HR people: your time has come, are you ready?
Anyone who cares about meeting workplace objectives should seriously value human resources, especially today. But why is it that for years HR professionals have been at the butt-end of never-ending humour- that seriously belittles the profession? Go on, just do a Google search to discover thousands of HR jokes that portray HR people as deceptive, conniving, ineffective and hypocritical. Here’s a gem of an example: “Why should I hire you?” the HR manager asked an interviewee, who quickly responded: “Because this company needs someone who knows why they should hire people.”
HR can be lonely at the best of times and now, during COVID-19, which is the worst of times, pressure on the profession has never been higher.
The noiseless tremors caused by the pandemic have eroded the traditional model of employment in the hospitality industry, and, that’s something that alarmingly, many in HR, have probably failed to take note of. Sentiment has it, that the level and amount of experienced and educated hospitality executives will sink to an unprecedented low level in 2022.
When most of us embarked on a career in hospitality, we hardly realised that to be a successful hotelier, it takes hard work. You either knew what it takes to climb up the ladder or stuck it out where you were, as a means of earning a monthly salary or a daily wage. After COVID-19, and, If you happen to be in the latter group, you may well be a part of the large number of people to change your industry and run to where the cash flow is quicker.
During the past thirteen months many businesses collapsed, others struggled a while and closed shop. The resilient ones made changes, more changes, desperately adjusted, took hard decisions, and other drastic steps to stay afloat until things got better. These are the ones who continuously monitored the evolving turmoil - daily, sometimes twice daily, to survive the lockdowns, forced closures, mandatory safety protocols, etc. wrought about by the ruthless march of COVID-19.
After COVID-19, and as the industry prepares for the recovery; somewhat accelerated with the vaccines rollout, hotels and restaurants will start looking to hire staff for the new normal. However, the entire process – be it hiring or applying for a job, has undergone a complete transformation from that of the time people were recruited before the coronavirus tsunami hit.
The volatility of the hospitality industry has resulted in people moving to jobs in other industries. Then there are those choose to remain unemployed until 2022, to avoid further stress. Many who are currently employed despite living in a state of fear - from losing their jobs in case the business flops, would much rather remain to face that danger than take the risk of starting somewhere new.
Taking the cue that one of the key changes will be for hotels and restaurants to become leaner and more efficient, the search will be on to find that proper balance between smart and skilled human resources. Then there is the balance between hiring too soon or too late and hiring too many or too few. Too many hands on deck with nothing to do can eat into depleted cash reserves. Begin filling up later after creating demand can be equally devastating to the businesses reputation.HR people will have to come up with a win/win solution…and that’s not going to be easy.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier
|
|
|
|
