Human Resources Management in the Service Industries - Essay Example

Introduction The hotel, catering and tourism industries are some of the fastest growing industries in the world with more than thirty percent of total global services. Globalisation of markets due to advancement in technology calls for companies in the hospitality industry to be innovative in order to deal with customers with different values and cultural backgrounds (Scullion and Collings 2006). In order for hospitality firms to remain competitive and attract more clients, there is need for an improved quality service delivery. The manner in which service is delivered to customers depends on how employees behave (Tsaur and Lin 2004). Although the physical product offered by the hospitality industry is important, the experience that customers have mostly depends on interactions with front-line staff. The time when customers come into direct contact with a service provider forms the basis of success of hospitality industry because customers develop impressions about the organisation. The perception of good service by customers from different geographical regions is thus important for the businesses in the hospitality industry to be able to satisfy customers. Since it is almost impossible to totally avoid mistakes when servicing customers, businesses need to have service recovery strategies to attract and retain customers. Response to service failure by firms entails apologising and fixing the problem then paying for necessary costs but the outcome may vary depending on service context. The difference in cultures among consumers from different areas has an effect on the way they perceive quality service and consequently the way they will complain in different contexts (French 2007). McDonald’s, American company that makes American burgers, found it difficult to move to India because the Indian culture does not allow the consumption of beef. Therefore, McDonald’s came up with a menu that would fit the Indian culture by making burgers from mashed peas, potatoes and spices. According to Wong (2004), the less powerful people expect power not to be equally distributed in the society therefore creating power distance. The higher the power distance the more the effort required by the service provider to reduce the negative perception of the customer in case of a service failure. Service recovery action is therefore likely to be affected negatively due to an increased expectation by the customer as influenced by power distance. Social distance in a culture of individualism between a service provider and a consumer on the other hand has a positive influence on the service recovery action. This is because consumers are more concerned about themselves and their achievement in an individualistic culture rather than groups making the service gap to be narrow. Masculine societies have a greater service expectation because they strive for advancement and therefore more likely to disapprove a service provider in case of failure making it difficult to improve service recovery action (Wong 2004). The possibility of consumer to come back in future after an encounter is mostly affected by the ability of a service provider to elude uncertainty no matter the service recovery strategy. This is because even if there has been a positive word of mouth people generally tend to go to firms where there is a low potential of failure (Furrer, Liu and Sudharshan 2001).The way in which employees behave could have several effects on almost all human resource strategies. According to Tsaur and Lin (2004) in most cases customers evaluate the quality of service based on the behaviour of employees and not on organisational human resource practices although they can be related. Hospitality institutions for example, which create conditions and opportunities which promote the growth of careers, make employees to concentrate on serving their customers. Employees in direct contact with the customers play an important role because in serving customers they go out of their way to do more than they are required formally (Guirdham 2005). Therefore, employees who are rewarded well by the HR tend to serve their clients better. Employees have an important role to play in service industries because they influence how customers perceive the organisation. Tsaur and Lin (2004) reported that the quality of service offered by tourist hotels is seen as better by customers when the behaviour of employees desirable. Therefore, employees who are in direct contact with customers should not only be able to serve excellently but also have positive behaviour (Werner 2000). Service organisations will have reliable services if they employ workers based on their personality and a deep understanding of the job. Hospitality organisations that train their workers and reward them for a job well done have higher chances of benefiting as various customers needs are likely to be satisfied. HRM strategies should therefore focus on using the appropriate evaluation procedure (Tsaur and Lin 2004). Service customers often prepare themselves prior to service encounters by checking on the available service providers and exchanging the relevant information. Therefore, as much as the service providers attempt to have recovery strategies in case of failures, customers also put in considerable efforts. Youngdahl et al. (2003) suggested that the more effort the customers put in preparations for an encounter, the higher their chances of being satisfied. In order to check the influence of culture on the outcomes of service, it is important to study the culture itself. In one way or another, individuals are affected by various cultures from families, countries and religions. Customers from different cultures have different patterns of behaviour and values. For example the Japanese tend to increase on innovations while Germans tend to be very analytical prior to decision making. However, research done by Youngdahl et al. (2003) suggested that there is no relationship between culture and the way customers behave or are satisfied. Customers often build relationships with the service providers without the influence of culture and complain when dissatisfied. The social interaction between the service providers and the guests has an impact on holiday satisfaction and how competitive a destination is. The script and role theory hugely explains social interactions. People are social actors according to role theory and tend to learn behaviours that fit their surroundings. Therefore, the ability of a service provider to make an experience enjoyable depends on how well is the organisation setting. Script theory defines the roles that are performed by individuals in a setting therefore when one person fails to do their duties, the others become dissatisfied. Culture has an influence on the outcome of service encounters. For example, French speaking visitors that find it hard to communicate in English find themselves having lower social interactions. Branding is also another major issue facing the hospitality industry. Customers are normally willing to pay higher prices for the brands that they prefer. Therefore, the capability of a firm in the hotel industry to be successful will depend on how they manage a strong brand. HRM strategies are necessary for the hospitality organisations to attain high quality service. The HRM policies treat employees differently from the customers with a higher value and emphasis being placed on the customers. The personal dignity of the employees should not be overlooked and therefore it is important for HR policies to ensure that there is improvement in all aspects of the employees. Due to cultural diversity, hospitality industries find it challenging to manage their workforce it is therefore important for the workers to have ample understanding on cultural diversity. When a firm is able to harness the different cultures, the talents of employees can be fully tapped. Tourism and hospitality industry employs over 230 million people worldwide and the quality of the jobs is therefore the major concern to the policy makers (Kandula 2004). In some areas these jobs are highly paying and managers face huge challenges when employing workers who are able to meet customers’ expectations in terms of service. To maintain a competitive environment, key HRM issues have to be dealt with. Hospitality industry in the UK has a diversity of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and therefore the HRM strategies need to be different. For example, a low cost airline carrier has a different approach to HRM issues as compared to luxury hotels. Employment and training of staff to ensure a competitive edge in the service industry is a major issue that hospitality industries face (Spiess and Waring 2005). Organisations need to be innovative and develop services that are new and different which happens when the HRM strategy comprises of having a large number of employees who are skilled and independent. HRM should also create a working environment that encourages teamwork, make the employees responsible and facilitate making of decisions (Brewster, Sparrow and Vernon 2007). This will in turn make the employees to be cooperative and dedicated to achieving the goals of the firm. The hospitality industry is faced with a negative view of poor employment strategies and therefore there is a high possibility of recruiting a weak labour force which in turn affects the quality of service provided. Because the hospitality industry has not been able to recognise the most pressing issues, an employees’ association such as the British Hospitality Association has been opposing government initiatives like those of the minimum wage (Bratton and Gold 2001) Every management policy has an impact on the workers in an organisation for example a company such as McDonalds’s in the catering industry operates in a narrow product range. Others firms such as Whitbread and Accor operate in a wide market sector. The policies in an organisation also affect how managers will make their decisions. The key priorities in the human resource management are retaining of the employed staff and training employees to be multifunctional. Literature on human resource points out that the HRM practices hugely influence the behaviour of employees and how successful the organisation will perform. In turn the overall profits of an organisation are affected (Zerbe, Dobni and Hare1 2009). Employees determine the success of the managers therefore it is necessary to motivate them through improved working conditions and better salaries. In order to build a superior service culture, it is important for organisations to know what their customers want to have and avoid. This is because customers are different and understanding them takes quite some time. Some companies such as South West Airlines involve customers who are loyal when employing their staff. Other companies like Emirates Airlines involve their customers when they have special events (Kaufman 2007). Creating an environment that encourages free flow of ideas from all individuals in an organisation will also improve on the service culture. Kaufman (2007) claims that having suggestion boxes with an appealing name and rewarding good ideas can enable the service culture of an organisation to completely change for the better. The suggestions should also be implemented quickly. This will make the employees feel powerful. If possible, the customers can should be involved and rewarded together with the firm’s staff. The leaders of an organisation should also be seen giving high class service to both their customers and employees. The staffs tend to believe in service culture (Spiess and Waring 2005). In the service sector, the more positive the employees view organisational practices, the higher the possibility of customers giving it a higher rating on its effectiveness. Processes such as appraisal and promotion make employees to have a positive attitude. Therefore, HRM strategies affect service culture and should be considered. Therefore, the hospitality industry should know that if they treat their employees well there is high likelihood that the quality of service will improve (Zerbe, Dobni, and Hare1 2009). The change in UK economy has necessitated the development of small scale hospitality industries although there is increased concern that the small firms are being wiped out of the market by mergers, acquisitions and closure. Setting up of standards limits innovation and therefore small scale hospitality firms continue to underperform and realising low profits. Since consumer behaviour is constantly changing, the hospitality sector must also change in order for them to prosper (Lucas 2010). The emerging markets especially China and India bring huge competition to the UK hospitality industry. Thistle Hotels for example puts a great deal of effort so as to make their customers loyal. The culture of the hotel staff is to ask the customers their opinion about the quality of service being provided. Because the staff is kept happy and trained well, the impact has a positive effect on the customers too (Nickson and Wood 2000). Conclusion Globalisation and advancement in technology have had a major influence on hospitality and service industries. Even though the hospitality industry offers both physical products and services, the possibility of attracting and retaining customer is mainly dependent on the quality of service being offered. A great deal of emphasis should therefore be put on the way the customers interact with the service providers in an encounter. There are several factors that influence culture including power distance, social distance and the expectation of the customer. Due to the fact that hospitality industries handle customers from different regions who therefore view quality of service differently, there is a low possibility of service providers not making mistakes when serving customers. The human resource strategies in the hospitality industry should therefore have efficient ways of responding to customers in case of failures. HRM strategies should also focus on lowering the chances of failure because customers tend to go to places where there is a low likelihood of failure. References Bratton, J and Gold, J, 2001, Human resource management: theory and practice, Routledge, New jersey. Brewster, C, Sparrow, P and Vernon, C, 2007, International human resource management, 2nd edn, CIPD, London. French, R 2007, Cross-Cultural Management in Work Organisations, CIPD, London. Furrer, O, Liu, BS-C and Sudharshan, D 2001, ‘The relationships between cultures and service quality perceptions’, Journal of Service Research, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 118– 30. Guirdham, M 2005, Communicating across cultures at work, 2nd edn, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan. Kandula, SR 2004, Human resource management in practice: with 300 models, techniques and tools, PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi. Kaufman, R 2007, Top ten tips to build a superior service culture, Beyond Hospitality Pvt. Ltd, Republic of Maldives. Lucas, RW, 2010, Defining your customer service culture, viewed on 3 December 2010, < http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Defining_Your_Customer_Service_Culture.html>. Nickson, D and Wood, RC 2000, ‘HRM in the hotel industry: a comment and response’, Human Resource Management Journal, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 88–90. Spiess, L, and Waring, P, 2005, ‘Emotional and aesthetic labour: cost minimization and the labour process in the Asia Pacific airline industry’, Employee Relations, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 193–207. Scullion, H and Collings, C 2006, Global Staffing, Routledge, London. Tsaur, S-H and Lin, Y-C 2004, ‘Promoting service quality in tourist hotels: the role of HRM practices and service behavior’, Tourism Management, vol. 25. pp. 471-81. Werner, JM 2000, ‘Implications of OCB and contextual performance for human resource management’, Human Resource Management Review, vol. 10, no. 1. Pp. 3–24. Wong, NY 2004, ‘The role of culture in the perception of service recovery’, Journal of Business Research, vol. 57, pp. 957– 63. Youngdahl, WE, Kellogg, DL, Nic, W and Bowen, DE 2003, ‘Revisiting customer participation in service encounters:does culture matter? Journal of Operations Management, vol. 21, pp. 109-20. Zerbe, WJ, Dobni, D and Hare1, GH 2009, ‘Promoting employee service behaviour: the role of perceptions of human resource management practices and service culture’ Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 165-179. . Read More