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MODULE 3: THE HOSPITALITY SERVICE STRATEGY

LEARNING OUTCOMES

• The process of recruiting employees who will give excellent service.

MODULE CONTENT

THE MANY EMPLOYEES OF THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

Providing either a tangible or an intangible service product requires many different employees doing many different jobs. Most
obvious are the front-of-house employees who interact with the guest. They are directly responsible for providing the value
and quality of an exceptional experience because they are the interface between the guests and the company. Back-of-house
employees or what is sometimes called the heart of the h0use help create the service experience They fix the rides, cook the
meals, clean the sheets, and so forth so that the guest's experience meets or exceeds expectations. Management also plays
a critical role. They hire the employees, train, evaluate, reward, discipline, celebrate, promote, and oversee all the other tasks
that must be done to ensure that there is someone at the right time and place ready to serve the guest. Beyond these tasks,
there are laws and regulations that must be followed; accounts that must be balanced; financial statements that must be
created, strategies that must be developed and implemented; marketing and sales that must be done. All these tasks-and the
people who form them-are critical for a successful business.

All companies clearly want to have high-ability, motivated employees, the best-performing companies are those that have
gained a competitive edge by developing recruitment, training, placement, and reward and recognition programs that motivate
all employees to provide outstanding service for customers. It all begins with recruitment and selection. If the organization can
somehow attract and select the best potential employees, it will gain a significant advantage over those organizations that do
not systematically seek out and find these guest focused people. The selection process, in theory, is straightforward. First,
figure out exactly what you are looking for; second, recruit a pool of good candidates; third, select the best in the pool; fourth.
bring the best candidates on board; fifth, make the new hires feel welcome; and sixth, manage any potential future turnover
of employees strategically. Each step requires a number of critical decisions. How do you know who your best candidates are
and what does a great candidate look like? Do you look for applicants from inside or outside your company? What tools do
you use to collect information (e.g., interviews, psychological testing, references)? How do you combine the information you
collect to decide who you should hire? How do you make the new hire feel genuinely welcomed and show your appreciation
to that person for agreeing to join your organization?

THE FIRST STEP: STUDY THE JOB

Human Resource Planning

Selecting the best person for the job should begin by first looking not at the applicants but at the job. First, you should engage
in human resource planning. Human resource planning is the process of analyzing an organization's current human resource
capabilities and the organizations human resource needs that are required to meet organizational objectives. Based on your
organizational strategy, you must determine what knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) employees must possess to
accomplish your goals, what levels of KSAs currently exist in your organization, and how you expect both your organization
and people to develop over time.

HR planning not only is directed at today's employee needs but also should be done -with a longer-run perspective. While
most recruitment activity is focused on filling jobs that are currently vacant, some effort should be given to anticipating the
long-term employment needs of the organization. If, for example, you are planning to build a new hotel or expand an existing
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one, you must consider whether or not job candidates with the necessary KSAs will be available for hire when the project is
done. If not, plans need to be developed to recruit from distant labor markets, retrain people in the current labor market, or
hire away qualified employees from their current employers. Each of these strategies has costs and benefits that should be
carefully weighed, but each also offers a planned path to find the employees needed when it’s time to hire.

HR planning may reveal that you have too many employees (and so layoffs may be necessary), current KSAs are
inappropriate or your organization needs to acquire the new skills by training current employees or by motivating and
empowering your employees but commonly you will find that the best way to acquire needed KSAs is by hiring new employees.

Job Analysis

A careful, thorough job analysis allows the organization to identify the exact job specifications and required competencies for
each job classification and type. A job analysis will tell you if you need physically skilled strong people to assist park visitors
into a ride, skilled lifeguards to keep people safe in the water parks, or multilingual people to speak to foreign guests.

Study Your Best Performers

The intangibility of the guest experience and the uniqueness of what each guest expects from it have led some hospitality
organizations to use a secondary strategy for identifying good candidates: study the organization's best performers and
identify their personal traits, tendencies, talenl5, and personality characteristics. Then, find candidates who match this profile.

Instead of identifying the KSAs that particular jobs seem to require or will require in the future, this approach starts by defining
the KSAs of currently successful employees. In essence, this is bench1narking against your own very best practitioners of
the job. The idea is that if you hire only employees who have traits, skills, abilities, tendencies, talents, and personality
characteristics that are similar to those found in the current strong job performers, they should be more successful than new
employees who don't have those same characteristics. If you want to find a successful new job performer, find an existing
successful job performer and hire someone as nearly like that person (in terms of KSAs and attitudes) as possible. The nick,
of course, is to discern the distinguishing characteristics that enable your strong performers to succeed.

Develop Talent Profiles

Many organizations have followed the strategy of identifying talent profiles that is based on work by the Gallup Corporation,
S.R.I.,J .D. Power, and other similar organizations. The idea here is to look at an organization 's strong performers and, based
on their talents, develop talent profiles for each major job category. Then, they use these bench1nark profiles to screen new
applicants. For example, theme park ticket sellers have traditionally been hired and rewarded on their ability to handle large
sums of money transactions quickly and accurately. Careful analysis has shown that the best ticket sellers have additional
talents. In effect, the ticket seller is the first point of contact between a theme park and its guests. Newly arriving guests are
not typically knowledgeable about the many ticket package options. They often need to talk to a person who can quickly and
easily identify what guests really want to do and then sell then the most appropriate ticket package. The talents required of
the employees who can do this well include having very good empathetic listening, interpersonal, and coaching skills in
addition to the ability to handle Large sums of money rapidly and carefully. The successful ticket seller is really something of
a vacation planner. Once the talent profile of successful ticket sellers is identified, a reassessment of both the selection
process and the reward structure for this job can be done.

The use of this approach can even be extended to look at the mix of talents in entire departments. If an analysis of a particular
department shows that the current composition of people does not include some vital talent for departmental success, the
selection process can ensure that the next person hired will have an ample supply of the missing ingredient.

Companies like Choice Hotel and Marriott International have made identifying leadership competencies a priority. By
identifying appropriate competencies, senior managers can be more effective in selecting and developing future leaders.
Competencies are usually identified by examining the characteristics of current high performers. Once identified, these
competencies are then formalized, identified and described so that one knows when they are being demonstrated. Choice
Hotel uses a database of employees’ competencies for help in internal selection, promotion, succession and planning. Mariott
Hotel uses its competency system called the Benchstrength Management System, to help ensure that high-potential
managers are given assignment that help their development and prepare them for future assignments.

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Other Key Characteristics for Service personnel

Enthusiasm

To provide exceptional service, guest contact- employees must have an enthusiastic approach to life. Enthusiasm is
contagious, and guest come to most hospitality organization expecting to be served by employees who are enthusiastic about
the service itself, the organization and the opportunity to provide service. There are very few guests who do not want and
expect a feel-good guest experience that only enthusiastic employees can deliver.

Enthusiastic hospitality “showpeople” engage guests in their performances and enable guests to remember the experience.

Demonstrate an authentic sense of concern

Employees must be upbeat, cheerful, enthusiastic and genuinely interested in serving the guests, even when the guests are
not reciprocally positive and even when they themselves don’t feel upbeat or positive. This requires them to engage in
emotional labor. Putting on a happy face when you yourself are having a bad day is difficult.

THE SECOND STEP: RECRUIT A POOL OF QUALIFIED CANDIDATES

Once you know what you are looking for in new employees, you need a diverse pool of qualified applicants from which you
can select them. Where do you find them? The most basic choice here is, do you consider people from inside the company
or outside? Whether the company looks inside or outside may depend partially on the level of positions to be filled. If they are
entry level, recruiting will occur mainly from outside. If above entry level, the company will have to decide whether to promote
from within or look outside.
Hiring Internal Candidates

Many companies prefer internal recruitment for several reasons. In fact, the practice of hiring from within is often seen as a
best practice of human resource management. Hiring internal candidates has a number of advantages, as described below.
But it is no panacea, and the decision to hire from within needs to be considered in light of both its advantages and
disadvantages.

The Known Quantity

The most important advantage of promoting from within is that you have much more information- and more accurate
information-about your current employees than you do about external candidates. The internal candidate is a known quantity.
That person's performance has been available for observation and evaluation every day, and the person's strengths and
weaknesses are generally known. Because some external candidates will interview well and some poorly, managers doing
the hiring can make mistakes. On the other hand, the good and bad qualities of a, person observed every day are evident.
Perhaps even more importantly, the present employee has shown loyalty to the organization by staying on and seeking higher
levels of responsibility and challenge. For these reasons, many organizations prefer a known inside candidate over an
outsider., Because customer relationships are so important in hospitality organizations, it makes Considerable sense to
promote current employees who have proven successful in their job, have shown a commitment to customer service, know
and like the company culture, may be connected to the company's customers, and are familiar with the organization's mission
and commitment to guest service.

Internal Equity

The second reason for internal hiring is internal equity. Many hospitality organizations employ people from varied backgrounds
and with different levels of training and education. Many employees, except those in some technical areas and those with
unique qualifications and experience, start at the same entry-level point. Each has an equal opportunity to prove a commitment
to service excellence if they wish to get promoted. At a hotel front desk, you might find a recent college graduate, an older
person who has changed careers, and a person with a high school or technical school degree-all working side by side and
trying to impress the front desk manager with their merits for promotion. If an outsider gets the vacancy at a higher level, these

Module in Quality Service Management

hardworking employees will not feel fairly treated. They helped the organization achieve its success; now they should be
recognized for their contributions and allowed to share the rewards.

The Shangri-La Group subscribes to this internal promotion approach. Says Kenneth Wai Shiu-kee, Island Shangri-La, Hong
Kong area's director of human resources, "We believe that to build a career in the hotel service, it is useful to accumulate
knowledge and experience from the start. The first-hand experience of what delivering the service product is like will prove
useful when an employee moves on to more senior decision- making positions. Our policy of internal promotion helps us
promote this attitude among staff. The steadying effect it has on our work force also helps us make good succession planning.
We invest heavily in training for our staff, not just to improve their performance but also to prepare them for career
advancement when opportunities arise from our rapid business growth. The group also benefits from having experienced
employees well-versed in our corporate culture.

Experience

Most people, as just mentioned, start in the hospitality industry by taking entry-level jobs. Companies want their employees
to know the business from the ground up. This hiring strategy is usually uncompetitive and unattractive for college graduates
who have not acquired such experience through co-op or intern programs. While most graduates appreciate the need to take
the entry-level jobs as an opportunity to prove themselves, many are unwilling to accept the relatively low starting salaries
that hospitality organizations offer. This is becoming an even greater issue for the industry as students graduating from college
increasingly start their careers with tens of thousands of dollars of debt. These students cannot afford low starting salaries
even when they have hope of future promotions and pay raises.

The hospitality industry has, consequently, often relied on growing its own from non- college talent or finding college students
who are so committed to the industry that they will give up current rewards to enter it. In a tight labor market, the belief in the
need to start everyone at the entry level has caused the industry some difficulty. Bright college graduates interested in the
hospitality industry often have better options even in other service industries. The entry level approach makes attracting MBAs
and other advanced- degree holders especially difficult. While this is less of an issue in a loose labor market (i.e., when a lot
of people are looking for jobs), there is always a shortage of truly excellent workers, even when there is high unemployment.

Hiring from within makes it possible to gain the employee commitment needed while maintaining the entry-level salary
structure. The well-managed hospitality organizations have systems in place to recognize potential and have training
programs available to develop that potential. Although they miss out on some college-trained applicants, they are able to build
a strong work force based on their own internal processes. Whether the costs of these internal development

Knowing the Culture

Organizations like to promote internal candidates because much of the training in the organizational culture has already been
done. Internal candidates already know the company's beliefs and values and have proven themselves to be comfortable in
that culture. The cultural learning curve for promoted internal candidates is substantially reduced as they already know the
office political structure, the corporate goals, the real way things get done inside the organization, and what the organization
really believes in and rewards.

Lower Cost

Internal recruitment also has the general advantage of reducing costs. There is no need to pay for advertisements and travel
expenses of candidates to be interviewed, and the decision often requires less time, which saves money. Also, candidates
can be considered before a position is even open, and the company can begin developing them to take on the new
responsibility when it becomes available. This way, when an opening does occur, it takes less time to fill the position.
Additionally, cost savings occur because there are fewer eligible employees and ultimately fewer applicants for a given
position than would be the case had external candidates also been considered. A well-prepared company can use internal
selection successfully to move good people up through the organization. But if not well prepared, it may find itself forced to
select from a pool of less qualified employees.

Another advantage of internal selection is that it can reduce turnover. Employee turnover 15 greatest among new hires, so
promoting internally helps decrease the chance that the position will need to be filled again in the near future. Recruiting is an
expensive process and reducing turnover reduces costs. Promoting good performers from within will reduce turnover by giving
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the high performers assurance that the company will let them grow and reward them for their loyalty and dedication. As Len
Berry puts it, excellent companies "hire entry-level people who share the company's values and, based on performance and
leadership potential, promote the into positions of greater responsibility.

Internal Search Strategies

A pool of internal candidates can be created in one of two ways: job postings or a review of
personnel records. Many organizations announce open positions to employees via a company P Intranet, bulletin boards,
newsletters, or other means of communication. Sometimes, employees
are informed of openings before they are publicly announced, thus giving internal candidates the first chance to apply for
positions. Some companies use their employee records to identify potentially qualified candidates. For example, Hilton Hotels
uses a computer application that tracks such factors as employee profiles, past performance ratings, employment history, skill
sets, employee interests and career aspirations, willingness to relocate, and languages spoken. Hilton can instantly access
the records of qualified candidates from across its entire set of properties and determine who might be a good fit or, say, a
new general manager position in San Diego. This technology provides decision makers with instant access to a potentially
large pool of applicants for whom they already have good performance and competency data." It also helps employees
manage their careers by matching their preferences and qualifications with the requirements of open positions. Employees
can then see what they need to do to prepare for positions with greater responsibility. Some companies, like Darden
Restaurants, manage internal promotions and transfers even more proactvely. They develop succession plans, in which
employee careers are planned over a long period, including the progression through a number of key positions or key
locations. When a position becomes available, the company already has a list of finalists for that job, or even a person already
identified to take on a new role. Succession plans allowa company to iden- tiy talented personnel and put them through
appropriate training and increasingly challenging job positions to prepare them for taking on greater responsibility.

REFERENCES

Ford Robert C. Total Quality Management for Hospitality and Tourism. Hiyas Press Inc., 2012.
Serrano, Angelita. Productivity and Quality. Unlimited Books Library Services & Publishing Inc.,2016.

Module in Quality Service Management