Chapter 7: Selective Hiring In your opinion, what are of some necessary characte
ID: 367912 • Letter: C
Question
Chapter 7: Selective Hiring
In your opinion, what are of some necessary characteristics of a great potential employee for a hospitality business? For at least three of the characteristics you mentioned, explain why you feel they are necessary.
Describe some challenges of hiring employees with skills that match those in the firm’s job analysis/descriptions and job specifications?
A. What does the term, Warm Body Theory, refer to? Include in your response, why a company uses the Warm Body Theory of hiring, the problems it causes and how to avoid it.
Define Multiple Hurdle and Compensatory hiring strategies and describe their importance in the hiring process (i.e., when to use one or the other; is it even possible to use the multiple hurdle strategy for most hourly positions; for compensatory hiring strategies, can you place a quantifiable limit on what you will and will not accept?). Provide examples of firms that use each strategy.
What is the Legal Retention Time for employment applications in the U.S.?
What HR policies that has already been covered in the course is important in creating questions that will be asked of applicants and in determining whom to hire (hint: from chapter 5)? Why are they important?
What are Pre-Qualifying Questions and why are they important?
Define Situational and Behavioral questions. What are the benefits of each type of question?
What are Multi-Tasking Questions and what are some advantages of using them?
Why are Background Checks important? Give at least four examples of potential problems that can be avoided by an effective background check.
In general, what types of questions should you not ask in an interview? Provide at least two reasons why should you not ask them.
Select and describe three Common Assessment Problems (forms of interview bias) that you feel are the most common.
What is your opinion of using personality tests as a hiring tool?
Do you feel that a Work Sample or Trial Shift are feasible testing tools that can be used for all or most hospitality positions?
Chapter 9: Training
What is the purpose of training? What happens if a company does not have a good training program?
Discuss the similarity between routine training and a hospitality managers’ main responsibilities of assuring customer satisfaction and achieving a reasonable profit.
Discuss at least four benefits of training.
What are some various types of training that take place in the hospitality industry (e.g., training new employees)? What do you feel is the most challenging and why?
A. What are the four parts/steps for Developing a Training Program (this is the overall process required to develop a training program; not JIT, Knowledge/Ability Hierarchy or any other list that focuses on one element of the program)? Describe what occurs in each step and the importance of each step.
What are the two major categories of training methods? Give a few examples of each.
What do you feel is the most effective training method and why?
Chapter 10: Performance Appraisals and Discipline
Describe the concept of performance appraisals, including the phrase, policies should be in writing, communicated and enforced.
Give some reasons why managers neglect performance appraisals and disciplining employees.
Explain the primary reason for the performance appraisal. Include in your response what is measured in a performance appraisal?
Describe the importance of the manager/employee relationship in the appraisal process.
Discuss various forms of bias in performance appraisals.
Differentiate between informal and formal performance appraisals.
Discuss direct and indirect forms of performance appraisals.
What is a 360-degree performance appraisal?
Discuss the advantages of a self-appraisal and how it might be implemented.
Differentiate between appraising quantitative and qualitative duties and tasks.
What is the three/four tier performance appraisal process and why is it so popular and successful?
Explanation / Answer
Hospitality is a multi-billion industry and it incorporates several broad category of fields. These include hotels, restaurants, lodging, events, theme parks, entertainment, etc. Hospitality industry every year provides employment to several million people depending on the area of business and specific skill set of the person. Although, the necessary characteristics that an employee must possess in order to become the part of the hospitality business depends on the actual job title and position he is being hired for, some of the broad and significant requirements are discussed below:
1) Communication skills: Irrespective of the position that the candidate is being hired for, having good communication skills is one of the most important characteristic that a potential employee for a hospitality business must possess. This becomes an even more important requirement for the front desk employees, customer-serving staff or anyone whose job description incorporates interacting with the customer. These people are the face of the concerned hospitality business and customers identify a business on the basis of the conduct of the front staff. Communication skills not only means that the person should be fluent in speaking the language but at the same time, he should be able to listen to the customer and understand what he exactly wants. Knowing the exact requirements of the customer and getting them done from the concerned support staff constitutes good communication characteristic of the potential employee.
2) Problem Solving skills: For people working in hospitality business, in 90% of their duty time they will find themselves in solving different kind of problems. These problems may be concerning with customers, staff, vendors, suppliers, investors, etc. Hospitality business runs successfully when all the stakeholders are satisfied and their requirements are met. A person with good problem solving skills will be able to keep a balance between all the stakeholders. A customer whose problems remains unsolved becomes a source of bad word of mouth for the business. These problems may be as small as unavailability of car parking in the hotel premises or frequent power cuts in the hotel impacting the stay experience of the customer. Therefore, the hotel manager or restaurant manager should be a good problem solver and should be able to keep the customers and other stakeholders of the business happy.
3) Leadership skills: For employees working at the supervisory and managerial level in the hospitality business, a major portion of their job description includes managing/guiding the lower level staff. Hotel managers, restaurant supervisors and people working in other similar profiles have to oversee the overall business operations and it requires them to getting work done from other people. Therefore, having leadership quality enables them to communicate well with their sub-ordinates and meet the customer’s requirements through other staff of the hotel/restaurant. When the manager or supervisor lacks leadership skills, it becomes difficult for them to control the ground level people and thus, it affects the overall business.
Challenges in hiring employees with identified skills:
Now, when the hiring managers have identified the necessary skill set needed to fill the vacant positions, the process of identifying and scouting of the potential candidate begins. The HR managers and the people responsible for recruitment faces several challenges in hiring the right candidate for the firm’s job description/specification. Some of the major challenges are discussed below:
1) Unavailability of skilled employees - Irrespective of the level the manager is hiring for, the most common challenge that they face is the shortage of skilled people and quality workforce at different levels.
2) High attrition rate - Even if the managers are able to identify and recruit the candidate with the right skill set and experience, the companies often fail to retain their good employees. There may be several reasons to this like poor work conditions, low wages, high job expectations, etc. Organisations try to retain their employees through training and development but the results are below satisfactory levels.
3) High salary demands - Due to the shortage of quality workforce, the potential candidates who have the right skill set and experience often expect high compensation packages. Given the low operating margins in hospitality business and global downturn that the entire hospitality industry regularly face, it becomes difficult for the organisations to meet the salarly expectations of potential employees.
In order to overcome these challenges, the hiring managers should resort to selective hiring methods. In selective hiring, also known as targeted recruitment, the recruitment methodologies are more proactive in approach. The HR managers tries to understand the exact requirement of the job position with the hiring managers. The specific skill sets and knowledge requirements are then match with the potential candidates. This helps organisations to attract and retain the right talent.