International Indexed & Refferred Research Journal, October 2012, ISSN 0975-3486, RNI- RAJBAL 2009/30097: VoL IV *ISSUE- 37

Research Paper

Management Abilities and Skill Set Required for The Hospitality Professionals in India
October,2012

* Gaurav Vishal

* Ph D. Scholar, CMJ University. A B S T R A C T

In Hospitality and Tourism, Human Resource development is very essential and critical to its business growth. The main purpose of proposed study is to identify the essential management competencies for success as a middle and entry level manager in hotel industry in India; to suggest these competencies requirement to industry practioner and hospitality educators for theoretical and practical advancement in India. Using the self-administered questionnaire survey and random sample, data was collected from the 206 Hotels human resource managers, supervisors/owners and Travel agents and tour operators. The quantitative data collected from the survey was analyzed by using SPSS version 17.0, mainly in terms of descriptive statistics, frequencies, and Principle Component Factor Analysis with varimax rotation was applied. The findings revealed that the most important leadership competencies for success as a hotel middle and entry level managers were Training/coaching and empowerment, intellectual stimulation, interpersonal skills, role-modeling and motivating and inspiring skills. Keyword: Human Resource, training, Competencies and skills, Hotels managers. Hotel owners, Tour operators, Hospitality Studies

Introduction Indian's hospitality and tourism industry is one of the key economic sectors Hospitality Recruiters place very specific advertisements listing the various attributes and qualifications desired from an applicant for the position of hotel manager . One common trend seen among all the advertisements is that hotel managers must have a diploma or degree from a recognized university. The years of experience at a managerial level ranging from five to ten years. Advertisements recruiting hotel managers in the late 90's state that prospects were to have "strong analytic and strategic management skills". During the early 2000's recruiters want applicants to posses "excellent leadership skills". From the mid 2000's to present day, recruitment efforts demand that hotel managers own "good oral and written communication skills. " Another posted requirement is for prospects to be able to "interact with industry players at all levels" . On a global level, managers with competencies in both the hard and soft areas have aided in the creation of a more competitive edge regarding the hotel business at large. It is therefore Important that institutions responsible for the educating, training and development of Indian's hotel managers to be proactive in seeking ways to make them leaders by developing the leadership qualities among them. Therefore ,The main purpose of proposed study identify the essential leadership competencies for success as a middle and entry level manager in hotel industry in India; to suggest these competencies requirement to industry practioner and hospitality educators for theoretical and practical

advancement in India. Review of Literature A job competency is .an underlying characteristic of a person which results in effective and or superior performance in a job . Hospitality managers need to motivate employees continuously and provide on-going feedback since feeling good about themselves, having a sense of accomplishment, taking responsibility, and having challenging work are good motivators for employees. Good managers should listen to employees, care about employees, encourage employees involved in job or job-related decisions, take care of employee advancement, and reward employees. Research Methodology This section contains the research design, research instrument, population and sample, data collection and data analysis. The purpose of the present study is to identify the essential leadership competencies for success as a middle and entry level manager in hotel industry in India; to suggest these competencies requirement to industry practioner and hospitality educators for theoretical and practical advancement in India. The questionnaire was developed by referring the previous review of literature. 31 competencies and skills were identified initially and finally 26 were taken into consideration after pre-testing the instruments. The population for this study was Indians hotel industry executives, managers, supervisors, owners or tour operators from located at the various hotels in north India. The 206 respondents were selected by using Convenience random sampling. The five point likert

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International Indexed & Refferred Research Journal, October 2012, ISSN 0975-3486, RNI- RAJBAL 2009/30097: VoL IV *ISSUE- 37 Table no 1 Competencies and skills Mean Std. Deviation Treats people with dignity and respect. 4.4010 0.76868 Demonstrates consistency between words and actions 4.3816 0.75957 Works with all people equitably 4.3720 2.88817 Communicates openly and honestly 4.3671 0.66133 Think new ideas and initiatives 4.2899 0.81434 Be action oriented-take initiative 4.2899 0.79626 Generally optimistic and confident 4.2754 0.80443 Encourages and respects participation in life outside work 4.2754 2.22224 Manages time to ensure productivity 4.2705 0.81506 Create an environment where employees feel free to communicate 4.2609 0.92933 Motivate to others to excel 4.2464 2.05794 Clarifies roles and responsibilities of employees 4.2271 0.83703 Be open and supportive 4.1981 0.91609 Provide clear direction and priorities 4.1739 0.93409 Takes initiative for developing oneself 4.1691 1.03126 Shares information in a timely manner 4.1594 0.92364 Check the results of others and take corrective measures when goals are not being met. 4.1401 0.87283 Inspires others to accept the challenges by choosing tough choices 4.1208 0.92427 Adjusts leadership style to fit other individuals 4.0870 0.94621 Identifies measurable action steps that support the hotel's strategy and mission. 4.0870 0.86584 Give respect to the talents and achievements of employees 4.0338 0.89974 Set a high personal standard for work. 4.0242 0.98256 Listens attentively to the ideas and opinions of others. 3.9855 0.92683 Encourages continuous improvement 3.9855 0.95774 Gives a clear vision and direction for the future 3.9614 0.99925 Encourages the open expression of individualism 3.9469 0.91486

scale was used to rate the perceptions of respondents, 1 not important to 5 very important.. Descriptive statistics was applied for computing means, standard deviations. Results and Discussions The study found the demographic information about the respondents, it was found that there were 117(56..79 %) respondents were 'Males' and 89 respondents (43.20%) were 'Females'. In terms of age 88 .5 respondents (43%) were in 30-40 age group and less than 30 years were (22 %) 45.3 respondents of respondents and 35 % (72.1) were more than 40 years age group. About the 'Experience' of the employees it was found that 28 % (57.6) of respondents were having less than 3 years experience. 21 % (43.26) were having less than 6 years experience and 32 %( 65.9) respondents were having less than ten years experience. And 19 % (39.14) of respondents were having more than ten years experience n their field. This study gives the idea about the important skills perceived by human resource (Table no.l) managers like Treating people with dignity and respect. Demonstrates consistency between words and actions, Works with all people equitably, Communicates openly and honestly, Be action oriented- take initiative, Think new ideas and initiatives, Generally optimistic and confident, Manages time to ensure productivity, Create an environment where employees feel free to communicate, Motivate to others to excel, Clari-

fies roles and responsibilities of employees were rated very important (Mean more than 4.). And rests of competencies were rated important by the respondents. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) statistic was calculated as 0.90 for this study because KMO was above 0.8. The 26 leadership competency items could be considered interrelated and they shared common underlying dimensions. Second, the Bartlett test of sphericity was conducted in order to test the significance of the correlation matrix (%2 = 3167.597, df = 325, p < 0.000). Both tests indicated that factor analysis was appropriate for this study. The reliability was found .89 which was very good for getting the consistent results. See Table 1 Five Point Likert Scale: where 1 represents not important and 5 represents very important Twenty six variables were identified after conducting the pilot study which was based on secondary data and respondents were asked to rate on (five point scale) these variables. The result of the Principle Component analysis on all the Twenty Six Variables are shown in the Table 3. Principle component analysis was employed to extract the factor underlying the relationship between a numbers of variables. The total variable explained box is suggesting that it extracts one factor accounts 62.25 % variance of the relationship between variables. The loading on factors can be positive and negative. A

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International Indexed & Refferred Research Journal, October 2012, ISSN 0975-3486, RNI- RAJBAL 2009/30097: VoL IV *ISSUE- 37 Table No.2 Rotated Component Matrix Extraction Method: Principle Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.

Variables
Clarifies roles and responsibilities of employees Identifies measurable action steps that support the hotel's strategy and mission Manages time to ensure productivity Encourages continuous improvement Gives a clear vision and direction for the future Takes initiative for developing oneself Check the results of others and take corrective measures when goals are not being. Think new ideas and initiatives Inspires others to accept the challenges by choosing tough choices Adjusts leadership style to fit other individuals. Encourages the open expression of individualism Motivate to others to excel. Encourages and respects participation in life outside work. Create an environment where employees feel free to communicate Give respect to the talents and achievements of employees. Be open and supportive. Communicates openly and honestly Treats people with dignity and respect. Listens attentively to the ideas and opinions of others Generally optimistic and confident Be action orientedtake initiative Works with all people equitably. Provide clear direction and priorities. Demonstrates consistency between words and actions Shares information in a timely manner Set a high personal standard for work.

1
.913 .843 .-812 .816 .709 .706 .689 .603

.874 .872 .843 .828 .728 .632 .570 .738 .687 .596 .571 .511 .719 .670 .639 .616 .861 .785

negative loading indicates that the variable has an inverse relationship with the rest of the factors. The higher the loading the more important is the factor. However, Comrey (1973) suggested that anything above 0.44 could be considered salient with increased loading becoming more vital in determining the factor loading .All the loading are the positive except one i.e. first one that means it having he inverse relationship with others variable. The leadership competency items with Eigen values greater than 1 and a factor loading of 0.5 or higher were clustered together. All the competencies secured more than 0.5, loadings on all the factors and Eigen value was 1 or greater than 1. There were five factors were identified Refer Table no 2 are as Follows:- Factor 1: Coaching and empowerment leadership competencies and Skills":Eight attributes or competencies were loaded on this factor and explained 58.02 % of total variance and highest lodgings on; "Clarifies roles and responsibilities of employees" (.913). "Encourages continuous improvement" (.806). "Manages time to ensure productivity" (.812); "Identifies measurable action steps that support the hotel's strategy and mission" (.843). "Takes initiative for developing oneself' (.706); "Gives a clear vision and direction for the future" (.709); "Check the

results of others and take corrective measures when goals are not being" (.689); "Think new ideas and initiatives" (.603). This factor is very important for hotel middle and top level managers by developing these skills and competencies they can guide motivate to their employees to urge for excel continuous improvement in order to deliver the quality of products and services to the customers and increase their efficiency , self growth in organization as well. With new ideas and creative thinking they can make the organization more opportunistic and survive in the new cut throat competitive business world. Whatever efforts they are going to put they should not forget their vision and mission for their hotel properties. See Table 2 Factor 2: Intellectual / Rational inspiration: Which accounted for 27.629 % of the total variance with highest factor loadings on "Inspires others to accept the challenges by choosing tough choices " (.874), "Adjusts leadership style to fit other individuals" (.872), "Encourages the open express ion of individualism (.843), "Motivate to others to excel" (.828), Encourages and respects participation in life outside work (.728), "Create an environment where employees feel free to communicate" (.632), "Give respect to the

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International Indexed & Refferred Research Journal, October 2012, ISSN 0975-3486, RNI- RAJBAL 2009/30097: VoL IV *ISSUE- 37

talents and achievements of employees" (.570). Factor 3: Interpersonal Skills :This factor accounted for 42.265 % of the total variance and Five attributes were loaded on "Be Open and supportive" (.738), "Communicates openly and honestly" (.687), "Listens attentively to the ideas and opinions of others" (.571), "Treats people with dignity and respect" (.596), "Generally optimistic and confident" (.51 l).For hotel managers the interpersonal skills are really important in order to make the correct decisions managers have to be confident and always positive and should listen carefully to everyone. Managers have to take everyone's advices and suggestions. They should be supportive try to communicate openly and honestly with everyone whether they have to communicate to staff members, management and customers. Factor 4: Role Modelling among Employees :Four attributes were loaded on this factor which also accounted for 53.48% of total variance explained and had highest loading on "Be action oriented-take initiative" (.719), "Demonstrates consistency between words and actions" (.616), "Works with all people equitably" (.670), "Provide clear direction and priorities" (.639). Because if a manager wants to become a role model and guide their actions in right directions he has to work with all the people without any discrimination and bias. He should lead first and take initiatives so that the people or staff can become followers or become a role model. Factor 5: Encouraging Motivation:-. Two attributes were loaded on factor fifth which accounted for 62.27 % of total variance explained and were having highest loading on "Shares information in a timely manner" (.861) and "Set a high personal standard for work" (.785). The managers for success in hotel industry are

needed to set the high personal standard in order to get self motivated and for motivating others also and it is very important for every leaders to share the each and every information related to work timely so any cause or misconception or communication gap can be avoided. So, all these competencies really play an important role in managing and leading the hotel organization. Conclusion The main finding of this study revealed that the most important leadership competencies were coaching and empowerment, intellectual, interpersonal skills , role-modelling and encouraging motivation. The Important studies have been conducted by the researchers and the findings supported previous studies Brownell , Kriegl (2000), and Chiang and Jang (2008)) that the soft skills continue to be more important for future leader in hospitality industry than technical skills. So the leadership competencies which were found by this study for the Indian hotel industry may construct a basis for the development of job descriptions responsibilities as well as providing the basis for training, Career advancement and development for Indian hotel managers. These leadership competencies and skill can become the appraisal instrument for the hotel industry. Moreover, This competency models which has been created can also help in educating future generations of leaders by guiding university faculties in designing curricula and training program to meet the industry's expectations and needs. This study also provides a comprehensive framework to inform hotel employees who want to achieve in their career about what will be needed or expected to be an effective managers.

R E F E R E N C E
1 Boyatzis, R. E. (1982)."77ie competent manager: A model for effective performance". 2 Brownell, J. (1994). "Personality and Career Development: A study of Gender Differences". The Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 41(2), 79-85. 3 Chiang, C.F.,& Jang, S. (2008). "An expectancy theory model for hotel employee motivation". International Journal of Hospitality Management, 27(2008), 313-322. 4 Chung-Herrera, B.G., Enz, C.A.,& Lankau, M.J. (2003)."Grooming Future Hospitality Leaders: A Competencies Model", Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 44(3), 17-25. 5 Comrey, A.L. (1973).A first course in Factor analysis .San Diego: Academic press 6 Connolly, P., McGing, G. (2006). "Graduate education and hospitality management in Ireland, 7 Dering, N.Z. (1998). "Leadership in Quality OrganizationsJournal of Quality tfe Participation, 21,(1), 32-36. 8 Enz, C.A., and Siguaw, J., 2000, Best Practices in Human Resources, Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 41(1), 48-61.

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