Whose 'doggie' is that?
Let’s use a classic scene from a ‘Pink Panther’ movie. Inspector Clouseau: “Does your dog bite?” Hotel Receptionist: “No.” Clouseau (bowing down to pet the dog): “Nice doggie”. (The dog bites Clouseau’s hand.) Clouseau: “Ouch…I thought you said your dog did not bite!” Wait for it…up to this point we might be tempted to blame the hotel Receptionist when the dog bites Clouseau. Hotel Receptionist: “That is not my dog”. Ah ha...the Receptionists final response now requires us all, including the crafty Inspector Clouseau to consider the situation differently. Who really owns the dog?
Recently, whilst conducting a survey on ‘Service Quality’ among several hotels, a hotel’s Food and Beverages manager lamented “If I was looking for areas that need improvement, it would be in the ‘soft skills’ one. A Front Office Manager in another hotel blamed staff who he said “Are enthusiastic at the beginning, only to soon get lazy in their jobs…they seem to gradually lose interest.
There were similar sentiments expressed by department heads in other hotels, labeling staff as ‘no longer enthusiastic’ or ‘disinterested’…thus muddying the already murky waters of the ‘soft skills’ debate. The debate which has been on for some time revolves around skills deficits. Filling vacancies has become problematic – either due to applicants lacking the required skills or where current workers lacked it as well. The needed required skills are not so much in the hard/technical skills – but in the ‘interpersonal and social skills front.
The hotels and restaurant sector is often described as one of; low pay, long and anti-social working hours, intense activity, job insecurity and poor career progression for the majority of workers in the industry. In this context, I found it hard to digest that hardly any of the managers or employees spoken to, appeared to take ownership on contributing towards this widening soft skills ‘deficit’, to some extent at least. The possibility of some staff possessing soft skills but withdrawing them due to dissatisfaction in the workplace never crossed the minds of these employers.
Instead, the blame game is aimed at the employee (supply side), his/her family or the schools he/she attended, as having failed to equip him/her with the ‘soft skills’ rather than on the demand side (employer). If there was a hint of an admission that the employer is to blame – it fell squarely on the HR division as “not hiring properly”. Academics involved in education dismiss their role, questioning the legitimacy of soft skills as a skill.
Getting back to the ‘Pink Panther’ episode and to our good Inspector Clouseau. No doubt he would despite his bumbling methods establish that there is more than one owner (villain) of the dog that bit him, by pointing his finger at several villains who are slowly but surely causing the death of ‘soft skills’ development.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex- hotelier
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