach, or support. The result is that the employee is treated like an internal customer and job satisfaction will be affected. Increased job satisfaction positively correlates to increased customer satisfaction and encourages the employee to protect the team, whether that protection is increasing revenue and the profit margin or preventing harm from mistakes and errors.

STEM and Planning

An essential function of managing is planning. A plan creates standards and expectations the hiring manager will be accountable to. The steps are prescribed and the manager does not have to act until required by the plan, which will limit making hiring decisions without adequate analysis. The analysis should be objective and not based on emotion. The objective analysis and following the proper steps will help to prevent negligent hiring. Negligent hiring is hiring a worker without checking their history and suitability for the job that results in loss or harm related to something in their background or with not checking their background. An example would be hiring a registered sex offender to work in a kid's area or not thoroughly assuring that a worker is legally able to work in the United States.

Planning must permeate the managing process and decision making. Through implication alone, following a plan is following a system, which is a cornerstone of what management is. Management at its core is managing a system for efficiency. An element within operations management is assuring that the decisions being made are within the parameters of the law and do not cause unethical or illegal harm to others. Another element is planning helps to prevent spur of the moment reactions that may jeopardize others. Having a plan in place should the computers fail, for example, will help reduce the losses that may be experienced as managers deliberate the "best" course of action.