West Indies Yatch Club Recommendation Report

To: Jim Johnson, General Manager, West Indies Yacht Club Resort

From: Patrick Dowd, Consultant

Subject: Recommendations to improve situation at WIYCR

Date: 3rd April 2017

Introduction

The West Indies Yacht Club resort has been successful over the past years but recently has been facing many problems. My one week stay at WIYCR has brought to my knowledge in understanding of 3 crucial problems that the resort is currently facing. My encounters with the staff of the resort has enhanced my understanding of the root causes that lead to these problems.

1. High expatriate turnover
2. Rise in tensions between local and expatriates
3. Rise in customer complaints

Also, increasing competition among the upscale resorts has put more stress on WIYCR. The resort still has the potential to attract more customers as it boasts the largest boat fleet and ecological consciousness. The purpose of this report is to identify major complications and provide the resort with short and long term recommendations which align with the company’s vision and mission.

Conclusion

After scrutinizing the problems below, WIYCR needs to keep in mind the following points:

1. Devising a strategy to ensure clear external and internal communication of the resort while also taking measures to enhance mutual trust.
2. Making amendments to the devised recommendations periodically.

Recommendations

The company should create a global atmosphere in the resort so that workers from different ethnicities can work well together and the resort can utilize their immediate strengths. To deal with the highlighted problems the following short and long term solutions are suggested:

Short term recommendations

1. Having a strong leading figure present at resort always to motivate employees and assign them daily tasks and goals. Having an interactive leader can motivate them to work harder. This will be an effective management approach due to high uncertainty avoidance and power distance of their culture.

1. Informal gatherings like festival nights and birthday of employees should be celebrated every week. This helps promotes cultural understanding and motivates employees to work harder for the peak season.

1. Monthly performance assessments, frequent visits by top managers and their participation in daily activities of the resort will help in reducing the communication gaps between the headquarters and resort, while also promoting a sense of leadership among the local employees.

1. Non-financial motivators like paid leave and paid vacations can also act as an incentive for employees.

Long term recommendations

1. Establish a social interaction club for the resort. It takes equal efforts by both sides to build a relationship. The social interaction club can promote local employees and US expatriates to share their personal experiences, their festivals and have informal conversations outside of work to understand each other better. This can lead to better internal communication.

1. Implementation of a training program in WIYCR. This provides opportunities to enthusiastic locals to receive the necessary training and experience. This helps them to understand the operations of the resort and educate their co-workers. The training program can be organized as an online weekly schedule and they can also send a team of local employees every month to nearby training institutions.

Analysis

To start with, the local government regulations have a great impact on the operations of the resort. Tourism is one of the main industries of BVI and the government ensures jobs for locals. Most of the local employees’ lack experience and training because of lack of established training institutions and leads to high uncertainty avoidance. The locals find it difficult to cope up with uneasy situations and makes it hard for them to make independent decisions. This leads to underqualified and incompetent employees working at the resort.  Also, due to the harsh laws of the government it is hard for the resort to lay off workers during off peak seasons. Due to high job security, these employees lack the incentive to work hard.

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