International Hospitality Management

The importance of training and development in hospitality industry: Maldives Resorts

BSc (Hons) International Tourism and Hospitality Management

Contents
1.0 Introduction …………………………………………………………….. 3 – 4 2.0 Literature Review 2.1 Aims & objectives of training and development ……………………. 2.2 Reasons for employee training and development …………………… 2.3 The importance of training and development ……………………….. 2.4 General benefits from training and development ……………………

5 5 5–7 8

3.0 Training and development in the Maldives hospitality industry……….... 9 – 12 4.0 Conclusion and recommendations ………………………………………. 13 – 14 5.0 References ……………………………………………………………….. 15

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1.0 Introduction First of all let’s check out what is training and development? According to Wikipedia, training refers to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competencies as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relate to specific useful competencies. In other words training is specialised instruction or practice that assists in changing an individual’s behaviour so that their performance will become more proficient. Furthermore, (Dunk, 2003) stated that training is the process which is used for the development of knowledge and skills needed to perform the jobs, duties and tasks in an organization. As per (Hinkin, 2006) training is a four-stage process which consists of assessment, development, implementation and evaluation.

Whereas, development focuses upon the activities that the organization employing the individual or that the individual is part of, may partake in the future and is almost impossible to evaluate. Development also suggests achieving several jobs or new role in the future.

Hence, training and development is the field concerned with organizational activity aimed to improve the performance of individuals and groups in an organization. Training and development has been known by several names like, employee development, human resource development and learning and development. Let’s take a look at the human resources model by (Jaszay & Dunk, 2003) shown in Figure 1.1.

Job Specification & Job Description

Recruiting and Selection

Orientation and Training

Employee Appraisal

Figure 1.1: Job Analysis Source: Jaszay & Dunk, 2003

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According to the Job Analysis, it seems it is a must to train the employee once they are hired for the job. Jaszay & Dunk (2003) stated that training will teach the new employees how to carry on with the job they are hired for and at the same time training allow employees to assimilate faster and more successful while turning themselves to be more effective employees.

Moreover, training and development is important in all industries. Since hospitality industry offers a wide range of services by employing staffs at a diverse spread of occupation, training and development is very important in this industry. This study is focused on the training and development in the hospitality industry of the Maldives Resorts.

Hence, the ultimate purpose of training is to help the industry to improve its operational effectiveness and its economic and competitive performance, including the ability to cope or handle with the future challenges (Mullins, 2001).

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2.0 Literature Review

2.1 Aims & Objectives of training and development According to (Armstrong, 1999) the fundamental aim of training is to help an organisation to achieve their purpose by adding to their key resources eg; the people they employee. The main objectives of training adopted from (Armstrong, 1999) are as follows:    Develop competencies of employees to improve their performance. Give opportunities to the individuals to grow within the organization the furthest possible so that it will benefit in the future. When a new staff is appointed, make sure to reduce the learning time and ensure they become fully competent as soon as possible in an orderly manner.

2.2 Reasons for employee training and development As per (McNamara, 1997-2008), training and development can be initiated for a variety of reasons for an employee or group of employees and some are as follows:


If the staffs performance level is low and indicates performance improvement is needed

 

As part of an overall professional development program For succession planning to help an employee be eligible for a planned change in role in the organization



To train about a specific task

2.3 The importance of training and development According to (Peterson & Hicks, 1996) management training is vital because of the unavoidable changes that occur in organisations. To achieve continuous success in an organisation they will reprogram and retrain their employees when ever needed accordingly. For example, if Holiday Inn, Maldives needs to gain a competitive edge over their competitors they need to improve the service quality by using their well trained staffs.

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Many organizations consider employee training and development as more optional than essential. It could be because training and development can be costly to both short-term profits and long-term progress (Sarvadi, 2005). As he has discussed further the reason could be as the training and development at some organizations are not focused on producing a targeted result to their businesses. Gob (1999) believes that Hospitality operators are generally strong believers in management training and are prepared to invest in effective training programs.

Training and development is an important aspect of career development for an individual and at the same time it motivates employees while giving a sense of belonging. It is widely accepted that training can lead to many potential and benefits for both employees and the organization. According to (Chandrashekhar, 2006) usually in a good organisation, along with promotions the employee would be given training to learn the requisites of the newly promoted job requirement, so that he/she will be able to have some knowledge of the new job they start with it. As per (Chandrashekhar, 2006) these types of training of trainings are mainly devoted to develop managerial skills in a person and are generally called career development or career planning. Furthermore, he stated that the idea of these trainings are to in order to increase managerial performance, enhance job satisfaction or improve knowledge, skills and abilities which would help the employee to identify their strengths, weakness and interests. Additionally, (Mullins, 2001) stated that training tends to be a key element in the ability, morale, job satisfaction and commitment of staff and in improved delivery of service and customer relationships, and economic performance. In today’s economy, if the organisations are not learning, then definitely they will fall behind or is very likely to fail. Since the employees are the core of an organisation, (Chandrashekhar, 2006) stated that the need for training becomes important due to various reasons, such as, changes in life style of the guests, to adopt to new technology, new recruitment, promotions, etc.

In the resorts like in Maldives, training needs to be a continuous process since the employee turnover rate is very high. When an employee leaves a job, new individual will be recruited for the job. The new recruited staff may not have adequate experience at the same time he/she will not be at all familiar with the procedures of the resort. In order to Page 6 of 15

avoid any unforeseen circumstance it will be more appropriate for the resort management to arrange a training and development program for the new recruits. The training and development programs need not to be formal at all times, the resort could arrange informal training as well if it could help the new staffs. Moreover, (Chandrashekhar, 2006) had stated that to be cost effective, the training has to be done in co-ordination with man power planning.

The employee training and development is one of the most important functions of the personnel management in every industry. As (Chandrashekhar, 2006) stated in hospitality industry training becomes a very important function for the employees who needs to interact with the guest. Nevertheless, he stated that training will definitely help with the building up of team work, uniform thinking with good standards and performance which ultimately results in guest satisfaction. The goal of this sort of training is for “Guest Satisfaction”.

The needs of the business are changing everyday due to life style and technology. In order to be successful in the industry, one has to be aware of the changes that are taking place globally. The employees of the hospitality industry need to be well trained for the changing life style and technology. Furthermore, (Baker & Huyton, 2001) stated that the development of sophisticated information technology systems for hotels and other hospitality enterprises has made staff training even more important. Additionally, they have stated that the operators cannot take advantages of the technological advances unless they provide their staff the skills to use these technologies.

Hence, (Baker & Huyton, 2001) stated that training and development function should involve a continuous assessment of needs so that the ongoing training and development programs are developed, implemented and evaluated.

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2.4 General benefits from Training and Development As per (McNamara, 1997-2008) listed below are some of the benefits from employee training and development.
      

Increase job satisfaction and morale among employees Increase employee motivation Increase efficiencies in processes, resulting in financial gain Increase capacity to adopt new technologies and methods Increase innovation in strategies and products Reduce employee turnover Risk management, e.g, diversity training

While Peterson & Hicks (1996) highlighted that the effect of management training at the top filters downward throughout the entire organization. Whereas, the well trained staffs will build up stronger teams of employees, in turn leading to better financial results.

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3.0 Training and development in the Maldives Hospitality Industry The hospitality sector is growing at a very fast rate in the Maldives. This sector can be classified into hotel industry, travel and tourism, restaurants, catering and aviation. Today the resorts are an important source of employment for the Maldivians. Taking a look at the total number of beds at the resorts, it is estimated that more than 20,000 jobs are in the resorts. According to the regulations of the Ministry of Tourism & Civil Aviation, 50 percent of the employees of each resort must be locals. However many resorts have more expatriates staffs than locals today and as per most of the resorts this is because they are unable to find qualified locals for the jobs. Such as skilled chefs and accountants are in great demand at the Maldives resorts. With the increase in competition due to the new major ventures like Holiday Inn and Shangri-la, etc the need to train employees has increased more than ever before.

In today’s human resource management context, the staffs have to be looked after well. The successful organizations will consider their employees as the biggest asset of the company while paying off the employees fairly. Nevertheless the staff empowerment has become the cornerstone of the hospitality industry’s success. In this respect special considerations needs to be given to develop and train the employees.

The Maldives has indeed developed over the past decade as an exclusive destination with high-end resorts. However, according to Third Tourism Master Plan (2007 – 2011), training has lagged far behind the needs of the industry, making it heavily reliant on expatriate expertise. As per Third Tourism Master Plan (2007 – 2011), it will formulate a national long term strategy for tourism development in the Maldives which will lead to the reduction in poverty levels throughout the country by increasing national employment levels and improving human resources development and training within the tourism sector. The Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism Studies and Maldives College of Higher Education are the institutions offering training for the tourism and hospitality industry. The Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism Studies has three campuses; where the main campus is located at the capital, Male’, second one at Addu Atoll and the third one private-public partnership which was opened in December 2006 at Adaaran Resort at Hudhuranfushi. Refer Figure 3.1 for the enrolment and graduate details of the training.

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2003 Enrolment Graduates 814 319

2004 899 564

2005 654 332

2006 392 196

Figure 3.1: Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism Studies Enrolments and Graduates 2003 to 2006 Source: Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism Studies

The enrolment figure and graduate figures have been declining at a time when the need for more Maldivian employees is increasing. Although there was an increase in enrolment figure at 2004 in comparison with 2003, it was dropped to 392 in 2006. As stated in Third Tourism Master Plan, most of the resorts have, consequently, started offering their own apprenticeship programs and some of them are getting good responses.

Taking a look at the future human resources direction stated at the Third Tourism Master Plan (2007-2011), it has implemented a policy that aims to train and provide more employment opportunities for the Maldivians and to reduce the number of expatriates employed in the hospitality industry. As per the Third Tourism Master Plan reducing expatriate employment has its limitations while adequate numbers of Maldivians are not available to meet the demand. The survey, ‘Factors that motivate Maldivians to work at resorts’ was conducted by Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation on April 2008. As per the survey report a total of 310 local employees within five resorts. Since training and development was included in the survey, it would be a great help to include it in my study. The report stated that majority of the respondents said that they have undergone training while at the job. Please refer Figure 3.2 for the details.

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80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20%

70% 58%

42% 30%

YES NO

10%
0% Training in resort Receive training

Figure 3.2: Training in the resorts Source: Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation

It seems 70% of the respondents agreed that training was conducted for them at the resort and 58% agreed that they were trained while on the job. As per the survey report, the respondents noted that training as a factor which motivated their employment.

Moreover, the survey report includes about career development; where 68% said they have opportunity for career development which includes relevant job specification training and promotion to higher posts. As discussed further at the report, it was found that many locals were working at these resorts at the senior positions. Hence, 31% of the respondents consider training among the biggest motivators for their employment in resorts (refer Figure 3.3 & 3.4 for the detailed results).

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NO

32%

YES

68%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Figure 3.3: Prospects for career growth Source: Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation
59% 60% 50%

40%
30% 22% 20% 10% 0% A B C

33% 24%

4%

D

E

Figure 3.4: Percentage of respondents motivated by training in each resort Source: Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation

As per the survey report, we now have an overview of some of the employees working at the hospitality industry in the Maldives and we could definitely agree on the fact that training and development plays an important role during employment.

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4.0 Conclusion and recommendations I would like to add up that as per Third Tourism Master Plan (2007-2011), the government is working on creating a further training opportunities through the development of training resorts. To make this happen, the government had already opened up bidding for the development of a 200 bed tourist resort hotel and tourism training institute in the island of Nolivarumfaru in Hdh atoll in 2008. However, the building up of the training resorts will take years and I don’t think it is a good idea for the hospitality industry to wait for the training resorts to finish to train their employees. But the training resorts will be do benefits by providing well trained Maldivians in future.

Since it is visible that the Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism Studies cannot meet up with the industry training requirement, the government and the private sectors need to do something about this. For an example, the government and private sector can do this by forming up a committee to identify the requirements of the qualified manpower for the resorts and also identify the ways to develop.

It is not only the government duty to organise and measure up the importance of training and development in the hospitality industry. I am not saying that the resorts are not providing training for their employees at all. The fact is that Maldives is lack of qualified people for the jobs in hospitality industry since the government and the resorts are not investing enough for training and development. It is the duty of the industry to make necessary arrangement for the training and development for existing and new employees. Some of the resorts might not be willing to invest so much for the training and development but there are still ways which they could help out to attract and train locals for the demanding jobs at the industry. These resorts could do this by following the listed ways:  By organizing work experience programs for locals to work at the resorts or give a chance to school leavers (as there are 92 operational resorts in the Maldives right now, if all of the resorts take initiative by letting 5 locals to work in every three months , they could train around 460 locals within the three months and around 1840 locals within one year time)   Establish rapport with hotel schools Sponsor at least one individual for training and development per year Page 13 of 15

Well there are good examples of training and development, which the resorts could follow. The international hotel chain Shangri-la, recently had opened up a joint venture resort, Shanri-la Maldives & Spa in the Maldives on July 2009. Prior to opening the resort Shangri-La Maldives commenced a hospitality training program to the youths of the Addu atoll wishing to take up positions in the resort. As part of their training program, the resort held a three month hospitality certificate course in Addu in January 2008. It seems 28 students participated and completed the training course. Shangri-La sent the top five students to complete an internship at their resort in Malaysia. Moreover, Shangri-La sent four Maldivian employees for an 18-month internship to one of their hotels in Dubai in 2006. Furthermore, the company plans on holding another hospitality certificate course on 11 January in Addu as part of their bid to develop skilled staff for their resort. So definitely, we could say Shangri-la Maldives & Spa is a good example for other resorts in Maldives in terms of employees training and development.

Hence, the resorts should note that there is a need of continuous training to all employees at all the levels. The management will have to have consider this fact and provide some kind of training for the employees in order to catch up with the changing of new life styles and technology if they want their business to be successful.

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5.0 References Jaszay C. and Dunk P. 2003. Training Design for the Hospitality Industry. Thomson Delmar Learning, Canada Hinkin T.R. 2006. Cases in Hospitality Management: A Critical Incident Approach. John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey Maldives Tourism Update, Shangri-la Trainees return from Malaysia. Retrieved January 02, 2010 from http://www.maldivestourismupdate.com/2009/01/shangri-la-traineesreturn-from.html Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation. 2009. Third Tourism Master Plan (2007-2011). Retrieved January 02, 2010 from http://www.tourism.gov.mv/downloads/ttmp.pdf Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation. 2009. Factors that motivates Maldivians to work at the resorts. Retrieved January 02, 2010 from http://www.tourism.gov.mv/downloads/reports/survey_final_report.pdf Hospitality Net. 1995-2009. Training…. Training… Training…. May Be…, Can Be…, Or ’is’ The Solution!! Retrieved January 02, 2010 from http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4028065.search?query=importance+of+training+in+h ospitality+industry McNamara C. 1997-2008. Nuts-and-Bolts Guide to Leadership and Supervision in Business. Authenticity Consulting, LLC McNamara C. 1997-2008. Field Guide to Leadership and Supervision for Nonprofit staff. Authenticity Consulting, LLC Baker K. And Huyton J. 2001. Hospitality Management: An Introduction. Hospitality Press Pty Ltd, Australia O’Shannessy V. And Minett D. 2008. The Road to Hospitality: Skills for the new professionals. Pearson Hospitality Press, Australia Mullins L.J. 2001. Hospitality Management and Organisational Behaviour. Pearson Education Limited, England

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