Overview of the Situation
The major concern of this report is to review and investigate the challenges and issues faced by the Taj resort in its Dubai operation. In addition, some major HR strategies have been proposed to mitigate these issues. It has been found that cultural diversity and globalization had forced organizations to take various HR initiatives in the sector of hospitality. Now the major question, which needs to be discussed in this report, is whether Taj resort needs to adopt ethnocentric or geocentric HR approach to staffing the property. In this report, the overview of the situation of Taj resorts in Dubai has been provided along with the overall condition of human resource management in hospitality industry. In addition, both the approaches of human resource management had been discussed in this section. The HR policies of the company Tajhad been discussed in this report along with the challenges related faced by the resort in terms recruitment, selection and retention of talents in Dubai. Depending on the analysis, some recommendations had been provided. In addition, it had been discussed about whether the resort should use ethnocentric or geocentric HR approach.
Tajis recognized as the resort that delivers a unique flavor of hospitality. The resort provides excellent refinement while remaining deeply rooted in its cultural heritage. Presently the resort is trying to expand its operation globally. In the year of 2015, Taj had brought its legendary service, Indian artisanship and contemporary style in Dubai, 14 years after opening its first property in Deira (Tajhotels, 2017). At that time, many global hospitality business chains had entered the market of Dubai like Four Seasons, W Hotel Dubai and The Oberoi. Now, Taj is trying to compete with other 5star hotels, while staying loyal to its Indian heritage. In order to do so, the resort had to face various challenges in Dubai. It had been found that, there were many 5 start hotels like Four Seasons and The Oberoi had targeted the similar labor market for their workforce (Tajhotels, 2017). It gave rise to issues related with selection, hiring and retention of tenanted employees for the business operation of Dubai. As Taj is trying to maintain its cultural heritage, it has become a significant question that whether the resort should adopt ethnocentric or geocentric HR approach. The management team of Taj is also concerned about finding the level of expatriation is required to fulfill its operational needs while maintaining their cultural heritage.
Millmore (2012) stated that hospitality industry is broad category of business within the service industry, which includes event planning, theme parks, lodging, cruise line, transportation and various other fields of tourism industry. Timming (2015) mentioned that hospitality is a multibillion-dollar industry that depends on disposable income level and availability of leisure time. Employees in this industry have to play different roles such as housekeepers, servers, bartenders, kitchen workers, marketing, management and human resource management (Varma&Budhwar, 2013).
It is the responsibility of the human resource managers to hire qualified and talented employees for all the above mentioned post. Campbell et al. (2012) stated that HRM department of hospitality industry has to operate in broader social, economic and political contexts. They have the role of staff management, development, welfare and their retention. The HRM deportment has to find out the impact of changing workforce demographics on overall performance of a hotel or resort. They also have to assess the impact of local practices on recruitment, training and performance.
Overview of Human Resource Management in Hospitality Industry
Quality service cycle is one of the major aspects that the human resource department has to take care of. Millmore et al. (2012) stated that, quality service cycle has some major factors related with it. Human resource department has to take care of all these factors. They are such as perception of employees about management commitment, employee satisfaction, and performance of employees, satisfaction level of customers, profitability, customer loyalty and management commitment towards enhanced service quality (Morley et al. 2016).
HRM department of hospitability sector has to understand that employee experience is becoming more important day by day. Millmore (2012) stated that grate employee experience not only can improve customer’s experience, but also can create advocates for a company. It can also reduce staff replacement and recruitment costs in various ways.
Cristianiand Peiró (2015) stated that ethnocentric approach of staffing includes hiring s for the most important positions in any foreign subsidiaries with employees from home countries. According to Ribeiroand Gomes (2016), expatriates can better represent the objectives and requirements of home office. In additions, expatriates can also ensure that the foreign office remains aligned with the home offices. In this approach, majority of the expatriates are selected from the existing employees of the organization.
Davila et al. (2015) stated that ethnocentric approach of staffing has both advantages and disadvantages. The major advantage of this approach is that it can help to align the organizational objectives and the business operation of the home office with the foreign subsidiaries. It can make the communication process much easier as no language or cultural barriers can affect it. Wood et al. (2014) stated that in this approach, organizations transfer employees with good record of performance. It can provide some level of predictability.
On the other hand, due to implementation of ethnocentric approach of staffing, an organization can lose local insights and perspectives that local employees can provide (Millmore, 2012). These local perspectives can help to overcome unique hurdles that a company has to face in foreign countries. In addition, it has been found that hiring expatriates can cost a lot for a company than hiring local employees. Elvira and Davila (2012) added by saying that hiring higher amount of expatriate can develop bitterness in the foreign subsidiaries that may damage morale.
Singh et al. (2013) stated that in geocentric staffing approach, organizations instead of focusing on the method of doing business in home country; they try to find out how to do business in any part of the world. According to Jiang et al. (2012), this approach of staffing is used when a company is trying to hire and mix up workers from all locations of the world based on their skills rather than home country. The major advantage of this approach is that, this strategy can help an organization to become competitive in any part of the globe. It helps to develop a business that is sensitive to various styles of communication. It also informs management about the market condition in other countries. However, this staffing approach has two major issues. Tarique et al. (2015) stated that in order to implement geocentric approach, a company has to hire managers and employees who have the capability to adopt different styles. On the other hand, a company can lose some of the benefits of being expert in one country one specific culture.
Ethnocentric and Geocentric HR Approach of Staffing
Varma and Budhwar (2013) stated that, after 26/11/2008, employees of hotel Taj had become hero not only for the hospitality industry, but also for the whole world. At that time, the employees of Taj did not know that they had to go through decisive tests. They not only had to put at stake their learning and expertise but also the value of Taj (Tajhotels, 2017). They did not hesitate to jeopardize their life for the call of their duty.
Wood et al. (2014) mentioned that, sound recruitment polices implemented by the human resource department of Taj is behind this success story. According to Varma and Budhwar (2013), appropriate recruitment policy, well planned training programs and emphasis on practical application of theoretical knowledge had helped the human resource department to hire talented and skilled employees. The HR department of the organization has adopted an employee centric culture to develop organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in the staffs. Some major principles of Taj’s HR department are such as:
1) Taj family considers every staff as significant member of the organization (Tajhotels, 2017).
2) The management of Taj has the aim to acquire, reward, and retain the talented people from the hospitality industry.
3) HR department of Taj emphasizes on developing formal communication to promote transparency in the organizational process. (Tajhotels, 2017)
Some major points that required to describe related with HR policies. These points are mentioned below:
It had been found that in the company Taj, candidates are measured on their value system. Wood et al. (2014) stated that, in Taj, employees are provided 18 months of training in comparison to the industry standard of 6 months. It helps employees to better adopt with the organizational culture.
Along with normal training programs, in order to enhance leadership skills, every employee is provided the opportunity to take own decisions related with their work. Timming (2015) stated that, HR department of Taj, provides empowerment to employees so that their leadership skills can be improved.
Wood et al. (2014) stated that in order to improve the “Taj standard” to international level, the HR department ensures that employees are not only trained in their areas of expertise but also in related functions. The HR department of company also keeps track of their performance to make future planning for them.
Unlike any other organization in hospitality industry, Taj does not consider HR department as supporting function. Taj amalgamates the HR practices with various other activities taking place within it. It helps to make the HR department as the integral part of the business operation.
Barnard Martyris had designed the philosophy of Taj’s people (Tajhotels, 2017). () stated that, it is known as womb and tomb approach. This learning & development, work system and welfare policies for employees.
As Taj has been focused on maintaining its unique and heritage at the same time providing five star service to its customers, the organization has faced a various challenges in recruitment, selection as well as retention of the talented employees. These challenges are described below:
- Cost of advertisement:
Taj exclusively focuses on advertising so that it can attract greater pool of applicants. The major platforms of Taj’s advertisement are print media as well as digital media. In this context, the organization faces a greater challenge to select most effective media brand that has a greater base of readers (Duarte et al., 2015). Otherwise, the organization will not have their targeted numbers of candidates.
- Misinterpretation of qualification:
Taj has noticed that the candidates often tend to misrepresent their qualification. The major issue that have been noticed that this kind of misrepresentation discloses the incapability of the employees to perform their tasks quite late (Nieves & Quintana, 2016). Therefore, Taj faces a very higher challenge to judge the qualification of the candidates properly.
- Nepotism and Favoritism:
It has been observed in various organization that existing employees tend to offer best jobs to the family members of friends. It is a quite unethical practice in the recruitment process and a source of greater animosity and discrepancy among the workforce (Nasurdinet al., 2015). Therefore, Taj explicitly emphasizes on the eradication of influence of high-level management in the recruitment and selection process. In this context, the management of Taj faces a serious challenge to maintain a fair and ethical recruitment process.
- Geographical location of the company:
The recruitment process must be conducted in a certain place where the candidates would be able to attend the recruitment procedure. It has been noticed that majority of the recruitment process does not get sufficient number of candidates as their venue of the recruitment is in a remote place (Gibbs et al., 2015). Therefore, it is a quite immense challenge for Taj to select most appropriate venue for their recruitment process.
- Political Interference:
It has been observed in various recruitment processes that political parties tend to influence the recruitment process in order to provide the job to their preferred candidate. It is common process in various organizations to comply with the political party’s demands (Lu et al., 2016). As Taj is highly focused on maintaining their unique culture and heritage, the organization could not hire random candidates according to the referral of political parties. In this context, Taj experiences very critical dilemma in order to manage a fair recruitment and selection process.
- Lack of qualified and experienced workforce:
Taj requires a greater numbers of expertise workforces who are capable of maintaining their unique heritage and culture. In this context, as Taj focuses on maintaining Indian culture in their hotel setting, they face a greater challenge to hire a qualified employee who has sufficient knowledge of Indian culture (Timming, 2015). As the local employees of Dubai has a very limited idea of the intricacies of the Indian culture. Therefore, it is very difficult issue for the organization to get expert workforce in Dubai.
- Over qualification syndrome:
The shortage of job has created a very difficult scenario for the organization, as many highly educated employees tend to apply for lower level of job. However, it has been noticed that these employees do not try to retain with the organization and constantly attempt for better job (Al-Refaie, 2015). Therefore, it presents a gretare challenge for Taj to retain an effective workforce.
- Outdated job descriptions:
The focus and expectation of the clients are getting more and more diverse with the change in technology. The customers have been to expect much more service from the organization with the advancement of technology (Sucher, & Cheung, 2015). It has been also observed that the technological advancement has made various job descriptions obsolete. Therefore, Taj faces a serious problem in modifying their job description continuously.
Taj is facing issues mainly in the field of recruitment and selection of the deserved candidates for the required vacancies in Dubai. Based on the identified challenges, Taj can implement the recommendations that are provided below.
Internal recruitment is a good option that is used by this branch of Taj. It is beneficial as it would cut down the cost of external recruitment. Apart from that, the insiders have the knowledge of the organization culture. Internal recruitment will also save both the time and cost of advertising the job vacancies in different advertising media. It will reduce the time in providing training regarding organizational culture.
It is seen that Taj is not utilizing proper forms of media while giving advertisements regarding the job postings. The advertisements must mention clearly about the qualifications and experience required for the job postings. These include formal methods of external recruiting like employment agencies and walk-ins. Clear job description will help in selecting appropriate candidates for the different job vacancies in the company (Duarte, Gomes & Neves, 2015).
It is the most effective form of recruitment that has many advantages such as faster posting of jobs, fast applicant response, fast processing of CVs and resumes, etc. Jobs in internet are posted within a very short time and it can reach to the world in the short time. Usage of internet recruitment process will help the company in selecting candidates not only from Dubai but also from other countries. It will lead to selection of qualified and experienced candidates for the required job designations (Campbell, Coff &Kryscynski, 2012).
Conclusion:
Taj operates its business in a highly competitive world, where the rival business organizations are quite popular in providing high level of service. Taj attempts to maintain their unique culture and heritage in every setting in Dubai. In order to maintain their culture and heritage, Taj experiences various challenges in their recruitment, selection and retention of the employees. In this context, Taj implements ethnocentric approach to recruit, select and retain the qualified, loyal and expertise employees.
As the Taj resort is thinking to maintain its cultural heritage while competing with of the 5 star hotels of Dubai, it is better to implement ethnocentric approach. The company needs to recruit expatriates form the existing employees as they better understand the point of view of the home office of taj situated in India. In addition, they also have better understanding about the Indian culture and their craftsmanship. Hence, it can help these employees to align the organizational objectives of the home office with the foreign subsidiaries situated in Dubai. It had been found that Taj has to face significant challenge to select, hire and recruit talented employees as other 5 star hotels like Oberoi is also competing for the same workforce. Hence, in order to solve these issues, there some major strategies or recommendations have been provided for the human resource department of Taj. They are mentioned below:
The HR department of Taj needs to understand that, there is a scarcity of talented employees in the hospitality industry of Dubai. Hence, it is required to treat employees with special care. Just like customer, the HR team has to listen to all the issues of Taj employees and resolve them as soon as possible. They have to understand that the level of employee satisfaction can improve organizational performance of Taj and help the resort gain a competitive advantage over other competitors.
Before hiring a new employee, the HR department of Taj needs to analyze the cost and benefits of hiring a new employee. For example, if they are hiring an expatriate from India, then they can be assured that the performance of the organization will be improved. However, it will cost more money than hiring local employees and they will not be able to add any new idea that can help solve the local issues. On the contrary, hiring employees form local market means they are not aware about Indian culture. It can reduce efficiency. Depending on the situation and demand, Taj needs to select employees from ethnocentric market.
It has been found that other global 5 star hotels like J. W. Marriot has implemented a coaching culture along with training programs in order attract the most talented, experienced and skilled employees of hospitality industry. It has been found that, Taj has already developed a twining program of 18 months. In addition, they need to develop On-job-Training (OJT) program to help employees to get accustomed with the culture of Taj. It is both applicable for ethnocentric and geocentric approach of staffing. For Indian employees, OJT will help them to get accustomed with the environment and customers of Dubai, while for local employees, OJT can help to adopt with the Indian heritage.
While consulting with HR department of Taj, it has been found that time is one of the major concerns that have affected the effectiveness of hiring. It has been analyzed that hiring too fast won’t bring the best employee. It has been found that the average time of hiring for company Taj is 27 days. On the other hand, cost of inefficient hiring is $ 840000. Hence, in order to improve the time of hiring, the HR management team has to use their previous data to optimize the time of hiring. For example, if the company is hiring local employees from Dubai or transferring existing employees from India, then the HR department must keep track of their performance. Depending on the performance, the HR team needs to select one staffing approach and implement that.
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