The Hospitality Industry - Case Study Example

Job Elimination through New Technology Job Elimination through New Technology Introduction One of the most permanent things in life is change. It is an inevitable which must occur in life. With the progressive nature of the society, there is a need to come up with technological advancements which can adequately reflect on them. For a very long time, the hospitality industry has been one of the fastest growing sectors in every country’s economy (Noble, 2004). With the diversity of its services, it has managed to serve a very high number of clients who seek their accommodation, catering and touring services. Because of its complexities, it has been employing a lot of top, middle and junior managers to effectively execute its functions. However, all these have not been effectively done because they have been relying on manual service delivery (Hounshell, 2001). However, with the advent of technology, the hospitality industry is quickly changing. It has adopted the use of modern technology to help in automating its activities. The most important of them is the workflow software. Since its innovation, it has been used to automate services at these facilities (Owen, 2007). Although it was a noble idea, it has been criticized for contributing to job losses especially amongst the middle level managers. This research is aimed at finding out how and to what extent the automation of services at the hospitality industry contributes to job loses amongst the majority of the middle class managers. This will be done by analyzing how it has led to job losses amongst the middle class managers in this sector. Hospitality Industry The hospitality industry refers to a broad class of fields within the service sector which encompasses event planning, lodging, transportation, cruise line, theme parks, event planning and others. This industry operates leisure activities provided within their hotels, restaurants and motels in which they offer house keeping, catering services, porting services, just to mention, but a few (Rifkin, 2005). In order to execute all these activities, the hospitality facilities have developed a leadership hierarchy in which there senior, middle and junior staff. Each of these is very important because they perform a very important task within these facilities (Scott, 2008). Just like in any other business organization, the employees in these organizations are organized according to well structured bureaucracies. Meaning, while the top manager operates as the overall supervisor, middle managers are in charge of the activities within their respective departments. However, as much as they are in charge of their juniors, they are directly answerable to the top management. This is what helps in coordinating and spearheading the operations of these organizations as they seek to extend their service delivery to their diverse class of clients from all over the world (Marshall, 2003). Automation of Services at the Hospitality Industry As already hinted, the society has really been transformed by the unending technological innovations in nearly all the sectors. With a long history of manual operations, service delivery in the hospitality sector has not been up to date. Because of the drawbacks of the manual system, these organizations have now resorted to the automation of services (Ford, 2009). Meaning, the software has replaced services such as booking, accounting, record keeping, reservation, just to mention, but a few. This has made it easier for them to improve their efficiency and quality of service delivery to the satisfaction of their clientele. To achieve this, these organizations have embraced the use of workflow software. In simple terms, this is a type of software technology that is exclusively used to establish, execute and monitor the flow and sequence of activities done. It is a modern technology which has been developed by the Information Communication experts to help in improving the quality of service delivery in the workplace (Hartness, 2007). It uses a computer system to electronically receive, encode, store, retrieve and transmit information within the network system. However, its embracement by the hospitality sector implies that they are up to date and are concerned about delivering exceptional services to their clients. However, in order to yield more fruits, the use of this software should be properly organized to comply with the international set standards stipulated by the Workflow Management Coalition, Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards and World Wide Web Consortium (Ramtin, 2000). If this happens, then the major objectives of this software will be realized as it will be effective in automating services in these facilities and helping the employees to save on time that would then be used to perform other tasks. Moreover, this software is beneficial because it can benefit the organization in many ways (Whaples, 2001). First, it is more accurate as compared to the manual system. Meaning, if properly used, it will yield positive results. Besides, it can help the management of these facilities to minimize the costs of production. This is because a single task which was initially handled by many employees would be easily managed by the software. Moreover, it would promote efficiency and accuracy because it can be used to accurately receive, filter, sort and retrieve accurate data which can be relied upon whenever need arises. As a highly advanced technology, the use of this software requires mathematical skills so as to be in a position of operating and appropriately activating the multiple nodes and dependencies embedded on it (Bajaj, 2009). Thus, it is upon the management to offer educational and training services to their staff in order to sensitize them on how the technology can be fused and effectively used as part of the entire system within the organization. Without such trainings, no one can know how to operate the software. Therefore, it will mean that its adoption will be futile (Ayres et al., 2002). Workflow Software and Job Loss According to a series of previous researches, one of the major threats of technological advancements is that it leads to tremendous loss of jobs. With the advent of computer technology, several people have lost their jobs. This is because their services have been replaced by the computers which are even performing them better, faster, accurately and more efficiently than they would otherwise do unless the computer crushes (Ayres, 2008). Whenever there is anything new, it has to come with benefits and drawbacks. As for modern technology, many people have cried foul of losing their careers. This justifies why several scholars claim that not everyone can benefit from technology. As much as they have overall benefits, they cause pain and agony to a small section of the workforce whose services are rendered obsolete. Since the introduction of workflow software, in the hospitality sector, many employees have suffered a great deal. Obviously, the automation of activities in this sector has led to loss of many jobs. A lot of employees have been rendered jobless since they can either not cope up with the new system or are no longer required because most of the activities which they were doing are now done by the computer system. Meaning, even if many organizations are embracing the use of this technology, it has negatively impacted on most of their employees who are likely to be replaced by these machines as most of the time, they will not get any work to do. The most affected class of workers in the hospitality sector is the middle managers. These are employees who are placed between the top management and the subordinates. In other words, they are departmental heads who are charged with the responsibility of supervising and coordinating all the activities within their respective departments. This implies that they are skilled people who have the required academic, professional and experiential qualifications for their roles (Ayres et al., 2002). Among the most significant middle class managers whose jobs are threatened by the automation of the services in the hospitality sector include, but not limited to the back office assistants, café manager, catering manager, catering sales manager, director of sales, director of marketing, director of maintenance, director of operations, events manager, executive house keeper, transport coordinator, shift manager, weeding coordinator, human resource manager, room service manager, reservationist manager, room manager, lead house keeper, hotel deposit clerk and the public relations manager (Hartness, 2007). These are officers, who are charged with the responsibility of organizing, planning, staffing, organizing and supervising the activities of the employees who work under them. To begin with, the adoption of workflow software in the accounts department has contributed to the loss of jobs to the accountants and account clerks. Unlike it was before, all the operations of this department were manually conducted. Meaning, the management had to hire lots of officers to help in making financial statements and other important records that are required by the management. Whenever such tasks were to be performed, a lot of workers had to be coordinated and organized by the Accounts Manager. However, this would be a very difficult task especially if the organization was quite bigger and had several branches (Noble, 2004). However, with the introduction of this software, everything is now automated. Meaning, just a few employees are now required. This is because most of the activities which were done by the several accountants and their clerks are now automated. Therefore, they are no longer necessary in the company. In fact, they are now regarded as a burden since they have no value to add to the organization. Any engagement with them would be unnecessary because they have been rendered jobless. Instead, all the accounting activities can be perfectly and effectively managed by the software in collaboration with the few remaining staff. In addition to that, it is important to point out that the advent of workflow software has greatly impacted on the customer service department. Before it was introduced into the system, the management of each hospitality facility had to put in place a team of professional personnel to manage the activities of the department. Such officers would be charged with bridging the gap between the organization and its clients who would be making phone calls to make inquiries or seek for certain clarifications regarding the services rendered to them by the organization (Ayres et al., 2002). As the number of the number of clients to attend to increased, more agents were employed by the top management. Meaning, as the organization expanded, it had to feel a pinch of recruiting additional staff especially in this department. However, with the invention of the workflow software, things have since changed. Instead of relying on human resources to attend to the clients, several organizations have resorted into using the software to deal with the activities of this department. Meaning, the telephone system has been automated to the extent that there is no longer any need of employing human attendants. Instead, sophisticated and well-coordinated electronic gadgets have been installed to act as ‘agents.’ Despite their non-human nature, these ‘agents’ are able to perfectly and intelligently use the coded information to respond to phone calls from different categories of clients (Hartness, 2007). This is a clear proof that the use of workflow software has directly contributed to the loss of employment opportunity by the customer relation agents who were initially connecting clients with the organization. Lastly, I would like to clarify that the adoption of this software has resulted into the loss of jobs by the members of the accommodation and reservation department. Unlike it was done before, many clients have reported into the use of computer in the booking and making of reservations whenever they need to use any service provided by these organizations (Easterly, 2001). Meaning, almost everything is now being done online. Therefore, instead of employing executive housekeepers, reservation officers and their respective assistants, just a few staff needs to be hired to help in collecting the information from the clients. This is a cost effective endeavor because it saves a lot of money for these organizations (Binfield, 2004). Obviously, if clients are booking for their places online, it is not appropriate for the management to continue relying on these staff. After all, they are no longer useful as no one relies on their services any more. This is a clear indication of how technology has resulted into loss of employment opportunities by several middle managers who were initially making imminent contributions towards the success of this highly lucrative sector. Conclusion Automation of services is a brilliant idea. It has helped the hospitality sector to improve the quality of service delivery. A part from being faster, it is cheaper and more convenient to use. Unlike human resources, the workflow software is very accurate. Thus, it can be relied upon and preferred to human laborers. However, it is not appropriate because it results into loss of job opportunities. Since it is used in replacement of laborers, it has made a lot of middle managers who were initially used to offer several services to these facilities to lose their job positions. Hence, even if it is gaining popularity, a lot of considerations should be made on how best to use them without necessary laying-off a lot of employees. References Ayres, R.U. 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