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Table of Contents:
1.0. Sustainable Competitive Advantage .......................................................................................................3
1.1. Value ....................................................................................................................................................3
1.2. Rarity ...................................................................................................................................................3
1.3. Inimitability..........................................................................................................................................4
1.4. Organisation ........................................................................................................................................4
2.0. Barriers to Employee Engagement: .........................................................................................................5
2.1. Organisational policy ...........................................................................................................................5
2.2. High stress level and work-life balance ...............................................................................................5
2.3. Inconsistent management ...................................................................................................................6
3.0. Work-Life Balance ...................................................................................................................................7
3.1. Benefits of work-life balance ...............................................................................................................7
3.1.1. Decreased stress, absenteeism and condition costs: ..................................................................7
3.1.2. Enhanced client satisfaction: .......................................................................................................7
3.1.3. Enhanced recruitment, retention and decreased turnover: .......................................................7
3.2. Barriers to work-life balance ...............................................................................................................8
3.2.1. Technology: .................................................................................................................................8
3.2.2. Communication: ..........................................................................................................................8
3.2.3. Respect and Recognition: ............................................................................................................8
3.3. Recommendations for applying work-life balance .............................................................................9
3.3.1. Protect Your Private Time: ..........................................................................................................9
3.3.2. Use Technology to Your Advantage: ...........................................................................................9
3.3.3. Communicate: .............................................................................................................................9
4.0. Zero-Hour Contracts: ............................................................................................................................ 10
4.1. Advantages of zero hour contracts .................................................................................................. 10
4.1.1. Flexibility: ................................................................................................................................. 10
4.1.2. Save Costs: ................................................................................................................................ 10
4.1.3. Handle operatives: ................................................................................................................... 10
4.2. Disadvantages of zero hour contract ............................................................................................... 11
4.2.1. Lack of certainty and stability:.................................................................................................. 11
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4.2.2. Decreased loyalty: .................................................................................................................... 11
4.2.3. Exclusivity clause: ..................................................................................................................... 11
4.2.4. Recommendation: .................................................................................................................... 11
5.0. Reasons for Peripheral Employees Disappointment: .......................................................................... 12
5.1. Working hours .................................................................................................................................. 12
5.2. Benefits ............................................................................................................................................. 12
5.3. Recognition ....................................................................................................................................... 12
6.0. Staff Turnover: ...................................................................................................................................... 13
6.1. Reasons for staff turnover: ............................................................................................................... 13
6.1.1. Decreased levels of belief and confidence: .............................................................................. 13
6.1.2. Poor Decision-making: .............................................................................................................. 13
6.1.3. Work-life imbalance and job stress: ......................................................................................... 14
6.2. Staff retention strategies for Outer Marker ..................................................................................... 14
6.2.1. Working environment: ............................................................................................................. 14
6.2.2. Operative connection strategies: ............................................................................................. 14
6.2.3. Staff prop strategies: ................................................................................................................ 14
7.0. References: ........................................................................................................................................... 16








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Solution:
1.0. Sustainable Competitive Advantage
Jay Barneys resource based view of strategic HRM holds that the resources and capabilities of
a firm form the basic driving force for sustainable competitive advantage and economic
performance. Creation and development of the firms core competencies that are superior to its
competitors needs to be implemented. In order to analyse the extent of competitive advantage
possessed by the Outer Marker Hotel Group we have to define the four key characteristics of
the resource based view and compare OMs resources and capabilities against these criteria.
1.1. Value
For a resource to provide competitive advantage it should be valuable. The value of a resource
or a capability can be assigned in terms of its ability in mitigating or exploiting a threat or an
opportunity that appears in the environment of the business. When the resource satisfies
neither of these two conditions it is considered as a weakness rather than being a strength. The
company increases its revenues and/or decreases its costs as a result of its utilization of
opportunities or mitigation of threats. A critical look at OM shows that its once customer-
focused and relaxed employees are no longer able to provide high levels of customer
satisfaction due to stress in work time. The employees hospitality skills are at a record low as
they fail to attract customers. The OMs locations along seaside in various continents provide
them a hike in competitive advantage. Its worldwide brand name is a valuable asset that
resulted in the fast expansion of its hotels.
1.2. Rarity
A system of perfect competition dominates in the absence of rarity even if the resource or
capability of the company be valuable. Rarity occurs when there are no similar resources with
contending firms or when there is a scarcity of a specific resource or capability in the
marketplace. In order to gain a sustained competitive advantage Outer Markers resources and
capabilities should be valuable and rare with short persistent supply. There are few hotels
around the globe that provide comfortable as well as affordable lodgings near seaside.
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Therefore OM delivers a high level of sustainable competitive advantage when it comes to
rarity.
1.3. Inimitability
The valuable and rare resource or capability needs to be inimitable i.e. rival businesses should
not be able to obtain or develop a similar resource or capability without facing a cost drawback.
The cost of imitation needs to be high for the rivals in order for the company to sustain this
competitive advantage. The staffs of Outer Marker hotels have a very dedicated and customer-
focussed attitude. This is partly due to the complex social relationships between the managers
and the workers. This social complexity is usually difficult to be created or imitated by other
firms that lack it.
1.4. Organisation
Exploitation of a companys valuable, rare and inimitable resources and capabilities is
unattainable without a proper structure and control system that would keep the company
organised. The OM group face a critically low level of customer-focus in their employees due to
the recent advancements with the peripheral employees.









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Solution:
2.0. Barriers to Employee Engagement:
Employee engagement is achieved when employees in your work place are satisfied and
committed to the job they perform. Lack of engagement leads to poor work outcomes and
hence cuts short the companys performance. The following three major barriers to employee
engagement are identified for Outer Marker:
2.1. Organisational policy
The organisations rules, procedures, command-line, reporting systems, etc directly affect the
employees level of engagement. The decision of Outer Marker to keep a core group of
employees and another peripheral to supplement in case need arises have been the root to this
problem of employee engagement. This caused a polarisation in the work atmosphere that led
to lower employee commitment and thereby decreasing the levels of engagement in
employees. In addition to this, the company increased the cost of living pay just by one percent
which was its lowest recorded. The outcome that was yielded was that the employees got even
frustrated and lost their motivation in performing their duties.
2.2. High stress level and work-life balance
Stress is an obnoxious arousal in the physiological and emotional state of a person due to
perception of danger or threat. Stress leads to muscle tension, anxiety, increase in heart rate
and eventual changes in the behaviour of the person. Looking into OMs human resource, the
peripheral employees who work for more than one shift per day are not able to maintain a
balance between their work and their outside life. The long work hours expose them to
exhaustion in their energy levels. This affects them; both during the work and when they return
back home, by increasing the stress on their mind and body. As a result the attention and focus
that the employees were supposed to provide to the customers gets degraded.
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2.3. Inconsistent management
The behaviour and attitude of your employees is based primarily on how you deal with them in
the work place and how you respond to their needs and aspirations not to mention that they
need to be always reminded that they constitute your organisation. The employees and
managers must have a good understanding between them in order to facilitate the day-to-day
hassles effectively. It seems that managers at the Outer Marker Hotel Group failed to address
important matters that their employees faced. Being pressurised to provide better customer
satisfaction along with reducing the cost of operations, the managers failed to see that the
employees were not suit to work under the persistence of the prevailing situation. Therefore it is
incumbent that managers discuss the matter at hand and come up with solutions that positively
contribute to the interest of both the parties.













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Solution:
3.0. Work-Life Balance
3.1. Benefits of work-life balance
Work-life balance is a crucial element in the employees of the organisation for the following
reasons:
3.1.1. Decreased stress, absenteeism and condition costs:
Employees nowadays are usually extra stressed that cut presentation levels. Absenteeism due to
relations promises and stress might be a main reason for low presentation levels. Work-Life
initiatives enhances operative presentation by cutting absenteeism, lateness, condition care and
sick-leave and hence their connected costs. People who are free of concern concerning what is
going on at residence can be extra productive at work.
3.1.2. Enhanced client satisfaction:
Better client reply is probable across telecommuting and the longer working hours that can be
coordinated by providing operatives flexibility. At the alike period, extra motivated operatives who
have their confidential needs addressed are extra probable to go the supplementary mile to retain
clients happy. Turnover, and the consecutive demand for re-establishment of connection and
rework, is additionally tabulated as main factor giving to defeat of customers.
3.1.3. Enhanced recruitment, retention and decreased turnover:
Work-Life initiatives give associations a human face that permits prospective operatives to
discriminate one employer from another. To appeal operatives and grasp on to them, onward
thinking firms are permitting their operatives understand that they are just as distressed concerning
their operatives lifetimes beyond work and concerning helping them to grasp their work and
confidential promises and aspirations. Work-Life Programmes key supremacy is consequently
affirmative branding in recruitment and retention of talent. Operative referrals additionally
increase.
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3.2. Barriers to work-life balance
3.2.1. Technology:
Knowledge is a double-edged sword: on the one hand it provides
opportunities for flexibility, as on the supplementary it intrudes on by now
manipulated period at residence as countless operatives are on-call across
evenings and weekends. As knowledge provides extra opportunities to
telecommute, operatives indicate that most work constituents do not use
opportunities to telecommute, and operatives who do work from residence
expressed that they frequently contacted that they were suspect and that
their supervisors and fellow operatives questioned whether they were truly
working. Countless operatives express a desire for increased telecommuting
opportunities.
3.2.2. Communication:
Examples of contact breakdowns and the observed unwillingness of
countless administrators to attend are a public thread across the company.
Most operatives understand the trials that a lack of contact creates for them,
chiefly the observed unwillingness or inability to attend on the portion of
"higher ups." The implications of this lack of contact were that operatives at
every single level sense disenfranchised and not related to decision making.
Inadequate contact alongside the operatives of your stable additionally
crafted stress and supplementary work because oftentimes the early contact
concerning a strategy or procedure was inaccurate and was modified several
periods beforehand in the end being elucidated that too is dubious.
3.2.3. Respect and Recognition:
The desire for respect and credit is normally an expressed demand by all
operatives of each firm. Countless operatives of OM are subjected to sense
that their vision and experience are not valued or pursued out by the
management and that after they did express their opinions and concerns that
this feedback was frequently not listened to or acknowledged. The credit for
good work was noted by countless as lacking and the demand to celebrate
good work across a expansive scope of awards for all operatives was
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recognized by countless as vital in accomplished a affirmative work-life
balance.

3.3. Recommendations for applying work-life balance
3.3.1. Protect Your Private Time:
Permit yourself to daydream in the subway or worth good meteorological
conditions on your stroll to work. If you dont permit yourself pockets of
confidential period, youll come to be too blazed out to fully worth each
portion of your life.
3.3.2. Use Technology to Your Advantage:
Technology ought to aid make your existence easier, not manipulate it. Bar
technology at precise periods so that you can focus on your relations or
friends.
3.3.3. Communicate:
If you wont be obtainable for precise hours across the date or weekend
because youre dealing alongside relations subjects, allow your manager and
associates understand, and become their maximum support.







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Solution:
4.0. Zero-Hour Contracts:
4.1. Advantages of zero hour contracts
4.1.1. Flexibility:
They permit employers to involve operatives after they or else could not be able to, for
example, whereas marketplace volatility way that the employer cannot promise a precise
number of work. It provides employers alongside flexible labour to enable them to answer to
tops and troughs in company and demand, so they can circumvent being overstaffed in
silent eras and understaffed in busy periods. Workers below zero hours contracts can
additionally benefit from the flexibility offered. Whereas there is no obligation to accord
work, operatives will be free to accord or coil down work, according to their needs.
4.1.2. Save Costs:
The price savings gave by not possessing to wage operatives whereas there is no demand
or demand for them, employers can additionally benefit from possessing less obligations,
whereas the arrangement is such that the individual is genuinely a operative and does not
buy occupation rank and the associated occupation entitlements (such as the right to claim
unfair dismissal, the right to accord statutory maternity or paternity depart wage, statutory
redundancy wage or statutory ill pay).
4.1.3. Handle operatives:
Sometimes it is tough to grasp operatives in the workplace exceptionally those dull and
reluctant ones. By employing zero hours, managers can provide extra hours to operatives
that "behave" and less to those who cause trouble. This could serve as an incentive to
enhance service and thereby improve client satisfaction in Outer Marker.
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4.2. Disadvantages of zero hour contract
The disadvantages of zero hour contracts are as follows:
4.2.1. Lack of certainty and stability:
Uncertainty concerning hours presented every single week can lead to fear amid workers
concerning complaining or rising subjects considering each aspect of the job or service.
This can additionally have a huge encounter on the operatives skill to make commercial
strategies and a drastic cut in hours might depart the operative incapable to cope financially.
There is a possible for employers to involve zero hours operatives whereas there is in reality
a maximum period role. This might be exploited by employers who are pursuing to stop
those operatives from benefitting from the maximum scope of occupation rights.
4.2.2. Decreased loyalty:
The firm could conclude up training staffs who depart for disparate work. The association
needs to be prudent concerning employing merely zero-hours contracted operatives and
crafting a pool of paid operatives to select from, as this makes it extra tough to proposal
the alike person to clients at all periods, meaning that they wont form that vital working
relationship.
4.2.3. Exclusivity clause:
Some zero-hour contracts contain an exclusivity clause, which mentions that operatives
cannot have an additional job. Thus the exclusivity clause plus the job insecurity bring
forward critical and negative opinions. It is a method that proposals no promise of a job and
stops workers working for one more firm.
4.2.4. Recommendation:
I suggest that Outer Marker continue with the zero hours contract but it should be based on
the following conditions. Firstly, since OM has seasonal fluctuations in its required amount of
employees, it should give a clear idea of the work period to the peripheral workers so that they
arrange for out of season work before hand. The manager should also stipulate conditions for
paid leave for the peripheral workers therefore keeping their focus relaxed from tension and
oriented to providing higher levels of customer satisfaction.
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Solution:
5.0. Reasons for Peripheral Employees Disappointment:
Adams equity theory considers the efforts including all other similar things that employees give
in as inputs and the rewards and other similar things that they take in return as outputs.
Through equity theory we understand that equity is based on the difference perceived when
one employee compares his input-output ratio with that of his another fellow employee. In the
Outer Marker Hotel Group, the peripheral employees would be disappointed with the lower than
expected cost of living pay rise when compared to core employees due to the following three
main reasons:
5.1. Working hours
Zero hour employees in OM do not have stable working hours, which their counterparts benefit
from.
5.2. Benefits
Even though the peripheral employees put in the same effort as the core employees in
providing hospitality to the clients, they see themselves barred from extra benefits like paid
leave, credit cards, etc.
5.3. Recognition
Organisations value the work their employees perform. Many zero hour employees of OM are
subjected to feel that their knowledge and experience are not valued or sought out by the
administration and that when they express their opinions and concerns their feedback is often
not listened to or acknowledged.
Since the only benefit they received from OM was the cost of living pay and due to their fluctuating
job conditions against the more stable, better-off position of the core employees they definitely see
the reduction in cost of pay rise as especially unfair towards them.
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Solution:
6.0. Staff Turnover:
Staff Turnover is usually seen as a drawback to any companys image. When employees are not satisfied
with working conditions, rewards, benefits, etc, they tend to the work place.
6.1. Reasons for staff turnover:
Outer Marker Group has seen a visible amount of staff turnover for the following reasons:
6.1.1. Decreased levels of belief and confidence:
After operatives are asked to do extra and extra, they discern fewer facts that
they will in the end allocate in the fruits of their labour. After revenues and
profits rise alongside workload, associations ought to seize one more gaze at
their finished compensation packages. Operatives understand after a firm is
acting well, and they anticipate to be believed as critical enablers of that
success. Associations demand to halt conversing concerning operatives
being their most vital asset as indulging them as consumables or something
less than valuable. If an association wants inspired operatives allocating out
quality produce at a pace that meets client demand, they demand to clarify
appreciation across actions.
6.1.2. Poor Decision-making:
A lot of managers micromanage to the level of minutia. Micromanagers
materialize insecure considering their employees skill to present their jobs
lacking the manager managing every single move. Associations demand
operatives to have ownership and be empowered! Inspired operatives have
the freedom to make suggestions and decisions. Nowadays empowerment
seems to be a catch-all word for countless thoughts concerning operative
power and responsibility. Though, as a colossal meaning, it way an
association gives operatives latitude to do their jobs by allocating belief in
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them. Employees, in coil, accord that obligation and embrace that belief
alongside enthusiasm and dignity of ownership.
6.1.3. Work-life imbalance and job stress:
Increasing alongside commercial pressures, associations tolerate to demand
that one person do the work of two or extra people.This is exceptionally real
after an association downsizes or restructures, emerging in longer hours and
weekend work. Operatives are compelled to select amid a confidential
existence and a work life. This does not sit well alongside the present,
younger workforce, and this is compounded after both spouses or
momentous others work.

6.2. Staff retention strategies for Outer Marker
6.2.1. Working environment:
The main operative retention strategies have to do alongside crafting and maintaining a
workplace that entices, retains and nourishes good people. This covers a host of subjects,
fluctuating from growing a company duty, sophistication and worth arrangement to asserting
on a harmless working nature and crafting clear, logical and consistent working strategies
and procedures.
6.2.2. Operative connection strategies:
Employee connection strategies have to do alongside how you delight your people and how
they delight every single other. Growing competent operative connection strategies begins
alongside providing your managers and supervisors plenty of connection training, asking
operatives why they work for you, and after you have the data concerning why people work
for you next you enquire concerning what you can do to make things even larger concerning
them.
6.2.3. Staff prop strategies:
Employee prop strategies involve providing people the instruments and supplies to become
the job done. After people sense they have what they demand to present, job satisfaction
increases dramatically. All operative prop strategies stem from three frank principles: people
desire to excel, people demand adequate resources to become the job completed, and
people demand ethical and mental prop from you and your managers. Data is one more key
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span in operative prop strategies. The extra data you give people concerning what they are
doing, what the firm is concerning and why you do things the method you do, the extra
priceless it becomes.




























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7.0. References:
http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/factsheets/strategic-human-resource-management.aspx
http://s-h-r-m.blogspot.ae/2010/07/strategic-human-resource-management_24.html
http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/factsheets/employee-engagement.aspx
http://iveybusinessjournal.com/topics/the-workplace/what-engages-employees-the-most-or-the-ten-
cs-of-employee-engagement#.U3CV7IWrI0w
http://pocarisweat.umdl.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/67268/10.1177_0021886397331003.p
df?sequence=2
http://humanresources.about.com/od/glossaryw/g/balance.htm
http://www.pinsentmasons.com/Documents/e-bulletin/Employment/2013-08-09.html
http://wheniwork.com/7-great-employee-retention-strategies/
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/76456