HRM 5463 Module 1 Employee Relations and Engagement Assessment Example

Lowest in Housekeeping, Highest at the Water Park: An Employee Engagement Assessment of a Wisconsin Resort

Student Name

American College of Education

HRM5463: Employee Relations and Performance Management

Module 1 Assignment

Instructor Name

November 15, 2027

Introduction

I am the human resources manager at a family-owned resort in the Wisconsin Dells, a composite employer called Lakeview Pines in this course. The resort has a hotel of 240 rooms, an indoor water park, a conference center and two restaurants, and employs about 310 people year round, rising to about 420 in summer. Turnover last year was 48 percent overall and 71 percent in housekeeping, and guest complaints about room cleanliness rose by a third. The owners asked for an assessment of employee relations before investing in new programs. This paper describes how engagement and employee relations were measured, reports the results by department and identifies the problems the rest of the course will address.

Why Engagement Matters

Kahn (1990), in an early study of engagement, described it as the degree to which people invest body, mind and feeling in the roles they hold at work, and identified three psychological conditions that make that possible: meaningfulness, a sense that the work is worthwhile; safety, the sense that one can show oneself without fear of negative consequences; and availability, having the physical and emotional resources to engage. Engagement also connects to results. Harter et al. (2002), in a meta-analysis of business units across many companies, found that employee satisfaction and engagement were related to customer satisfaction, productivity, profit, turnover and safety. For a resort, where guests experience employees directly, those links are especially close.

How Engagement Was Measured

In September, all year-round employees were invited to complete the nine-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, which measures vigor, dedication and absorption and which Schaufeli et al. (2006) showed to be a valid short form across several countries. The survey was offered in English and Spanish, on paper or by phone, during paid time. Respondents could also answer five questions on employee relations, covering schedules, fairness of assignments, supervisor communication, recognition and whether they would recommend the resort as an employer. A total of 212 employees responded, a 68 percent response rate. Responses were anonymous, and results were reported only for groups of ten or more.

Results by Department

On the scale's six-point range, average engagement was 3.8 overall. It was highest in water park operations at 4.2 and in maintenance at 4.0, and lowest in housekeeping at 3.1 and in banquet service at 3.3. The employee relations items showed similar patterns. Only 34 percent of housekeepers agreed that shift assignments were fair, against 71 percent across other departments, and only 29 percent agreed that supervisors explained changes clearly. Banquet servers rated schedule predictability lowest of any group, because events are booked and changed with little notice. Front desk staff reported high dedication but low vigor, which they linked in comments to understaffing during the summer peak. Differences of this size, more than a full point on a six-point scale between departments, are large enough that they are unlikely to reflect chance alone.

Turnover, Exit Data and Grievances

Other records confirm the survey. Housekeeping's 71 percent turnover was the highest of any department, and banquet turnover was 55 percent. Exit interviews in both departments most often cited unpredictable schedules, favoritism in assignments and feeling unheard by supervisors; pay was mentioned less often than expected. The resort's informal complaint log recorded 23 employee complaints last year, 15 of them from housekeeping and banquets, most about shift assignments or how a supervisor spoke to them. Guest scores tell the same story from the other side: room cleanliness ratings fell from 4.4 to 4.0 out of 5, while water park ratings held steady at 4.6.

Explaining the Pattern

Kahn's three conditions help explain why engagement varies so much. In the water park, staff work in visible teams, see guests enjoying themselves and receive frequent praise, which supports meaningfulness and safety. In housekeeping, work is solitary and physically hard, assignments are made each morning by a supervisor without clear rules, and many housekeepers, a large share of whom speak Spanish as a first language, receive instructions only in English. Those conditions weaken safety and availability. In banquets, constant schedule changes drain availability. The differences are not about the people in each department but about how their work is organized and managed.

What Supervisors Said

To balance the employee view, I met with the eight supervisors of the lowest-scoring departments. Their accounts were different but compatible. Housekeeping supervisors said they assign rooms each morning based on who is fastest, to finish before the 3 p.m. check-in, which they saw as practical rather than unfair; housekeepers who are slower or newer receive harder rooms or more of them. Banquet supervisors said they cannot control event changes made by the sales team and pass them on as they arrive. Several supervisors said they had never been trained to give feedback or to handle a complaint, and two said they avoid discipline because the resort has no written policy to back them up. These accounts suggest the problems are systemic rather than the fault of individual supervisors.

Four Employee Relations Problems

The assessment identifies four problems. First, the absence of a clear performance management system: housekeepers and banquet staff receive no regular feedback beyond complaints, and goals are unclear. Second, uneven and possibly biased evaluation: assignments and the few formal reviews depend heavily on individual supervisors' impressions. Third, inconsistent discipline: attendance problems are handled differently by different supervisors, which employees experience as favoritism. Fourth, weak channels for resolving conflict and getting support: the complaint log is informal, conflicts between kitchen and banquet staff go unaddressed and the employee assistance program is rarely used because few employees know about it. These problems map directly onto the remaining modules of this course.

Strengths to Build On

Not everything at Lakeview Pines is a problem. Engagement is high in water park operations and maintenance, and their supervisors' practices, such as daily huddles and quick recognition, could be adapted elsewhere. Seventy-eight percent of respondents agreed that the resort's owners care about employees, a foundation of goodwill. And the response rate itself, 68 percent, suggests employees are willing to be heard when asked. Any plan should use these strengths rather than starting from scratch.

Limits of the Assessment

Several cautions apply to these findings. Seasonal employees hired for summer were not surveyed, though they make up a quarter of the summer workforce and may have different experiences. The survey was conducted in September, after the busy season, when fatigue may have lowered some scores. Department results for small groups, such as maintenance with 24 employees, rest on few responses. And exit interviews are given by HR staff, which may make some departing employees reluctant to criticize supervisors directly. Repeating the survey each year, including a short version for seasonal staff in August, would strengthen future comparisons.

Conclusion

Engagement at Lakeview Pines averages 3.8 on a six-point scale but ranges from 4.2 in the water park to 3.1 in housekeeping, and turnover, exit interviews, complaints and guest scores follow the same pattern. Research on the conditions for engagement explains the gap through how work is organized and managed. Four employee relations problems, performance management, evaluation, discipline and conflict resolution with support, will be addressed in turn in the modules that follow.

References

Harter, J. K., Schmidt, F. L., & Hayes, T. L. (2002). Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and business outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(2), 268-279. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.87.2.268

Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33(4), 692-724. https://doi.org/10.2307/256287

Schaufeli, W. B., Bakker, A. B., & Salanova, M. (2006). The measurement of work engagement with a short questionnaire: A cross-national study. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 66(4), 701-716. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164405282471