Leaders in Hospitality

The Hospitality industry is composed on joint associations with multiple organizations. For instance, in the operation of a sizeable hotel, there are other businesses that run in conjunction with the hotel. Such businesses are airline companies, tours and travels, car rental agencies, and other restaurants. This is therefore a very wide industry that incorporates different restaurant industry, tourism industry as well as the miscellaneous industries. the following segments compose the tourism industry; commercial food service provisions, lodging, institutional food service, travel agency services, cruise lines, arena services, casinos, event services, sports complex management, convention hosting and other services that has close links with hospitality. 

In Hospitality one of the most important things understands the art of handling people. This is a very difficult task based on the fact that one needs to some skills to undertake this issue, a positive attitude and inventive management skills. In fact possessing a positive mental attitude is considered one of the most important qualities that a person in the hospitality industry cans posses. This is a career that requires one to go an extra mile, taking care of the last minute requirements, and dedicating all the efforts and time to ensure that the customer is satisfied. Since people form the basis of this business, it should be noted that appreciating the diverse cultural backgrounds as well as the social status can also play a very big role in ensuring the success of the businesses within this industry.

A successful hospitality manager must posses a number of management qualities. Some of these qualities include; ability to listen to others, ability to create a productive environment, hungry and thirsty of success, good communication capabilities, ability to build morale, and appreciating among other things. It should be noted that the hospitality industry is growing at a very fast rate and the competition increases each day. Such a consumer oriented industry with such a growth needs focused people to provide leadership. People with a vision and who are ready to implement some strategic planning to ensure that every new area they go to is left with a positive impact. Proper planning is one of the crucial things that there managers in this industry must be prepared to implement.

Definition and description of the issue or scenario

One of the major challenges facing the hospitality industry across the globe is the difficulty in acquiring as well as retaining an effective workforce with a constant delivery of superior and quality services. This is a problem that most of the hotel as well as entertainment management officials in different places across the globe agree that is a major problem facing this important industry. Though the normal turnover is bound to happen and necessary at times in each and every sector of the economy, the hospitality industry is worse hit by this phenomenon across the globe. The numbers of cases regarding the voluntary separation with the different business that support the industry are very common and this is a matter that needs to be accorded some serious attention. One of the reason why this impacts negatively on the industry is because these voluntary separations impose some hidden costs such impacting on the competitive advantage due to compromised customer service that results to the limited number of employees that are supposed to attend to the clients.

Due to the increased turnover in this industry, there is shortage of skilled labor in the hospitality industry. The fact that the industry has failed to retain professional expertise creates a big shortage. This is because the rate of refilling some of these posts is a difficult and an expensive task based on the fact that not many people are willing to join this particular career. When the turn over is high, there are so many other departments that are left unattended within the different organizations falling under the hospitality industry. Taking for example the management of a restaurant or a hotel, increased turnover will mean that the number of employees that are supposed to attend to the needs of the clients goes down and this will mean that the quality of services will reduce in terms of quality. As a result the customer expectations will not be fulfilled and this might cost the hotel some dependable clients who might turn to the competitors for better services that will give them the value of their money (Yanga & Cherry, 2008).

One of the possible reasons why the rate of turnover is high is poor remuneration. Though the hospitality industry has a boom, the young graduates who join the industry with the hope of achieving great things in life end up being frustrated by the kind of pay that they are promised and most of them spend a very long time before being awarded some kind of promotion. In reference to the performance of the entire industry, the organizations falling under the hospitality industry looks very promising in terms of providing a wonderful place for the young people to build their careers in them but such frustrations will have a negative effect on the performance of these industry based on the fact that these people will go out to look for greener pastures else where leaving the organizations with a shortage of the workforce. When this happens, the hotels for example are affected immensely because apart from the long process of finding a replacement to such employees who turn in their resignation letters, training of new individuals to reach the level of the exiting ones is another process that will take time and extra costs on the organization, an exercise that may cost them some clients and great losses.

The training and development departments in the different organizations in the hospitality industry have become a major challenge. This is one of the method that is meant to maintain the quality of workforce or retaining the rate of performance as well as productivity. It should be noted that the rate of attrition is quite high in the different hotels as well as other related organizations within the industry and as a result, the departments that are meant to cater for the training and development in these organizations should step up their efforts to ensure that this problem is addressed properly (Yanga & Cherry, 2008).

The challenges that the scenario presents to leaders in the Hospitality industry

As mentioned earlier the scenario of facing some difficulties in acquiring as well as retaining effective workforce in the different hospitality organizations posses a number of challenges to the Hospitality Industry leaders. These challenges end up affecting the performance of the organizations and in some cases if not corrected in time, the situations may get worse leading to some businesses being closed down. A number of the challenges that results from the shortage of employees as well as quality workforce are discussed as follows.

One of the major challenges that results from increased turnover is the fact the fulfillment of the customers expectations becomes a major challenge for the organizations. The hospitality industry is one of the industries that are growing at a very high late globally and as a result, the customer expectations across the globe keep on rising at an alarming rate. As a result one of the things that the companies in this industry should keep in mind is focusing on the customer loyalty as well as repeat purchases and these can only be established by fulfillment of the customer's wishes. as mentioned earlier, the quality of services and goods given to the customers in exchange of their money is greatly affected by increased turnover and this posses a major challenge to the management who are supposed to ensure  that the customer's loyalty is maintained (Jayawardena, 2001).

The next challenge is the increased cost of operation to manage the mentioned scenario. In an effort to ensure that the performance of the organization is not affected by the increased turnover in the industry as well as efforts of maintaining continuous training and development exercise to keep up with the competition, the cost of operation goes up (Pine, 1992). This is a major challenge because if this problem is not managed professionally it may cause some serious havoc on the company or even cause an entire corporation to collapse (Jayawardena, 2001). When some employees quit their jobs in the organizations, it means that for these organizations to maintain the quality of services they were giving to the clients, other people with similar qualifications, skills and experience must be recruited to replace the ones exiting the company. With the rate of turnover in the entire industry, finding such a replacement is difficult and expensive and this leads to the company spending some extra money that may not have been budgeted in the first place. Trying to recover the money with the kind of competition the organizations in the industry are facing is not an easy task (Yanga & Cherry, 2008).

Another challenge that the hospitality managers are facing in regard to the scenario is maintaining the quality of workforce due to the accelerated change as well as the merging of technologies. The systems used by the hospitality industry as well as their interfaces are swiftly transforming into the digital world, that incorporates easier as well as more flexible incorporation that allows concise operational data (Pine, 1992).  A good number of hotel managers have embraced the change but their efforts get frustrated along the way by the old systems that have outdated infrastructure. The system needs quite a big investment but unless this is put in place, the full benefits of the system cannot be realized without its installation and therefore the officials need to find ways of ensuring that this is done (Yanga & Cherry, 2008).

There is also the need for continuous education and training of the employees to update them with the new and upcoming technologies so as to maintain a uniform quality of the workforce as well as its productivity. A good number of the contemporary technologies are not properly utilized based on the fact that the employees in the organizations are not conversant with them and this affects the service delivery to their clients. It is also worth noting that the needs and expectations of the customers keep on evolving with time and this poses a major challenge to the management teams in the hospitality industry is being able to satisfy as well as anticipating the customer needs as they evolve. Customers no longer have interests what can be referred to as 'chain mentality' and as a result the management needs to ensure that all these issues are catered for (Yanga & Cherry, 2008).

Presentation of the summary of the findings of 3 scholarly peer-reviewed journals

Articles related to your related to the topic of the scenario

In relation to the issues that have been discussed in this paper regarding the scenario, the following are three scholarly peer-reviewed journal Articles related to your topic.

According to the modern international literature recognizes three main human resource management issues or scenarios that in determining the performance of the hospitality industry world wide both in the contemporary times as well as in the coming future. These are: the quality of service given to the customers, the training and development, and lastly the personnel recruitment as well as selection. This forms the basis of the journal article that seeks to prove the issues mentioned through conducting a survey. The findings were the ones to determine this and these were obtained as a result of a study that was conducted in Taiwan involving different senior managers in the hotel industry. The study was aimed at proving whether the three major human resource management issues that were introduced in the literature really applies in real life situation when it comes to the hospitality industry and in this case the hotels in Taiwan.

According to the results of the study, though a good number of participants pick out these issues as important and demanding, main focus is dedicated towards the operational instead of the tactical solutions in handling these issues. The argument is that both the emerging as well as the current challenges that the industry faces need to be according a human resource management technique that is far much advanced. A good number of the challenges that have been mentioned in the paper are summarized in the three human resource management issues presented by this article (Pine, 1992).

This article is based on the various challenges that are faced by the people in the hospitality industries in the contemporary times. Though written in an educative way, the article addresses these most of the challenges that touch on the scenario that has been discussed in this paper and it's a very educative article to all the students who are taking a course in hospitality.  The article addresses also the major challenges that the educators of the international hospitality management face in trying to understand the multi-ethnic as well as the multi-national mentality of the students.  The article presents a model that will facilitate prolific interactions with some of the host communities in handling the mentioned problem and this can also be used by the people in the hotel business to ensure success of their businesses in foreign countries. The need for research work is emphasized in the article especially for the people wishing to invest in the hotel industry outside their home country.  Towards the end of the article, a nine-point formula is given as part of the recommendations to assist any person who may be involved in international hospitality management education.

This article is based on the technological changes that the tourism industry needs to incorporate in the hospitality industry so as to be able to achieve the needs of the customers. According to the article most of the international hotels are forced to adopt the new technology to be able to sustain the competition in the international market.

This paper seeks to address the issue that seems a challenge especially for the international investors to cope with the kind of technology being used in the foreign country. It should be the local people who should push for the technological advancement that will facilitate the improvement of the services to fit in the global context. With no appropriate consideration to the human aspects in regard to the transfer of technology, triumphant development in the individual hotels as well as new hotel industries are indeed limited.

Methods of how managers can effectively handle the issue/scenario

The above mentioned challenges can be handled in an effective way to ensure that the company is not adversely affected by these challenges. In regard to the increased turnover that leads to compromised delivery of services to the customers, the management needs to review the various policies touching on the comfort of the employees in the company. One of the issues that have been mentioned is regarding the remuneration of the employees (Jayawardena, 2001). Based on the fact that the Hospitality industry is an industry that is doing well, the management should ensure that they pay their employees well. They should know that the employees play a major role in ensuring that the different organizations perform well in the market and as a result, the profits that these organizations make should be equally distributed to the employees in form of better pay. Other policies regarding the comfort of the employees in the organizations should also be catered for in the best manner (Yanga & Cherry, 2008). For example, it is upon the management teams of the hotels and other organizations to ensure the working conditions are kept at the best status as possible and also the employees are motivated properly through various ways to ensure that the rate of turnover is maintained at minimum if possible. Despite this, there will be some few cases of resignations and these should be handled in the best way possible. The employees that exit the company should be replaced by others with in the same level of qualification, skills and experience and if possible higher qualifications and possessing more experience (Jayawardena, 2001). This will ensure that the delivery of goods and services will not be compromised and if anything, it will be enhanced to ensure that the customers do not get to notice a decline in the quality offered by the organization in terms of goods and services (Yanga & Cherry, 2008). Putting in place measures to curb the rate of turnover in the organizations will not only fix the problem of addressing the customers need but will also ensure that the cost of operating and managing these of organization is kept at minimum based on the fact that the cost of replacing exiting employees and training the new ones is a bit costly (Jayawardena, 2001).

There should be ways of increasing or building the morale of the employees in different ways. The managers in the hospitality industry should try their level best to ensure that the employees have the necessary morale in executing their duties. The employees should be given a sense of importance and shown that everything that they do for the organization is much appreciated (Pine, 1992). This will not only promote the productivity of the employees but it will also make them comfortable to work for the organization for an indefinite time based on the stability and motivation they get out of this. It is also worth noting that motivated employees will also ensure that the customers get the best quality of goods and services and as a result, the customers will end up feeling appreciated and get a feeling that they have got the value of their money (Yanga & Cherry, 2008). 

In regard to maintaining of quality of workforce due to the accelerated change as well as the merging of technologies, the management should ensure that the training, research and development teams within the organizations conduct their duties properly and make recommendations to the management in regard to this matter (Jayawardena, 2001). It is also upon the same administration teams to implement some of these recommendations to ensure that the company takes advantage of the emerging technologies to its advantage (Pine, 1992). The companies should also invest a lot in educating their employees on some of these technologies that are meant to benefit them in the long run. The officials should also emphasize on the need to be inventive and original on the part of the employees to ensure that they are able to deal with the evolving customer expectations (Yanga & Cherry, 2008).