HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

IN SERVICE FIRMS

Chapter 5
CONTENTS

I. Service encounter triad

II. Job characteristics of service staff

III. Job analyzing and designing in service operation management

IV. Human resources planning

V. Allocating service staff

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VI. Contact staff management
SERVICE ENCOUNTER TRIAD
Service
organization
Efficiency Efficiency
- Culture
vs. vs.
- Empowerment
Autonomy Satisfaction
- Control system
- Supporting technology
- Performance evaluation

Contact Customer
personnel Service delivery
- Selection - Expectation
- Perceived control
- Training - Attitudes
- Role of scripts
- Ethical climate - Coproduction 3
- Outcome
- Failure recovery
SERVICE ENCOUNTER TRIAD
Service
organization
Efficiency Efficiency
- Culture
vs. vs.
- Control system
Effectiveness Satisfaction
- Supporting technology
- Performance evaluation

Website/ Customer
App Service delivery
- Design - Expectation
- Perceived control
- Attitudes
- Role of scripts
- Coproduction 4
- Outcome
- Failure recovery
JOB CHARACTERISTICS OF SERVICE STAFF

Classification of service staff

 By main working area: front-office staff and back-office
staff

 By relationship between staff’s work and service

delivery process: direct staff and indirect staff

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JOB CHARACTERISTICS OF SERVICE STAFF
Job characteristics of service staff
Front-office staff
 Be visible to customers
 Perform multiple types of service
activities simultaneously
 Work in unstable environment
 Their work depends heavily on the
number and time of customer arrivals
 The way their work is performed can
vary among customers and
situations
Back-office staff
 Invisible to customers
 Perform repetitive and mechanical
activities
 Work in mostly stable environment
 There are many cases that their
work do not completely depend on
the number and time of customer
arrivals 6
JOB CHARACTERISTICS OF SERVICE STAFF

Job characteristics of service staff

Direct staff Indirect staff

 The fulfilment of their job is clearly  Most of the cases are in back-office
perceived during service delivery area, supporting service delivery
process or service outcomes. process.
 Their workload correlates closely  Their work has little or no direct
with the number of customer relationship with the number and the
arrivals. time of customer arrivals.

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Job analyzing and designing in service operation
management

Basic concepts

Duty Position

Job

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Job analyzing in service operation management

Job analyzing: can be understood as the process of gathering

information related to the specific job.
 Job description: Introduction of job, designation, job summary,
duties and responsibilities, reporting authorities, salary range,
machines to be used, working conditions, hazards

 Job specification: qualifications, experience, training, skills,

emotional and physical characteristics, sensory demands
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Job analyzing and designing in service operation
management

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Job analyzing in service operation management

Process of job analyzing

- Determine scope of job analyzing: determine purpose of job
analyzing; identify the job to be analyzed
- Prepare for job analyzing: determine types of data needed;
identify data sources; choose analytical method
- Collect and analyze data: Collect job data; analyze information;
report the results to the organization; periodically check
analytical information
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- Evaluate job analyzing results
Job analyzing in service operation management

Methods of collecting analytical information:

▪ Observing
▪ Recording important events
▪ Utilizing work diary
▪ Surveying
▪ Holding specialist workshop
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Job designing in service operation management

Definition of job design:

“Job design is the division of work tasks assigned to

an individual in an organization that specifies what
the worker does, how, and why.”
(Norris and Porter, 2012)
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Job designing in service operation management

Five core job dimensions:

Skill variety: The degree to which a job requires a broad array of
skills.
Task identity: The degree to which an individual performs a whole
and identifiable piece of work.
Task significance: The degree to which the work impacts others.
Autonomy: The level of independence and freedom an individual has
Feedback: the amount of information an employee receives about
his or her performance, and the extent to which he or she can see 15

the impact of the work.

Job designing in service operation management

Techniques of job design:

Job rotation: is a practice of moving employees between jobs in an
organization.
Job enlargement: involves adding additional activities within the same
hierarchical level to an existing role. The work requires similar skills but the
work’s content differs.
Job enrichment: is characterized by adding motivational dimensions. This
means that job enlargement could be a form of job enrichment.
Job simplification: is the process of removing tasks from existing roles to
make them more focused. (the opposite of job enlargement. 16
Human resources planning
 Human resources planning
1. Forecasting human resources needs

Predicting service Calculating

demand workload Forecast
the number of
No. of guests
required workers
No. of corresponding Labor norms
services
No. of services 18
Human resources planning
1. Forecasting human resources needs Forecast
Board of directors
+6 the number of
required workers
+0 +0 -1
Dep. of Dep. of
Organization & Dep. of Sales Finance &
Administration & Marketing Accounting

+3 +0 +1 +1 +2
Front Kitchen Food & Housekeeping 19
Engineering
Office Beverages
Human resources planning
1. Forecasting human resources needs

Mathematical methods (quantitative methods) using:

▪ Average number
▪ Productivity ratios
▪ Rate of onstage and backstage staff
▪ Statistical regression method
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Human resources planning
2. Determining supply of human resources

Human resources supply

Internal supply: External supply:

rotations, promotions, retired Labor force in the market,
employees, recall of laid-off from competitors, from
employees,… educational organizations,…
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 Human resources planning

Internal
human
resource
supply

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Human resources planning
3. Human resources planning
Plan for staff shortage Plan for redundancy
▪ Seasonal labor ▪ Allowing early retirement
▪ Overtime ▪ Reducing working
▪ Multi-functional employees ▪ Rearranging staff
▪ Delayed retirement
▪ Redesigning service delivery
process
▪ Increasing customer 23
participation
ALLOCATION OF SERVICE STAFF
ALLOCATION OF SERVICE STAFF

REQUIREMENTS

01 02 03
Flexible Appropriate Efficient

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ALLOCATION OF SERVICE STAFF

ALLOCATING METHODS

1. Allocating by time

2. Allocating by stages

3. Allocating by operations

4. Allocating by working areas 26

ALLOCATION OF SERVICE STAFF

ALLOCATING METHODS

1. Allocating by time

▪ No. of shifts: one shift, two shifts, three shifts

▪ Length of each shift
▪ Number and/or structure of staff in each shift
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ALLOCATION OF SERVICE STAFF

ALLOCATING METHODS

2. Allocating by stages

▪ Number of process stages

▪ Number and/or structure of staff at each stage

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ALLOCATION OF SERVICE STAFF

2. Allocating by stages

Preparing Cooking

Presenting and
Purchasing materials

plating food
food and

Serving
raw
materials
Washing Processing
raw food

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Firm’s Line of
boundary visibility
ALLOCATION OF SERVICE STAFF

ALLOCATING METHODS

3. Allocating by operations

▪ Operations that need staff

▪ Number and/or structure of staff for each operation

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ALLOCATION OF SERVICE STAFF

ALLOCATING METHODS

4. Allocating by working areas

▪ Working areas that need staff

▪ Number and/or structure of staff for each area

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Contact staff management
Contact staff management

1. Role of contact staff

2. Requirements for contact staff

3. Managing contact staff

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Contact staff management

1. Role of contact staff

▪ Cooperate with customers to create service value

▪ Perform operational activities: selling products, instructing

customers, supervising service process

▪ Build and maintain relationships with customers

Contact staff management

1. Role of contact staff

Working characteristics of contact staff

▪ Emotional labor
▪ High flexibility
▪ Dealing with many conflicts while on the job
▪ Trade-off between productivity and quality
Contact staff management

2. Requirements for contact staff

▪ Communication skills
▪ Technical expertise
▪ Customer understanding
▪ Multi-functioning
▪ Being organized at work
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Contact staff management

3. Managing contact staff

▪ Defining a serving style for direct contact staff

▪ Facilitating their work
▪ Appreciating and investing in contact staff
▪ Supervising their performance
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Contact staff management
3. Managing contact staff

Defining a serving style for direct contact staff by

determining:
 Age, gender;
 Uniform, makeup, accessories;
 Gestures, postures, language used;
 Serving attitude;
 … 38
Contact staff management

3. Managing contact staff

Facilitating their work by:

▪ Determining their roles (provide detailed job description
and make sure they understand it) and training them
(provide scripts for frequently happening and critical
processes and allow them to practice)
▪ Limiting their role as a judge (take responsibility to deal
with complicated situations and clearly identify the degree
of employee empowerment) 39
Contact staff management

3. Managing contact staff

Appreciating and investing in contact staff by:

▪ emphasizing their critical role in encounters with customers
and in marketing the firm
▪ Developing appropriate recruiting and training programs, as
well as promotion and reward policies
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Contact staff management

3. Managing contact staff

Supervising their performance using:

▪ Pre-encounter controlling methods: plans, job descriptions,
individual performance objectives, training programs,…
▪ During-encounter controlling methods: observing,
monitoring, using customers’ feedback,…
▪ After-encounter controlling methods: reports, customers’
feedback,… 41
THANK YOU!
Any questions?
You can find me at:
▪ viennk@due.udn.vn

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