Analysis of senior management training needs in international hotel companies - A field study

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Master's Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject Hotel Industry / Catering, grade: "-", London Metropolitan University (Birkbeck College), course: MSc in Organisational Bahaviour, 85 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: A thorough analysis of training needs is an important component of any systematic training strategy. International hotel companies face substantial challenges in terms of human resources development. This situation may lead the assumption that they would therefore apply particular care in the planning, design, implementation and evaluation of their training activities. This study's objectives were to explore whether large hotel companies sufficiently consider organizational, task and person aspects when analyzing their senior management's training needs, and on the other hand, to investigate how systematically they apply the training cycle. The 15 largest international hotel organizations were selected to participate in this qualitative study in which relevant questions were asked to one senior Human Resources Executive of each company via a semi-structured telephone interview. Answers from eleven organizations were obtained. The responses suggest that structured and exhaustive approaches to training needs analysis are the exception rather than the norm. All companies do in some way assess existing training needs. However except for one company, none comprehensively considers all three areas of training needs. The general focus seems to be on persons' needs, and to a lesser degree on the organization's needs and current industry trends. There is a clear preference to rely on performance reviews and individual assessment centre results. These two sources were mentioned by a large majority of respondents. Less often, overall company results in terms of finances, quality and sometimes other balance score card criteria provide an impetus for training activities. This suggests that organizational needs are taken into account. Very little attention seems to be paid to current job requirements, although most respondents claim taking future job requirements into account for training purposes. This seems contradictory, but may be explained by the rapid rate of change the industry is exposed to. Overall, the answers suggest that in general, training planning in large hotel organizations is less structured than the academic literature overwhelmingly recommends. While the majority of the organizations interviewed set general, company wide training objectives, only about half of them also set individual development goals for their managers. This appears to be inconsistent with the hotel industry's apparent focus on the person level in training needs analysis.