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1. The Unknown Thieves
Complaints at Hotel
Rajesh was a worried man. This was third complaint within a span of fifteen days. Front Office
Manager Sham was reporting the complaints from guests, one by one. Sham would listen to the
complaints and assure the guests that all efforts would be made to settle their complaints. Sham had
himself tried to crack those issues first. He had made his staff search the guest rooms thoroughly
with their permission. That yielded nothing. Still, he confidently told the guests that matters would
be sorted out very fast. He then reported the complaints to Rajesh, who was the Human Relations
Manager of the Hotel.
The Hotel “Water View”
Hotel Water View started its operations in 1952 when Goa was ruled by the Portuguese. Many VIPs
from not only Portugal but various other countries visited and hence, it was essential to have a
decenthotel inthe town.
Mr. Gurudatt Kamat, a wealthy landlord, came up with this idea of starting a hotel as he saw a huge
potential for growth in the Hospitality industry. The Portuguese Govt. too supported the idea. Mr.
Kamat was a pioneer in the High End Hotel sector in Goa and the hotel enjoyed almost monopoly in
the sector fora longtime.
Post liberation, considerable improvements, renovations and expansions happened. Convention
halls were added. There was central air conditioning of the hotel and increase in the number of suits
and rooms. Water View was a pioneer in introducing the Buffet System. The hotel further expanded
its operations as the time passed. A Chinese restaurant, A riverside snack bar and pastry shops in
Goa were the othersisterconcernsof Water View.
Major departments of the hotel included Human Resource, Food and Beverages, Purchases and
Finance. Various Management Institutes approached Human Resource Department of the hotel to
accept their students as trainees. The hotel always had such trainees besides their regular staff
posted at all the departments. They considered it as their social obligation to maintain rapport with
Academic Institutions. The hotel also had its Security department consisting of Security Manager,

2. Security Supervisor and staff. It had two entrances. Main entrance was for customers and other one
was forstaff.The securitystaff wouldbe postedatbothentrances.
Complaints of Missing Items
In spite of this, in the month of October, the guests were reporting thefts to the Front Office
Manager Sham. There was large number of instances when the guests used to misplace their items
in the rooms or forget them in their taxis etc. Front Office staff was used to this. They would then
search the rooms thoroughly and ask the guests where they had been. Butin this month, this did not
seem to be the case. Then, the staff needed to be queried. It was due to this reason that the matter
was reportedtoHR Manager Rajesh.
Rajesh was a person with a pleasant disposition and easy to get along. He had been working for ten
years and strived to keep his staff upbeat. His attitude was further encouraged by the owner of the
hotel, Mr. Kamat, grandson of the founder, who had set the culture of treating his staff like his
extended family. The staff also responded well to these ways. The attrition rate was lower than
industry and many members of the staff had worked for several years. Hence, the repeated
reporting of missing items was a cause for concern to Rajesh. The guests reporting thefts were quite
respectable. All of them were business tourists. The hotel had a large customer base of business
tourists. This was attributed to the convenient location. The hotel lacked some facilities like
swimming pool, gym etc, sought by leisure tourists. Hence, the loyal customers were predominantly
business tourists. The items reported missing were small sized items, a camera, a CD Player, a
mobile, a leather pouch and the like. At first, both managers felt the customer could have lost his
item.Butwhenthe thirdcustomerreportedmissingitems,Rajeshwasshaken.
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