Lacking desirable manpower?
Representatives from hospitality education institutes in India argue that the trend of employee attrition in the Indian hospitality sector is self created by hotels. However students and parents too need to change their attitude towards the industry.
Reeling under a severe manpower shortage. Manpower shortage and attrition is the single largest problem in the hospitality industry. Being a service industry, where talent redeems the brand promise, employee cost on an average is increasing and this is dent- ing the profits of the industry. A recent survey conducted by global recruitment tendering platform also echoes the same sentiments. To understand the trend of employee’s attrition rates in Q4 of FY12 in India, the survey revealed that aviation and hospitality sector witnessed the highest attrition rates. On one hand, the hospitality industry is complaining that it is grappling with attrition. On the other hand, the hospitality education institutes see a dichotomy here. They argue that the problem of less students opting for hospitality is self created by the hotels. The impression passed on to the industrial training candidates leave a wrong tale in their minds and they head towards other industries for a career. Hence, this leads to the shortfall or lack of desirable candidates.
While India’s government-run and private sector hotel management schools turn out a little over 10,000 graduates a year, many of these graduates are not lured by the hospitality industry. Laments Ranjit Chaudhury, Principal, IHM, Kolkata, “Even a top job as a management trainee is not luring the students. They are reluctant to join as the entry level salary structure is too low even now. What adds on to the woes of the students are the taxing long working hours and the inter-personal relationship among the hierarchy of the employees and employer.” The hotels rather than creating future workforce with leadership qualities often become the roadblock.
Most of the students after industrial training do not want to join the industry, Chaudhury feels. “At IHM Kolkata, students spend at least one semester in industrial training at reputed hotels. The average stipend for this training ranges from a meagre Rs 500 to Rs 5,000. There are big hotels who pay the candidates as low as Rs 500-800. At least 30-35 per cent of the students return with bad experiences and hence, the disillusionment is obvious.” The system says that the four-week long training should include one week each in housekeeping, front office, F&B and food production. However, many times students complain that this is not adhered to by the hotels. This is another grey area, he states. Urging the hotels to develop more amicable working conditions, he says, “The hotels should not treat the students as regular manpower at such a tender age.”
This year, out of 34 companies that visited the IHM Kolkata campus for recruitment, 22 companies consisted of hotels and international food chains. Among 204 final year students, almost 150 have already been placed as management trainees in the hotels. What also attracts these students is the retail and BPO sector. “IT-service, retail and BPO industries too nibble at the available talent pool, leaving only a fraction of this for the hotel industry. Mushrooming stand-alone restaurants too poach trained hands from hotels, leading to attrition. With their lucrative pay packages and comfortable fiveday work structure, these pose a major threat to the industry.” However, this is an inevitable phenomenon. The BPOs and retail segment are mainly looking for students with brilliant soft skills and this is where our students score above the rest. Hence, the only way forward is that hotels have to mend their ways. They need to realise that the manpower crunch can only be avoided if they retain skilled workforce. And this will only be possible when amicable working conditions are created within the industry, he claims.
Elaborating the reasons for attrition in this industry, Sarah Hussain, Assistant Professor, Banarsidas Chandiwala Institute of Hotel Management and Catering Technology, New Delhi feels, “The reason for high attrition in hospitality industry is the high stress and pressure levels as the service industry does not have quantifiable measures to satisfy guests’ needs. It is the initial three years which are the toughest as hotels have to change their practices and become more humane towards the fresh graduates and women other service sectors. We are dealing with a generation which has the option of choosing from so many different avenues.”
Attrition is nothing new and it exists not only in the hospitality but even in the other service sectors