Forever changing employees
The global shortage of 10-15 million workers in this industry will result in hotels having insufficient workers to operate, staff wars, exploding salaries and eroding profits. So, where does that leave Sri Lanka? It’s not as if our youth are all gainfully employed. A recent study found that in the fourth quarter of 2018, the youth unemployment rate (age 15 - 24 years) was 21.9 percent and that is the highest reported unemployment rate among all age groups in Sri Lanka. Figuratively speaking, the ocean is teeming with fish but we don’t seem to be able to catch them.
Attracting, selecting, training, developing and retaining the best talent are not new issues to face the hospitality and tourism sector. Statistically, the industry has a relatively high turnover rate with a perpetual cycle of recruiting / hiring and training that keeps HR professionals in the hospitality industry continuously busy, doing what they do historically, where recruitment is a push and pull (P&P) set of actions.
We rush out a job advertisement to a newspaper, recruiting agency or via social media which in turn generates a worrisome volume of candidates from which one attempts to screen, scrape and pull out the best talent. No sooner someone leaves, the ‘P & P’ action is repeated. Everyone knows that there are less applicants for jobs and the time they stay in the job is even less. No wonder therefore, that hardly anyone in hotels recognises repeat guests.
Not only will we have expatriates as hotel managers but in the not too distant future, we may need to hire frontline service staff such as housekeepers, receptionists and stewards from countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia and even from neighbouring India!
Although it has been identified that we have a training and qualification problem, and that had we dealt with it - we would not be having this huge unemployment problem, the crux of the matter is that those in the industry have failed to persuade youngsters and ‘school leavers’ to consider the hospitality industry as a real profession.
This is without doubt, the fundamental reason why we have a dwindling talent pool of candidates in the hospitality industry and why it is so hard to find good people. Let’s therefore arouse the interest of sufficiently suitable people so that the industry has the right-minded people to grow and perform at the top of its game.
It is not merely a matter of finding people for the work that must be done, but of ensuring that people choose our industry over others, and has their choice confirmed by feeling valued in rewarding jobs with coherent career paths and equitable salaries.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier |
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