Human Resource Management for Tourism, Sports and Creative Industries - Essay Example

Human Resource Management for Tourism, Sports and Creative Industries Table of Contents Introduction 3 Theories and practices of HRM 3 Human ResourceManagement for Tourism, Sports and Creative Industries 7 Conclusion 10 Reference 12 Introduction In today’s scenario, HRM in Tourism, Sports and Creative Industry are having tough and reckoning time in terms of key issues faced by the HR related to lack of standardized HR practices, unskilled workers and high attrition rate. In Tourism, Sports and Creative Industry, HRM is an essential function of the organization that deals with recruiting the potential candidates for the job motivating the unskilled workers in the workplace. In short, it is the process of motivating and compensating the employees towards a planned approach. HRM in Sports and Creative sector relies on recruiting and retaining the appropriate volunteers in the workplace whereas in HRM in Tourism Industry relies on the effective HR practices. However, today human resource in tourism, sports and creative industries are facing the challenges in recruiting, retaining the committed employees and motivating the skilled workers in the workforce, which is focused on offering high quality service to the customers (Armstrong, 2009, p.4-5). Theories and practices of HRM Before starting the discussion on how effective human resource management could contribute to the success of event industry, Bratton and Gold (1990) have done a critical analysis on the theory and practices of HRM in the areas of performance management, recruitments and selection and training and development. In the present day globalization, the different areas of industry have undergone a sea change. The Chinese companies are facing the competitions with American companies; the American companies are facing the competitions with the Europe, India and everywhere. There is no monopoly. Hence, for the survival of any industry a high degree of professional management is required at every stage of processing. However, HRM is the vital question that is to be applied at all event management, and there are various types of event industry, which might be either Tourism or can be Sports or anything. The span of activities of HRM starts from the scope of work to the management of international human resources. The literature of Human Resource Management Journal by Bratton and Gold had presented the hard and soft skills of the HRM in different fields of HR practices. The hard skills of HRM focus on the business and the HR strategy in order to help the organization achieve its company strategic goals. On the contrary, the soft skill emphasizes on the training and development of the unskilled employees. However, HRM for Tourism, Sports and Creative Industry plays an essential role in the corporate, professional, social and national level. At the corporate level, HRM can help the enterprise to increase the organization effectiveness and retaining the best talents through effective human resource planning, recruitment, compensation and promotion policies. At the professional level, effective management of human resource helps to maintain sound human relations by supporting and improving the various conditions and facilities. At the societal level, effective human resource practices utilize the scarce talents in the best way and maintaining a balance between the jobs available and job seekers in terms of education qualifications, needs and aptitudes. Last but not the least at the national level, effective management of human resources helps the enterprise to deal with the changes in the economic growth, which in turns leads to higher standards of living. Therefore, development of the nation depends on the values and beliefs of the people (Durai, 2010, p.3-4). Recent reviews of the literature points out Paauwe (2004), contributions in the number of theories and practice of HRM for Tourism, Sports and Creative Industry towards the particular areas of performance management, recruitment, selection and training, and development. The strategic theory of HRM focuses on firm’s business strategy, HRM system and HRM policies and procedures. In addition, it helps the firms in formulating and executing the HR systems in order to achieve the company’s strategic aims and superior performance. The descriptive theory of HRM describes the overarching values and the outcomes of the system approach. The normative theory of HRM establishes organization norms and standards in order to high performance work system in the workplace. The AMO theory of HRM applies the variables of performance management in the workplace in order to achieve the high performance of the employees in future. The variables of performance management system are ability, motivation and opportunity. Thus, these variables of performance management help the enterprise to acquire the employee’s interest and improving the quality of work (Paauwe, 2004, p.54). Furthermore, Boselie, Dietz and Boon (2005), analyzes the literature of HRM on today’s performance based environment, stated that employees naturally expect from their human resource management teams to provide quantifiable facts on their efficiency and effectiveness in the workplace. The performance management system in Tourism, Sports and Creative Industries plays a vital role when it comes to assessing the performance of the employees in the workplace. In addition, Tourism, Sports and Creative industries encourages high performance work system in the organization by providing extensive training to the employees, emphasizing on the improving the quality of work life, removing the barriers between the managers and the workers and selective hiring process. In the AMO theory of HRM, firms apply the formula of performance management in order to influence the employees towards high performance in terms of offering incentives and providing the opportunity to participate. Thus high performance work systems in Tourism, Sports and creative industries will invest more time in training and development of new employees, conducting the performance appraisal system on a regular basis and attracting the qualified applicants for different positions by a selective hiring process (Katou, 2008, p.119-120). In the field of HRM, recruitment and selection have a significant role to play in an organization. It is susceptible because the HR managers need to hire the new employees who are fit for the job. The recruitment and selection process must be strong enough to function excellently when there is insufficient number of candidates in the job market and the process must be effectively helping the organization to reduce the duplication, so that it is easier to spread the cost of new technologies over various departments. Thus, considering the geographical and educational diversity in India, the HR professionals in Tourism, Sports and Creative industry are generally responsible for filling the vacant jobs in the workplace in order to fulfill the large-scale human resource requirements of business (University of Oregon, n.d.). In the field of HRM, now a days, training and development programs are considered as an important tool of HRM, because it helps the organization to control its attrition rate by increasing the job satisfaction level of the employees and bridging the gap between job requirements and employees present specifications. In addition, training improves the poor performance of the employees, changes and moulds the behavior or the attitude of the employees. Thus, training and development in Tourism, Sports and Creative industry will help to develop a better organizational climate and better corporate image in the existing market. On the contrary, if the training is not considered as the velocity centre of the organization then it is difficult to accept that such a company has successfully carried out the effective human resource practices (Daly, 2012, p.131-132). Human Resource Management for Tourism, Sports and Creative Industries According to Bratton and Gold (1990) contributions in theory and practice of HRM, they have stated that HRM is a fundamental function of Sports and Creative Industry, which runs because of loyalty and involvement of the large number of volunteers and smaller number of paid staff. In sports, industry volunteers are generally the backbone of the organization and therefore volunteers need to be considered as a treasured and an important part of workplace. Organizations in the sports and creative sector aims at attracting the appropriate volunteers by providing extensive training and offering rewards for the high performance. Therefore, Sports and Creative industry focuses on attracting and retaining the best volunteers who are committed towards the enterprise and will be productive employees in future. Furthermore, Chelladura (2006) provided his understanding on the different aspects of HRM, bringing into focus the field of recruitment in HRM, and stating that the recruitment process in the Sports sector should provide information related to the job profile to the prospective candidates. In addition, the volunteers need to know about the size and nature of the job and the benefits in terms of rewards and incentives he is going to receive from the organization. While recruiting the volunteers, managers need to highlight on the benefits in terms of offering various rewards to the volunteers rather than focusing on the organization needs. In addition, it has been seen many volunteers furnish their leisure time in order to help the sports organization rather than attracted towards the recruitment campaigns. Hence, selecting and screening the volunteers is a vital part of HRM since screening and selecting the appropriate candidate will benefit the organization growth pattern. Therefore, the recruitment and selection process of Sports Industry ensures that suitable potential volunteers are fitted in the right positions (Chelladura, 2006, p.4). The word Tourism as an industry was quite unknown in India 60 years before. People by nature, have the motivation of roaming from one state to another state, or from one country to another country. In those days, travelling to different places considered as a personal effort of anybody or a group of people going together. Travelling to places like Kerala, Banaras, South Indian temples and hilly places are also very common. Therefore, these people were taking shelter in the houses of pandas at affordable cost but now these days are gone, along with the globalization. In this way Tourism, has become a main industry in areas like Thailand, Australia etc. So in order to manage such a magnitude of business, professional skills have to be developed. In the matter of Tourism, the most important area in the enterprise is the human resource management. Moreover, today the HR department in any organization considered as the nucleus of industry. In Tourism industry, the management of the workforce considered as the backbone of the industry and there are various kinds of workforce namely unskilled, semi skilled, HRD personnel and others, which contributes towards the organization productivity. In addition, the process of recruitment varies from place to place in the tourism industry and at the top the CEO, will have to coordinate all the activities in order to achieve the reputation of the organization along with the profitability for its stakeholders. Compared to the foreign countries, frankly speaking Tourism has not developed in India on a professional basis in places like Goa, Darjeeling, which are still much in a mediocre state. However, the government attitude towards the Tourism industry was so unprofessional that they created the tourism department with unskilled workers at different tourist spots with no future. It seems they have recruited the people in order to give eyewash of helping unemployment crisis in India (United Nations Economic and Social Council, 2005, p.1). To illustrate this point, Lucas (2004) said that today Tourism can be developed as the most profitable industry if they are running on a professional basis. The topography of India is so fine, that in the sea areas management can develop the tourism like Australia, Thailand whereas in the Himalayan areas management can develop the Tourism industry, as Switzerland but all these things need a professional outlook of the stakeholders. The main drawback in Tourism sector is that people do not take the things where the risk element is involved but Tourism can be very profitable especially in India than others and this is an industry where the stakeholders have to make a long term and short term planning. In addition, the responsibility of the HR manager will be finding out the job description of the each of the personnel and sharing it with the different categories of employees in the workforce before recruitment process. The basic fact is that in the matter of management level, there should not be any compromise in the matter of gender, caste etc and that is why today foreign companies are shining much more in the sustainability development. The management needs to know that Tourism does not only mean creating tourist spots and attracting the tourists. It needs to induct various other subsidiaries in the form of horse riding, adventurism and building up a highest rapport in between the host country and its beneficiaries. Therefore, any kind of wrong doings can spoil the market, as people belonging to the society very often finds in Indian newspapers. However, in the Tourism Industry, the HR mangers still finds that the HR practices are not uniform; there is lack of training and development activities and the quality of the working life resulting in high employee’s dissatisfaction and attrition. As far as, HRM in tourism industry is concerned, the reason behind the organization productivity and minimization of output is untrained and de motivated workers in the workforce. Hence, it is high time now for the organizations in the Tourism, Sports and Creative sector to focus on the issues related to lack of unskilled workers and non-competitive pay package, on priority to improve the industry growth pattern in order to contribute towards the societal and economic development of the country (Tourism New South Wales, 2008, p.5-8). In the year 1995, the International Tourism Labor Market Conference stated that Tourism Industries today are facing the adequate shortages of skilled workers in different areas. The basic fact is that in the modern day management, each areas of the HR department have to be managed on a professional basis efficiently. Therefore, HRM in the areas of Sports and Creative Industry have to recruit the professionals in order to succeed in future. Sports Industry can be a part of Tourism also in modern days particularly for the western countries. In fact, with so much of scopes, tourism in the real sense has not developed much. A bright scope has to be there in Tourism when managing the workforce, since HRD play a vital role in the workplace. When recruiting the sports personnel in the different areas of Sports, either in the form of event management or in the form of coach, the HRD has to be determined. Therefore, all these things have to be developed accordingly. Hence, the management should not be unnecessary miser in the terms of availability of highest cadre personnel and remuneration the company can afford (Pedersen, n.d., p.64-65). Conclusion The effective HRM contribution will be for a sustainable development of the organization. The HR department will have to monitor the maximization and the minimization of the output in each of the different areas of activity. In addition, the management has to see that those who contribute to the organization are satisfied with pay packages and the organization culture. In case of European system of management, occasional resignation or dismissal do not speak high of the organization. As a result, the HRM for Tourism, Sports and Creative Industry will have to push their more efforts towards training and development of highly skilled workers in the workforce and improving the organization climate. Reference Armstrong, M. (2009). Human Resource Management Practice. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.murshed.khanhouse.org/education/Armstrongs_Handbook_of_Human_Resource_Management.pdf. [Accessed on May 5, 2012]. Australian Sports Commission. (2000). Volunteer Management Program. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.ausport.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/150031/Recruiting_Volunteers.pdf. [Accessed on May 5, 2012]. Chelladura, P. (2006). Human Resource Management in Sport and Recreation. Library of Congress Cataloging. Daly, J. L. (2012). Human Resource Management in the Public Sector: Policies and Practices. M. E. Sharpe. Durai, P. (2010). Human Resource Management. Dorling Kindersley Pvt. Ltd. Katou, A. A. (2008). Measuring the impact of HRM on organizational performance. [Pdf]. Available at: http://upcommons.upc.edu/revistes/bitstream/2099/7052/1/katou.pdf. [Accessed on May 5, 2012]. Paauwe, J. (2004). HRM and Performance: Achieving Long-Term Viability. Oxford University Press. [Accessed on May 5, 2012]. Pedersen, A. (No Date). Managing Tourism at World Heritage Sites. [Pdf]. Available at: http://whc.unesco.org/uploads/activities/documents/activity-113-2.pdf. [Accessed on May 5, 2012]. Tourism New South Wales. (2008). NSW Tourism Strategy. [Pdf]. Available at: http://archive.tourism.nsw.gov.au/Sites/SiteID6/objLib10/NSW%20Tourism%20Strategy.pdf. [Accessed on May 5, 2012]. United Nations Economic and Social Council. (2005). Major Issues in Tourism Development in the Asian and Pacific Region. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.unescap.org/ttdw/common/Meetings/STD/STD_2E.pdf. [Accessed on May 5, 2012]. University of Oregon. (No Date). Guidelines for Recruitment and Selection. [Online]. Available at: http://hr.uoregon.edu/recruit/recruitment-and-selection/guidelines-recruitment-and-selection. [Accessed on May 5, 2012]. Read More