Tourism Human Resources

Human Resources Context

• Human resources serve as key resource inputs in any organizational process.
• The hospitality and tourism sectors are typically labor intensive.
• Managing human resources is critical in these sectors.
• Analyzing human resources is an important part of the strategic analysis.
• A resource audit is a widely used tool for analyzing human resources.

The Importance of Human Resources

• The labor-intensive service sectors rely on the human factor.
• The human factor is a key differentiator between competing organizations,
• Employees can be important for an organization's strategic success.
• This makes them critical success factors (CSF).
• People are a crucial resource, especially in service-based organizations.
• Human resources are key in delivering successful performance.

Employment and Working Conditions

• The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) estimated 255 million jobs are supported by travel and tourism in 2012.
• Travel and tourism support about one in every 12 jobs.
• 48 per cent of worldwide travel and tourism jobs during 2011.

Factors Affecting Labor Supply & Demand

• Distinctive size and composition characterize the workforce in tourism and hospitality.
• These sectors often have a large proportion of female and young employees.
• There is often a significant number of part-time and seasonal workers.
• The sectors struggle with high staff turnover rates and recruitment difficulties.
• Characterized by poor levels of training and relatively low pay.
• There is a high mobility of labor between different employers and locations.
• Working patterns often involve work at nights and weekends.
• Volunteer workforce is important, especially for large events.

Staff Retention and Motivation

• Managers must recruit and retain talented staff and maintain work-life balance.
• Employers can offer training, career progression, travel incentives, pay raises, and bonuses.
• Employers need to pay particular attention to job design.
• Job design can be improved through job enlargement, rotation, enrichment, and sharing.
• Job enlargement involves giving employees a wider variety of tasks to make their jobs more interesting.
• Job rotation involves rotating employees jobs between them so that teamwork is encouraged.
• Through job rotation knowledge and skills are gained, and everyone shares less popular tasks.
• Job enrichment involves giving employees more discretion or empowerment.
• Job sharing involves sharing jobs between two or more employees.
• Job sharing provides cover for staff leave or sickness absences.

Guest-Employee Encounter

• Managing the guest/customer-employee encounter is both difficult and critical for managers.
• Success in fast-moving, labor-intensive service industries requires the ability to understand people.
• Success also requires the abilities to learn and adapt to change.

Human Resources and Service Quality

• Service quality can offer a competitive advantage.
• Service quality depends on the quality and attitude of owners, managers, and employees.
• Human skills used during service encounters are important.
• HR contributes to sustained competitive advantage by developing firm-specific competencies.
• Services are intangible.
• They are also produced and consumed simultaneously, usually at the service provider's location.
• Customers are present and often participate in the service, leading to interpersonal interaction.

The Five Dimensions of Service Quality

• The acronym 'RATER' can be used to remember the five dimensions of service.
• Responsiveness is the willingness to help customers and provide prompt service.
• Assurance is the knowledge and courtesy of employees, and their ability to convey trust and confidence.
• Tangibles are the appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials.
• Empathy is the caring, individualized attention the company provides to its customers.
• Reliability is the ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.

Gaps in Service Quality

• The gap between customer expectations and their perceptions may be due to four possible gaps.
• Gap 1: Management is unaware of what guests expect.
• Gap 2: Management is unwilling or unable to meet or exceed customer expectations through service-quality standards.
• Gap 3: Employees are unable or unwilling to perform the service at the desired level.
• Gap 4: Promises do not match delivery.

Addressing Service Quality Gaps

• Management should identify effective strategic options to close gaps.
• Adopt a sequential five-step approach that addresses the four gaps.
• Identify whether or not a problem exists.
• Manage customer expectations to be realistic with the service offering (Gap 4).
• Identify customer needs and expectations of quality service (Gap 1).
• Develop service quality standards based on customer expectations (Gap 2).
• Re-evaluate the human resource system to hire, train, and motivate employees for quality service (Gap 3).
• Gaps may be closed using the ‘five Rs’ individually or in combination.
• The five Rs are retirement, retraining, redeployment, redundancy, and recruitment.

Organizational Culture

• Organizational culture is a set of beliefs, customs, practices, and ways of thinking.
• These beliefs are shared through being and working together.
• Organizational culture assumptions are accepted without question.
• Culture manifests through behavior, symbols, myths, stories, sounds, and artifacts.

Importance of Organizational Culture

• Culture affects all aspects of an organizations activities.
• Culture can influence employee motivation, attractiveness as an employer, and staff turnover.
• It has an influence on employee morale and 'goodwill' as well as productivity and efficiency.
• Culture has an influence on the quality of work and nature of employee relations.
• Furthermore culture has influence on employee attitude in the workplace, innovation, and creativity.

The Cultural Web

• The Cultural Web includes Stories, Routines and rituals, Symbols, Structure, Control systems, and Power structures.
• Stories are narratives employees share with each other, new recruits, and outsiders.
• They recount events and people, victories, and defeats.
• These highlight what is important to the organization.
• Routines are repeated procedures.
• Rituals have a longer timeframe.
• Formal routines and rituals include “long service award” or sporting events.
• Informal include behavior at events or after-work drinks.
• Symbols symbolize something to certain people.
• Examples can include level of promotion, company car, office location, and job title.
• Employee response to symbols can reveal culture.
• Structure can be formal relationships on the diagram.
• Informal structures exist through interpersonal relationships.
• Control systems control and align to culture.
• They link to power distance and the organization's activities.
• Performance is gauged against standards, and methods vary by culture.
• Power structures are the most powerful management groupings in the organization.
• Power may reside in the research department, production, or other departments
• Disagreements about importance may occur between groupings.