Benefits of Recruiting and Keeping Qualified Employees in the Hospitality Industry

Abstract 

This research is crucially a discussion paper drawing on multiple past empirical and theoretical studies. Recruitment in the hospitality industry is a central determinant of the success and competitiveness of the firms operating in the sector. The paper explores the importance of having competent employees to the industry as a whole. The evolving business world has changed the skillsets upon which employers today can be specifically focusing on small details during the hiring process to tackle all specific needs in any firm. There is a need to devise and implement effective selection strategies to ensure that firms and the sector at large enjoy such benefits. 

Keywords: recruitment, hospitality industry, competent, strategies, effective selection (Benefits of Recruiting and Keeping Qualified Employees in the Hospitality Industry) 

Introduction 

The hospitality industry includes various ventures that provide food, drinks, and accommodation in regions across the globe. Such firms offer jobs to millions of people who work at different posts ranging from management roles, reception, and cooking as well as services offered by waiters and waitresses. An organization’s human resource executes the hospitality recruitment task and necessitates understanding the specific needs of the hotel industry. Principally, the clientele in hospitality demands exceptional services and quality goods, most of which are essentially food and drinks. Key players in the industry such as General Manager or other head of departments, tend to pay significant attention to quality as the crucial determinant of competitiveness. The recruitment in this flourishing sector entails selecting candidates that possess various skill sets and academic levels which are essential in executing various tasks for quality service delivery. While various stakeholders play a significant role in ensuring the stability and growth of the industry, matters pertaining to recruitment are the sole responsibility of individual operators such as luxury hotels, restaurants, and management firms. 

Background 

Hospitality is one of the oldest industries that has experienced tremendous changes and development over the past centuries. The revamp is partly associated with the enthusiasm with which hoteliers have embraced innovations in the broad sector as well as technology. As well completing with competitor’s, businesses nowadays has to evolve in response to the dynamic tastes of guests, diversity demands, and varied expectations as observed in diverse cultures. While most organizations are rapidly employing technological advancements to cope with the modern business world, labor remains to be the crucial single expense item that poses a substantial cost. Two reasons are associated with this presupposition. First, a personal touch is the most desirable aspect of service delivery, which is apparent in other sectors such as tourism and transport. Many five stars hotel spend tremendous amount for their chief is this show what the hotel has to offers in their food and beverage section, which requires special handling as well as remarkable sophistication as seen in cooking and recipe developments. 

Secondly, the complexity of processes demands astute leadership and management. Hoteliers spend a significant percentage of their revenue allocation on financing managerial roles. The diverse legislations in the sector and changes in human resources as a whole requires effective management which is usually comprised of individuals performing the planning, organizing, and controlling roles. The success and competitiveness of a company operating within the hotel industry are depended, chiefly, on its management. 

Recruitment in the hospitality industry entails the objective identification of the most desired skills and knowledge as well as experience among candidates. Organizations have devised various dynamic tools to help in hiring over the past years. Recruitment may take two forms, namely, internal and external. The latter entails the selection of the desired candidate from the existing workforce. The approach is common in situations where certain employees portray the potential to assume new responsibilities as determined through an entity’s performance appraisal mechanism. Not only is the approach efficient as it involves considerably less time, but also a practical way of executing the promotion function of human resources. External recruitment, on the other hand, is significantly time-consuming and requires a thoroughly outlined staffing plan. Organizations through the teams assigned with the hiring duties must have a predetermined set of desirable qualities against which the candidates’ potentials and qualifications are weighed. 

Hoteliers in the 21st century have adopted several ways to ensure the right selection of candidates. One of the interesting aspects of the personnel in the hospitality sector is that certain positions require specific training and certification. For instance, the American Culinary Federation (ACF) certification is mandatory in most organizations in the United States for chefs ( American Culinary Federation, n.d. ). This program helps hotels to ensure that the candidates meet the highest standards of education and professionalism. Some management roles may require certain hospitality certifications thereby necessitating a thorough recruitment process. Various operators in the industry have elected to work with professionals due to such complexities. Recruitment associations have thus gained global recognition in hospitality management for outside hiring. 

Statement of Problem and objective 

Many hospitality businesses are facing the risk of closure and dwindling revenue due to the competitiveness taking shape in the industry. The source of these challenges is essentially two-fold: First, companies have made significant attempts to reduce service provision costs by initiating labor minimization strategies. Such approaches may inhibit specialization and labor division, which, in turn, hinders quality service delivery besides posing other production constraints. Second, there is a general disregard of the necessary qualities during the recruitment process. Unqualified employees in the sector – as is the case with other industries – pose the risk of underutilization and wastage of resources. 

Rationale/Justification of the Study 

The recruitment process for qualified staff is a long-thought process that requires not only resources but also a strategy to ensure that the industry does not overemphasize on the labor recruitment or deficit but improve in its capacity. Workplace competence is a key aspect of growth and success in any sector. The current change in global tourism and hospitality demands that companies operating in the sector consider the need to adjust the competence levels within their staff or face closure. The need for aggressive search for qualified staff and retaining them is hence never an after-thought in the current hospitality industry. As such, the study on the benefits of such an objective recruitment process anchors on the need for firms within the industry to improve their staffing capacity to meet the dynamic needs of the industry that include technology, the changing nature of the clientele, and the need to grow their brand as a competitive alternative to their competition. Conclusively, recruiting and keeping qualified employees in the sector facilitates productivity by attracting exceptional expertise, better management skills, and new energy as well as increased customer satisfaction. Firms that observe the need for qualified staff have a strategic advantage to their competition through ensuring that they meet the expectations of their customers. 

Research Questions 

How can the benefits of recruiting and maintain qualified employees be measured for a firm? 

Have current recruitment strategies been effective in ensuring the right selection of candidates? 

What qualities are necessary to help in revamping hoteliers’ businesses? 

What recruitment strategies are useful in ensuring the right selection of candidates in the hospitality industry? 

Research Objectives 

The paper will aim to achieve the following set of objectives as determined by the research questions. 

To identify the factors that necessitate the recruitment of qualified staff in hotel management. 

To establish ways in which organizations can assess the benefits associated with having qualified personnel. 

To identify the competitive qualities of the various classes of employees in the hospitality industry. 

To determine the most practical recruitment strategies that hoteliers and other stakeholders can employ in ensuring the selection of appropriate candidates. 

Literature Review 

This paper draws on existing studies to assess the benefits enjoyed by organizations that employ and maintain qualified employees. Tremendous research exists on the critical aspects of recruitment in the hospitality industry including (but not limited to) the contemporary employment issues in the fast-moving sector. Modernity has reshaped the undertakings and procedures in hotel management tremendously. Such revamp necessitates not only the right selection mechanism but also self-driven employees who will see to it that an organization maintains its competitiveness. 

The Need for Recruiting Qualified Employees 

Hiring the right person has always been a critical concern in the recruitment process in almost all sectors. Georgiadis and Pitelis (2016) maintain that this behavior is predicated on the understanding that employees are the most critical pillars upon which the achievement of an entity’s goals depend. Georgiadis and Pitelis (2016) further implores that the growth and success of businesses in the hospitality industry rely on the agility projected by the workers. Firms have shown a noteworthy reliance on effective employees in building their brands and maintaining a reputable customer experience (Wroblowská, 2016). Crucially, employees in hotels and other hospitality segments represent the various brands of their respective organizations. Wroblowská (2016) notes that, having the right cadre of employees at any particular moment is key to establishing a level of competitiveness in such a competitive industry; firms should focus on attracting highly competent staff during their recruitment process. 

Further, there is an unmistakable need for professionalism in hospitality. Torres and Kline (2013) emphasize the increasing necessity for professionalism in the tourism and hospitality industries. The hospitality industry is a service-intensive sector with the success benchmarked on subjective features that include customer opinion and preference. According to Torres and Kline (2013), the nature of the industry requires that retention of competent staff is a key concept when considering consistency in service delivery. The service orientation, as well as labor intensity of the industry, requires existing members and those intending to join it to embrace the highest level of integrity. The study by Cheng and Wong (2015) affirms that, while proficiency is linked, conventionally, with classic professionals, it has also gained tremendous recognition in hotel management. The management of the hospitality industry hence anchors on skill transfer from the practicing professionals to the new entrants making a mix of employees a key success factor. 

The consumerism has sparked professionalism in organizations across all industries. the hospitality and tourism has not been spared and has to a larger extent affected by the increased sophistication of the clientele whose tastes have increasingly become diverse. The global context has had a far-reaching impact on the nature of doing business in the tourism industry pushing firms and key players to re-model their businesses to suit the changing environment. Further, individual occupations in hospitality such as event planning, housekeeping, and waiter/waitresses have adopted various competencies known to be traditionally associated with fields such as law and medicine among other sciences. This rise is partly (and mostly) associable with the benefits that professionalism has imparted in these fields. 

Key Competencies in the Hospitality Industry 

Deciding the right person for the job requires first identifying the core values and proficiencies that will enable the company to thrive amid its competitors. Basak and Khanna (2017) identify technology as a key determinant of the criteria employed in the selection process. Admittedly, technology advances have paved the way for an incredible development of roles and processes in hospitality. According to Cheng and Wong (2015), it is vital to have employees versed in the fundamental IT skills as an optimal requirement. Subsequently, workers in the IT departments should possess sophisticated skills to cope with the contemporary issues affecting their enterprises such as cyber threats. 

Interpersonal skills are also essential for a successful hospitality employee. Hosain (2016) argues that such competencies foster other values such as communication, which ensures quality service provision to guests. Hoteliers should look for individuals who possess astounding oral and written communication skills. In addition, such employees should be customer-oriented and aim at providing them with exceptional services as well as attending to their needs promptly. 

Methodology: Practical Recruitment Strategies 

Training programs help in facilitating the efficiency of employees. A recruitment approach is not only an integral part of running a venture but also a useful tool for maintaining a firm’s competitiveness (Wu, 2018). Various scholars have shed sufficient light on the effective measures that hoteliers can employ to ensure successful recruitment [(Sharma & Gursoy, 2018; Torres & Mejia, 2017)]. Notably, the industry is characterized by a high labor turnover, which, in consequence, necessitates a constant need for employees. The high rates on employee turnover is always due to working conditions, age, and competition that leads employee head-hunting. Sharma and Gursoy (2018) cite seasonality and the “part-time” nature of hospitality jobs as one challenge facing the recruitment of employees in this sector. The sector needs to address the high rates of turnover in staff forms part of the challenges that employers need to address during their recruitment process to ensure a higher retention rate of the qualified staff members. 

Key among the most effective hiring approach in hospitality is to leverage referrals from institutions and staff that have had association with the firm. The method works by incentivizing staff and encouraging them to refer to people whom they interact in their networks. Employees then share the recruitment campaign using various platforms such as social media. However, this approach is limited to the competencies of the existing workers. It is crucial to ensure that the current employees have undisputable professionalism and potentials. The competence levels within any industry are an aspect that companies need to rely upon the practicing level of staff for purposes of limiting costs in the recruitment process. 

Arthur (2012) proposes recruiting at learning institutions as an alternative tool. The method requires reaching out to students in institutions and apprentice programs. Institutions can further contribute to the recruitment pool through developing curriculum that effectively suits the skillset demands required in the industry ( Arthur, 2012). The changes in technological demands and the integrated training for both technology and theoretical understanding should be commensurate of the market needs. Institutions of learning therefore have an integral role in facilitating the recruitment process as a pool of human resource that replaces the rate of turn over experienced in industry. 

The study by Wroblowská (2016) argues that an organization’s brand will go a long way to attracting the most competent candidates. Brand position in any industry remains a critical and strategic feature in ensuring that any organization remains competitive. Anchoring the recruitment process on brand attraction offers a higher chance to attracting and retaining qualified employees (Wroblowská, 2016). The industry players such as hotel facilities should focus on building their brands as a strategic employment attraction to help with staff retention and clientele attraction. 

Staff welfare and benefits are further a critical component to feature in the recruitment exercise. Labor is always attracted to benefits and working conditions. Firms and investors in the industry should have a critical focus on offering competitive staff benefit packages in their employment terms. As an employer, the key benefits of focus would be on health, wages, and work balance. As such, companies in the industry have to focus on the underlying factors that include staff turnover and introduce strategies that caution their staff from work burnout and fatigue. 

Associated Benefits of Employing and Keeping Qualified Staff 

Hiring and maintain experienced and competent talent is a mission-critical strategy for sustainability and growth in both the short- and long-run. Firms possessing the capacity to guarantee their staff the best of working benefits having an advantage over their competition. Such firms have a higher employee retention levels since their staff are contented and over a period are assimilated to be part of the brand. Bodenhausen and Curtis (2016) acknowledge that young workers have a wide variety of potentials and flexibility, which promotes risk-taking behavior in an entity when considering its employment options. In essence, the synergy between skilled workers and risk-taking individuals fuels the accomplishment of goals in an organization hence the need to invest in a mix of employees that are well integrated across different age and experience for the purposes of continuity within the organization. 

Additionally, older talents project better self-knowledge, which saves the company costs, associated with supervision. While maintaining vibrant and flexible talent is beneficial, it is also important to have experienced workers who have well-cultivated work ethics (Mooney, 2016). Such employees understand their strengths and potential as well as areas of improvement. Also, experienced workers can assume higher positions and mentor their peers as well as their juniors. The clustering and categorization of employees should ensure that at the point of recruitment, the companies in the industry strike a balance between the employee structure for purposes of continuity in skills and relationships. 

The study by Shum, Gatling and Shoemaker (2018) identifies productivity as a benefit of having qualified staff in the hospitality sector. Old talent can readily multi-task and adapt to various environments, which is a key necessity in the dynamic industry. It is worth noting that experienced and competent staff has picked up several valuable qualities that have enabled them to master essential skills in the industry. Attracting such talent into an organization structure remains critical in improving productivity, customer experience, and the team capability within the firm structure. Firms should therefore focus on retaining the experience and competence to aid in their transition process to avoid loss in skill and firm history. Hospitality industry is anchored on culture and preference. As such, institutional memory among staff remains a critical success factor that firms have to consider when recruiting. 

Discussion and Conclusions 

This paper employs a theoretical framework that encompasses an in-depth analysis of existing research on matters affecting recruitment in the hospitality industry. Competency is undeniably a critical aspect to not only hoteliers but also businesses in other industries. The technological advances experience today and changes in labor legislation have strained the ability of organizations to recruit and retain employees with appropriate staffing levels. Hoteliers are adopting technology innovations to minimize guest contacts with employees as a countermeasure. Nonetheless, this strategy is only temporary as some aspects of hotel management are hardly replaceable by artificial intelligence. In addition, hospitality is dependent significantly on human interaction, which influences customer loyalty and satisfaction. There exists a global shortage of culinary workers partly due to the high labor costs. The industry and key stakeholders should invest in the integration of the staffing processes that include training, welfare, and compensation to ensure that there is consistence across the industry to limit staff-related challenges that cause disruption because of the high turnover among the employees. However, any management has the mandate of developing and implementing strategies that will balance costs and customer satisfaction. 

The hospitality sector faces among other inhibitions labor turnover. Fundamentally, the challenge results from the understandably stressful nature of enterprises in the sector. Working in any given post within the sector has proved to be extremely challenging particularly to new entrants. Thus, there is a need for stakeholders in the industry to decipher the psychological and physical constraints of employees through research. Understanding turnover causes and how to overcome them should a prime objective of players in hospitality. In addition, Gatling and Shoemaker (2018) suggest that hospitality educators need to liaise with the sector’s leaders to define parameters binding certain skill sets and behaviors that would prepare students for the industry prior to joining it. It is worth contemplating that new employees (Burns, Warren & Roberts, 2018) report most of the turnover cases. 

The hospitality industry encompasses aspects such as food service management, food service staff, hotel and accommodation, travel agents, and housekeeping staff among other professionals. Customers in the hospitality industry are dynamic and with diverse tastes making the industry, a largely disruptive based on customer nature and seasonality. Sustaining a momentum within such disruptive sectors requires consistency across board making it easier to promote to global markets. Employee capacity therefore is a key concept in establishing a high-performance hospitality industry globally. Employees in these areas are expected to portray integrity while executing their duties to consumers. Ideally, educators play the most significant role in equipping workers with the required professionalism and standards (Cheng & Wong, 2015). Further, organizations offer several professional development programs and collaborative training activities to enforce proficiency. The integration between the culinary training institutions and the industry players is among the key approaches that can be implemented to ensure that there is continuity within the industry without disrupting the existing structures. Dunning (2019) argues that an earlier introduction of hotel studies to students pursuing careers in hospitality helps in fostering professionalism. The hotel industry therefore has a role to play in developing and improving the curriculum offered in institutions of learning to ensure that the new entrants graduating from learning institutions have the capability of adapting and conceptualizing their work environment. The integration process should be seamless to guarantee that there is a consistency in the levels of mastery of skillsets and professional conduct in the industry. 

Relentless and determined efforts to promote the abovementioned values are beneficial to organizations and the industry at large in various ways. Competent employees understand the needs pf the customers and thus work determinedly to ensure maximum customer satisfaction. The integration of the learning institutions and the work environment through continuous appraisal of the work environment and preparation of upcoming skilled labor forms a core factor in ensuring that there is sufficient skill that can sustain the industry as a whole. The hostel industry requires demands careful consideration of the current and seasonal needs of the industry’s vast clientele. Another benefit worth acknowledging is increased productivity. Expectedly, experienced workers are more likely to cope with the dynamic nature of the sector than inexperienced workers. Besides, one cannot underrate the significance of employees in hotel management to the business name reputation. The general rule is that an organization whose workers display exceptional skills and customer management techniques are highly likely to attract more customers and long-lasting relationships. The industry and its players should therefore invest in their employees since they are at the fore in brand and image promotion. Firms that have inducted their staff to accept and be loyal to their brands have registered higher customer turnovers based on referrals based on service delivered. 

In essence, the hospitality industry requires a careful application of an appropriate recruitment mechanism to ensure a company has the necessary qualities to stay at the top of the global hospitality map. This paper finds that attaining customer satisfaction is crucial among the benefits that businesses are likely to enjoy should they employ and maintain qualified employees. In consequence, the benefits of individual companies will transverse to the entire industry making it a necessity for the entire industry to observe and benchmark on the global trends and standards for purposes of attaining competitive levels to attract customers. 

Limitations and Future Research 

While the concepts held in this paper are fundamentally exploratory, some limitations are worth noting. First, the research is primarily theoretical and only employs the theories articulated in relevant past research. Thus, there is a need to conduct an empirical study to help better answer the research question. Also, there is a need to conduct further study on the relationship between key leadership concepts in hospitality and service delivery. 

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