Career opportunities in hotels and tips during Covid-19 pandemic

It is a well known fact that the Hotel Industry is a people’s driven industry.  During the Covid-19 Pandemic times the job opportunities and careers of many have been affected.  One has seen many loosing their jobs or being paid much lesser salaries which has made the living for the Hotel Associates very cumbersome.  In time to come as India and the whole world sees a silver lining in the sky due to the vaccination program and the daily count of COVID positive people is slowly but steadily reducing, One has to be happy and pray that the new mutant virus does not spread and get stronger and by the end of this year the Industry gets back on its feet.

The first resources which will be needed to be able to service the Hotels and our guests would be the 'Right People' who are not only well qualified but motivated as this will differentiate between the good and the excellent Hotels.

1.  JOB SEEKERS – according to me, are coming from 3 different groups as shown below:

A. Fresh Pass outs from Catering Colleges

B. Other Graduates

C. Staff with expertise

A. FRESH PASS OUTS FROM CATERING COLLEGES:

i. India has the largest number of Catering Colleges and the most organized one being  the National Council (Government Sponsored)  having nearly 30 Institutes and the other private institutions like Taj’s Aurangabad, ITC Manipal, Dilip Puri’s Gurgaon,  Subroto Bose’s IIHM,  Sudhakar and Akshay’s Culinary colleges etc and hence, there will be 8,000   to 10,000 young boys and girls with great aspirations passing out this year.

ii. In our times and in the recent past good Hotel jobs were already offered to these students in the Campus interviews but this Is not the present situation and some of my suggestions going forward in this group are as follows:

• Multiskilling – going forward try and develop your skills in different departments of the Hotel as the Industry will be looking at multiskilled staff who could not only wear two hats in the beginning but also move horizontally in the future.  I noticed that one of the well-known Hotel group has recently promoted their operational staff to head their Corporate functions like in HR & S&M (something unheard of in the past).

• Industrial training – need to be taken very seriously as Hotel groups and  individual Owners will really assess the trainees and select key associates who fit into their work ethos during these training period.

• Study the Hotel group and try and select those companies which excite you and will take care of you.  I would like to advise the youngsters not to follow the new practices of the 'millennials' by doing several hop skip and jump at the smallest excuse possible.

• Other industries like banks, call centres, financial institutions, PR  companies etc., should also be considered as there are many job opportunities available in these fields where Catering College students would be preferred.  I remember the Principal of EHL, Switzerland has once told me that nearly 80 per cent of the Hotel graduates were not joining the Hotels– though I was extremely concerned, but one could take que from this.

B. OTHER GRADUATES:

a) Opportunities will be mostly available in non-technical departments like Front Office, Hostesses, etc., as the Hotels would prefer trained staff.

b) Fixed term contract is going to be the way forward and in my view it is not a bad move as finally it is the performance that will be recognized and rewarded.

c) Job offers will come for junior jobs like waiters, housemen, etc. and people should look at the opportunities to grow before taking them.

C. STAFF WITH EXPERTISE:

a) This is the group that will be preferred and specially those with technical skills like Engineering , Kitchen, Service, etc., over non-technical staff.

b) Relook at the salary expectations as some were getting higher salaries earlier may need to settle down with smaller packages to start with.

c) Do not carry the baggage of your old experiences too far and compare your organizations and the style of working as the Industry anyway shall experience some key changes in the SOPs and style of working.

2. HOTEL OWNERS AND MANAGEMENT:

a) Replan your staff ratios and I would once again reiterate it does not mean retrenching of star performers.  Time and motion study needs to be done and looked at staff ratio to rooms/staff ratio per guest/staff ratio per sq.ft.

b) Staff makes the difference and so let not your good staff leave but you need to embrace them and ensure that you take care of them as the Industry will need them to make the difference,

c) Classify and put your staff into A,B,C, D buckets and accordingly plan their career developments with a fair performance management system (PMS).

d) Training in multiskilling and the new norms should be done seriously, unfortunately the new biggies have not only concentrated on taking well trained staff from existing Indian Hotels Companies rather than spending money and efforts in training fresh Hoteliers who would be loyal to their brand.  The salaries and remuneration package could be looked at fixed and variable, specially in Sales and guest contact areas where 60-70 of the sales could be fixed and the remaining could be based on incentives given on fair performance appraisals.

e) The large Hotel groups could play a magnanimous role of taking some extra young Managers (this year) and grooming them in the future as this will not make a major dent to the payroll but will surely help them to strengthen their brand image and motivate their associates.

3. CATERING COLLEGES:

I had noticed some proactive steps that the private Catering Colleges had taken in the past and I must compliment these Institutions for doing so.  The way forward for all Catering Colleges would be :

a) Liaising with Hotels and other industries needs to be enhanced.

b) Mostly Hotel groups used to visit the Catering Collage Campus before the students pass out.  This year would be nice if the Catering Colleges sent their Representatives to the Hotel to meet the L&D Manager and HR Manager and invite the hotels to the campuses.

c) Career counseling is going to play an extremely important role as we do not want to have young students passing out who are disillusioned and demotivated. The Senior Faculty must spend some time with the final students and motivate them with some good examples.

d) Focus on other industries like banks, call centres, financial institutions who are looking for young and bright students who are well groomed and the catering college pass outs will surely fit in the required skills.

e) Multiskilling – I cant emphasize enough but this would start from Catering Colleges as earlier one only tried to specialize, with the going forward, it would be great to have a Baker who could also make continental food or a Housekeeping Associate who could handle the Reception and so on.

f) Prepare a manual of the final year students who are passing out with photos and their achievements which will help the Industry to select and identify young Hoteliers who match their requirements.

The young hotel aspirants should not despair as the industry will revive and even if one doesn’t get a job use this time for learning new things, like foreign languages or some skill.

Those in position to make careers need to be sensitive and caring as people are the most important asset in this industry and those who run the Catering Colleges need to be as cautious and serious as one was while getting the students to join the colleges and now in finding jobs for them.