Hospitality Management Competencies: do faculty and students concur on employability skills?

Adeniyi, Adeolu Shola GTB Lagos, Nigeria adeolu.adeniyi@mail.com

Abstract

This paper is one in a series of establishing what competencies the various stakeholders (students, faculty and industry mentors) think are the ideal competencies needed by employees in the hospitality field in places such as hotels, food service providers, restaurants and lodges, compared to those actually displayed by hospitality management students. This particular paper reports on a comparison drawn between what the faculty and students believe are the ideal competencies compared to those that they actually have on completion of their academic studies, prior to the students engaging in their semester of work-integrated learning (WIL). The results would be used by faculty to focus on ensuring students are aware of the employability and management competencies they need in order to conduct themselves in the business world of hospitality with confidence and competently.

Key Words: Competencies, hospitality, soft skills, work-integrated learning.

Introduction

In a developing country such as Nigeria where the jobless rate is 10.4% of the labour force, it is expected that university graduates should be able to find employment but there are many who do not (Ntuli, 2007). The labour market oscillates between the skills shortage on one hand and the number of graduates who are without work on