Managing Human Resources in Hospitality
Executive Summary
Human resource management is one of the key functioning areas behind the performance of any business industry. The hospitality industry in New Zealand has experienced growth and is attributed to the effective role of human resource management practices. However, the current state of human resource management practices has experienced various issues that have influenced employees’ life cycle in the industry. As a result, the human resource practices in New Zealand hospitality have taken a quite different approach, although with some similarity to other industries.
There are several issues identified to have an impact on Human resource management strategy and implementation on the employee’s lifecycle in the New Zealand Hospitality industry. Some such issues include management of changes and its implementation, the adoption of innovation, and the aspect of recruitment and retention of employees’ techniques taking into consideration the workforce diversity factor impact on ECL (Mckee, 2020). This research paper mainly focuses on the latter named factors’ impacts on HRM practices in line with ECL. Likewise, there are also considered implications of this factor in the New Zealand hospitality industry in line with its operational and business performance. The literature review provides an analysis of how such factors have been addressed in the hospitality industry by other HRM scholars. This report provides a glimpse of how significant issues are impacting the HRM strategy and management of ECL.
Introduction
Human resource management is one of the important areas of any industry success. The hospitality industry of New Zealand has been one, coupled with various trends. As a result, it is taking a different direction, one that is defining the New Zealand Hospitality industry. In relation to the employee life cycle, effective human resource management helps an organization specifically in this case the hospitality firms when it comes to attracting, developing, motivating, and retaining the best qualified and skills-equipped employees. This is, in turn, helping in depicting the true meaning of the employee lifecycle. Over the previous years, we have witnessed various issues impacting Human resource management in the hospitality industry. Based on research studies coupled with enough evidence, some of the key challenges impacting the Human resource management employee lifecycle include the Management changes, adaptation to innovation and recruitment and retention of talented employees (Luo & Milne, 2014). In this research paper, the main focus is on how the latter named issues impact Human resource management strategic planning and implementation of the employee lifecycle.
Evaluation of How Management changes, adaptation to innovation, and recruitment and retention of Employees Impact HR strategy and Management of ELC processes.
Indeed, it is clear that change is inevitable in any business industry. However, one of the important things to note is that change comes with its positive and negative side. The hospitality industry in New Zealand is one of the industry sectors facing challenges that positively and negatively depict such impacts. The issues mentioned earlier, management changes, adaptation to innovation, and the recruitment and retention of talented and skillful employees impact the HRM process in the New Zealand hospitality industry significantly. Most importantly, the industry’s HRM lifecycle is affected by such changes.
Employee lifecycle is one main area of concern when it to an evaluation of current issues in the HRM sector in the hospitality industry among other industries. Several changes being experienced in the hospitality industry are impacting the employee lifecycle significantly. For people who do not understand the employee life cycle, it is also important to grasp the meaning of the employee life cycle before continuing with the discussion. Employee lifecycle in Human resource management refers to the employee cycle in an organization in terms of their recruitment, onboarding, development, retention, and exiting from the organization or separation (Gilbert, 2018). Current changes in the human resource management sector are impacting employees’ lifecycle.
Change management is one of the key areas impacting employees’ lifecycle. In other words, it is also referred to as the management of changes. As said earlier, changes are inevitable in an organization and they come along with their benefits and challenges. Changes are usually experienced where there is growth and expansion of an organization or there is an emerging issue that needs an approach (Olalekan, 2016). As a business organization grows and expands, so does it structure and internal operational process also changes (Luo, 2010). Some employees tend to find it challenge to handle, deal and survive in such changes. It in such a moment when an organization tends to experience changes in employees’ lifecycles. This is not just a problem seen across different industries across the world, but it is seen here in New Zealand. Coping with changes in an organization is a challenge suggesting the real reason as to why there is always opposition to changes. During periods of embracing changes, hospitality firms have been experiencing challenges in terms of yielding productivity. As a result, they have been forced to restructure their HRM strategy and try to employ a new workforce capable of dealing with new industry pressure. That is how the management of changes impacts HRM.
Adaptation to innovation is another area of concern. This is especially seen due to the increased rate at which technology is changing and incorporated into the provision of hospitality services. As a result of improved technology services and devices, the employee lifecycle is distorted as many hospitality key stakeholders are opting to use more technology and innovation (JO, 2012). Similarly, the demand or pressure caused by forces of the market in hospitality requires hospitality firms across the country to have employees with an innovative mindset. This is not just to employees but also their employers. As a result, hospitality firms are taking a new approach to HRM management, which influences the employee life cycle (Babaita, 2018).
The labor workforce demand in the hospitality industry is also changing due to innovation. As a result, employees are demanding a new workforce that is skilled and knowledgeable about the current market state. This is another area that is also impacting the HRM lifecycle as Human resource managers are now faced with the task of strategically planning new ways and evaluation criteria of employee recruitment, retention, and separation. Skills and knowledge aligning with the current market forces are key to such issues influence on employee lifecycle.
The hospitality industry in New Zealand has focused on its operational and business performance key areas when it comes to such an issue impact on HRM resource management. Indeed, the truth is that Human resource management is a very important ingredient as it’s the core part of a firm operational as well productivity of a firm. Much of the changes occurring in the HRM hospitality industry of new zeal have interfered with the employee lifecycle on the good and bad sides. The main concern has been changing the HRM into one that is effectively operational and producing a desirable business performance.
Literature Review
Based on the evaluation of the New Zealand hospitality industry, the industry is indeed a labor-intensive one. This suggests the reason as to why human resource management is a very important unit of this industry. The hospitality industry in New Zealand has grown by 3.6% (Jones & Wynn, 2019). This implies that the human resource management area in this industry also experiences a strain or a challenge where there is a need to adapt as fast as possible. Likewise, the pressure coming from global hospitality competition, shifting travel marketing’s, increased operational expenses, among other factors, have been given much consideration when it comes to meeting customer need and demands. In direct line with the latter issue, human resource management has been given special attention towards achieving such a milestone. The New Zealand hospitality industry’s success is not reliant on just the frontline employees who interact with customers regularly but is also dependent on the backup staff who indirectly interacts with customers.
Human Resource management scholars have done various research studies on how current issues impact this industry’s HRM in terms of employee lifecycle. Considering that tourism has become one of the key economy driving tools of New Zealand, Human resource management has been significantly influenced. Change management is one of the key areas where researchers have paid much attention to how it impacts the HRM lifecycle process. Generally, research studies have shown that change management in an organization has been helping towards employees’ retention and recruitment (Nelson & Luetz, 2019).
During the change management process, Human resource managers have a special role in helping their organization through employees towards transitioning into a new environment. That is how they influence employees’ lifecycle. Several HRM scholars have attributed to the aspect of replacing employees who oppose change and employee new ones who are ready to work in a new environment as one of the key areas whereby employees’ lifecycle is influenced (Cox, 2018).
Another research study conducted in the U.S.A provided some reasons why hospitality firms are making changes regularly. Such reasons include adjusting to new economic conditions, adjusting to methodology aligning with the marketplace landscape. Similarly, the need to respect and adhere to the government laws, meeting customer needs, adapting to new technology are some of the changes management which are influence employees’ lifecycle. The shifting of economic conditions is indeed one of the main areas affecting employees’ life cycle (Morley & Heraty, 2019).
Economic conditions are changing and hence also affecting the hospitality industry in New Zealand and also in some countries. As a result, hospitality business firms and entities are faced with hard economic times and hence hard financial organization management. This is one of the change management that leads to employees’ layoffs as a means of cutting on expenses and enabling the organization to survive such a period. Such an approach is helping firms but, at the same time, interfering with ECL negatively as human resource management is left with a limited workforce to compete effectively in the industry (Brewster, Mayrhofer & Farndale, 2018).
Laws and regulation is another area where change management is affecting employee retention. With the new pressure to align with government laws and regulations that human resource management practices. Such laws have been enacted to guide the process of employee recruitment, retention as well as separation. This is one of the entities forcing an organization to interfere with its employee lifecycle to ensure that government laws and regulations are adhered to when it comes to human resource management across all industries cutting across also the hospitality industry.
Nevertheless, the adaptation of innovation and technology is another factor that research studies show that impacts HRM strategic planning and implementation of an effective employee lifecycle. Indeed, technological advancement has had many effects on Human resource management. One of the areas of human resource management that has been greatly affected is the employees’ recruitment and retention.
Taking the case of employee retention, much of the previous research articles shows how there has been a growing demand for a workforce that is equipped with current knowledge and skills to survive in a competitive world. Advanced and changing technology is contributing to growing demand with information Technological knowledge and skills. Human resource management is taking a new approach to employing a new labor force capable of using technology to influence organizational productivity and business performance. Similar to the hospitality industry in New Zealand, this is a common approach. As a means of adapting to changes, employee retention based on equipping with Information communication skills has been the core area handled by human resource management. Training and education programs have been considered among hospitality firms to equip employees with skills and knowledge to be functional in such a competitive and labor-intensive industry (Brewster, Mayrhofer & Farndale, 2018). However, other research studies have shown that innovation has been due to the increased competition and arising of various hospitality issues. Human resource management, especially for employees in the management and administration sector of hospitality firms, has been one of the areas where there has been a key influential factor of ECL.
Employee recruitment and retention is another factor in human resource management. However, in terms of the employee lifecycle, one of the main associated issues behind its influence on human resource management in workplace diversity. Indeed, workplace diversity is one of the issues showing its impact on the New Zealand Hospitality industry. The influence of diversity in the workplace has been shown through studies conducted on hospitality industries, generally in several key regions of the world. For many scholars, ‘ workplace diversity goes along with inclusion factor. In terms of human resource management, many hospitality firms are embracing a strategy of employing a more diversified workforce as a means of enhancing employees’ life cycle (Mackey, 2019). A research study conducted by Zoe Mackey showed that a diverse workforce indeed influences employees’ lifecycle by impacting employee retention.
According to research done by Kasasbeh, having a diverse workgroup in an organization generally tends to improve the profitable level of a company. Workplace diversity is important when it comes to raising the bottom line and impacting employees and customer experience (Kasasbeh, Harada & Noor, 2017). As a result, it leads to an effective employee lifecycle. Having a diverse workforce as a human resource manager implies you have a group of employees interact with each with no any form of bias, enhances cultural competencies, increased productivity and inclusiveness which helps to keeps employees happy and hence makes the avoid the need to shift to other jobs (Tangthong & Agahi, 2018). As much as the hospitality industry in New Zeeland has been depended on one culture, workplace diversity is proving to be a driving force forcing the human resource management to take a new approach. However, a diverse workforce for many hospitality businesses in New Zealand struggles with low turnover (Jones & Wynn, 2019).
Moreover, the need and desire to have a diversified workforce also influence the employee life cycle in a very special way. One such area is through the hiring process. With the desire to have a more diversified workforce, hospitality business human resource management is taking a new approach to developing smart hiring strategies (Crawshaw, Budhwar & Davis, 2020). Such strategies are meant to recruit employees with a mindset of working with diverse workforce groups. Besides, diversity in the workplace is also taking into consideration inclusion as a key factor.
Based on the analysis of this subject issues literature review. Indeed there are several possible solutions drawn from the discussions that help to deal with the current issues in the New Zealand hospitality industry. Hospitality firms, first of all, need to be embracers of changes. Changes in organizations are impacting the Human resource management employee lifecycle process significantly. Many organizations due to change management, employees’ lifecycle needs to be altered to get new employees capable of dealing current issues in the industry as well as retain the ones who are flexible (Iqbal, 2019). This is similar to the case of adaptation of innovation. Innovation, especially technological inventions, is pushing firms to incorporate them into human resource management. This results in employee’s layoffs and retention of competent ones capable of using their mindset on innovation and creativity. Having a more diversified workforce encourages employees due to a lack of business. As a result, effective collaboration and working environments are created, helping to encourage employees to maintain their working environments within the hospitality industry.
Conclusion
Human resource management has proved to be one of the key areas of hospitality management in New Zealand. However, the hospitality industry in New Zealand’s human resource management is faced with various issues affecting employees’ life cycle. Such factors include the change managements, adoption of innovation as well as recruitment and retention of employees in line with workplace diversity. Change management is pushing hospitality firms to go for workforce capable of dealing with current hospitality issues and also help in retaining ones who are flexible to change towards current human resource management practices (Brewster, Mayrhofer & Farndale, 2018). Similar to the latter factor, adoption of technology is also doing the same thing to Human resource managers as they are forced to enhance employee retention through training on how to use current technological advancement in organization’s operational. Workplace diversity is on the other hand influencing human resource management practices in a positive way. In general, there are various issues with the hospitality industry which are impacting employees’ lifecycle. Although they come along with various challenges, identifying ways we can embrace them while working on such differences is an effect of moving forward to the hospitality industry (Murki, 2014).
Recommendations
Human resource management is a core element of any industry. For the hospitality industry in New Zealand, it has proved to be an essential element towards hospitality industry growth and the country’s economy. There are several other recommendations that the Hospitality industry needs to consider. Such factors include considering to enhance human resource management effectiveness (Williamson & Harris, 2019). This implies that activities such as training and educating employees on current issues will help to influence retention and hence impact employee retention. The hospitality industry is also changing. Hence, the stakeholders need to keep an eye on some of the trends that will shape the industry and impact them individually on a positive note. One such trend is the smart hotel technology, changes in methods of talent sourcing, increased number of human resource analytics, smarter recruitment, among other factors that are likely to impact the employee lifecycle (Bartercard, 2017).
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