Factors Affecting Hospitality Graduates Career Perception

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to investigate the key attributes, which affects the hospitality graduates to take up a career in hospitality industry. The research is mainly focused on the students in university studying hospitality and to conduct this research in more effective manner past research is also been studied for detailed understanding. The methodology used to conduct this research will be quantitative method, asking students on campus to fill out the questionnaire, which will answer questions about factors affecting and their perception about taking up career in hospitality industry. In addition to identifying the key reasons, this research will also address the specific issues related to employment in hospitality industries for instances long working hours, no benefits and poor work life balances. The outcome of this research will be more beneficial for the tutors to understand the importance of providing right exposure to students about hospitality culture. It will also benefit managers and hospitality recruiters to understand their employees and address the current issues related to job satisfaction. Overall this research will contribute to increase customer satisfaction and assist with one of the major challenge which is high employee turnover rate.

Introduction

Hospitality is one of the fastest growing and popular industries around the world. Customer service is the backbone of hospitality and to customer satisfaction we need manpower. According to (Noone, Kimes, and Mattila, 2007) customer satisfaction is directly linked to customer retention. Unhappy and dissatisfied guest will never return and hence we may end up loosing the business. However it is important to understand the vital aspect in providing great customer service to the guest is staff. Without great staff it is impossible to run the hospitality industry. It is requires more manpower, compare to any other sectors, as customer service is the vital task and it cannot be replaced by machines, therefore lot of employees are required to run the operation (Hayes and Ninemeier, 2009). With its rapid growth, it is in high demand of skilled manpower and which is why many universities have started offering courses in hospitality and tourism. The positive part is many universities and colleges have different level of courses to support the growing industry, at the same time it is also creating a negative impact on the students who are currently enrolled in the courses. The previous research have founded that students usually do not join the industry after completing their courses (Pavesic and Brymer, 1990). There are many reasons behind lack of commitment from students such as long working hours, low salaries, fewer benefits and poor working atmospheres (Roney and Oztin, 2007). This negative impact further can be seen in the customer service offered at the different hospitality organization, which then leads to employee turnovers. Therefore it is very essential that students should enter the organization in right frame of mind. Students believe to have wrong impressions either from their tutors or sometimes due to their personal experience at work. Eventually they may end up leaving the industry forever and hence it is important for the tutors and also managers to identify these issues to avoid problems and future benefits for both employees and employers.

Literature Review

There were several research carried out in past to determine the student perceptions about taking hospitality as career. To conduct this research previous research on these issues was been reviewed to help understand the issue in better way.

Working Atmosphere

It has been noticed over the period that hospitality industry is changing generations by generations according to (Gursoy, Maier and Chi, 2008) hospitality industry has always seen a vast difference between previous and current generation. One of the issues with students in taking up career in hospitality is the working atmosphere as they prefer to work in the environment which is more challenging, change and goal driven, they also love to have feedbacks (Chen and Choi, 2008). Previously employees had no connection with their managers directly as managers would dictate the jobs to supervisors and then the same would be conveyed to the employees. This cycle of communication hence lead to lack of interaction with the managers and since the employees were not qualified enough, they would perform the task as taught by their line supervisors, without understanding the importance or putting in some efforts to enhance it with their own creativity. But as the time passed and hospitality industry started booming around the globe, it changed the entire concept of customer service skill. Earlier it was just basic accommodation and food service but today it is more about the guest experience, customer service and retaining them. This is when lot of institution came up with hospitality courses to learn the skills and gain knowledge about hospitality. After taking up the education in hospitality students who entered the industry with skills and qualification found problems to work with older generation (Gursoy et al., 2008). Hospitality industry is totally dependent on manpower and therefore it is very important to have positive attitude people, who can motivate others. Staff can only be positive if the working atmosphere is pleasant and healthy and really matters to people when choosing their career paths (Sibson, 2011). Therefore (Gursoy et al. 2008, p. 454) states that

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The hospitality industry will need to develop new standards of human resource management in order to successfully connect with a multi- generational workforce. It is possible that a top-down and bureaucratic management and leadership style may not be effective with younger generations of employees.

Social Status

According to many students hospitality industry is glamour’s industry and their misconception about the same leads them to disappointment. This happens when the reality strikes after completing education and entering into the industry for their first job experience. As per (Bashar et al, 2013) some student also felt that choosing career in the hospitality will have great impact on the social status and will have good job opportunities. However in reality after completing studies, they have to start from the base positions like waiter/waitress or housekeeper. This really disappoints them because according to them they do not need qualification or education of so many years for this kind of jobs (Tan, 2016).

Past Experiences

As mentioned above it is one of the important aspects for the students to have right mindset when they are entering into actual job. Most often tutor educating students have no physical experience in the industry and fail to provide realities of the industry (Brown, 2015). It has also been noticed in past researches that students who take up studies in hospitality is required to have some work experience in form of on job trainings or internships to experience the industry culture. Also some students during their studies take up part time jobs to gain field experience. However these experiences sometimes do not turn out to be positive due to lack of correct exposure and guidance from right people. This leaves students with a negative impression and makes them to change their perception about career in hospitality (Richardson, 2008).

Long Working Hours and Low Wages

Hospitality industry is totally dependent on the manpower as it involves customer service as a main task and it cannot be replaced by machines. Since it is labor intensive industry it usually requires working for long hours. This is another attribute which affects the student’s perception about hospitality as a career. Study which was conducted by (Richardson, 2010) is that students believes that working hours in hospitality industry are always more than 8 hours which affects the work life balance and also there was less scope to develop the career. Low wage is also one of the major issues as per students (Lu and Adler, 2008). As per (Wong and Ko’s, 2009) factors which can drive students in taking up hospitality as a career are flexi working hours, work life balance, rewards for working extra hours and should have freedom to reduce the working hours as per their convenience. Some studies carried out on students of generation Y by (Choi and Kwon, 2013) prove that students expect their workplace to be fun loving and relaxed compare to strict environments.

Finally to conclude it seems that above reasons are the main reasons for students changing their mind about career in hospitality. This gap should be addressed by tutors if they make students aware about the reality of the hospitality and give them a clear understanding. Also it is essential that tutors providing education about hospitality must have some industry experience at least, to have a realistic approach during teaching. Other strategy would be inviting guest speakers to colleges for addressing doubts of student on working in hospitality related to long working hours, work life balances and working atmosphere. However this is not the complete solutions to the factors stated above to change the student’s perception about hospitality as a career. Hence further investigation is required to understand the issue and expert advice on the same will be beneficial.

Methodology

As the research is focused on students, the ideal location for this research will be college campus. Pilot study will be carried out in order to cut down the cost and time, to derive the outcome from limited participants. Participants for this research will be students mostly undergraduates students who are studying hospitality or post graduate students who have taken hospitality as a specialization. To conduct this research approach of quantitative methodology will be applied for collecting data. A set of questionnaires will be designed keeping in mind the research topic. It will consist questions about their perception about career in hospitality, barriers in hospitality industry which can influence them to leave the industry, what are the positive aspects which can make them stay and necessary improvements which can be implemented to the current job structure. In addition to this questionnaires will also include demographic information of the students, age, sex, and gender.

Timeline

References

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