Challenges In Recruiting: Hospitality Industry

Challenges In Recruiting: Hospitality Industry Today, in the world of growing in globalised businesses and the improvement of entertainment industries. Transportations, Accommodations, Venues, Dining and Talents are now in great demand. In the industries of people serving people, it is one of the most excitement sectors that you can best understand a business model, because it was combined with many different sectors and generated with smaller scale of many operators to build up a big organization that were full of services provided, which named Hospitality! The Hospitality industry is currently largest businesses among the world, it is also a global, interlocking with deep and complex of supply chain. Today in the record, hospitality industry provides more than 200 million employees in worldwide and the numbers of talents are still growing rapidly and it is in a demand today. In Singapore, the Hospitality industry remains a key economic driver and Singapore is promoting and building the image and reputation. It is also an essential support in the industry for Singapores efforts to constantly remain an attractive lifestyle destination, with the development of the two integrated resorts (Resort World and Marina Bay Sands) and other exciting events and projects such as the making Orchard Road into one of the best shopping town in the world of Asia. With the positive outlook for this growing industry, it is important for Singapore to continue improving its service competiveness by enhancing excellence service delivery and clients satisfaction. The industry needs professionals and talents who would continue to upgrade and improve the industries skills to take up management positions as well as new recruiting team who would be well-qualified to fill the additional jobs created with the growth. The Recruitment in Hospitality Industry Having the ambitions and foreseeing the industry in expanding fast, that was what most of the hospitality management are aiming for. With the business constantly growing, the responsibility of the Human Resources team is expected to deliver additional workforce at all sectors and business levels. Furthermore, Human Resources will also be maximizing the capacity of each current workforce team. In Asia, hotelier used skills and techniques to analyze each individuals performance, engagement and commitment levels, participation or getting involved in all training and development programs to measure the result in productivity. Linking such ways to determine each organizations business objectives has provides useful statistics and has been proven highly effective with which senior executive management making the decision. Human Resources roles is important in the industry, as the blooming in this industry, human resources team needs to focus on their staffing and employees, the roles as service provider in each departments and divisions. With the high demand needed in increasing staffing numbers, looking at this time when the industrys workforce labor pool is shrinking. To improve this challenges, first is to identify all possible causes to the challenges and the industry needs to attempt and work with the unions as allies, hopefully to come out with more time, more effective workforce strategies and money to improve the recruitment project and training to educate the politicians so as to impact the governmental economic and immigration policy on the hospitality industry. The research from Hospitality industry information, I learned that the set of workforce solutions is based on the following priorities such as: Image : Like other service sectors, hospitality careers are often stereotyped as low-wage and entry-level with little opportunity for advancement. Consequently, qualified workers, especially youth, are unaware the range of hospitality careers available. Recruitment : Historically the hospitality industry had drawn heavily fm the youth labor pool to meet their workforce needs, but in recent the industry has been left with an insufficient pipeline of new workers to satisfy demand. Faced with a shrinking pipeline or workers, the hospitality industry is increasing its recruitment efforts towards youth and developing targeted strategies for previously untapped labor pools. Retention : High turnover is a key challenge in the hospitality industry. The restaurant, hotel and lodging sectors have difficulty retaining skilled workers because of the negative image that the industry faces. Language skills : English proficiency is a key challenge because a large percentage of the hospitality workforce does not speak English as their primary language. Employers seek language training programs that allow workers to effectively perform their job, which includes providing good customer service and understanding safety requirements. Employability/Soft Skills : Employers have difficulty finding workers who possess basic soft skills, which are often a prerequisite for success in a customer service-oriented field. Consistent training models and skills certifications : The hospitality industry as a whole lacks consistency and portability in their training models and skill certifications. Many employers run their own internal training programs for entry-level workers, which makes it difficult to monitor the content of training and the skills acquired. Doleta, June 2005 Challenges in Singapores Hospitality The numbers of turnover and shortage rates were frequently highlighted in todays challenges for Hospitality Industry not only happening in Singapore but globally. It is important to know and understand the issues behind that causes the skills shortage in the workforce. In todays Hospitality workforce, it is expected for all organizations to face a similar shortage of available talent at all levels, especially in management and leadership roles in order to continuously leading the operations and teams, mostly it was due to the aggressive expansion strategies in the region. With the high demand and shortage of employees in the hospitality industry it translates into intense competition for many quality graduates. For those fresh graduates deem the unsociable hours and perceived lack of experience and opportunity in the hospitality industry were as unfavorable. Therefore the hospitality industry is losing out to industries such as entrepreneur, human resources, outsourcing or even information technology etc. Furthermore, there is also growing awareness of an increasing of multi-generational workforce and consequently variances in expectations and values among individuals. Priorities differ especially with the younger generation, the so-called Generation Y. Markedly different from their senior counterparts, the young place greater emphasis on self-actualization, high expectations of rapid career progression and are willing to change jobs, industries and careers to realize their goal. Accordingly, methods for employee engagement analysis need to be even more sophisticated. Long term outlooks enable Human Resource managers to predict and plan for specific areas of talent shortfall and to adopt management training programs to prepare for the demands of future growth. Next to think, which are the areas of shortage talents in Hospitality Industries that were affected? As hospitality was combined with many different sectors and generated with smaller scale of many operators to build up a whole organization, below are the listed out sectors and areas in the hospitality industries. Front Line operations, talents that have face to face contacts with guest and to handle various general enquires, needs, transaction, dining or organized events and function in the hotels. Beside that, talents also need to have the knowledge of hotels facilities and services, guest relation and expectation, tourism-related matter and of cause handling guest arrivals and departures too. Front Office Front Desk, Concierge, Cashier, Bell Counter, Butler, Guest Relation Officer, Executive Club and Business Centre. Both Guest Service Centre (Operator) and Housekeeping are the two back end departments that direct support for Front Office. Food and Beverage Dining Outlets and Cafà ©, Banquet, Bar and Lounges, Executive Lounge and Kitchens. For both FB Reservation Centre Stewarding they are also under the umbrella of Food Beverages Division. Beside the listed sectors, there is also some other back of house Operations that covers the supporting roles to the business. Human Resources Department, Maintenance and Engineering Department, Events and Sales Department, Marketing Public Relations Department, Accounting and Finance Department, Purchasing Department, Security Department and etc. There are so many sectors of division in a hotel, and which are the areas that are really affected and in demand in the industries? Eventually, the shortage came from the Front Line team (both Front office and Food Beverage). And why is there a shortage? Below is a article researched from Khaleej Times Online on Manpower shortage biggest challenge to hospitality industry by Zoe Sinclair (Staff Reporter) 4 May 2008 MENA Travel Awards organizer CHA International President Dr Sam Saker estimated staff needs at an average ratio of five staff to one room. This ratio puts staff needs at more than 50,000 people by 2010 and by 2016 a further 150,000 staff would be needed, he observed. He, however said that the ratio of staff per room in luxury hotels was likely closer to seven to one. Compounding this is the issue of manpower retention. According to estimates, 20 per cent of staff will stay with their current employer and industry management predicts poaching to dominate staff recruitment. A report by world hospitality recruitment website Catererglobal.com was launched and surveyed more than 3,000 hospitality professionals across the Asia. It estimated only 10 per cent of staff would look for career opportunities within their current property. The challenge is to match growth with talent so service levels are maintained. At the same time retaining that talent within the hospitality industry via training and career progression opportunities is essential, said Peter Willis, Sales Manager, Catererglobal.com. Hotels must look at what they offer to candidates in terms of salary, benefits, and accommodation in an increasingly competitive landscape, otherwise, the strain on the sector will begin or already beginning to slow down. Today, as I am in the sectors of Human Resources Industries, in my company, we did many recruitment campaigns for different industries and mainly for Singaporeans, I realized that Hospitality Industries have been highly active and continuously in hiring. Talking to many Hotels Human Resource Officers, they mentions that in todays employment in the hotel, they can hardly find a replacement or new hire of Singaporean to do the job, the turnovers especially in the front line operations are extremely high and fast. The staffs that are currently supporting the roles are mainly foreigners from Malaysia, China, Vietnam and the numbers of Filipinos are increasing in these industries, only small percentages of Singaporean can be found in todays front line operations. Questing where has the Singaporean gone to? I recently did a few career fairs for the fresh graduates in different Polytechnics and we are mainly recruiting for Hospitality Industries. The responses are slow, and I took the opportunity and created a simple survey form for the students in the collage, allowing us to better understand the students future choice of careers. Students are required to tick the industries and the preferred working hours that they are keen in perusing in the future. And the collective of results and industries are shown below: (A sample of the survey form is attached under appendix) Job Specialization Looking at the results from the survey, I learned that Hospitality Industries only stands a small percentage of 1.9% out of 3,000 students, of cause 3,000 students is only the 21.4% out of estimated 14,000 graduating Polytechnic students annually. In the survey, I also added on with the preferred working hours for their job, I realized that todays students preferred to be off duties during weekends and public holidays as it standing at 45.1%, it is almost half the percentage from the survey, next highest preferred working hours are from 9 to 6pm office hours job, which is standing at 43%. Now, looking at the hospitality industries, most likely is it not possible to have a fixed off days during the weekends, and front line hoteliers are scheduled for shift work like (Morning/ Afternoon/ Midnight shift) starting from 7am to 5pm, 3pm to 1 am and 11pm to 9am or even a split shift from 10am to 3pm and back to operation again from 6pm to 11pm. Understanding the hotels operation hours, hotels operates 24 hours business, the hoteliers are required to work minimum 198 hours per month (excluding the over time hours) it is about 9 hours per day and 2 days off per week. And very often, hoteliers are expected to do over time after their scheduled timing, especially during the peak period. The overtime hours, can be 2 hours extra or at times, hoteliers have to be prepared to cover the next shift, usually to cover the absentee or last minute shortage to manpower, which can be another 7 to 8 hours more. Although hoteliers are entitled for 2 days off, but it comes during the weekdays, weekends off only come after the rotation within the team. The busier and peak period in hospitality industries business are during the festive seasons or public holidays, long weekends, school holidays and during the big functions or events happening in Singapore. Hotels Standards Yearly schedule are shown below (Peak Period, Events Festive Season) In January : New Years Day In February : Asia Aerospace and Chinese New Year In March : 1 week School Holiday In April : Good Friday, Easter day and events of World Gourmet Summit In May : Labor day and Vesak day In June : 3 weeks of School Holidays In July : Slow Period In August : Slow Period (Chinese Ghost Festival), Singapore National Day In September : 1 week school holiday, Hari Raya Puasa and event of Formula 1 In October : Slow Period In November : Deepavali and Hari Raya Haji In December : 1 month of School holiday, Christmas Day and the celebration and countdown of New Years Day Hoteliers besides handling the activities within the country, their main objective is to operate services to Tourist and Guest from Business trip which will happen every 365 days. Looking at the above surveys and studies of employment for front line hoteliers in Hospitality Industry, I learned that although the environment and atmosphere is a glamorous one. However, looking that living of Singaporean today, I understand why there is a shortage of locals talents. I believed that many of the locals family members or friends are mostly working in the above stated industries, which are the standard office hours from 9am to 6pm operation. Because that is the most preferred working hours that Singaporean can balance their time for work, children, family members and social. Before, I am also an hotelier, as I do not have any commitment to my family members and I needed a stepping stone for my next step into my career, I chosen hospitality industries. My experience during those 5 years of journey in hospitality industry is the most enjoyable and valuable one. Although, I have missed out many of the fun moment with my family members and friends especially during their weekends and festive sessions, because most of the time, when I am off during the weekdays, they were all working or schooling. And when they are off during the weekends or festive session, there I am working. It is hard for us to spend time together. That is why I can understand why Singaporean has chosen other industries then Hotel industry. The only main focus for a Singaporean to choose hospitality industry as their professional career, they must be someone that has the PASSION in serving and meeting different various people around the world, because the local has to sacrifice the times with the family members and the love ones. And only people that accepted and understand this service industry will be happy and enjoying working in this sectors. This is also why you can find more foreigners working in hospitality industry because some of them actually paid to come over Singapore to work, with the nature of long working hours in this industry, they have less commitment here then a Singaporean, that is why there are willing to work for a longer hours then any Singaporean. Working in hospitality industry, everyday, every moment you see smiles smiling at you, you see people servicing people and at the end of the day, the satisfaction is there, and that is what makes the hoteliers enjoying working in the industry. Succession planning was identified as a key contributor to strategic growth and for the continuation of high quality standards for customer service levels. Employees with a high potential for promotion are monitored, especially in regard to their participation in training and development, which has been determined to be a key indicator of success in upward progression. The measurement of leadership skills was the subject of intense debate and most organizations are investing in developing these metrics, for early identification of leaders with potential. Maintaining contact with previous and potential employees has become standard practice among the hoteliers. New approaches to communication, such as blogs, online social networking groups, electronic newsletters and bulletin boards are widely used to maintain contact and remain abreast of this group of potential employees concerns and ideas. Department of Labors employment and training administration is supporting comprehensive partnerships that include employers, the public workforce system, and other entities that have developed innovative approaches that address the workforce needs of business while also effective helping worker find good jobs with good and attractive wages and promising career pathways in the hospitality industry. In my essay 2, I will be writing about the retention challenges in hospitality industry and I will also provide some positive and effective ideas to improve the matters. Reference List Doleta Gov; June 2005, Hospitality Industry Information. Available at: http://www.doleta.gov/BRG/Indprof/Hospitality .cfm [Accessed 20 April 2010] Warren. Bennis, Ph.D. On Becoming a Leader Forbes top 100; 9 January 2006, Merkel Worlds Most Powerful Woman. Available at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,434696,00.html [Accessed 29 November 2009] Squidoo; 2006. Angela Merkel the first female chancellor of Germany. Available at: http://www.squidoo.com/angela-merkel [Accessed 29 November 2009] Tatiana. Serafin. 9 January 2006; The most powerful woman in the world. Available at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26426065/ [Accessed 29 November 2009] Travel China Guide; Empress Wu Zetian. Available at: http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/history/tang/emperor_wuzetian.htm [Accessed 9 November 2009] Biographies; 1996 to 2009. Female Heroes of Asia: China. Available at: http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/heroine6.html [Accessed 9 November 2009] Theories of Innovation | Netflix Case Study Theories of Innovation | Netflix Case Study The following discussion will provide insights on what is innovation by taking into account its characteristics through the example of Netflix and phone manufacturing companies. Theories will also be applied to illustrate why innovations are needed. It then leads to the four roles that science can either play by analysing Paul L. Gardner (1994)s ideas. Finally, this essay will suggest the transforming roles of science in technological innovation. The discussion to that will mainly focus on how creative destruction (Schumpeter, 1942) has become a recurring problem since the rising of RD. What do we mean by innovation? The meaning of innovation is not merely what is stated in a dictionary, but often instead characterised with the values it adds to an entity. Some traits of innovation can be demonstrated in the example of Netflix. Netflix is one of the biggest streaming providers within the entertainment industry, co-founded by Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings in 1997 (Netflix), who later forewent the DVD delivering service. This business firstly establishes the concept that innovations are not restricted in the format of a product, but also a service. Secondly, the subscribing fee introduces the commercialisation of Netflixs new approach in delivering entertainment. Netflixs burgeoning business also embodies the idea of creative destruction (Schumpeter, 1942)- formalising the new way of distributing entertainment by knocking down alike businesses and the labour force involved. The streaming network Netflix provides effectively separated the DVD rental industry from the mainstream home entertainment source. Ever since its start-up, USs consumer spending on home entertainment through brick-and-mortar rental has been declining; it plummeted a substantial 21% in 2016 to $0.49 billion (Statista, 2016). Subsequently, the number of employees within the video tape and disc rental industry decreases over the last decade (BLS, 2015). The success of Netflix has also influenced the English language. For example, people often refer any business pushed out by Netflix as Netflixed (Perry, 2015). This reiterates there is no precondition for an innovation to be a high-tech product, but also suggests the collateral novelties in a different field which could be le d to by the innovation. Also, consider the case of Samsung being accused for imitating iPhones appearance, display, touch-screen interface and packaging (IBT, 2016). Assume Samsung pragmatically copied Apples notions, but that a Samsung Galaxys phone realistically looks different to an iPhone. It is reasonable to suggest that the room for innovations is restricted by what is already existing. For instance, the layout of virtual keyboards on phones is confined by the fundamentality of the QWERTY keyboard which historically served the purpose to resort jamming occurred in typewriters. Even if alternative keyboards such as Dvorak (1936) ergonomically speeds up typing (How-to Geek, 2014), but the multitude will still prefer the QWERTY keyboard because they are locked into the QWERTY paradigm (Margolis and Liebowitz, 2000). The Pandas Thumb Theory (Gould, 1980) plays a role in explaining the evolution of the QWERTY keyboard. It illustrates pandas outwardly grown wrist bones as a result of the lack of functionality of their real thumbs, so that they can hold onto bamboos when they eat. This essentially means if bamboo was extinct in history, then pandas anatomical adaptation would not have served a purpose. Analogically to the QWERTY keyboard, if typewriter was never invented then the QWERTY layout would have been composed for no values. Therefore, innovation is supposedly a purpose-derived and commercialised spinoff of creative destruction following path dependencies e.g. Netflix; which is also served as a process to overcome flawed innovations e.g. original typewriter. What is the role of science in technological innovations? Science might have acted as a free-rider to absorb experience from innovating technologies. Prior to the industrial revolution and the introduction of thermo-kinetic theory of gas, the first steam engine was invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712 (BBC History) despite the lack of efficiency and the extravagant cost to build one. This example preliminarily provides the materialist view of technology preceding science (Gardner, 1994a). As scientific understanding towards thermodynamics grew, James Watt improved the primitive steam engine in 1769 (BBC History) which was then widely applied in powering transportations. A complementary nature between science and technology is implied (Gardner, 1994b)- Newcomen had set the basis of a viable steam engine which allowed theories to be developed over time which could explain the principle of a steam engine, and finally the piece of technology was refined by adapting the new knowledge acquired. The latter also brings about how science informs technology (Gardner, 1994c). Nevertheless, there are also hints of independency between the thermodynamic theory and the steam engine, because the two elements are only interacting with each other if they truly share the same goal and implement the same process arriving to a coherent result (Gardner, 1994d). Note that this merely implies a particular scientific thoery is not intentionally developed for a particular technology, vice versa. It doesnt deny either of which lead to the other. Thermodynamics was proposed on the ground to explain how hot gas transfer energy, whereas James Watt refined the steam engine to improve its efficacy. The goals are varied. Similarly, physicists might have carried out a series of experiment to conclude a more comprehensive model for thermodynamics. Meantime, James Watt could have just redesigned the steam engine by applying the thermodynamic theory. Both processes and the corresponding outcomes are unidentical. How has this role changed since the first industrial revolution? During the industrial revolution, science offered assurance to technological innovation in order to improve labour working conditions. Both unskilled and skilled labours worked long hours and received below reasonable salaries, who also operated machines with a paucity of safety precautions often led to deaths and injuries. Child workers are often the victims of these accidents due to their unawareness of dangers. For instance, Cora Flipse was killed at the age of fourteen, from an accident where her head was trapped between the edge of the lift and floor (Our Great American Heritage, 2016). Followed by the accident, Elisha Graves Otis worked on the safety of elevators by introducing the safety brake (1853) to minimise casualties in case of the cables break; not adding doors to stop body parts from getting caught by moving components. The principle of the safety brake provided assurance to the use of elevators, but the need to apply the knowledge for the safety brake was informed by the inherent flaws of the technology. Nowadays, science continues to establish an assiduous safety standard in work environment. Potentially dangerous tasks can be carried out by robots such as Handle (Boston Dynamics, 2017), which can perform a 6.5 feet vertical jump an excessive 1.2 feet on top of the highest human jump recorded (TechCrunch, 2017) and overcome rough contours. Essentially, the safer the work environment, the less relevant the human input to an entity. As the size of a company grows, the emergence of RD departments allows division of labour but it also routinises the process of technological innovation (Schumpeter, 1942). This effectively reverses Karl Poppers proposition about falsification that science is all about disproving (1963), because a profit-maximising firm is more likely to try to prove the feasibility of technology instead of disproving it. Of course, robotic technology is imperfect and it is yet to be integrated by research and development (RD) departments. Thus, science can be constituted as an excuse to help secure human jobs in the way of developing technological innovations. When machines gradually replace human labours, the emergence of RD might seem like an attempt to paper up the plethora of workers. Assume a company wants to found a RD department and all employees in the manufacturing department have equal proficiency in bringing new innovations to light. Then unneeded workers in the manufacturing department can simply be outplaced to the RD department. The recurring problem to be considered is that the RD department might be working towards a technology that might even further devalue the employees. Eventually, human labours will suffer from their own creative destructions. Additional to those, science might have conjointly acted as a driver to prompt creation of government policies. Innovations such as vaccination undoubtedly increased the life expectancy. While the British government might have complicated the health and safety regulations due to the uncertainty brought along by science and its corresponding technology in work environment. Meanwhile, the Chinese government might have been burdened by the rising Chinese population and so the enactment of the one-child policy was needed. In conclusion, sciences role has changed since the first industrial revolution in three ways. Firstly, it has changed from giving assurance to technological innovations to giving the ascendant right for technology to replace human labours. Secondly, from falsifying the possibility of technology to ascertaining it in RD. Thirdly, and passively, from aiming to protract peoples lives to controlling the number of population as a result of that. References Gardner, P. (1999). The representation of science-technology relationships in Canadian physics textbooks. International Journal of Science Education, [online] 21(3), pp.329-347. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/095006999290732?needAccess=true [Accessed 13 Mar. 2017]. Goel, A. (2016). Supreme Court Gives Samsung a Reprieve in Apple Patent Case. [online] Nytimes.com. 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