Human Resource Management in the Hotel and Catering Industry
CHAPTER ONE
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
To this end, this study aims at assessing the reasonability of all the entitlements due or payable to that part of the labor force that works fully or partly in the hotel and catering industry. The objectives of this study are thus;
- To examine the reasonability of other entitlements and benefits that is not part of the basic payment.
- To assess the degree to which payment is commensurate with the efforts of employees in this industry.
- To evaluate the extent to which payment and benefits in this industry are similar to those of like-industries.
- To examine the industrial relations existing in the hotel under study and its impact on worker’s welfare.
- To identify the impact of inappropriate payment and employee benefit schemes or their absence altogether, on employee performance.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
CONCEPT OF HRM
HRM is concerned with the human beings in an organization. “The management of man” is a very important and challenging job because of the dynamic nature of the people. No two people are similar in mental abilities, tacticians, sentiments, and behaviors; they differ widely also as a group and are subject to many varied influences. People are responsive, they feel, think and act therefore they cannot be operated like a machine or shifted and altered like template in a room layout. They therefore need a tactful handing by management personnel. HRM is the process of managing people of an organization with a human approach. Human resources approach to manpower enables the manager to view the people as an important resource. It is the approach through which organization can utilize the manpower not only for the benefits of the organization but for the growth, development and self satisfaction of the concerned people. Thus, HRM is a system that focuses on human resources development on one hand and effective management of people on the other hand so that people will enjoy human dignity in their employment HRM is involved in providing human dignity to the employees taking into account their capacity, potentially, talents, achievement, motivation, skill, commitment, great abilities, and so on. So, that their personalities are recognized as valuable human beings. If an organization can trust, depend and draw from their bank account on the strength of their capital assets, they can trust, depend and draw more on their committed, talented, dedicated and capable people. This is what the HRM is involved in every business, managerial activity or introduction. The principal component of an organization is its human resource or ‘people at work’. According to Leon C. Megginson from the national point of view Human Resources as, “the knowledge, skills, creative abilities, talents and aptitudes obtained in the population; whereas from the . view point of the individual enterprise, they represent the total of inherent abilities, acquired knowledge and skills as exemplified in the talents and aptitudes of its employees. Human resource has a paramount importance in the success of any organization because most ofthe problems in organizational setting are human and social rather than physical, technical or economical failure. In the words of Oliver Shelden, “No industry can be rendered Human Resources Management is concerned with the “people” dimension in management. Since every organization is made up of people acquiring their services, developing their skills, motivating them to high level of performance and ensuring that they continue to maintain their commitment to the organization are essential to achieve organizational objectives. This is true regardless of the type of organization, government, business, education, health, recreation or social action. Getting and keeping good people is critical to the success of every organization, whether profit or non-profit, public or private efficient so long as the basic fact remains unrecognized that it is principally human.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought to human resource management in the hotel and catering industry.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was on human resource management in the hotel and catering industry. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of human resource management in the hotel and catering industry
Summary
This study was on human resource management in the hotel and catering industry. Five objectives were raised which included: To examine the reasonability of other entitlements and benefits that is not part of the basic payment, to assess the degree to which payment is commensurate with the efforts of employees in this industry, to evaluate the extent to which payment and benefits in this industry are similar to those of like-industries, to examine the industrial relations existing in the hotel under study and its impact on worker’s welfare, to identify the impact of inappropriate payment and employee benefit schemes or their absence altogether, on employee performance. In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 staff of Royal palace hotel, Enugu state. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made up supervisors, guest relation officers, food and beverage supervisors and chefs were used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies
Conclusion
There is presence of a formal Human Resources department and/ or HR Practitioner in the hotel. Despite the presence of the HR function in the hotels, its critical strategic role is insignificant because its involvement in business strategy is more on implementation than formulation. Thus the role is not considered as part of the business strategy development. The implication is that critical HR issues in the hotels might not be seriously and appropriately considered, again giving rise to labour related problems. There is greater involvement of the Human Resource function in the role of employee resourcing in the hotels of interest is its involvement in the development of resourcing policies, recruitment and selection and HR planning. The involvement of HR in these activities ensures that the hotels draw important resources i.e. human capital to increase their competitive advantage HR function’s involvement in retention programmes is lacking. Retaining the most important resource which is the human capital is critical considering that the sector thrives on skilled manpower. This compromises the resourcing process in that it creates a gap between the HR function’s recruitment efforts and the retention of important skills. The gap might give rise to poor or nonexistent career structures, low remuneration and labour turnover
Recommendation
Apart from the promotions, other incentives that could be used from the hotels are strategies for the development of personal and professional skills. This lies on the assumption that the economic incentives are no longer effective. On the contrary, there are other motivation methods aiming at other than economic benefits. The organizational behavior literature mentions another one theory regarding motivation methods, the expectancy valence theory of motivation (Emmanuel et al., 2008). According to this theory, the setting of specific targets by the company, as well as the higher level of difficulty of these targets, can lead to focus attention and effort and as a result to an improvement in task performance. Within this framework, employees who are goal oriented are likely to be motivated to achieve a target. The target achievement may be irrelevant to monetary rewards, but they may for example include goals which are linked to corporate social responsibility.
REFERENCES
- Albertson, D 2000, ‘Outsourcing shows limited impact for strategic HR’, Employee Benefit News, vol. 14, no. 10, September, p. 70.
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- Allworth, E & Hesketh, B 2000, ‘Job requirements biodata as a predictor of performance in customer service roles’, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, vol. 8, no. 3, September, pp. 137-147.
- American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute 2006, CHS certification for the hospitality industry, viewed September 16 2006, http://www.ei-ahla.org/certification_chs.asp.
- Angelo, R M & Vladimir, A N 2004, Hospitality today: an introduction, 2nd edn., American Hotel & Lodging Association, Lansing, Michigan.
- Angkasuvana, C 2005, Strategic management practices in the hotel industry of Thailand, PhD thesis, Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne.
