Overview of a Hospitality professional ethics

                Planning for a career in the hospitality industry

     Before you start reading, please do think for some time over the following questions:

Do you understand clearly what is meant by hospitality?

Do you have any specific reason for joining hospitality industry?

Can you visualize in your mind what you will have become by the age of 60?

What do you think are the requirements to be a successful hospitality professional?

In terms of advantages/disadvantages occuring to you as an employee, how would you rate hospitality industry in comparison to other industries? 

Hospitality, as described in the Oxford English Dictionary, is the reception and entertainment of guests, visitors or strangers with liberality and good will. In simpler words, hospitality is making the guest, who has arrived at our doorstep, feel welcome and then make sure that their stay is comfortable, enjoyable and memorable. By liberality we mean being large- hearted, generous and kind. Good will can be translated into good intentions of wanting to make the guest happy. Now imagine that your beloved uncle visits your house to spend some ten days. As an Indian, being nice to a guest is a cultural necessity but since you love your uncle, you would in fact enjoy being nice to him. Now, replace the beloved uncle with a complete stranger. What happens to your good intentions now?   Would you still want to make him comfortable and happy? If you have doubts about it you are not alone. Hospitality industry that we are going to talk about throughout this book is the business of welcoming persons we have never met before and probably would never meet or see again for the rest of our lives. And yet, making sure that their visit is a memorable one. Of course, all this we do in return for money. This is where the most important component of hospitality business is visible; Good will or good intentions, that lies hidden in the deepest core of our heart. Only we can feel it and judge the nobility of our intentions. If it does not exist you can get by for sometime by pretending to smile and acting to be generous but after a while, the burden of the artificial behaviour will become unbearable. So if you are thinking of entering hospitality industry and derive job satisfaction you must have a willingness to be good to people. Even those whom you may not like at the first glance or the ones against whom you have long held a deep prejudice based on colour, religion, gender or nationality. We agree that it is not easy. It is certainly not the most natural of occupations. The fear of strangers or foreigners is called xenophobia. The will to serve has to be learnt and acquired. On this subject we shall discuss and do an extensive analysis when we come to the chapter titled ‘Personality Theory’. It would be sufficient for the time being to say that the essence of the hospitality business is people; the server and the served, both.

                                                    

The hospitality professional and manager:

     We are sure you must have come across terms like specialist and specialization. For the sake of defining the context, we would like to describe a specialist as someone who is highly skilled at a specific task or set of tasks and he or she possesses almost complete knowledge about the work that they do. However by extension, it would also mean that at other tasks or jobs, he may be completely unfit.  Say, for example a doctor does an engineer’s job or a carpenter trying his hand at cake decoration. Interestingly, a hospitality professional has to be competent at a wide range of tasks and jobs. Someone we could refer to as a generalist when contrasted against a specialist. A term quite appropriate to describe the concept would be multi-skilling. Understanding this principle would go a long way in helping you pursue a rewarding career in one of the most competitive industries in this world. As a manager in the hospitality industry, you will have to exhibit many skills and command much specialized knowledge. The three general kinds of hospitality business objective to be accomplished are the following

Make the guest feel welcome by personal attention: It would require you to a have a friendly manner toward the guest and an atmosphere of liberality and good will among the people who work with you in serving the guest. That almost always means an organization in which people get along well with each other. The capability of getting along well with people is called ‘inter-personal skills’.

 Ensure that things work for the guest: Food has to be delicious, warm and served on time. Room has to be cleaned daily and the bed has to be made. A hospitality system or organization requires a lot of work to be done on a continuous basis and manager has to see to it that it gets done with minimum of costs, efforts, and fuss.

The operation will continue providing service as well as earning a profit: When we speak of liberality and good will we do not mean charity. The establishment has to recover the cost of its operations and make enough additional income to pay back any loans or interests. On top of it, the owner who has risked a good deal of his own money must also gain a reasonable profit. This area of the manager's concern is called "conforming or adhering to a budget". A budget in simple terms is the planned income and expenditure for a business so as to generate a pre-determined amount of profit. Needless to say that preparing an annual budget is a long and complex activity, involving multiple departments and many people.

Why study in a hospitality management program:

     Before we can answer that let us first get to know a little about the history of the development of the hospitality industry. Hospitality is among the oldest of human professions and evolved to fulfill the needs of the travelers and pilgrims. Often hotels are fondly described as a home away from home. The oldest hospitality establishments would have been the husband and wife team allowing an overnight traveler to sleep in their house, cooking up a simple inexpensive dinner and providing local information for the onward journey. The tired and weary traveler, feeling refreshed the next day morning would have reciprocated in cash or kind. The exchange benefited both the parties and that in why it has flourished over the centuries and will continue to do so. Today's super luxury five stars hotels and high class restaurants serve the same needs and the principles of the exchange remain the same. But now, the large scale of the operations has made it impossible for a couple to run the establishment alone and that necessitates the involvement of a third party into the exchange i.e. employees working for a salary or daily wages on behalf of a big company.

     Now let us try to trace the genesis and growth of the knowledge connected to hospitality trade. The husband and wife team, who started by clearing out the farthest corner of their house for the stranger to settle down for the night must have had difficulty in sleeping soundly themselves, partly because of the discomfort and partly because of the natural distrust of an unknown stranger sleeping in their house. On the other hand, the stranger, who could have been a businessman, a pilgrim or even a soldier, must have appreciated the comfort of protection, sleeping in a safe place and not having to go to bed hungry. The grateful traveller most certainly would have thanked profusely, made a mental note of the location and informed all his friends and relatives about the kindly couple. Slowly, the fame of this couple in hospitality trade would have risen and the frequency of travelers seeking shelter at their house must have increased. Along with the additional income, the level of inconvenience for the family too would have risen. What that meant was that they needed to find a solution to lessen the inconvenience and extra load of work. Building on extra room and hiring a helping hand would have been the first genuine hospitality trade knowledge. Then, they would have contemplated building more rooms and hiring more personnel. Looking at their prosperity and popularity, their neighbors too would have entered the arena as competitors. To lure away the old faithful customers of this couple, the copetitors would have offered rooms on cheaper rates. True competition thus began and rivalry would have prompted the search for better ideas and products. Hospitality trade, till today, is built on the same model and priorities still remain the same. Better ideas, better products and economical prices! Simple, what do you say?

     Now, we can try answering the question, "Why study in a hospitality management program?"  Knowledge in the form of science and technology has revolutionized our collective lives and the way we live. Better and faster modes   of transport allow a huge volume of traffic to move from one place to another, swiftly.   Need for accommodation and meals en route has also grown in the same proportion. This in turn led to the building of larger and more efficient hotel and restaurants. Increased business traffic also enhanced its overall prosperity which reflected in more luxurious rooms and exotic menus. Today’s hospitality organizations are vast, sophisticated and require expert handling. Hence, the need to study in a hospitality program is obvious and clearly visible.

Let us go back to the earlier times of small operation in a society which changed very slowly. The effect of science and technology wasn't so pronounced and life moved at a slow, gentle pace. To run a hospitality operation then would have demanded limited knowledge and few basic skills. Therefore, the hospitality education then would have been more skill-centric and one could learn the work through apprenticeship. No formal training or education was required as such and by repeated practice, a novice could become an expert. Here, the underlying assumption is that knowledge was either unchanging or changing at an extremely slow rate. Now cut back to the present times. Alvin Toffler, one of the most brilliant thinkers of our times, and writer of the path braking book 'Future Shock' contends that the world is changing at an ever increasing rate. Any kind of change in our environment forces us to adapt to the change (presuming that the change is irreversible). And if the changes occur at a faster rate, we have to respond and adapt at an equally fast rate. Because the world moves faster, hospitality business too undergoes a rapid transformation and knowledge that was contemporary and useful yesterday is obsolete today. In hospitality trade we will not only have to learn and practice the existing knowledge and skills, but we will have to constantly unlearn it and learn new tricks in the future.

     Nothing emphasizes the importance of knowledge in today’s world more than this quote by Peter Drucker, the renowned management guru.

'Today, the centre of our society's productivity is the knowledge worker, the man or woman, who applies to productive work ideas, concepts and information.'

The hospitality management program equips you with the ideas, concepts and information which you then apply into your work and earn profits for your employer. Without this professional training and education, you cannot hope to climb the ladders of success in your chosen field. If you realize, preparing ourselves for work through formal education in as good as preparing for life. We spend at least half our waking life at work and as we shall learn shortly, work or occupation lies at the centre of a person’s life and it gives us a true sense of our own identity and self worth.           

     Now, to make you aware of the uniqueness of a specialized hospitality management program, we shall do a comparative analysis between a manufacturing organization and a hospitality establishment. Readers, we are sure, know that the preferred qualification for a management level entry into a manufacturing organization is Master in Business Administration (MBA). In India, the required qualification for a hospitality industry management career is Bachelor's Degree in Hotel Management and such similar sectoral-specific qualifications.

manufacturing organization

hospitality organization

Concerned with manufacturing and marketing of a physical product Manufactured at a local unit and then sold locally, nationally or internationally Focus on up-gradation of technology to offer superior products Systems and  processes tend to be fixed over a considerable period of time The biggest problem is that of a large bureaucracy   Can be unusually large. The world’s biggest companies are in the manufacturing industry.

Apart from physical products such as rooms & food, the intangible "service" is also a product The product and the consumer come face to face Apart from technological improvement, the main focus is on the delivery of the "service" Beyond the basic systems and routine processes, the daily working tends to be dynamic, unpredictable and situation-specific The biggest problem are those that arise out of face to face human interaction between the employee and the guest as well as those of between employees Comparatively, smaller though chain hotels and franchise operations can also be quite large.

    

            Here, we would like to draw your attention to the term service industry. In every country, people work in one of the following sectors; agriculture, manufacturing and service industry. The relative proportion of population distributed among the three of these sectors would indicate whether the country in underdeveloped, developing of developed. A developed country like America would have the highest percentage employed in service, then a lesser percentage in manufacturing and least in agriculture. So, we can safely conclude that in a developing country like India, service industry would generate maximum employment opportunities in future as manufacturing units increasingly adopt automation in their processes. A Hospitality organization that thrives on people and relationships, automation or mechanization will only have a limited scope. Nobody would like to visit a hotel that is fully automated and runs on robots. Would you?

Why people choose hospitality as a career?

     In the beginning of this chapter we asked you if you had any specific reasons for choosing hospitality as a career. Think again. We have outlined below a number of reasons which students studying in hospitality programs frequently quote. For the sake of simplicity, we have put them into three broad categories.

A. past experience:

Previous work stint with a hospitality organization

Someone in the family has been working in this field before

Coming in contact with either a student or a faculty in the hospitality program

A personal visit to a hospitality outlet that was exceptionally pleasurable.

B. interests:

Enjoy interacting with people or working with a group

Enjoy working with food

Enjoy going out for eating, traveling

Like the variety the job offers

Attracted by the natural glamour of a luxury hotel and a plush restaurant

Impressed with the number of opportunities to see celebrities in person

C. ambitions:

The abundant employment opportunities and growth prospects   

The wish to start one’s own business

The intense desire for working independently

Possibilities for earning money real fast

A perception that one can lead a fancy life style apart from enjoying the best of delicacies and drinks

     Here are a few more of the reasons which are quoted less frequently than the ones listed above.

Opportunities for creative work, self-expression, initiative and recognition

A vast range of employment options to choose from

The inherent scope for international employability and exposure to a new culture.

  We just talked about a vest range of employment options and for your reference, we would like to name some of the areas where hospitality graduates may choose to work in.

Hotels Restaurant Motor Hotels (motels)  Fast food & take away outlets Customer care centre Service apartment Event management & marketing Casinos

Private Clubs Public Bars (PUBS) Hospitals  Industrial canteens Call centers (B.P.O.) Vending kiosks Outdoor catering Discothèques

Short refreshment centre Cruise lines & ships Airlines catering Recreation centers & Amusement parks  Condominiums Railway catering Banquet Halls

Shopping malls Multiplexes & cinema theatres Beer Halls Resorts & spas Conference & convention centers Prisons & Armed services catering Night clubs

    

     Would not you agree that it is a fairly a vast range and very interesting ones at that!

planning a career:

     Why do you think people go to work? To earn a living, of course! But psychologists and sociologists have demonstrated that there are several other equally compelling motives to work. Our work provides us a sense of what or who we are and holds us close to the community in which we live. Even though the ancient folks may have thought of physical labour as some sort of God's curse, today work in every society is not only necessary to survive but also to learn from it and grow in maturity. It is one of the major causes of satisfaction from life or otherwise. People find a tremendous amount of fulfillment from their working life.

     In a social context the work has been defined as an activity that produces something of value for other people. So, if we work well it will contribute to our self-esteem in two ways. First of all, a well executed assignment proves to ourselves that we are competent and capable which thereby gives us confidence and a sense of control over our lives and our immediate environment, so very essential for a healthy life. Second, when we produce something of value that others can benefit from, they come to depend on us. We human beings, who have come to accept interdependent social living as normal form of existence, need this sense of participation by being useful to the society and its members.

The need for career planning:

     This life keeps offering us choices and we keep deciding and keep changing throughout our lives. Out of several career options you have chosen hospitality and now, as you would begin your professional innings, the option has to be more highly defined and the somewhat vague and uncertain plan you started the hospitality program with should now become more concrete and structured. Some of the issues that you would like to pay attention to are the employer you may want to work for; the sector you wish to go in; your expectations from a career and of course; your ability to contribute to the organization and the society. Nonetheless, this somewhat clear plan will need further reevaluating and fine tuning when you face the harsh realities of actual working life. As it is with growing age and wisdom, priorities also keep shifting and plans alter dramatically.  All that uncertainly notwithstanding, you must have a working plan to guide you through life till your experiences enable you to judge the perfect fit between your abilities and available opportunities. As a prospective hospitality manager, give at least as much time and attention to planning for decisions that would affect your career as you expect to give to a decision you will be making for your employer. Remember that no matter who is your employer, you are always in the business working for yourself because it’s your life.

Profiting from work experience:

     The most obvious benefit that we derive from our work is the income. But as a fresher straight out of college, you will need to consider other benefits that are as important as your salary from that job. In business, a part of the profits is paid out to the shareholders and the owners as dividend and the rest is retained by the organization to provide funds for future growth and expansion, or even to tide over an unprofitable phase of business cycle. The unpaid portion is referred to as ‘retained earnings’. To understand the real value of work look at it as your capital that will help you get promoted and earn better salaries in future.

     To understand this idea better think of the concept of ‘lifetime income’. It is the total income from your entire working, productive life. This Job-benefit mix comprises of money as well as the knowledge and skills acquired from working on the job. By opting for a job that now pays you less (not inadequate) but teaches you more, you can guarantee yourself substantial gains in terms of the lifetime income. An entry level job, say a waiter or a cook, may seem definitely unglamorous and worthless, but if you firmly resolve to teach yourself everything that you can from your work experience and the organization, you will build a solid bank of skills and knowledge that nobody can ever take away.

Your learning is your retained earnings.

Learning strategies for work experience:

     You may be holding the lowliest of jobs but despite that, you can learn a great deal through careful observation alone. Try learning about the following two aspects;

Managerial organization: Find out who are the boss and the subordinate? What is the nature of their jobs and who is responsible for what? How is work divided and allocated? Is staffing adequate, inadequate or too much & why is it so? This part is called the formal (officially designated) organization. The more interesting component is the informal organization; the social groups and cliques. Find out why these cliques developed and what keeps the members loyal to each other? Why someone betrays a clique by walking out of it? Who is the leader and why? How does management deal with these informal social groups and is it effective? If not, why? How would you have dealt with a given situation?

 The physical plant: Make a simple drawing of the location you are at and identify major pieces of equipment. Are there any problems of cross traffic in the facility or any congestions and constrictions that adversely affect the flow of raw materials and finished products? What are the modes of transportation and are they cost effective and efficient? The concept described above is called "flow analysis" and can be done for all areas and for goods as well as for people. This flow analysis is helpful in designing efficient layouts and floor-plans.

What you can learn from the back of the house operations:

How is quality assured in product preparation?      

Menu planning principles & technique, creating standardized recipes & appropriate cooking methods.

Supervisory skills & material cost control.

How to operate equipment, its repair & maintenance?

Methods of energy conservation & pollution control.

What you can learn from the front of the house operations:

     This is where you will have the opportunity to come in direct contact with the guests or the client and you can learn a great deal about a business by observing customer behaviour and responses. According to Peter Drucker, a name you are already familiar with, tells us how these are two central questions that determine what a business is and what it should be doing. The primary questions are

Who are the customers?

What do they value? (What is of value or importance to them?)

So, now you know what a business should be doing. Providing the customers what they need or want. You will also learn later that the need can be created by making the customer aware of the uses and benefits of the product or services that we have to offer.   

While taking up an employment, besides the income and the experience, you also need to consider the following aspects

Will you derive personal satisfaction of having served and pleased a guest?

Would the work experience allow you to develop your own unique style of management because your future work lies in effectively managing people and serving clients?

Getting a job:

     Most of us would like to believe that getting a good job is very tough. But if you ask the managers who do the recruitment and selection they would tell you that they don't get enough good candidates. Now how is that possible? It is possible because with every passing year researchers all over the world come up with new findings and knowledge. To stay ahead in the highly competitive market place, companies constantly seek newer knowledge and information so as to upgrade their products and services. Now you might realize that the people wanting to get a job with these companies will also have to keep in touch with the latest knowledge and information. How many people do you meet who are very keen to learn? Very few, right?

 So now you know that recruiters are right and we are only half-right.

     To look for openings, tap the following sources;

Institute placement office

Newspaper advertisements (Times of India Ascent, Hindu Opportunities, HT Power Jobs etc.)

Personal contacts (it’s called your network)

Going from door-to-door (Pounding the pavement)

Employment exchange

Placement consultants

Internet -based search

Sending your Resume unsolicited to the employers.

Getting a toehold:

Your appearance is your fortune. Pay careful attention to it.

 Dress in a conservative style.

Neatness and cleanliness of appearance is the absolute minimum requirement. All the hospitality products have to be immaculate.

After having sent your application to the personnel department, do not be afraid to check on the status of your application. There is an old adage from the field of personal selling "It takes three calls to make a sale". By calling, you will show your enthusiasm and commitment and that will attract the eye of the recruiter. Persistence pays, always.

Benefits from industrial training, vacation training & part-time jobs:

 One- On completion of hospitality management program you may get a job offer.

Two- If not a job, you may get a recommendation from your seniors and managers. Do not underestimate the power of a genuine recommendation.

Three- From the contacts you might have developed, you could get some very useful leads, tips and information.

Always keep in mind that every work/training stint will affect and shape your career later

Learning strategy while on-the- job:

– The key to learning is your own motivation and attitude

 – Maximum useful knowledge from the job comes during your spare time. Help others in their work without being a nuisance to them. Take additional responsibility willingly.

Many practical skills and information can be learned through careful, consistent preparation and doing a lot of unpaid practice.

     In hospitality trade, managers have to remain very close to the operations. Possessing operative knowledge and skills gets them credibility among their subordinates. When the restaurant gets crowded, a manager can truly inspire his subordinates by merely rolling up his sleeves or taking a few orders here and there.

     It also helps to keep the lines of communication open and imparts confidence to the manager to deal with skilled juniors easily.     

- With the help of these fundamental skills a manager is also able to help his subordinates when the work load is very high and thus command their respect.

Strategies for job placement:

     Most hospitality professionals as well as the students have the following concerns:

Financial status: Is the income adequate to meet the monthly expenses? Would there be a 10-20% savings on total income?

Personal status: what is the job title? Is it socially prestigious? Will the job give me an opportunity to develop a top-flight personal reputation?

Employer’s status: Is the company famous and popular? Does company show commitment to training and developing its employees? Are there growth opportunities? Is the company quality conscious and ethical? Can I contribute if I find that the quality in not good? Will I be proud to work for this company? Will I learn or I will have unlearned some of the valuable knowledge I picked up at the college?

Potential for job satisfaction: Are there opportunities for creativity & self-expression? Will I be able to take initiative and work independently without too much resentment or interference from my boss?

Company policies: On matters such as working hours, shift timings, spilt shifts, weekly offs, vacations, promotion, bonus, perks, fringe benefit etc.

All of us would have our own personal goals in determining job satisfaction and we are perfectly justified in that: One question that students frequently ask is "should we accept a low-end job even though we have undergone a hospitality management program?" The answer to this already has been given before in this chapter but only to reinforce what we have already said, we would advise you to understand that accepting these jobs may not be pleasant. In fact it may even be painful and discourage you initially. But remember that if you focus on the retained earnings angle of your job, it would be easier to ride out this phase of your career. Never ever lose sight of your long term goals, your lifetime income.

The future of the hospitality industry:

     Do you know about the classic fortune-tellers error? It is the fortune teller’s assumption that everything can be predicted about everything! It is not really possible to know everything that the future holds. But let me share with you an experience of one evening when I was sitting in a train and hating to be going where I was going. I was passing through the most painful period of my life and just couldn't figure out why things had gone so bad. Then a most comforting thought struck me. If the mankind can survive a tragedy as terrible as the second world there was hope for all of us. We human beings sometimes go horribly wrong but the innate wisdom of our collective consciousness will always triumph in the end. So today while I write there tines I am supremely confident that hospitality industry is going to flourish like never before Even though sometimes things will go wrong. Here are some of the pointers to that magnificent future:

Demand for hospitality products is ever increasing as prosperity of our country rises.

The new age group of retired and senior citizens will be a new and extremely lucrative market. The hospitality industry in already busy making tailor-made products for them.

Take away service, Fast foods, budget hotels, urban entertainment centers, food courts in shopping malls and multiplexes are some of the rapidly growing segments.

Hospitality industry does not yield much to automation and it will continue to generate huge employment opportunities, both direct and indirect.

There will be a constant short fall of quality manpower. Mediocre, semi-prepared people are going to get more rejections than selections.

The hospitality industry competes with other industries to grab a share of every rupee a customer spends. For example, if a customer buys a ready-to-eat packed dinner from a convenience store, a restaurant has lost that business. So, hospitality industry can never become complacent and must continue adding value to their products and services.

To conclude this chapter we will take you back to meet that stranger visiting your house. We know you are not very comfortable with the thought of letting him share your personal space. You are even suspicious he might be a criminal. In hospitality business, it is not your comfort level that matters. What truly matters is how comfortable is your customer? This is what Mahatma Gandhi had to say about a customer.

     "A customer is the most important visitor on our premises.

     He is not an interruption on our work he is the purpose of it.

           He is not an outsider to our business but a part of it.   

     We are not doing him a favor by serving him.

     He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do it."

     In hospitality industry, the guy who finally wins will be the one who provides exceptional service and never fakes his smile.