Contemporary Hospitality Industry - Scope, Diversity, and Qualification Requirement for Staff - Term Paper Example

THE CONTEMPORARY HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 1Analysis of the current scope and diversity of the hospitality industry in UK economy: 3 1.2 Discussion of organizational structure of different hospitality organizations in UK economy: 5 1.3 Assessing the role of hospitality related organization and professional bodies: 6 Task 2 10 2.1 Accession of the staffing requirement of different hospitality industry in UK: 10 2.2 Discussion of the roles, responsibilities and qualification requirement for hospitality staffs: 11 Reference List 13 1.1Analysis of the current state, scope and diversity of the hospitality industry in UK economy: According to Laurie (Hospitality Management and Organisational Behaviour 100-102), in the present era, hospitality sector is one of the fastest growing sector in UK. In the UK economy it is highly penetrated and is ranging from one single organization to worldwide corporations. People find more than 80 different types of jobs in this industry. Hospitality industry not just comprises hotels and restaurants, but also different other sector, such as travel service, visitor attraction, contract catering, pubs, clubs and night clubs etc. In the current economic climate, hospitality sector in UK economy has remained flexible and is affected by international currency depreciation. Many cities in UK are struggling to overcome the weak economic backdrop. In this context, example of Intercontinental Hotel Group can be present here. International Hotels Group Plc or in short IHG is one of the well reputed multinational hotel company in UK. It has managed its brand image as a world’s large and fastest hotel loyalty program worldwide. The company currently operate its franchise hotel in various segments throughout the world. The aim of the organization is to provide consistent and quality service to its customer. In terms of profit and organizational value, IHG is ahead than all the other companies located in UK. However, reputation and current market situation of UK’s hospitality industry was adversely affected by Grate Recession. Due to the global economic recession, hospitality industry in UK has experienced a 64% fall in its total profit. The global economic slowdown has impacted both business travel and tourist arrival. Recession has minimised disposable income of the people and thereby spending habits of the guests. Due to financial crisis, people stopped to book their room in 4 or 5 star hotels and tend to book their room in the cheaper hotel. Recession has affected most of the hotel like IHG to make business profit. Thus, in the present era, hospitality industry requires more innovative ways of handling problems. According to World Travel Market Report, IHS was badly affected as a result of recession and is struggling to overcome the difficult situation. The management team of the company has deals with several challenges to adopt continuous changing business environment and always maintain their position in the market by maintaining client’s expectations. Although current market condition of IHG is not much suitable right now, business travellers provides a great chain to the hotel industry and IHG is also not exception to that. Another problem that organizations are facing in recent time is, the issue of managing people belonging from different cultural background. Managing diverse people is a reality that almost all multinational and international organizations are facing. Diversity awareness and training has become part of the employee development to increase hospitality values. In order to manage culturally diverse workforce and gain competitive place in global market, IHG has adopted some relevant strategy. They recognized that putting more emphasis on diversity management will act as the fuel to recruit and retain employee from different culturally diverse background and thereby frame their workplace by employing people belonging to a variety of cultural background (Alina and Rudd, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Education 24-27). Different types of guests come to the hotel, some of them are leisure guest, some of them are businessman etc. IHG provides various entertainment facilities like swimming pools, night club, bars, casinos, themed parties etc. so that their guests don’t need to go outside in searching for these kind of facilities. Recently, IHG is trying to enter into franchise industry to attract most of the diverse set of franchise owner and ensure growth within the hospitality industry. Majority of the franchise program includes reduce upfront costs, develop business strategy and provide additional support. In recent years IHG has successfully gather increasing sophisticated response that is risk based and intelligence led. Now the growth strategy of the company depends on securing, indentifying and retaining management for franchising. However, political and economical factor such as, tax rate or legislation in the jurisdictions sometime prevent the company to receive profit or selling its service in certain countries. The scope of hospitality industry in UK economy is very big. Every year many tourist are coming to the country as London is one of the reputed city around the world. By analysing the current situation of UK’s hotel industry, it is expected that the hospitality sector in UK will experience a strong growth by continuing strong recovery and growth within the next few years. 1.2 Discussion of organizational structure of different hospitality organizations in UK economy: Organizational structure is the relationship between its different departments that accomplish different organizational goal and hinder its progress in accomplishing these goals. In UK’s hospitality industry, some organizations have tall organizational structure, whereas; some other has flat organizational structure. Tall organizational structure is mostly found in large hotels such as Brown’s Hotel, London Hilton, Maison Talbooth, Ampersand, Coworth Park etc. Organizational structures within these companies are formed with different level of staff. But in flat organizational structure, hierarchy levels are not highly segmented. Example of restaurants comprise with flat organizational structure are SleepWell, The Soho Hotel, Ardgartan Hotel etc. In a restaurant with flat organizational structure, the business owner also plays the role of chef. Organizational structure, i.e. the form of business ownership has a significant influence on the business objectives. When organizational structure change, businesses are realigned themselves with some new business objectives (Wilson et al. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 80-84). In this context, the example of Marriott hotel can be presented here. Mission and vision of the company is to become most innovative and enterprising company in hospitality industry worldwide. The overall organizational structure in Marriott is formed by a unique combination of both tall and flat organizational structure. The human resource department consists with far fewer subordinated in comparison to its food and beverage department. Thus, human recourse department in Marriott has a flat organizational structure. The organizational structures with its various departments are shaped according to the needs and requirements. Organizational structure measures how information or organizational vision will be communicated among different department within an organization. For example, in Marriott, managers send information to the assistant manager and then it is sent to a supervisor and lastly they send the message to various workers in the department. Thus, type of organizational structure gives clear understanding about organizational goal to the staffs. 1.3 Assessing the role of hospitality related organization and professional bodies: In today’s competitive world, hospitality industry is facing several contemporary issues. Some of these issues are related to the business operating process, such as employee’s expectations, food and safety, socio-cultural issue, e-commerce etc. In order to identify managerial issue and provide reliable solution to this problem, institute and professional bodies in hospitality sector play major roles. There are lots of big brands in these sectors who offer hospitality related to education and vocational management study to ensure professional growth in hospitality sector. In hospitality sector, hospitality related organization and professional bodies are most valuable assets in framing rules and regulation for hospitality sector and to provide hospitality related education. The industrial success highly depends on the steps taken by these institutions and it is critical to continue organizational success (Ladkin and Thanika, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 120-122). Professional bodies in hospitality sector support the industrial success by freeing up management business to concrete the business procedure. Apart from that, these instructional bodies also support management team in hospitality sector to recruit good employee and train them to achieve high level of customer’s satisfaction. Examples of such professional bodies in UK’s hospitality sector are, Academy of Food and Wine Service, Foodservice Consultants Society International, Restaurant Association, Institute of Hospitality, UK Housekeepers Association etc. Various roles played by these associations and professional bodies are described below: Academy of Food and Wine Service: The Academy of Food and Wine Service (AFWS) is a hospitality professional body that provide front of house food and beverage service to the UK’s hospitality industry sector. They seek to provide standard to the customer. In addition to that, AFWS also boosts awareness and status of food and beverage service as a viable and exciting career choice, offers right support, training and advice to the waiter, wine waiter, restaurant manager and bar manager. Training course offered by this professional body helps to increase professional skill, knowledge and confidence to deliver consistent high quality service to the customers. Foodservice Consultants Society International: Foodservice Consultants Society International (FCSI) is a leading association in food and hospitality sector to promote professionalism in food service. Around 1,300 members are connected with the organization throughout the world. Members of FCSI offer a worldwide range of consulting service including feasible studies, concept development, food safety, operation and training, design marketing, independent catering and food service consultancy service etc. Whatever may be the requirements, FSCI can help, from specifying the catering equipment to project management, benchmarking and menu planning. Restaurant Association: Being a part of British Hospitality Association, the Restaurant Association standardize rules and regulation for the hotel, restaurant and catering industry. It has membership restaurant group in all corners of the UK economy. It also manages independent hotel groups, major food and service management operator, hospitality education institute and local hospitality association. In UK, hospitality industry mainly prepared to tackle down unemployment problem in UK. There are around one million people who are unemployed but deserve an opportunity to exploit their skills, knowledge and expertise. This particular professional body has taken initiatives to advance career opportunity for these unemployed people and provide them structured work placements. Hospitality industry has been proven as the only sector that helps to develop skills of the youth people at all level. Institute of Hospitality: The Institute of Hospitality (IoH) is the professional body that controls individual managers and inspire them to study and work in the hospitality sector. The institution exists in UK since 1930. IoH is mainly reputed for providing standard quality education regarding the hospitality sector and members of the institution are scattered in more than 100 countries throughout the world. IoH offer education as a charity whose primary purpose is to promote highest professional standard education and management related education in the international hospitality and tourism industry. Apart from that, member of IoH also access worldwide range of benefits and promotes networking contacts with the industry contacts to achieve their full potentiality. UK Housekeepers Association: The UK Housekeepers Association (UKHA) is basically an outsourcing company. The executive team of UKHA carefully balance and plan program for job moves and training program. Unfortunately in recent days, HR team fails to employ right candidate for performing the cleaning function (Emeksiz et al. International Journal of Hospitality Management 540-545). Thus, it becomes attractive to outsource the cleaning function. UKHA provides an instant solution to short-staffing; reduce recruitment cost and assure guaranteed cost per room. UKHA contour innovative approach to recruit long-term staff, advice on guest’s needs and provides suitable materials during hotel refurbishment. Task 2 2.1 Accession of the staffing requirement of different hospitality industry in UK: Like all other business, human resource in hospitality sectors also is most precious capital. In the era of global competition and rapid change, it is very important to employ most qualified and capable people to conduct organisational task. In creating a reliable estimate of demand, managers in hospitality translate organizational demand into the worker needed by using an economical labour standard. However, staffing requirement within an organization varies according to the organizational structure. Verities of staff requirement for the hotels with tall organizational structure are much higher in comparison to the flat structured hotels. In order to determine staffing needs in hospitality sector, the management team of an organization needs to understand required skills and expertise for each level of position. Each of the position needs to be filled by efficient level of skill required for this particular position. To provide and facilitate quality service to the guests, it is very necessary to employ productive people who know how to handle organizational task effectively (Alina and Rudd, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Education, 30-47). However, experience level and competence of the staffs varies according to the organizational position. Types of staff required in the hospitality sector includes functional specialist, craft, operational, skilled/semi-skilled/ unskilled labour, food service managers, travel agent, apprentice, management, supervisory, foreign worker, casual, housekeeping staff etc. All of them play unique role in managing a hospitality company in effective way. Skill and expertise level for each type of staff varies according to the position. In short, there are various staffing requirement to ensure a productive and efficient workforce. 2.2 Discussion of the roles, responsibilities and qualification requirement for hospitality staffs: Roles, responsibility and qualification requirements for each level within a hotel vary according to the organizational duties that are assigned them to perform. For example, a manager in hotel is responsible for delivering friendly and efficient customer service and creates a welcoming atmosphere to welcome all of their guests. A manager needs to be highly efficient to communicate with the customers in a professional manner and maximize sales opportunities. On the other hand, maid or housekeeping cleaner is responsible to clean hotel rooms and put the waste into disposable areas. Thus, to perform a housekeeper’s duty, high experience is not mandatory. Roles, responsibility and duties of different types of hospitality’s staffs are discussed in below: Food service manager: Food service manager or restaurant manager is responsible to overseas day to day operation within the restaurant. These managers hire, direct, train and disciplined their worker to ensure quality customer’s service (Alina and Rudd, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Education 35-40). In UK, most of the employers in hotel industry prefer to hire managers with at least some college education or bachelor degree in hotel management. Thus, to apply for the manager post, students need to complete their class course in management, planning, nutrition and accounting. Food service staff: Food service staff in hotel industry includes waiter/ servers, head cooks, bartenders and hostesses. Hotel waiters/servers are responsible for serving food to the customer efficiently and in most considerate manner. They take order from the customers, memorise order, serve food to the customer and collect cash payment. On the other hand, head cook prepare meal as per the customer’s order and direct other kitchen workers. Hospitality hosts are responsible to provide raining on menu planning, cooking, nutrition and purchasing. Employers generally prefer to employ a cook with sufficient knowledge in a restaurant kitchen. Housekeeping Staff: Hospitality sector hires housekeeping staff to clean the guest’s accommodation. Housekeeping staffs are responsible for replenishes guest rooms, make beds, sanitize the rooms and clean the bathroom. Travel Agent: Lastly, travel agent helps customers to book their trips, transportation and entertainment. These agents are responsible for giving advice on travel plan, preferable destinations and entertainment activities before conducting a trip. Reference List Alina M. Z. and Rudd P., Teaching Business Issues in Hospitality and Tourism Education. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Education 14:3, 2002, 25-50. Emeksiz, M., Gursoy, D. and Icoz, O. A Yield Management Model for Five-Star Hotels: Computerized and Non-Computerized Implementation. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 25:4, 2008, 536-551. Ladkin, A. and Thanika D. J. The career paths of hotel general managers in Mauritius. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 12:2, 2000, 119-125. Laurie M. Hospitality Management and Organisational Behaviour, 4th Ed. (Pearson Education Harlow, 2001) Wilson, M. D. J and Murray A.E. and Black M.A. Contract catering: The skills required for the next millenium. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 12:1, 2000, 75-78. Read More