Contemporary Issues and Emerging Trends in Human Resource Management in Hospitality Industry

This report discusses the contemporary issues and emerging trends in human resource management (HRM) in the hospitality industry. It explores the challenges faced by HR managers, such as managing a global workforce and bridging cultural gaps. The report also highlights the role of HR in the digital economy and the importance of training and development in the industry. Case study: Premier Inn.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
1. Reflection of articles on the contemporary issues and emerging trends associated with
Human resource management in hospitality industry..................................................................3
2. Development of job description and a person specification from the range of management
positions within the hospitality industry in context of Premier Inn.............................................6
3. The process of Performance Management within the hospitality industry to assist
organizations to minimize staff turnover, identify training needs and enhance promotions.....10
4. Critical evaluation and revise of two HR policies and practices of Premier Inn...................13
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is the activity of managing people to accomplish tasks
effectively or to achieve better performances (Guest, 2017). It is basically a strategical approach
towards the effective management of employees in an organization to achieve profitability goals.
This process includes employment of people, train them, compensating them and development of
strategies and policies to retain employees within the company. HR managers are responsible for
the placement of new employees along with the professional development of existing employees.
So, it is highly important that the HR managers of the company have the ability to identify and
analyse the areas in which employees require training (Boon and Eckardt, 2018).
Premier Inn is a British hotel chain and the UK's largest hospitality industry brand with
huge number of rooms and hotels availability. It operates hotels at various locations including
city centres, airports and suburbs (Wood, 2017).
This report contains the content related to contemporary and emerging issues faced by
hospitality industry in context of human resource management, development of job description
and the process of performance management within Premier Inn in order to assist them to
minimize staff turnover and to identify training needs. Along with all these topics this report will
also highlight the analysis of existing HR policies and practices of Premier Inn.
MAIN BODY
1. Reflection of articles on the contemporary issues and emerging trends associated with Human
resource management in hospitality industry
Human resource management is the organizational purpose that manages all issues
related to the human resource or people, workplace culture and the over all environment within
the organization. The role of HR managers includes recruitment, compensation, hiring, safety,
development of organization environment, motivate the employees, training and many more. The
activities and efforts done by HR managers enables the employees to contribute their best to
complete the overall tasks of the company and to achieve organizational goals and objectives in
efficient manner.
HR people are highly important for any company because of their efforts to develop
engaged workforce, builds strong relationship among employees, assist managers and team

leaders towards right direction, helps employees to achieve their career goals, supports company
growth and support organizational alignment.
However, along with various activities performed by HR managers, it has been analysed
that the managers are also had to face certain challenges while performing their tasks within the
company. According to the article “Challenges of human resource management in borderless
world”, I have analysed that the trend and responsibilities of HR managers has changing now
and companies are putting more power and responsibilities on them due to which they have to
face certain issues such as sometimes they have to rework on the mission and vision of the
company, have to put efforts towards attracting talent and retain existing employees,
empowering the candidates of company, management of global workforce, enhancement of
supplementary services, management of workplace diversity, merger and acquisition challenges,
management of cross cultural communication, etc. (Den Hartog, 2019). But the HR managers do
not have any option rather than respond accordingly in order to take advantage by doing gradual
changes required in the nature of field, current practices and even overall management policies in
order to attain potential results.
There is another article which represent the detail about the topic “Emerging issues in
human resource management in hospitality industry” illustrates and gives me a detail
information about the emerging trends of Human resource managers. Historically, HRM has
been explained as being responsible for attracting talent, their recruitment, selection, training,
compensation and assessment of employees along with assurance of compliance and labour laws
appropriately (Macke and Genari, 2019). But now, with emerging trends the role of HR
managers has also become involved in business continuity planning, succession planning, labour
relations, workforce diversity and employee engagement. This gives a proper information about
the latest activities, roles and responsibilities that need to be followed by HR managers in order
to serve their best to the organization.
In the article “Issues related to human resource management in the hospitality
industry” also helps me to give detail interpretation and cognition of the issues faced by HR
managers in the company that they have to deal with issues related to intercultural management
issues as the hospitality industry is totally dependent on foreign travellers and tourists from all
over the world in order to achieve their profit maximization objective (Guest, 2017). So, it is
highly important for human resource managers to put emphasis on the importance of bridging the

cultural gap by reaching out the guests that goes beyond multinational boundaries because some
people mistake cross-culture management and intercultural communication within the company
and in this the HR managers have to take initiate and control over the same. In this article the
author represent certain suggestions for the human resource managers in order to overcome from
their problems such as the need of keeping the spirit of employees high. With the help of
attracting and retaining good talented employees, compensation and benefits given to the
employees, change management, continuous learning and succession planning, leadership
development are some activities which help the HR managers to solve the issues in hospitality
industry.
The article on “Human resource management in the times of emerging digital
economy” describes that the human resource management is at the point where the HR managers
are at the inflection point with the beginning of digital economy (Markoulli, 2017). After the
inclusion of digitalization in hospitality industry the role of human resource managers has
emerged as the employees of the hotels feel themselves not that much important for the company
as all the necessary requirements have been filled through online process and thus the
requirement of less number of employees exists within the company. So, in order to retain
talented employees and make them feel comfortable the manager roles are highly important. The
another requirement arises due to introduction of digitalization in the industry are that each and
every employee must be fully aware about the technological advancements. It is to complete the
procedure within this industry so the HR managers have to take training sessions for the
employees at proper intervals so that they are able to maintain and sustain the image of the
organization within the market space. Although, the managers also face certain challenges while
providing training to the employees. But with the effective and efficient management they are
somehow managed to arrange the training and development sessions for the candidates and able
to satisfy the needs and wants of the employees. Through this article I have a clear vision about
the concept of digitalization and their need and importance in the hospitality industry. Also,
about various challenges that faced by human resource managers and the suggestions in order to
overcome from that problems along with satisfied employees.

2. Development of job description and a person specification from the range of management
positions within the hospitality industry in context of Premier Inn
Job analysis is the fundamental tool in order to collect job related data. The procedure
results in collecting and recording of data into two sets which includes job description and job
specification. Any job vacancy cannot be fulfilled until and unless HR managers has these two
sets of data. It is necessary to complete this format of job analysis in order to fit the correct
person at the right place and the right time (Voskuijl, 2017). This helps both the employer as
well as the employee to understand the needs and wants of the job title.
Job description includes fundamental job related data that is essential to advertise specific
job requirements and to attract the talented candidates towards the job title. It includes
information such as job title, location, job summary, reporting to the person information,
working conditions, job duties, machines to be used and hazards involved in it (CHALUPA,
2020). The purpose of job description is to collect job related information in order to advertise
the job title and attract talented person towards the company. It gives the human resource
managers or recruiting staff to find right candidate which matches the requirements of job and
also clarifies that who will report to whom.
Job Description
Job Title
Restaurant Assistant Manager
Job Location
Oakley house, Oakley road, Luton, Bedfordshire, LU4 9QH
Email id: [e-mail]
Twitter id: @premierinn
Job Summary
We are looking for assistant manager for restaurant to ensure daily activities in order to run
smoothly and expeditiously. The responsibilities of the person will include ordering the utensils
for kitchen purpose and equipments based on requirements, managing contracts, supervision of
restaurant staff and payroll. The candidate should be familiar with restaurant operations and

have a proper understanding of effective customer service. Candidate should also be available
to work within opening hours including holidays and weekends.
In short this job title requires a candidate who minimizes operating costs, deliver positive dining
experience for guests and able to boost employee retention.
Reporting
General Manager
Working Conditions
 Ability to perform all necessary functions at the restaurant level including services
related to delivery as and when required.
 Hours of working may differs and in such cases the manager must available for the
restaurant during seasonal time as well as emergencies arises.
 Able to operate phones, fax machines, computers and other office equipments.
 The position requires to be prolonged standing and repetitive body motions.
Job Duties
 Supervision of dining area, food and beverage services according to the restaurant
policies.
 Creates positive team environment within the restaurant.
 Handle guest complaints efficiently and in professional manner.
 Maintain budget and employee records, prepare pay bill and payrolls along with
monitoring bookkeeping records.
 Taking follow up at proper intervals.
 Effectively forecast restaurant needs and requirements.
 Ensures service quality to all the guests.
 Supervision of minimum 25 employees at the time of shift.
Machines to be used
 Computer
 Fax machine

 Swiping machine
Hazards
May works with cold, hot or risky equipments as and when required.
Job Specification is a written document which includes educational qualification, set of
characteristics and qualities, experience level, various skills which includes communication,
emotional, physical as well as technical skills required to perform tasks or roles and
responsibilities of the job description. It also includes sensory demand of the job title which also
need to be fulfilled by an individual (Dirisu and Atolagbe, 2018).
Job Specification
Qualifications
 Candidate must be proficient in the following dimensions of the restaurant functions i.e.
preparation of food and its planning, sanitation, security, company procedures and
policies.
 Knowledge of computer in context of MS excel, word, etc.
 Must have valid driving licence.
 Must be eligible to work in UK.
 Preferred college degree in hotel management along with practical knowledge and
education will be considered.
 Must agree to credit and background check anytime while working.
Experience
 Previous experience in similar job title.
 Coached and improved performance of at least one employee while working at previous
organization.
 Has efficiently managed team members for minimum of 12 months in same industry.
Training
Must have pro-efficient in usage of computer and all the equipments required to be used at the

time of work and have taken practical training prior to this job.
Skills
 Self-disciplined and must have leadership ability.
 Neat and clean appearance along with polite manner of talking.
 Ability to motivate employees to work even in adverse conditions.
 Must be able to handle pressures along with simultaneously coordinating with a variety
of activities and able to suggest appropriate solutions to restaurant problems.
 Ability to coordinate multiple tasks.
 Perform accountability duties and responsibilities as required or requested.
Responsibilities
 Manage shifts which involves scheduling, planning, decision-making and cleanliness.
 Ensure safe and clean environment for guests as well as employees working in the
restaurant.
 Ensure that proper and all security equipments are at their place in working condition all
the time.
 Investigation of problems concerning food quality and services along with their proper
resolution.
Emotional Characteristics
 Able to handle adverse conditions effectively.
 Must have positive attitude towards people as well as work.
 Self awareness and regulation ability.
 Motivation skill
 Empathy
 Social skills
Sensory Demands
 Must have concentrated and attentive towards work with the use of one or more visual

and audio senses.
 Dealing with distractions in the environment
3. The process of Performance Management within the hospitality industry to assist
organizations to minimize staff turnover, identify training needs and enhance promotions
Getting more out of employees has always the greatest challenge for the employers. As
the attitude of employees has been change during the course of time continuously made this is
more difficult for employers to regulate business environment. But in hospitality industry, it is
highly important to pressurize the employees to give their best towards the company as it directly
impact the guest satisfaction level and ultimately helps to achieve a level of profitability (Altin
and Koseoglu, 2018).
Performance management is not just about handling the poor performers, it is also about
getting the right person at the right place and at the right time in order to deliver efficient and
high quality services along with termination of poor performers who do not fit for the position as
well as for the company. The ultimate goal of the employer in the company should be get hire
high performing employees and this is the best way to avoid expensive employment proceedings
(Al-Badarneh, 2019). Various steps that has been involved in performance management within
the hospitality industry to assist Premier Inn to minimize staff turnover are:
 Getting the right people: It has been well-known saying that if the employers succeed in
getting the best performers in their company, then they have to spend less time on
coaching their performance. Getting the right personnel starts from the recruiting efforts
of the company. In may include various stages of interviews to analyse the candidate
efficiently. For Premier Inn, it is highly important to check the overall background of the
candidate as the company is a hospitality industry and the employees directly effect the
brand image of the organization.
 Setting appropriate expectations: Once the selected candidate become the employee of
the company, it is the responsibility of the employer to give thorough orientation of the
roles of the title of the job to the candidate along with information about the
organizational culture. The orientation stage is the most important stage as it includes
detailed information about the company which has been explained to the new employee

which effect the performance of the employee. It helps to build positive attitude among
employee towards the company. As in Premier Inn, the employee have to fill
employment forms in order to give in depth detail about the personal information and the
company have to provide the new employee with a detailed handbook which describes
the details about the hotel. Having such kind of documentation shows the professional
behaviour of the organization. Before starting the services by employee, the Premier Inn
had to train them about the policies and procedures that needs to be followed within the
company. With the help of efficient training, the employees will able to give their
maximum towards the company performance.
 Performance coaching: If the first two steps goes right by the employer then it becomes
easy for employer as well as employee to perform accordingly. But along with the high
performing employees, it is necessary to evaluate the performance periodically to sustain
or maintain the performance within the company. In Premier Inn, the performance of
employees has been evaluated on annual and semi-annual basis with the help of check-
lists, guests feedbacks, inspection reports and so on. The process followed by Premier Inn
includes opportunities to get additional training sessions, guidance and other forms of
support to their employees which helps them to perform better. Other performance
coaching methods used by Premier Inn includes 360 degree reviews, professional
involvement as well as individual coaching as and when required (Bauwens and
Decramer, 2019).
In context of requirement of training needs that helps to assist the Premier Inn with regard to
process of performance management is that it is a process of identifying needs and gaps that
needs to be filled with the help of effective training (Masri and Jaaron, 2017). It is basically a
requirement of finding out the nature and ways to evaluate performance problems and their
solutions that how it can be solved. There are certain measures which help the organization to
identify training needs within the company such as:
 Determine the craved or final result: The primary goal of the Premier Inn is to
determine the ideal ways that their employees should perform their core services. For
such situation, first it is highly important to analyse the actual performance of the
employees and the desired outcome that a company requires. With the help of effective

analysis, the employers are able to figure out the desired standard of performance.
Basically, at initial level, company have to analyse process which has been prepared who
describes the desired outcome from their employees in order to attain profitability.
 Determine the current outcome: Once the company identify the way in which the task
should be performed, then the next step is to identify the current outcome or current
performance of employees in determine the gap between both of them. With the help of
effective observation of learners, analysing company matrix, interviewing supervisors
and managers and taking feedback from them about their team members and at last
analysing performance report (Turner and Witteman, 2017).
 Analyse the cause of performance gap and offer solutions to them: Now the Premier
Inn managers are able to know the exact reason about the specific performance gap, the
next step is to identify the solutions through which the company will able to rectify the
performances of the employees. Generally it has been analysed with the proper
performance evaluation that in most of the cases the lack of knowledge and skills are the
major reason that cause the performance gap. In such cases the requirement of training
arises and the employer have to train again the employers with the major emphasis on
fulfilment of gaps so that the employers will able to fill the gap with the help of giving
proper and desired outcome towards the company.
With regard to the concept of enhance promotions, the performance management process within
the company in order to assist the employer is highly important as the efficient and continual
performance evaluation helps the leaders or managers to evaluate the individual performances.
With the help of this, the managers are able to evaluate that who requires the training and who
are performing well according to the desired outcomes. The employees within the Premier Inn
who are giving their best towards the company and help them to attain profitability and good
brand image in the market place, needs to be promoted to higher positions in order to motivate
them to work for longer period (Luu, 2021).
4. Critical evaluation and revise of two HR policies and practices of Premier Inn
Human resource policies and procedures are important as it helps to provide consistency,
control, fairness, structure and reasonability towards the company. It caters guidelines on

employer-employee relationships, which contributes on acceptable norms of work schedules,
safety and health measures, conflict resolution, etc. (Chung, 2018). For building a successful
enterprise, HR policies and procedures are not one time attempt. Policies help to provide clear-
cut communication among the employees and organization regarding the conditions of
occupation or their job responsibilities. Such policies help the employees to be treated fairly and
equally in the organization. It reforms a context for supervision of employee orientation program
and training programs. The policies should be made according to certain qualities such as it
should contribute to company objectives, should make well aware their employees about their
importance, it should create a sense of security among employees, should be able to encourage
the relationship between employees and organization, policies should be flexible in nature so that
it can be revised at any point of time when required, etc. (Immaneni and Sailaja, 2021).
However, the policies and procedures must be regularly updated and reviewed to ensure
that they are updated and able to serve purpose in current scenario as well. In context of Premier
Inn, the policies and procedures have been prepared by the company, however there are certain
policies that needs to be revised according to the changing time and scenario. The managers and
leaders of the company assist to change and revise some policies in favour of employees as well
as organization in order to serve the purpose of both of them. Revised policies of Premier Inn
includes:
 Recruitment and Selection policy: Earlier the policy of the company is to recruit only
young talent in the company because according to the leaders and managers of Premier
Inn, it has been analysed that the young talents are more prone to adapt changes and
things in fast and proper manner (Dominique-Ferreira, 2021). But in today's scenario it
has been revaluated that with the fast change of requirement, the experience also matters
a lot. So, taking this point into consideration, the company allows the senior candidates as
well to approach the organization. The senior candidates are also eligible to get
recruitment within the company with effect from revision of this policy.
 Grievance resolution at work: Initially Premier Inn follows the policy related to
grievance handling in such way that the person who is having problem have to follow
certain procedure or steps to reach at the higher authority for resolution of issues. But
now, it has revised and company introduces new panel of grievance handling which
handles the conflicts and problems within the workplace as well as among employees and

directly share the resolution after coordinating with the higher authorities (Dominique-
Ferreira, 2019). The policy has been revaluated because earlier it takes a lot of time to
resolve particular query as huge number of steps involvement while the separate panel
reduces the efforts and time and able to provide immediate solution to the employees.
Revision of these two policies in the company are important as to ensure that these are still
relevant, important and up to date in context of company. As company policies clarify the
employees expected standards and help employers to manage employees more accurately and in
proper manner (Sharma, 2019). Just like above explained two policies, it is the time to revise
them according to the current scenario as nowadays time is highly important for the company
and each and every member want to get resolution of problems on time without any delay.
However, the core elements of policies and procedures may stay the same, only the details of the
policies should change according to the standards of the company, organizational wants and legal
requirements of the company in changing scenario.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that human resource management is the
function that manages all issues related to candidates or employees within the organization. The
human resource management includes recruitment and selection, performance management,
training and development, employee motivation and many more but it is not limited to these
activities only. The report include reflection of articles which represent the issues related to
contemporary and emerging trends associated in the hospitality industry.
In this study, the concept of job description and job specification has also been explained
with the sample making of job description of the Restaurant Assistant Manager along with all the
fields filled which are necessary to describe the job title in detail. The description of job
specification also has been described in the above report to give detailed knowledge about the
conception. The process of performance management within the Premier Inn in order to
minimize staff turnover within the company has been explained which includes certain measures
due to which or with the help of them the company will able to reduce staff turnover. The needs
and wants of the training along with activities which helps to enhance promotional activities has
also been described in this work.

At last, the written document also includes the policies and procedures that needs to be
revised according to the changing scenario and in order to give maximum support to the
employees as well as company in positive manner. The whole study illustrates the concept of
human resource management in hospitality industry, their roles, responsibilities, importance in
life of employees as well as employer and the concept of performance management.

REFERENCES
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