MODULE

in

QUALITY SERVICE
MANAGEMENT
IN
TOURISM
AND
HOSPITALITY
Quality Service Management in Tourism and Hospitality

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Quality Service Management in Tourism and Hospitality

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Quality Service Management in Tourism and Hospitality

Chapter 6: STAFFING FOR SERVICE

Find and Hire People who Love to Serve

If someone isn’t smiling during the interview, what in the world would make you think they will
be smiling when faced with a line of customers all in a hurry for service. – T. Scott Gross

Objectives:

At the end of the lesson, students will be able to:

 Understand the process of recruiting employees

 Recognize internal and external recruitment strategies
 Analyse the importance of student recruitment and internship

This unit begins a discussion of the human resource issues involved in managing the guest
experience. This deals with hiring the right people who can deliver the experience your guests
expect.

THE MANY EMPLOYEES OF THE HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM INDUSTRY

Providing either tangible or intangible service product requires many different employees doing
many different jobs;
the front-of-house employees who interact with the guest.
Back-of-house employees or sometimes called heart of the house, they help create the service
experience.
Management plays a critical role. They hire the employees, train, evaluate, reward, discipline,
celebrate, promote and oversee all the other tasks that must be done.
LOVING TO SERVE:

Many hospitality companies say, they hire “the best and the brightest” Others claim to follow the
mantra “select the best and train the rest”. The process of getting employees into service roles
can prove to be a challenge for all companies.

The selection process include

1. Figure out exactly what you are looking for. (Study the Job)
2. Recruit a pool of good candidates
3. Select the best in the pool
4. Bring the best candidates on board
5. Make the new hires feel welcome
6. Manage any potential future turnover of employees strategically.

STEP1: STUDY THE JOB

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Quality Service Management in Tourism and Hospitality

Selecting the best person for the job should begin by first looking not at the applicants but at the
job.
1.1 Human Resource Planning – process of analysing human resource capabilities. The
KSA’s of current employees

1.2 Job Analysis – allows the organization to identify the exact job descriptions and
specifications.
Job Description – a list that a person might use for general tasks or functions,
duties and responsibilities.

Job Qualifications/Specifications – these are deemed by the employer as essential

to satisfactory performance in a specific job.

1.3 Other key characteristics for service personnel

*Enthusiasm – must have an enthusiastic approach to life
*Demonstrate Authentic Sense of concern
*Polite
*Considerate

STEP 2: RECRUIT A POOL OF GOOD CANDIDATES

Once you know what you are looking for in new employees, you need a diverse pool of qualified
applicants from which you can select them. Where do you find them?
Internal Candidates and External Candidates.

Hiring Internal Candidates

Hiring from within is most often seen as a best practice of human resource management.
It has the following advantages:

a. The known quantity – you have more information about current employees. That
person’s performance has been available for observation and evaluation, and the
strengths and weaknesses are generally known.
b. Experience – companies want their employees to know the business from the ground
up.
c. Knowing the Culture - organization like to promote internal candidates because much
of the training in the organizational culture has already been done.
d. Lower Cost – there is no need for advertisements and travel expenses. The decision
often requires less time, which also saves money.

Internal Search Strategies:

a. Job Postings
Internal Search engines:
o Intranet
o Bulletin boards
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Quality Service Management in Tourism and Hospitality

o News letter/Magazines
o Other employees

b. Review of Personnel Records

Hiring External Candidates

Not every job can be filled by an internal candidate. For example, the only source of entry-level
positions are the external labor market.

It has the following advantages:

a. New Ideas and Fresh Perspectives

b. Specific Skills and Knowledge
c. Diversity

External Search Strategies

a. Advertising – message containing information about the job and placed in various
media, such as newspapers, magazines, brochures, radio and televisions.
b. Colleges and Secondary Schools – organizations are sent to colleges and schools to
meet with individuals or group of students to specify information about the organization
or their jobs.
c. Employee Referral Programs – employees are provided with information about job
openings and asked to refer individuals to the company.
d. Employment Agencies – the firm contacts an organization whose main purpose is to
locate job seekers.
e. Internet – the firm can either post information about positions on its own website or
contract with an internet recruiting service. (i.e jobstreet, jobsdb, job central, monster
Philippines, workabroad.ph)
f. Walk-ins – unsolicited individuals sometimes initiate contact with the organization.

Student Recruitment

An important strategy for finding the many people that the hospitality industry needs is
student recruitment. Organizations can get students to work for them as part of a school
experience, such as internship, on-the-job trainings or work experience programs. Hospitality
programs, most schools of business and some other academic majors mandate their students
to undergo OJT/practicums as part of the curriculum. HRM students of NEUST, are required
to finish 600 hours of OJT.

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Quality Service Management in Tourism and Hospitality

Julie, a graduate of
NEUST –HRM during her
OJT days at Sofitel.

Christine (2nd from left), had her internship at the Royal Bellagio Hotel where she was absorbed.
Other foreign and local organizations also offer internships for students.

Four Seasons Internship

Four Seasons offer Global internship opportunities to undergraduates who want to get a head
start in their career.

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Quality Service Management in Tourism and Hospitality

Marriott Internship

Marriott offers paid internships that provide true hands-on work experience to prepare you
for leadership in the professional world.

Starwood Summer Intern Program

Starwood offers summer opportunities in our hotels which foster students’ professional
development, understanding of hotel operations and career planning.

South East Asian Technical and Vocational Education and Training (SEAMEO-SEA-TVET)
Student Exchange Program https://seatvet.seameo.org/

SEA-TVET Consortium comprises Technical and Vocational Education and Training

(TVET) institutions in SEAMEO Member Countries that agree to work together in
harmonising and internationalising their programmes through curriculum harmonisation,
students and staff exchange, and industrial attachment, and resource sharing. Student
exchange participants get the opportunity to do internships and future work arrangements in
member countries in South East Asia.

NEUST-HRM student, Noel

(4th from right) during his internship
at the Whiz Prime Hotel, Padang,
Indonesia

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Quality Service Management in Tourism and Hospitality

STEP 3: SELECT THE BEST CANDIDATE

The next step is to determine who will be hired into the company.

3.1 Screening and Evaluating Applicants

Collect information of applicants to make the best hiring decision. This could be done in
the following ways:

o The Application Form

Application forms are the first screen an employer should use in deciding who to
hire. The application form serves as a preliminary check on whether or not the
candidates do in fact have the appropriate occupational qualifications.

o The Interview
Interviews are done to determine if the applicant seems to fit the organization, to
see if the applicant is really committed to service excellence, and tell the
candidate what the job is actually like. The interview is the most common method
used by employers to help select employees.
Interviews can be:

1. Unstructured Interview
When interviewers make up questions as they go along, have no
predetermined way to score applicants, or rely purely on their memory.
(i.e tell me something about yourself, why are you interested to apply for
this job?)
2. Structured Interview
Interviewers will assess the candidates according to the same criteria. A
structured array of questions ensure that the interviewer collects the
necessary personal and job related data. It will include questions that
address past experiences, work competencies, willingness to do the job
and commitment to service.

o Psychological Tests

Test of mental ability measure logical reasoning, intelligence, conceptual

foresight, ability to spot semantic relationships, spatial organization, memory span
and a number of cognitive factors. Psychological tests have also been used to
assess applicant’s integrity, such as how likely they are to engage in risky
behaviors at work.

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Quality Service Management in Tourism and Hospitality

 Personality Traits

Personality can be reliably measured and summarized along five dimensions;

OCEAN

1. Openness to Experience. The degree to which someone is intellectual,

philosophical, insightful, creative, artistic and curious.
2. Conscientiousness. The degree to which someone is dependable and
organized, conforms to the needs of the job, and perseveres on tasks.
3. Extroversion. The degree to which someone is talkative, sociable, active,
aggressive and excitable.
4. Agreeableness. The degree to which someone is trusting, amiable, generous,
tolerant, honest, cooperative and flexible.
5. Neuroticism or Emotional Stability. The degree to which someone is secure,
calm, independent, and autonomous.

Of these five, it is considered that conscientiousness is generally considered to be the most valid
predictor of job performance.

 Cognitive Ability
General Mental Ability (GMA) can account to up to one third of the variance in
performance rating for complex, managerial jobs, and sixteen percent for less
complex, semiskilled positions.
GMA is the ability to learn and process information.
Just as Norman Brinker says “Hire people who are smart. Remember, sinners can
repent, but stupidity is forever”.

 Integrity Tests
Integrity tests predict the predisposition of job applicants to engage in disruptive
behaviors.

 References, Background Checks and Drug Tests

It is common to check applicant’s references. This may include recommendation
letters, calling former employers, and requesting names of individuals who can
attest to their character. Companies also want to screen out those who use illegal
drugs, thus requiring drug tests.

STEP 4: HIRE THE BEST APPLICANT

After all the information has been collected on potential applicants, selecting the right
people would be the next step.

Aside from skills that can be identified and measured, the hospitality industry has the
extra challenge of ensuring that the guest-contact employees they hire not only have the
competency to perform the task skills but also have the interpersonal skill necessary to interact
successfully with the guests.

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Quality Service Management in Tourism and Hospitality

The hiring decisions must be made while balancing a number of factors. It involves
answers to the following sample questions.

“Does the person have the right personality to be successful in a service-based role?”

“Is the person smart enough to handle a dynamic environment, master the training and
learn the job efficiently?”

“Does the person’s experience suggest that he or she will perform effectively in creating
a memorable experience?”

“Does this person have the potential to grow into greater roles in the future?”

STEP 5: MAKE THE NEW HIRE FEEL WELCOME

Once the job offer is made, the organizations must make sure that the employee feels
welcome. Onboarding is designed to ensure that the new hire feels genuinely welcome. It is
the process of getting the new employee started in both a new company and a new job.

As other companies do not thoughtfully prepare for the arrival of new employees,
resulting to an unpleasant start. Welcoming new hires may include, greeting the new person,
making sure that the office space/area is ready computer, telephone and other equipment
necessary.

Other companies, have their own way of welcoming new hires into their organization.
Some have orientations, others offer innovative activities.

STEP 6: TURNOVER – SELECTING PEOPLE OUT OF AN ORGANIZATION

(Manage any potential future turnover of employees strategically.)

Turnover is an inevitable part of business, and particularly in the hospitality industry.

The hospitality industry is known for having high turnover. This can be voluntary, where
employees choose to leave or involuntary, where the choice is made for them by the
organization. Reasons for leaving include:
 Working in unpleasant conditions (Hot kitchens) and
 Working on undesirable hours (holidays, night shifts, weekends).

Turnover entails direct and indirect costs.

Direct costs are associated with the selection of a replacement for a departing employees.
Costs of advertising, hiring and training new employees.
Indirect costs, include the cost of disappointed customers. Guests frequently build
relationships with servers, and being served again and again by the same person is part of the
value they receive from an organization’s guest experience.
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Quality Service Management in Tourism and Hospitality

Once a company understands who is leaving and why, it can begin to manage the turnover
process effectively. Seeing who leaves or stays, who succeeds and fails helps provide a better
understanding of what the company is looking for in an applicant. Thus, the last step leads back
into the first step – study the job- and repeat the whole selection process with the potential for
improvement.

Lessons Learned:

1. Find the Best people.

2. Carefully consider whether to look inside or outside the company
3. Know and hire the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to provide outstanding
service.
4. Seek diverse candidates to enhance awareness of new ideas and trends.
5. You on get one chance to make a first impressions with your new employees; make it a
good one.

Unit Activity/Exercise
Quiz
Case Study

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Quality Service Management in Tourism and Hospitality

Sample Resume:

Page 1 Page 2

Page 3

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Garcia AP, Saclolo RG, Velasquez RJ, Abad MA
Quality Service Management in Tourism and Hospitality

uez RJ, Abad MA