Human Resource Management for Service Idustries - Assignment Example

Human Resource Management for Service Industries (Task A) Tourism and Hospitality Industry Contents Answer a: The role and purpose of human resource management in tourism and hospitality industry 3 Answer b: A human resources plan based on an analysis of supply and demand for tourism and hospitality business 5 Answer c: Current state of employment relations in tourism and hospitality industry 7 Answer d: How does employment law affect the management of human resources in tourism and hospitality business? 9 References 13 Answer a: The role and purpose of human resource management in tourism and hospitality industry The purpose and role of human resource management is highly significant in a service industry. For the purpose of analysing the exact role of HRM in the service industry, the service sector of hospitality and tourism is selected. However, personnel management and human resource management are two different processes. While personnel management is a traditional form of human resource management, conventional HRM involves the use of modern approaches to manage the existing people resources of a company. The scope of HRM is wider than that of PM. HRM is focused on integrating the traditional functions of personnel management in the corporate strategies and objectives of a business is that additional human resource oriented functions of an organization can be adequately performed. In contrast, PM involves the use of traditional personnel management approaches to ensure the maintenance of equitable conditions for employment. The tourism and hospitality service sector is a diverse sector in terms of employment trends and patterns. In some regions and geographical areas, hospitality and tourism act as a high status and attractive employment industry which displays a competitive pay scale and supportive working conditions. In contrast, many of the sub sectors of the hospitality and tourism sector are marked with low pay for the employees, high staff turnover rates, poor working conditions, exploitation of the socially disadvantaged communities, the lack of effective recruitment and selection skills in the key areas and the absence of an adequate level of professionalism and fair practices in the human resource management systems. In such scenarios, the human resource managers of the hospitality and tourism sectors face complex challenges while recruiting, selecting, developing and retaining a competent, well motivated, engaged, committed and well managed group of employees. It can be argued that all these human resource management factors are absolutely necessary for maintaining desirable levels of performance standards and efficiency within an organization. Therefore, the role of the HRM becomes more profound in the current dynamic and continually changing landscape of the service sector. Since any service industry, including the tourism and hospitality industry extensively depends on the direct communication of the company personnel and representatives with the customers and on the level of customer services provided to the clientele groups, therefore, the role of human resource personnel is highly significant in every stage of the human resource management process starting right from the selection and recruitment of the employees to the training and development, performance management and appraisal, compensation package designing, designing job roles, allocation of the employees in the proper job functionalities, ensuring job security, developing mutually beneficial employee relations and retention of employees. Hard HRM and Soft HRM are two categories of human resource management which are practiced by organizations across the world. The concepts of hard HRM and soft HRM are used to identify a dichotomous and distinctive approach for evaluating the HRM practices in the service sector. Hard HRM refers to the management of the human resources through a calculative and stringent management technique and through focusing on the criticality of aligning and integrating the human resource management systems and techniques with the actual requirements and objectives of a business. In contrast, soft HRM refers to the human resource management approach in which the performance levels and involvement of the employees are enhanced through communicative and collaborative methods so that the employees become involved and committed towards the organization thereby helping to unleash the full potential of the skills and resourcefulness of the employee groups. The tourism and hospitality industry being highly sensitive to the uncertainly levels and mindsets of the internal and external stakeholder groups, soft HRM practices are more focused upon as compared to the hard HRM practices (Subramony, 2006). The companies operating in this sector take up soft HRM techniques as a part of their strategic human resource management process to ensure higher employee involvement and commitment. This also helps to improve the degree of customer service responsiveness among the front end executives of a company functioning in the tourism and hospitality service sector. The soft HRM initiatives are aimed at embedding team working skills, enhancing the quality of customer services and developing the skills of the employees through training and development programmes without which a company operating in the service sector would not be able to sustain in a competitive manner within the global dynamic service segment. Answer b: A human resources plan based on an analysis of supply and demand for tourism and hospitality business A human resource plan is designed for the TUI Group which is a multinational tourism and Travel Company which has its headquarters in Hannover, Germany. The company is a renowned brand in the tourism and hospitality segment and is the largest tourism, travel and leisure company in the globe. The TUI Group owns hotels, cruises, airlines, retail stores and travel agencies that function in multiple geographical locations across the world. The TUI Group owns six main European Airlines and the famous United Kingdom based tour operating company, Thomson. For developing a viable and practically implementable human resource management plan, the internal and external factors affecting the employment practices and the existing and potential employee groups of the TUI Group should be analysed. The internal factors that should be considered while developing a human resource management plan for the TUI Group are the structure of the organization, the financial budget of the company, the availability of physical and financial resources in the organization, the existing organization culture, the level of compliance and the skill levels required for the business. The availability of resources and the level of compliance required in the TUI Group are very high and sufficient for developing a robust and extensive HRM plan. The demands of labour in the hospitality and tourism sector are very high. Since, more and more domestic and multinational companies are entering into the global tourism and hospitality sector, therefore, the demand for human resources is increasing at an accelerated rate. After the advent of globalization which has facilitated the cross border flow of human resources as well as the provision of companies to open up their business in different corners of the world, the demand for employees with varied skills and proficiencies has considerably increased in the hospitality and tourism sector of the developed countries. The supply of labour resources is less as compared to the demands for the same in this sector. Since, this industry is becoming intensely competitive, therefore, the number of employers is increasing and the supply of employees is still restrained in most geographical locations. The supply of labours for this sector faces many constraints due to the stigma associated with the tourism and hospitality industry being an exploiting entity for the less privileged and backward communities. It can be identified that there is a specific misbalance between the demand of labours and the supply of labours in this service sector. The main reasons for this gap are the low pay scales, the unsocial shifts and work hours that are not suitable for everyone, very limited presence of trade unions, high attrition and staff turnover rates, lack of human resource management best practices, unstable career structures and growth opportunities, excessive dependence on informal and often biased recruitment systems and the lack of appropriate employee retention and development programmes in most parts of the industry. In order to balance the demand and supply levels of labour resources in the tourism and hospitality segment and the TUI Group, the HRM professionals should focus on taking up soft HRM skills for managing the employee groups. The use of the soft HRM skills is done to develop suitable selection and recruitment processes so that the right employees are selected for the right positions in a company. This should be followed by the continuous support provided to the employees through training and development programs. Also, proper compensation packages, a positive work culture and effective appraisal and recognition systems would help to retain more employees in the companies, thereby reducing the gaps between supply and demand (Korczynski, 2002). Answer c: Current state of employment relations in tourism and hospitality industry The employee engagement level in the companies functioning in the hospitality and tourism sector should ideally be very high. This is because, employ engagement is identified as a critical success factor for the success of any company belonging to this industry. The engagement level of the front line employees is especially significant because they are the people who directly interact with the customers of these companies and as such the level of customer satisfaction is directly correlated with the degree of employee engagement. The antecedents and consequences of effective employee engagement in any industry including the tourism and hospitality industry are diagrammatically represented in Figure 1. Figure 1: A conceptual model for employee engagement. (Source: Saks, 2006) Employee engagement in the hospitality and tourism sector is facilitated by three main factors including the following: The employees and the psychological mindsets and experience levels of these employees. The ability of the employer groups to develop conditions that help to motivate the employees and enhance employee engagement levels. The development of transparency, communication and interaction among the employees of the hospitality and tourism companies operating at all levels. However, when analysed from the global perspective, the intensity of employee engagement in this service industry is varied in different geographical locations and in most of the sub sectors within the hospitality and tourism industry, the employee engagement rate is lower than as desired by the companies. This can be accredited to the absence of associations and legislative entities to act as the representative of the employees of this sector. Also, the lack of common employee interest management techniques like collective bargaining practices, the absence of any kind of trade associations and trade unions and the poor employee career management techniques that are present in the global hospitality and tourism sector. Collective bargaining in the concerned service sector is almost absent or is present at a minimal level which acts as a major challenge for employee relation management by the human resource personnel. Since, the management of employee relations directly affects the behaviours and motivations of the employees, therefore, the companies in this service sector are continuously focusing on developing strong and healthy employee relationships as an integral part of their human resource management strategies. The challenge for the employees in this industry lie in the continuous pressure of performing and satisfying the demands and needs of the stakeholders and in the complexities in the process of creating value for the customer through excellent and consistent service. Conflict management acts as a main challenge for the human resource personnel in the domain of employee relations management of companies in this industry. The greater involvement of the employees is highly desired in the service sectors. Therefore, the companies operating in the hospitality and tourism industry should seek to achieve more involvement and engagement of the employees so that enhanced creativity, autonomy, self control and cooperation can be infused in the work processes of every employee and department. The development of an empowered work environment is necessary for the sustainability of the HRM practices in this sector which has still not been practically and uniformly achieved. Answer d: How does employment law affect the management of human resources in tourism and hospitality business? The hospitality and tourism sector is governed by a number of nationally and internationally recognised employment laws. The domain of hospitality and tourism is one of the largest employing sectors in the globe. As such, this industry employs millions of employees which make it necessary to enforce suitable regulations to protect the interests of the employees as well as that of the employer groups. The labour laws or the employment laws in various countries are used to mediate healthy working conditions and relations among the different entities involved in an industry like the employers, employees, governments, trade unions and other legislative bodies. Some employment laws like the collective labour laws are aimed at developing tripartite and mutually beneficial relationships between employers, employees and trade unions whereas the individual labour laws are focused on the management of the rights and interests of the employees at their respective workplaces. The TUI Group is governed by the employment laws existing in Germany. The observance and complaisance of the legal requirements are seen as preliminary necessities for conducting the business as per the management of the TUI Group. As such, the company is affected by as well as follows all the employment and federal laws as applicable in the home country and the foreign operational locations. The general employment laws that are enforceable for TUI Group are the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), the Fair Labour Standards Act (FLSA) and The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The Fair Labour Standards Act (FLSA) is administered by the Department of Labour with the aim of preventing the exploitation of the workers by enforcing laws related to minimum wage setting and anti child labour practices. This Act is enforceable in the hospitality and tourism sectors in major parts of the globe including the European countries which makes it necessary for the TUI Group to follow the same. The OSHA aims at maintaining the physical and mental health and the safety of the employees in their workplaces. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commissions (EEOC) aims at reducing the discriminations made by employers towards the employee groups. The hospitality and tourism companies which employ more than 15 people are liable to follow the guidelines and regulations specified by the EEOC. The different Acts and laws enforced as employment laws and labour laws for the tourism and hospitality industry are aimed at specifying suitable regulations related to the minimum wages, hours of work, service benefits, health and safety of the workers, anti discrimination policies, equality of opportunity enforcement, dismissal policies, anti child labour regulations, freedom of association and provision of standard work conditions for all categories of employees. All of these labour laws and employment laws are enforceable in the different business verticals of the TUI Group. The tourism and hospitality sector like any other business sector is government by the globally accepted regulations formulated by the International labour Organization (ILO). Therefore, the laws and regulatory requirements specified by the ILO also impact the human resource management strategies and functions of the TUI Group. The employment laws prevailing in the hospitality and tourism sectors across the globe also provide the rights of freedom of association like collective bargaining and trade union formation practices. But in reality, the freedom of association is one of the least implemented laws in this service sector. However, as a global leader, the TUI Group has managed to enforce high standards of HRM practices which include conventional approaches like freedom of association and collective bargaining (TUI Group, 2014). Since, the hospitality industry is a globally functional industry which employs people from diverse backgrounds and origins; therefore, this industry displays higher susceptibility to discriminatory practices as compared to other industries (Little and Dean, 2006). As a consequence of this, many of the employment laws developed in recent times are concerned with the establishment of anti discriminatory and diversity management practices for the employees working in this sector. The TUI Group is significantly affected by the new laws and takes effective steps as a quick response to these changes in the employment world. References Korczynski, M., 2002. Human resource management in service work. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Little, M.M. & Dean, A.M., 2006. Links between service climate, employee commitment and employees service quality capability. Managing Service Quality, Vol. 16(5), pp. 460-476. Saks, A.M., 2006. Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 21(7), p.600. Subramony, M., 2006. Why organizations adopt some human resource management practices and reject others: An exploration of rationales. Human Resource Management, Vol. 45(2), pp. 195-210. TUI Group. 2014. Code of Conduct of the TUI Group. [Pdf]. Available at http://www.tuitravelplc.com/sites/default/files/attachments/Code_of_Conduct_0.pdf. [Accessed on 3 March 2014]. Read More