Opinion by Deeksha Suri, executive director, The Lalit Suri Hospitality Group
The rise of social media has transformed the way the industry advertises and attracts its customers. Likewise, it has also transformed the way a customer reacts to the services received. As much as it is a boon, social media is also a bane for the hospitality industry where customers take a nano second to comment or post the smallest deviation to the service or product offering. To tackle that, teams must be equipped to handle the same in an efficient and professional manner.
The hospitality industry’s most critical problems are employment related, which are predominantly identifying and getting the right resources with the correct skill sets. Along with that, a high turnover is the other challenge for the hospitality industry. Most jobs in the sector are highly stressful needing constant vigilance and require detailed attention from the employees. Hence, there is a high burnout rate in this space. To avoid high attrition due to stress and demoralisation of employees, there is a need to come up with innovative and inventive policies to ensure that employees remain motivated. This is where the concept of employer branding comes into play as the organisation needs to project its brand in terms of value addition for employees.
Learning and development play a critical role in the hospitality industry on account of its extremely dynamic nature and ever-evolving customer needs. The need is to decipher market trends, and customise workforce development plans to keep in-tune with current scenarios. This process helps in the constant development of employees and retention of high-potential candidates. At the same time, it keeps the hotel updated with international and national trends and registers higher customer ratings. We also continuously work towards upgrading the skill sets of our teams. To help their career graph, we host supervisory and managerial development programmes. For instance, we invite industry stalwarts to share experiences and help formulate a path to grow in this industry.
One way for the industry to overcome these challenges is to stay ahead of the curve and always keep innovating its policies and to engage with employees to keep them motivated and committed.
At The Lalit, we have brought about several defining changes to ensure efficiency. We have charted out plans for organisational development and initiatives taken for employee relations, to make this hospitality brand, the most preferred employer. We are aware of the need for inclusive policies. We pride ourselves for being an equal opportunity workplace. Gender, caste, religion, age, creed, physical appearance never determine success stories here, only the individual’s work needs to speak out loud and clear. We are equally privileged to host specially-abled DJs and acid attack survivors. What is incredible, is that this isn’t a forced practice. Our staff takes pride in being part of an all-inclusive establishment.
