Leading and Developing Tourism & Hospitality Teams
Question
Task: What are the key challenges in talent management within the tourism and hospitality industry, and how can theoretical frameworks such as Human Capital Theory and Transformational Leadership Theory address these challenges? Furthermore, how does Hyatt's corporate management training program exemplify effective talent management practices, and what recommendations can be made to enhance talent management strategies in the industry?
Answer
1. Introduction
In this dynamic business environment, the workforce of a firm is their asset. Therefore, talent management is important for recruiting managers within the workplace. The process in which employers recruit candidates, help them develop their skills and transform them into an asset is known as talent management. Aligning recruitment with the objective of an organisation can be identified as a talent management strategy (Hongal and Kinange, 2020). This report aims at analysing the importance of talent management in the hospitality industry.
1.1. Theoretical Introduction to Tourism and hospitality industry
This industry is dealing with people from different parts of the world. Therefore, they have broader mindset. Moreover, practicing diversity and inclusion has become the core value of the industry (Benson, 2021). It is estimated that the tourism and hospitality industry is growing at a compound growth rate of 7% (EHL Insights, 2023). This industry is also forecasting the change in the needs and demands of customers. Previously, hospitality industry used to provide hotels and lodges to their visitors. However, resorts, private villas, boutique inns are added properties. Moreover, globalisation has given birth to inclusivity.
Restaurants are making diverse foods and they are aiming to provide global experiences to their customers. There are also various adventure tourism companies who are focusing on providing adventure experiences to their customers. For example, there are various companies like Skydive who are providing skydiving experiences to customers who are also thrill-seekers (Ratliff, 2023). It has also been reported that constant environmental awareness by tourism leaders is making eco-tourism a movement (Kummerer, 2018). Thus, from the above discussion it can be found that hospitality industry is witnessing a shift in their operational activities.
Such shift can be maintained and controlled by their employees. This give rise to the importance of talent management. Effective management of talent focuses on the growth of individual employees that further leads to collective transformation of the organisation. Moreover, talent management also ensures retaining current workers and attracting highly skilled personnel with the help of talent management programme (Hongal and Kinange, 2020). Such skilled workers can foster innovation, add more unique features and help firm overcome challenges like the pandemic, geopolitical tensions and many more.
The findings conclude that tourism and hospitality industry is constantly evolving. Thus, to scale the organisations’ operation, amidst such changes, skilled employees are the need of the hour.
1.2 Challenges in Talent management and development
As mentioned earlier, talent management is an important responsibility of human resource team because talents are the biggest asset of an organisation. However, there are various challenges that talent managers often face while performing their responsibilities. It has been found that employee turnover rate in the tourism and hospitality industry is relatively high. Managers and top-level executives within a company focuses on reducing the turnover rate because it increases the cost of the company.
However, the turnover rate in the hospitality industry is very high because they mostly hire students. It has been estimated that more than 2 million students who are also teenagers are hired in various restaurants. These teenagers fail to completely commit to the firm because they have other academic commitments (Frye, et.al., 2020). Furthermore, managing diverse workforce is also a challenge in the hospitality industry. In one the reports, that was published by PwC, it was states that there is an 8% gender pay gap in the hospitality industry (Mooney, 2020). This means men in hospitality industry are paid more than that of women. The concept of female leadership in this industry is also vague.
In addition to this, the tourism and hospitality is dynamic. The needs of customers are constantly changing. Therefore, this sector are demanding managers whose interpersonal skills are flexible and adaptable (Baum, 2019). The continuous skill development and training of managers and other employees within the sector is becoming hectic. This can also be identified as another major challenge that is related to talent management.
2. Critical Analysis of Talent management
2.1. Human Capital Theory
According to this theory, human beings can enhance their competencies and capacity of production by developing skills and gaining knowledge. This theory was first popularised by two researchers named Gary Becker and Theodore Schultz. The rules of this theory are often used by organisational leaders to deal with their competitors (Pasban and Nojedeh, 2016). In the hospitality industry, human capital theory can be used to develop the skills and competencies of hired candidates. It can be done through constructive training.
Such training can help the company to develop communication, critical thinking and problem solving skills of their employees. This is how talent can be retained and managed. It is believed that talented and skilled workforce can help firms overcome challenges like pandemic and help them to gain competitive business advantage (Edeh, et.al, 2022). However, there are companies in the hospitality industry who are often using false marketing strategies in order to attract talents. This can prevent them from retaining best talents. Therefore, to attract best talents employee value proposition should be made.
2.2. Transformational Leadership Theory
In addition to this, transformational leadership theory also plays a great role in managing talents. The leadership approach that causes change in the social system and individual behaviour is known as transformational leadership theory. Transformational leaders can create work culture that fosters innovation and collaboration. They can engage employees in the decision-making process of the organisation. This is how employees are developed and talent are managed within the workplace. However, two researchers named Bass and Riggo has criticised this theory in the year 2006. According to them, transformational leadership theory is anti-democratic. The lack of clarity of this theory has been identified to be its major disadvantage (Asbari, et.al., 2020). Transformational leaders often fail to empower their employees to take creative stands. This can make the entire process of talent management ineffective.
3. Hyatt’s corporate management training program
Hyatt International is one of the leading players in the tourism and hospitality industry. The talented and skilled workforce have contributed to the growth and success of the organisation in various ways. The objective of this segment of the report is to critically analyse the training program of the company.
The organisation believes in transforming their employees into valuable resources. These resources can further contribute to the growth and success of the industry in various ways. Employees who are a part of this company receive on-the-job training. A tailor-made guidance plan contributes to their skill and development. Moreover, the talent management and development team of Hyatt believes in multi-tasking. Therefore, employees are put in all departments. While working in different departments, employees learn about roles and responsibilities of different departments like finance, marketing, operations, IT and HR (Hyatt Connect, 2023). While analysing the corporate programme of Hyatt it can be found that the organisational leaders of the company are considering Human capital theory.
They are hiring candidates who are already motivated to learn new skills, develop knowledge and innovate (Rudulph, 2015) Thus, from the above discussion it can be concluded that the corporate management programme of Hyatt aims at developing skills and retaining talents. On the contrary, there are few gaps in this program. The organisation aims at hiring candidates who have completed their bachelor’s degree in hospitality industry. This programme does not provide opportunities for freshers or interns. They are various undergraduates who are willing to join the hospitality industry after completing their graduations. They are fresh young minds. Training these fresh minds can help the firm to foster innovation and creativity within the workplace.
In addition to this, Hyatt is also using a training software called Saba to track employees who are undertaking training while working. The primary role of this online learning software is to train employees as per the standards of the industry. There are various mobile sessions that this application provides. It is advantageous because the training can be easily accessible for the employees (Ring, 2016). Moreover, executives are informed about employees who are undertaking this training. However, one of the major disadvantages of this training is that there is no hard and fast rule for employees. Such casual form of training might not motivate or empower them to focus on continuous development of skills. Thus, the talent management team of the organisation must primarily focus on enhancing awareness among employees. Such awareness can help them to develop skills and personal competencies.
4. Recommendations
It is recommended to the organisational leaders to integrate AI-based technology for talent management. It has been found that attracting the right candidate is a challenge for organisational leaders. AI can solve this problem by creating appropriate job postings. There are tools that also eliminate human biases during the process of recruitment. For example, an AI tool named Pymetrics can assess original skills and make hiring decisions without any bias (Schmid and Raveendhran, 2022). Pymetrics is used by Hyatt for screening employees. The primary advantage of this AI-based tool is to remove barriers for the youth and provide them employment opportunities (Business wire, 2018). However, this AI-based tools have often provided inaccurate assessment results. Such inaccuracy can have an impact on effective talent management. Despite this, leaders in the hospitality industry are using this AI-based tool unlock the new and diverse talent pool.
5. Conclusion
This report aims at critically discussing talent management strategies that are adopted by organisational leaders of hospitality and tourism industry. The analysis suggests that tourism and hospitality industry have reported growth and productivity. However, increase in employee turnover rate, lack of diverse workforce are several challenges that the organisational leaders in this industry is facing. Such challenges can be overcome with the help of AI-based tools. Moreover, techniques like gamified training and many more can attract top talents and managers can also retain them in the workplace.
6. Reference List
Asbari, M., Santoso, P.B. and Prasetya, A.B., 2020. Elitical and antidemocratic transformational leadership critics: is it still relevant?(A literature study). International Journal of Social, Policy and Law, 1(1), pp.12-16.
Baum, T., 2019. Does the hospitality industry need or deserve talent?. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 31(10), pp.3823-3837.
Benson, L. 2021. What makes the hospitality industry so dynamic? [online]. Available at: https://www.newsanyway.com/2022/01/26/what-makes-the-hospitality-industry-so-dynamic/ [Accessed 23 October 2023].
Business Wire, 2018. Hyatt and Sutherland to Use pymetrics Platform to Hire Thousands of Opportunity Youth. [online]. Available at: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180830005195/en/Hyatt-and-Sutherland-to-Use-pymetrics-Platform-to-Hire-Thousands-of-Opportunity-Youth [Accessed 27 October 2023].
Edeh, F.O., Zayed, N.M., Perevozova, I., Kryshtal, H. and Nitsenko, V., 2022. Talent management in the hospitality sector: predicting discretionary work behaviour. Administrative Sciences, 12(4), p.122.
EHL Insights, 2023. What is the Hospitality Industry? [online]. Available at: https://hospitalityinsights.ehl.edu/hospitality-industry#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Hospitality%20Global,from%20global%20restrictions%20on%20travel. [Accessed 25 October 2023].
Frye, W.D., Kang, S., Huh, C. and Lee, M.J.M., 2020. What factors influence Generation Y’s employee retention in the hospitality industry?: An internal marketing approach. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 85, p.102352.
Hongal, P. and Kinange, U., 2020. A study on talent management and its impact on organization performance-an empirical review. International Journal of Engineering and Management Research, 10.
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Hyatt Connect, 2023. Hyatt CMT Programme. [online]. Available at: https://hyattconnect.net/hyatt-cmt-programme/ [Accessed 16 October 2023].
Kummerer, S. 2018. Eco-friendly tourism is becoming a movement, and more vacationers are buying into the concept. [online]. Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/27/eco-friendly-tourism-is-becoming-a-movement-and-more-vacationers-are-buying-into-the-concept.html [Accessed 26 October 2023].
Mooney, S.K., 2020. Gender research in hospitality and tourism management: time to change the guard. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 32(5), pp.1861-1879.
Pasban, M. and Nojedeh, S.H., 2016. A Review of the Role of Human Capital in the Organization. Procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 230, pp.249-253.
Ratliff, L. 2023. Skydive Dubai. [online]. Available at: https://www.cntraveler.com/activities/dubai/skydive-dubai#:~:text=Bottom%20line%3F,or%20other%20air%20traffic%20considerations. [Accessed 26 October 2023].
Ring, D. 2016. Hyatt transforms employee training with Saba online learning software. [online]. Available at: https://www.techtarget.com/searcherp/feature/Hyatt-transforms-employee-training-with-Saba-online-learning-software [Accessed 26 October 2023].
Rudulph, H.W. 2015. Interview Insider: How to Get a Job at Hyatt. [online]. Available at: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/career/a50889/interview-insider-hyatt-hotels-career-jobs/ [Accessed 27 October 2023].
Schmid J.K. and Raveendhran, R. 2022. Where AI Can — and Can’t — Help Talent Management. [online]. Available at: https://hbr.org/2022/10/where-ai-can-and-cant-help-talent-management [Accessed 6
