IMPACT OF KEY HUMAN RESOURCES ISSUES ON MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES IN IDENTIFIED SEGMENTS OF THE INTERNATIONAL HOTEL INDUSTRY
Introduction
Scientific management can make the tasks of production, purchasing, marketing, and finance very much easier (2001). In the scope of the international hotel industry, with definite procedures properly established, the hotel operations can be performed under controlled conditions so that they can be easily evaluated. Such is not the case, however, with human resources and personnel management, since the problems arising are more complex given the fact that they are usually dealing with issues and relations between employer and employee.
Human resources could be considered a division of the general science of management. Since the management of human resource or people must be integrated with the management of the hotel, because people comprise the hotel enterprise and the labor needed for it to function, human resource is therefore also a function and responsibility of the management. This goes to say that problems and issues in the human resource department can significantly affect management strategies of an industry or organization, which in the context of this paper will focus in the international hotel industry.
In this fast changing world, the customer reigns supreme. Such is the power of customers that the term “service management” is increasingly used to emphasize management imperatives in this age of service competition and market forces. Service quality initiative in an international hotel company from a strategic human resource development perspective is therefore of paramount importance for management.
Context
In the above introduction, it was made clear that human resource is the function and responsibility of the management. Thus whatever that occurs in the human resources will likely have an impact on the management strategy of an organization, and in the context of this paper could significantly affect the quality of service of the international hotel industry. The customer-facing and quality staff dependent nature of the luxury, international hotel industry renders this sector appropriate for investigations of quality service and strategic human resource development as it is likely to evidence examples.
Quality, just like human resource management, came out from the manufacturing sector and in the early 1980s became a part of services literature (1997). Since quality has its origins in tangible products, the application of quality concepts and practices to intangible services or experiences in the hotel sector, for example, proved somewhat problematic during its early days (1997). True enough, in service industries the role and behavior of the employee take on even greater importance than in manufacturing industries ( 1994). However, the difficulty in ensuring consistency due to the variability of the human element remains a problem for quality service (2004).
Various methods have been used in the past by hoteliers to determine the relationships between their human resource requirements and key social and economic factors or drivers. These techniques range from simplistic “base plus” and judgmental forecasts based on “drivers” to Delphi techniques and quantitative methods including econometric models. Sometimes, simple ratios and trends prove to be useful in short-term planning horizons and in circumstances where operations are static, change is slow and activities are normal. It is not surprising, therefore, to find instances where hotels have topped up sales positions based simply on ratios of customers, market size (or even just market potential), or sales volume per sales representative (2004).
The success of any international organization, large or small, chiefly depends on the ability and efficiency of the human element or the persons in its rolls. In the international hotel scenario, people are hired to do jobs to attain the objectives of the industry which is to provide the best service to its customers. People make use of money, materials, and machines to produce goods and render services. People with specialized knowledge and skills are needed to render hotel services. Hotels therefore specifically look for people who have a genuine interest in the profession, not people who are looking for a summer job.
Service quality has been recognized as a key factor in differentiating service products. Customer satisfaction can be secured through high-quality products and services. The concept of service should be approached from the customer’s point of view, since it was his/her perception of the outcome that constituted the service. Customers may have different values and different grounds for assessment and, most of the time, they may perceive the same service in different ways (2006).
The employees who are considered service performers or providers are central to service quality, and in effect their management too. A key issue for managers in the international hotel sector is determining the suitable balance between giving employees responsibility for service quality and maintaining managerial control of service quality, given how critical a certain issue is ( 1999). The centrality of employees in international hotel service quality is likely to be emphasized further as service competition and the focus on customer perceptions and expectations intensifies in hospitality and tourism and industry overall. Hospitality and tourism providers like international hotel chains must continue to meet if not exceed customer expectations that are themselves dynamic in order to remain competitive in the face of globalization.
The improvement of quality service in the international hotel industry brings with it the added challenge of cross-cultural service encounters in branded organizations. Critical to global success in cross-cultural service translations is being able to tell between what is core to the business – what should be standardized throughout operations – and what isn’t (2004). Employees must therefore identify with the core values of the organization. The core values of an international hotel help to identify what kind of the hotel is in relation to other hotels. They also give a general understanding of the member characteristics of the hotel, to the outsiders. In line with this, the core values of an international hotel also reflect that of their employees.
In order for human resource development to be strategic in focus, it must formulate plans and policies that flow from and are integrated with business plans and policies (1991). This requires an accentuation not just on the identification of learning needs at the individual level, but also at the organizational level by way of an organizational review or audit. This will tend to put the emphasis on business driven approach to training, rather than a supply or menu driven approach that traditionally many training departments of the international hotel industry have adopted.
The importance of being able to offer hotel customers a high quality experience was unquestionable (2006). Evaluation by management in cost effectiveness terms is vital to the development of a strategic focus for human resource development ( 2000). Although such investment calculations are difficult to make, it could be argued that not making them simply helps to breed a culture where training is not seen as an investment.
The other hotel service quality dimensions, such as assurance, empathy, reliability, and responsiveness should also not be ignored. International hotel operators ought to take them into consideration and continue to maintain the quality standard in order to meet the basic needs of the customers. Hotel management and employees ought to always ensure that all moments of contact with customers should result in a positive experience for the customers (2003). Satisfaction of customers in the international hotel industry can be the cheapest means of promotion, and therefore it is obvious that these attributes can be deemed of equal importance.
Conclusion
Quality service offered by employees is vital in the service industries (1994), such as in the international hotel industry sector. The concept of hotel service should be approached from the point of view of the customer given the fact that the customer’s perception of the outcome is what constitutes the service. The employees who are the ones to perform the services to customers are central to service quality and this goes to say that their management too are of equal importance. Management should devise ways to train and equip their human resource in the provision of service quality to the hotel customers. International hotel chains must therefore continue to meet if not exceed the ever-changing customer expectations in order to remain competitive in the face of globalization.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment