Roundtable: Empowering employees

Meet the experts

EOS Recruitment CEO Kamal Al-Samarrai: EOS was founded in 2012 to fill a gap in the market for required specialists by combining recruitment and headhunting services. Its consultants use their industry specific experience to bring a personalised touch to the regions recruitment.

Hozpitality Group MEA and North America founder, CEO & director Raj Bhatt: Headquartered in Dubai and used by employers and recruiters to broadcast job vacancies in Dubai and across the globe, Hozpitality.com specialises in matching candidates with opportunities in positions with hospitality suppliers, airlines, retail stores, or other positions in the UAE and beyond.

Konen & Lorenzen branch manager Daniela Sighart: Konen & Lorenzen has been in the international recruitment and consultancy market more than 18 years. Today, it is the partner for many of the world’s hotel groups as well as companies within the catering and tourism industry.

Novotel & Adagio Abu Dhabi Al Bustan human resources manager Alina Zapopadko: Novotel Abu Dhabi Al Bustan is a contemporary hotel in a neighbourhood for business and leisure guests. It offers a fitness & wellness centre and an outdoor heated pool. Meeting areas and a ballroom are also available for event-planning needs.

Gloria Hotels and Resorts area general manager Freddy Farid: Gloria Hotels & Resorts offers a living concept with contemporary spaces in locations across the UAE. Gloria provides alcohol-free properties for guests travelling on business or for pleasure.

What are the main challenges in recruiting qualified employees?

Kamal Al-Samarrai: Currently the main challenge is to convince potential employees that the Middle East market is as mature and rewarding as the western market. Prospective employees see that a majority of staff here have been with a regional hotel for a long time and worked their way up – this will give them comfort about the prospects of a career here.

Raj Bhatt: Recruiting the right candidate with the right attitude is the most important factor. Most of the hotels these days look for candidates who are locally available with similar experience, but with similar salaries in most of the hotels, it may be a challenge finding the right candidate.

Daniela Sighart: While employers are confronted with a constantly rising total cost of staff, the take-home salaries of individual employees has stagnated, despite the steep increase of living costs. In addition, the hire-and-fire mentality displayed by numerous employers during economically challenging times has caused distrust in the local hiring market.

Alina Zapopadko: Recently there is a tendency for redirection of qualified candidates back to their respective home-countries, where the quality of life is outweighing the offers available here, this is tightening the resource pool’s boarders. A supplementary obstacle is attracting and recruiting highly demanded Arabic speaking employees.

Freddy Farid: The economic growth in traditional source markets such as south East Asia and Eastern Europe is making the move to Dubai appear less attractive in terms of employment packages. Skilled and technical staff are now becoming a rare catch, especially for recruiters located here in the UAE market.

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Can hoteliers minimise the expense of recruitment?

Kamal: Hoteliers shouldn’t be reducing expenses in their recruitment procedures, they should be increasing them. Finding the right staff for the right level of service costs money, time and effort – reducing your expense in any of these areas will usually lead to recruiting the wrong staff.

Raj: Most hospitality companies work with niche dedicated hospitality job boards that offer good quality candidates at a much lower cost, thus keeping the recruitment costs low. The cost of retaining staff through various team building activities is always lower than finding fresh recruits and providing training programmes.

Daniela: Key solutions include reducing turnover in the hotel by promoting staff internally, cross-training employees to be able to perform in several departments which will enhance their knowledge, establishing a candidate pool/database with sister properties and sharing vacancies and organising specific job fairs to target the candidates needed.

Alina: The key-solution to minimising recruitment and turnover expenses is internal resources and transparent collaboration of units within the group. Tactical distribution of internal human resources, along with a strong retention strategy of best talents, will not only save on budget, but will sustain an organisation’s competitive advantage of its human capital.

Freddy: In the past, hotels were counting heavily on recruitment agencies to find the right talent, now we find that hotels participating in job fairs, attending hotel schools and universities to solicit internship programmes. Social networks, company web portals and word of mouth are all examples of how to reduce the cost of recruitment.

How can hoteliers incentivise employees to stay loyal?

Kamal: Many groups have different methods – but most importantly we have found that a clear structure for career progression works well. Employees want to see their future; a flat structure is usually the main reason people move on.

Raj: To begin, all team members should have a sense of job security together with growth and learning options. Internal promotions are also very effective in motivating staff to try to work harder to achieve their goals, this leads to increased loyalty too.

Daniela: To make sure employees remain loyal, employers can ensure proper development and training programmes are in place for their career enhancement, providing high level of housing, facilities, pool, staff dining room, recreations and activities and increasing salaries and benefits with length of stay.

Alina: Despite the common perception that salary is the primary role for an employment decision, remember that career advancement, development programmes and working environment are crucial points in employment acceptance and remaining loyal to an employer.

Freddy: Training and development are key factors in incentivising employees to stay loyal. It is also important to establish a specific career path that leads to promotions and career progress within a time frame. Implementating a recognition programme in the hotel operations, providing a combination of good benefits structure and team spirit work environment has also proven to be successful in reducing turnover.

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What are the key factors that empower employees?

Kamal: Loyalty and hard work, in addition to an understanding of your duties and responsibilities are key. Concentrating on developing oneself will lead to recognition and growth, while trying to change systems and procedures to suit oneself will lead to replacement.

Raj: In order to raise the empowerment bar, it is important to build an environment throughout the organisation that genuinely encourages and rewards individuals to make self-directed decisions independently, with the best
interest of your customers and the corporation in mind. Trust and training are the keys to facilitating self-directed, empowered decisions, resulting in exceptional execution.

Daniela: Empowering employees can be achieved by creating an environment where you genuinely encourage employees to make decisions on their own. Employers can and should recognise any accomplishments of their staff.

Alina: Hierarchy in a hotel management structure remains in the past. Looking to the future of hospitality, the flat structure of an organisation will be privileged.

Freddy: It starts from leadership, which has to come from the manager or department head to create a culture of teamwork through communication. Implementation of a staff satisfaction survey is also a way to empower staff to speak freely about their likes and dislikes, this gives them a voice too.

How can hoteliers ensure staff are offering high-quality service?

Raj: The internal team is often termed as ‘internal guests’ by good hospitality companies and if the internal guests are taken care of well, it also shows in their performance in front of their guests. The right attitude is very important and a good team member is always willing to exceed guest expectations, not just meet them.

Daniela: Managers need to lead by example and follow hotel standards and operational procedures, they also have to ensure they pass on their knowledge and create an environment that is constantly growing.

Alina: Clear understanding of the “product” on sale, is not just rooms, outlets, etc., but the experience that guests are getting by choosing a brand. Guest feedback is the main guideline that drives the improvement and development in quality of that experience.

Freddy: This is a continual task for every hotelier, solved through the implementation of a departmental trainer in every department, focusing on on-the-job training related to the physical experience and real hospitality practice.