History
Portfolio Leisure Ltd is a private company, established in 1996, to run a hotel and leisure center which was converted from a manor house by Carapace Petroleum plc. The house has been modified by providing a lot of facilities that match the requirements of a leisure center. It includes gymnasia, conference center, and new riverside boating center, four food-providing areas, and four permanent bars.
The sports facilities provide the highest quality sports areas which can be used by basic members as well as outsiders.
Present Condition
In 1997, Carapace decided to sell the Portfolio Centre and the management team of Portfolio Leisure bought the Club for £ 16.8 million. The deal involved the outright purchase of the house, its immediate grounds, and the conference center. The company has also guaranteed portfolio at 200 business functions but in reality, it held 456 functions at the portfolio. The membership of the club was also open to outsiders and the commercial memberships were chargeable. The Company also let out hotel bedroom and sports facilities.
Problems
The structure was factionalized with many functions and departments and their operations were not orchestrated properly. Consequently, disputes broke out over funding, facilities, uniform, pay, appraisal systems and also resulted in violence when the hotel waiter started courting a young lady from the sports facility.
The lack of cohesion among various functions resulted in several costly mistakes. For example, booking taken from one section is not informed to the other. In one case, the leisure center staff holding a regional karate competition for 500 competitors. At the same time, conferencing had booked 300 for a weekend conference, on violence in society. The food and beverage department was not informed about the numbers arriving there.
Another major issue was that training was given without any planning and a proper analysis of the requirements. There are no specific induction programs given to new entrants and the issues are administered by booklet only. Further, there are no proper management activities that could be useful for developing the required skills of the employees.