TLH314 International Hospitality Management CRITICALLY EVALUATE THE IMPORTANCE OF STAFF TRAINING IN HOTEL INDUSTRY Truong Hoai Dan Thanh Student ID: 129148003 Batch number: BTTD5_1315A BSc (Hons) International Tourism and Hospitality Management The University of Sunderland Date of Submission: 24th July 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION:…………………………………………………………………………….1 1. Background of information…………………………………………………………….1 2. Aim of the study……………………………………………………………………… 1 II. HOTEL’S CHARACTIERISTICS:………………………………………………………… 2 III. HOTEL’S CLASSIFICATION………………………………………………………………2 1. By function:……………………………………………………………………………2 2. By star ratings………………………………………………………………………….2 IV. SERVICE QUALITY IN HOTELS………………………………………………………… 3 V. HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT…………………………………………………….3 1. Definition………………………………………………………………………………3 2. Roles of HRM………………………………………………………………………….4 3. Aims of Training……………………………………………………………………….5 VI. STAFF TRAINING IN HOTEL INDUSTRY……………………………………………… 6 1. Staff training………………………………………………………………………… 6 2. The importance of staff training……………………………………………………….6 3. Benefits of staff training……………………………………………………………….6 4. The process of staff training………………………………………………………… 8 5. Types of staff training……………………………………………………………… 12 VII. STAFF TRAINING IN AN INTERNATIONAL & GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE………13 VIII. CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………… 14 List of tables & figures………………………………………………………………………… 15 References:………………………………………………………………………………………16 TLH 313 – International Hospitality Management 1 I. INTRODUCTION: 1. Background of information: Nowadays, our world keeps changing faster and faster. To be able to keep up with the trend, the best use of personnel’s capacities is becoming important to the business of any organization. Hence, HRM is now playing an important roles in the organization that means people working in HR Department have to be aware of facing and dealing the implication of internationalization, globalization, workforce diversity, lack of labor force, technical changes, the contingent workforce, evaluation of working performance and many current employee’s requirement. If there is any changing of above factors, the operation of whole business could be affected. So, preparing and taking control these problems are extremely important to HR Department (Christina Pomoni, 2009) One of indispensable and necessary parts of HRM is staff training. “The importance and staff training has been recognized. Consider a popular and often repeat the quotation: ‘Give a person a fish, you have to fish him a day. Teach a person to fish, you will give him for a lifetime’ ”. (Mccleland, 2002). What the person said is to explain properly how important the staff training is. It is rather to train the staff how to conquer their work than just provide a job for their income. Staff training is not only for management to understand properly about their staff, but also a method for staff to be more professional in what they do. Besides, staff training gives many benefits to both employees and employers. The right training will help employees transfer their knowledge to work effectively. As we all know that, hotel is the place where many types of service offered. Hotel industry is also a field attracting many people to work. Working in hotel is about providing service to our customers. Not all employees in hotel industry have experience in their working because some of them are fresh-graduated; some have no related education about hotel industry. That is why staff training in hotel industry is so important for employees. 2. Aim of the study: The main aim of this assignment is to talk about the Human Resource Management (HRM)’s definition, staff training and how important the staff training is to hotel industry. The assignment will give a clear overview about what roles of HRM, how the staff training process works, types of staff training, as well as benefits obtained from staff training to employees and also the whole organization. The example given will be about staff training of Marriott hotel in Hochiminh city, Vietnam. TLH 313 – International Hospitality Management 2 II. HOTEL’S CHARACTERISTICS: Hotel defined in term of World Tourism Organization (2000) is: “There are typified as being arranged in rooms, number exceeding a specific minimum; as coming under a common management; as providing certain services including room service, daily bed making and cleaning of sanitary facilities; as group in class according to the facilities and service provided” Butler (1997) has states that hotel is about “boarding-house”. Inns or guests’ house with bed and breakfast (B&B) included in unclassified hotels, as well as 1 2 3 4 5-star hotels. Hotels can be different from: - Location: coastal, countryside or cities… - Standard: unclassified to 5-star hotels or resorts - Ownership” independent, franchised or group-oriented Besides, Knowles (1998) also says that hotel industry structure may vary considerable. According to him “star classification of hotels is essentially a guides to the type of hotels, indicating the character of the accommodation and service it sets to provide. It is based on a minimum requirement for each star rating level” III. HOTEL’S CLASSIFICATION: There are two ways for hotel’s classification: by function or by star ratings 1. By Functions: Hotel can be classified in many types, which depend on its function in the industry - Commercial hotel: hotels that standardized service and amenity structure. - Conference hotel: a specialized of hotel which is designed and built exclusive to host conference, exhibition, seminars and provides office facilities, as well as leisure activities (Business dictionary) - Economy hotel: hotel offering few amenities (J.K. Krishan, 2008) - Casino hotel: an establishment which a combines casino and a hotel or a building with both casino and hotel - Resort hotel: this type of hotel is located in an attractive and natural tourism destination. The attraction depends on the region; some resorts offer golf, tennis, and scuba diving and also depend on natural surrounding, there will be other recreational activities. Clienteles are groups or couples that like adventure with sophistication and comfort. 2. By Star rating: Hotels can be also classified by star rating as follow: - Five - star hotel: it will be a luxury and the most expensive hotel/resorts. Some will also have own golf course and even small private airport (“Hotel Glossary of Terms”, Marsh) Example: Marina Bay Sands (Singapore), Resort World Sentosa (Singpore) - Four-star hotel: it can be called first class hotel that has luxury services like massages, health spa (“Hotel Glossary of Terms”, Marsh) Examples: Novotel, Amara (Singapore), New Majestic (Singapore) - Three-star hotel: it is known as middle class hotel with daily maid service, dry-cleaning, Internet access and swimming pool. (“Hotel Glossary of Terms”, Marsh) Examples: Bay View hotel (Singapore), Value hotel (Singapore) TLH 313 – International Hospitality Management 3 - Two-star hotel: there will be budget hotel, slightly more expensive and usually with daily maid service. (“Hotel Glossary of Terms”, Marsh) Examples: 81-chain hotel (Singapore) - One – star hotel: it is a low budget hotel, inexpensive and may not have maid or room service. (“Hotel Glossary of Terms”, Marsh) - No categorized hotel: there are included hotels, cottages, bungalows and other guests’ house with limited services. (“Hotel Glossary of Terms”, Marsh) IV. SERVICE QUALITY IN HOTELS: In hotel industry, service quality in one of the most effective strategies that is adopted and applied in many hotels in the world (Ankan, 1995; Dean et al, 1999; Qu and Tsang, 2000). Service quality plays an important role in: - Improving guests convenience like accessible rest room, shuttle service with comfortable seats; add to guest satisfaction that encourages guest to extend their staying - Enhancing service provider’s image: Wuest (2001) points that 1-star hotel offer limited service to reduce its overall cost while 5-star hotel provide almost imaginable service to the guests - Establishing a competitive edge: with creative ideas and strongly understand what the guests need and desire, hotel service provider can be developing, innovate and extensive service strategies (“The New Imperative, 1998, p.54) - Customer demand: people always expect the amenities of home like cable TV, newspaper delivery, coffee and breakfast, fitness facilities and laundry (Wolff, 1998) Particularly, it is about 5-star Marriott hotel in Hochiminh city, Vietnam. The hotel was opened in 27 th September 2007. There are 22 floors with 320 room and 10 suites, as well as different kinds of facilities and service available. At the level 1, there are a cafeteria selling cake, junk food and beverages; and a small gift shop. A concierge and reception of the hotel are located there also. Here, whenever any guest comes, they will be warmly welcomed and offer a “welcome” drink with candies that will bring about good first impression of the hotel’s service when they leave. There will be a business center where guests will be provided services like fax, photocopy, tourism information, booking and check-in flights, together with meeting at conference room which can contain maximum 500 people at 2 nd level. The hotel’s restaurant at level 3 will open from 6:30am to 11:00pm and offer buffet, as well as ala carte menu. From level 4 to 20, it is for rooms and suites. Spa and gym are located at 21 th level. One unique thing of the hotel is rooftop swimming pool with a bar nearby which is gorgeous view and relaxing for guests. V. HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (HRM): 1. Definition: HR is about managing people within a business or an organization. HRM was described as a policy and practice that involve in carrying out people or HR aspect of a management position that include recruiting, training, evaluating, appraising and rewarding (Gary & Dessler, 2006, p.4). According to Dessler (2007), the policy and practice of HRM include the conducting of job analysis, selecting suitable and qualified candidates, orientation for new employees, providing training and developing program, as well as giving benefits and awards to employees. TLH 313 – International Hospitality Management 4 It can be said that HRM is a mixture of different aspects and HRM should be proactive to manage people to achieve practical solutions to real work problem that lead to help to ensure the continuous organizational success (Alan Price, 2007, pp.30-31) 2. Roles of HRM: HRM plays a very important role in managing people of an organization. Dessler (2006) has described the three roles of HRM as (1) job analysis, (2) recruiting, (3) training and evaluating. Since HRM is an organized team, everyone in the team will have his/her own responsibilities. (1) Job Analysis: “Job analysis is the procedure that you will determine the duties of the jobs and the characteristics of who should be hired for them” (Dessler, 2006) The basic of all departmental activities is job analysis. In job analysis, HRM will consider what jobs are being needed that lead to job description and tasks of job, as well as responsibilities and duties for the jobs will be clarified. Besides, the person taking over of writing job specification need to be clear about which skills, knowledge and attitudes or abilities are required. Job analysis Job description Job specification Task Responsibilities Duties Knowledge Skills Attitudes/ Abilities (2) Recruiting: By following the job analysis, HR staff will be responsible for recruiting people. They should know how many and what kind of people are to be hired. Recruiting can be internal or external. Employees hired from inside of an organization or transferring among branches, or any kind of promotion are called internal recruitment. Hiring employees outside an organization by using media, advertisement…is external recruitment (Woods, 2006) Table 1: Job analysis TLH 313 – International Hospitality Management 5 Table 2: Sources of recruitment (3) Training & Evaluating: Once selecting of new employees is successfully done, HR needs to train them on the job. An orientation will be held in the beginning. Next, there will be a suitable training program provided to the new employees also to make them get acquainted with the work. That will lead to their fluent working later. Dessler (2006) says that it is necessary to have an appraisal performance for employees in a period of working time. The evaluation will encourage employees to work hard and better in the future that also motivate them to improve their skills and abilities by giving awards, promotion or compensation. 3. Aim of Training: Different people will offer different skills, knowledge and abilities in work that can or cannot fit to an organization’s needs. Some people dedicate to work, while some others just consider work as their stable income. Hence, the HRM’s main aim is to fill up the gap between real working performance and the business’s requirements to achieve greater organization’s successes (Price, 2007) Amstrong (1992) has stated that HRM’s aim is to achieve organization’s objectives by utilizing, training and developing employees. It is to motivate employees to work better, also help to create good conditions of working and establish environment for them to express their working abilities, as well as creativities and energy. The objective of HRM is integrating HR policies with plans and strategies for organization’s business. The HRM of Marriott understands that adequate training will bring about better attitudes of work to their employees, also help them be used to work task and avoid possible accidents. According to them, to training every employees individually is impossible because of their different and separated time of being hired by the hotel, hence it will be cost efficient and better to organize training a group of new employees (Assistant HR Manager, 2009) TLH 313 – International Hospitality Management 6 VI. STAFF TRAINING IN HOTEL INDUSTRY: “Training is the process that provide employees with the knowledge and skills required to operate within the system and standards set by management” (Sommerville, 2007, p.208) According to Mccleland (2002, pp.154-155), training is defined as an activity, which changes behavior of people. Since staff training is one of Human Resource Management’s important activities, nowadays, there are more and more organization realizing how important it is to keep training in a complex and changing workplace environment. 1. Staff training: In current hotel business, it is about competence in people, especially about qualities of employees. The qualities of employees are depended on the level of service quality. Hence, staff training is very necessary for survival and development of hotels. It makes productivity increase and also employees can get professional knowledge, experienced skills, as well as, motivate them by providing needed information in work that help them understand more about how important their jobs are (Yafang Wang, 2008) Dennis and Nickson (2007) describe that training and development can be considered as a key factor in the implementation of Human Resource Management Policy and Practice. Staff training is always included as an important development strategy of successful hotels. 2. The importance of staff training: Since staff training has an important part in hotel industry and also the key function of Human Resource Management, it becomes a path of encouraging employees to work, as well as increase productivities of the business (Mccleland, 2002) Together with technologies’ development and business environment, employees, today, are required to be more and more high qualified and skilled. Even though you can be good today, tomorrow you would be able to be out of the line if you do not keep studying to improve yourself. Hence, staff training is needed for employees to compete among themselves with others. (Yafang Wang, 2008) Training is one of main aspects that include principles at working, professional skills and knowledge. Staff training offers employees these essentials. It also helps business requirement and personal abilities to match with each other (Train01, 2009). Lack of training of poor training will lead to high labor turnover or the delivery of substandard products, as well as services (Sommerville, 2007) As such a large hotel like Marriott with many good services provided, the HRM knows that it is requirements to the hotel to have good staff that can help the hotel improve service quality. To get this, hotel staff training is needed so the staff will be good and professional at skills, knowledge and attitudes when working and being able to provide the best services to guests. 3. Benefits of staff training: The capabilities of employees are affected by staff training, which also strengthens their competitive advantages. Professional abilities, as well as personal characteristics can be improved by effective training program. Not only employees, but organization and management also benefit from staff training. Besides, guests and customer benefit, as well because of the received quality of products and services (Sommerville, 2007) TLH 313 – International Hospitality Management 7 Moreover, training is also regarded as the improvement in employees’ skills. It can make positive contribution to the employees’ empowerment. Some specifics benefits were identified by Amstrong (1992) and Kenny et at (1990): In Marriott hotel, Vietnam, hotel staff will be introduced about each hotel’s department. Then staff will have chances to discuss various topics daily about beverage knowledge, table knowledge, customer service knowledge…and of course, training of English is also involved twice a week with skills of reading, speaking, and listening. Most topics given to discuss are about hotel industry. These above activities will be planned, design and organized by Marriott’s HR department. When being asked about the training’s benefits, two-thirds of hotel’s staff say it is “to motivate and help them perform work better, achieve closer their personal goals”, they also consider this factor as the most important of staff training. Half of the rest says it is “to help organizational growth” and the rest is “encouraging of self development and self confident”. Few employees said they did not get self - confident and self - development at all. When designing the training program, the HRM always thinks about the benefits given to not only the employees, but also the organization and management. Benefits for employees: - Increasing of their job satisfaction and recognition: What is about work will be introduced clearly to employees during the training. From that, employees will know properly how and what to do, what role the job will play in the business of the organization. So the employees can understand their works best. - Encouraging of self development and self-confident for employees: After being trained, employees will understand what role their jobs play and how important the jobs are with adequate information, experiences and knowledge obtained from the training time. They will feel more confident with work they are about to do and can provide better services - Motivating employees to achieve close their personal goals: During the training time, not only professional skills and knowledge are gained, employees also are brooded the choices on setting their career target. They will have the opportunities to know about other positions, as well as increase their abilities of getting promotion. - Making employees more effective in work: By learning from practical experiences, the employees will get knowledge of how to choose right methods to solve problems or complaints of customers and guests. And also by training, employees get acquainted with the work tasks, advanced high technologies that help them more effective in improving their capabilities, as well as make productivity increase. Benefits for management and organization: - Aids in evaluation of employee’s performance: People taking responsibilities for training staff need to find out the employees when training. So that good results can be obtained by getting to know properly who is quick learner and has better knowledge, skills then different types of training can be chosen and applied correctly. Besides, when training starts, employees will be provided all principles and policies of the hotels, so hotel can sustain more standards and system to help the training effectively. TLH 313 – International Hospitality Management 8 - When training considers safety training as an integral part of the program, the outcome would be in term of health ad safety at workplace - Level of labor turnover and costs of redundancy schemes and recruitment can also be reduced once displaced staff is retrained. - When a good understanding of organization’s mission and objectives are achieved through training, identification with the organization will be fostered. Here, Marriott has its own training program that is called key to success. The training program is divided in levels. The lowest level will be about introduction of hospitality and service for employees so they can understand about hotel’s culture and service. Next, a test will be given about hotel’s service and other safety issued to check how much they understand about hotel industry’s operation. Next levels will be F&B service in room, housekeeping… Depending on the working experience of employees, the test will be more detailed and knowledge. The longer time they work in hotel, the more skillful and professional they are and the higher level they will have to achieve. The HRM of the hotel believe training program will help to improve the quality and abilities of employees and also bring benefits to themselves, as well as the hotel’s business.(SKNVibes business 2006.) 4. The process of staff training Poor and inadequate training will become a source of frustration for anyone involved. To maximize the benefits of training, HRM needs to closely monitor the training process (Fitzgerald, W.1992) According to Margaret Foot and Caroline Hook (2002), all people involved in training and development at work need to be aware of key stages in the training process which is often referred as the training process. Besides, Boydell (1983) has defined training as systematic process of intervention to improve the current skills, knowledge and attitude. There are 4 phases in the process: (1) Access training needs, (2) Design of training, (3) Implementation, and (4) Evaluation of training. Table 3: The Training process (Boydell, 1983) [...]... will be required to develop - Task/occupational level: what any individual needs to know and clearly understand and to be able to do in their jobs - Individual employees/person needs: individual training needs exist to extent that there is a gap between skills, knowledge and attitude All information for training needs can be conducted from supervisors’ management, customer or other sources like survey,... Hospitality Management: An Introduction, 2nd edition, Longman, New York 24 Margaret Foot, Caroline Hook, 2002 Introducing Human Resource Management Modular texts in business and economics, 3rd edition Finacial Times/ Prentice Hall 25 Michael Armstrong, 1992 Human Resource Management Strategy & Action London Kogan Page 26 Qu,H & Tsang, N 2000, 'Service quality in China's hotel industry: a perspective from... Edition Prentice Hall Inc 18 Ian Beardwell, Len Holden & Tim Claydon 2004 Human Resource Management A th Contemporary Approach 4 edition England Pearson Education Limited nd 19 John R Walker 2007 Introduction to Hospitality Management 2 Pearson Education, Inc Edition New Jersey 20 Kenny, J., Reid, M and Donnelly, E (1990) Manpower Training and Development, London: Institute of Personnel Management... contemporary Perspecive (1st edition) , London: Pitman publishing 6 Bolton T, (1997), "Human Resource Management An Introduction", Blackwell Publishers Ltd, UK 7 Boydell, T.H (1983), A Guide to the identification of Training Needs, London: Brtish Association for Commercial and Industrial Education 8 Buttle, F 1997, Hotel and Food Service Marketing: A Managerial Aproach, Casel, London 9 Chen, Ying 2004 New... Interventions, 5th edition, London: IDP th 29 Robert H Woods 2006 Managing hospitality Human Resources 4 Educational Institute American Hotel & Lodging Association Edition USA 30 Susan, D Mcclelland 2002 The Graduate School University of Wesconsin Stout A Training Needs Assessment for the United Way of Dunn County Wisconsin 31 The New Imperative: Customer centric management, 1998, Lodging Hospitality, p.54(5)... design are critical elements which should be written properly so it can be decided con the contents, methodologies and durations of the program (3) Implementation of training: The design of training needs can be said to take into account the type of learning objectives and the individual; learning styles of learners Reid and Barrington (1997) suggest a list of methods that can be used for decision relating... Hospitality Management VIII CONCLUSION: In hotel industry, now, HRM is very important and necessary when dealing with people A good relationship between employees and management is one of basic requirements for an enterprise The most effective way to improve employees is staff training Therefore, today, staff training is considered much in any hotel industry, as well as any kind of business organization... training to be effective, it is necessary to discern the training needs not only for the individual and group but also how their needs fit the overall organizational objective” (Beardwell & Holden, 1994, p.340) Training need can be done through three levels: organizational needs, tasks/occupational needs and individual employees/person needs (Boydell, 1983) Stewart (1999, p.149) has defined these three... organization: visit and secondments to competitors or clients External course: courses run by external provider that may bring about formal qualification and accreditation Self-management learning: individual employee will be involved in their selfdevelopment and encouraged to reflect on their learning requirements 9 TLH 313 – International Hospitality Management (4) Evaluation of training: It is the final... organization It brings about benefits like shortening of time to study, increasing effectiveness of work, helping the company and employees themselves to compete with the fast changing global environment, also reducing of wastage and damages From the case of the Marriott hotel in Hochiminh city, Vietnam; it can be said that the training is very important and need to be considered However, there are still problem . their working because some of them are fresh-graduated; some have no related education about hotel industry. That is why staff training in hotel industry is so important for employees. 2. Aim. Task/occupational level: what any individual needs to know and clearly understand and to be able to do in their jobs - Individual employees/person needs: individual training needs exist to extent. An Introduction", Blackwell Publishers Ltd, UK 7. Boydell, T.H. (1983), A Guide to the identification of Training Needs, London: Brtish Association for Commercial and Industrial Education