Human Resource Management in the Hospitality Industry

The test of hospitality management occurs at the point of contact between service staff and the customer. The standards achieved depend on the system of recruitment, selection and training. This book presents the information required by a line manager to complement his or her technical knowledge.

---

The ultimate test of hospitality management occurs at the point of contact between service staff and the customer. But this also depends on the quality and consistency of work performed by production staff. The co-ordination of efforts made by these working groups will determine the degree of satisfaction experienced by the customer, whether it is in a hotel, restaurant or institutional operation. The standards achieved must depend on the system of recruitment, selection and training in any particular enterprise. Sophisticated techniques of marketing, planning, food and beverage control or computer application may be used in a business, and these are important, but the extent to which employees can successfully cope with their job will determine the level of "service", so often stated as being a basic endeavour of the hospitality industry. In this volume Michael Boella has incorporated new material, which the contemporary hospitality manager now needs to know. At the same time, emphasis has been maintained on the responsibility of line managers for the human resource under their command.
"Human Resource Management" is not, therefore, a text for personnel managers, although such specialists should find the contents of interest and benefit; it is essentially concerned with presenting the information required by a line manager to complement his or her technical knowledge. Effective staff, committed to company objectives, confident of their skills and deriving satisfaction from their work will not result from reading this or any other text. Nor will it happen overnight; a good standard of human resource management can only be evolved over a lengthy period of co-operative effort between line managers and specialists. In order to achieve this a shared understanding of the processes involved is requisite, and this book aims to provide this in relation to recruitment, selection and maintenance of staff, together with the associated techniques. As such, it can be useful to the practising manager as well as being a starting point for the potential manager. This book should also be useful to the predominating small-unit operator. An ELBS/LPBB edition is available.