Reliable Employees

There are many issues faced by management when running a hotel, (Human Resource Management in the Hospitality industry – Michael Boella, Steven Goss-Turner 2005 page 55) reports have been created concerning problems within hotels, restaurants and public houses. One of these reports carried out on London hotels, public house and restaurants identified 10 main problems and messages for hospitality employers. These were reported in (Tourism Training Initiative Newsletter, April 1989), they included issues such as customer care and how to keep customers happy, how to maintain a good reputation, keeping a reliable group of employees.

A reliable group of employees is one of the main factors of a hotel, it cannot function without employees, as it has been discussed throughout the blog students can be attractive to employees as they are cheap to employee, will accept minimum wage and will work long hours on a part time basis. However many top established hotels may be unwilling to employ students as they can have a bad reputation as lazy and simply working for the money without showing little effort. There is also the fact that students may have to be trained as they may have little or no experience, this means another employee having to take their time to train them and it will have some cost to the employer.

However in some popular tourist areas and seaside resorts such as Brighton there are initiatives to keep students employed through a contract. Some hotels have made their employees sign a contract binding them to their job before leaving for university, this contract means they have to return to work in the same establishment during the summer months while they are off. In some respects this is an opportunity for some students as they have a guaranteed job over the summer but it ties them to their previous employment.

Overall students are useful to employees due to the huge numbers of them of them looking for employment every year and their willingness to accept lower pay, but also they offer a variety of skills such as good communication and willingness to learn.

References

Michael Boella and Steven Goss Turner (2005). Human Resources Management in the Hospitality Industry. London: Elsevier Ltd.