Recruitment And Selection Strategy For A Luxury Hotel In Singapore Essay.

Job Design

Choose any existing company in the service-related business (i.e. retail, hotel, restaurant, airline or tourism) industry in Singapore. Imagine that you have been appointed as the Human Resource (HR) Manager of your chosen company. Your boss has asked you to prepare a report recommending job design, job description (including specification), recruitment and selection strategies that can be adopted by the company to fulfil its staffing needs in view of HR strategies. The company wants to create an engaging and motivating work force in order to have a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

The recruitment strategy for Conrad Centennial has been designed in the report.  Conrad Centennial is a leading 5 star luxury hotel in Singapore. It is an award winning luxurious hotel in Singapore (Singapore, 2015). The recruitment strategy for the position of marketing manager and CEO has been discussed. Singapore is a highly developed economy in Asia – Pacific. Globalization forces like high mobility of labor, capital investments have posed new challenges for the economy. It has affected the macro and micro environment of the country. The HR manager of Conrad Centennial has formulated the recruitment strategy on the basis of the socio-economic and political condition of the country. The new regulations of labor and the hotel industry have played a major role in formulating the strategy of recruitment. The hotel industry in Singapore has adopted a range of HR policies. The human resource of the organization has contribution on the bottom line. The HR strategies have been implemented to minimize the labor turnover via recruitment, selection and induction process (Cheng & Brown, 1998).

Conrad Centennial will fill up the position of CEO and marketing manager. The job design is formulated for the position of CEO and Hotel manager.

Job description for the position of CEO

Responsible for management of the operations of the Hotel (Production, Maintenance, Quality , Innovation, Finance and IT , supply chain and sustainability)

Industry – Hotel

Functional area – Top Management

Role – CEO

Report to – Board of Directors

Experience – 20-25 years

Desired profile of the candidate

Educational qualification – UG – Any stream and PG ( MBA in marketing /operations/hospitality).

Hotel management degree will be preferred.

Summary of Job

The individual will be responsible for providing leadership to the company at the forefront of the industry. He will be responsible for the development of a strategic plan for the growth of the revenue and profitability of the company.  He will be responsible for providing a staregic direction to the business.

Skills required

The individual must be strategically oriented. Must possess leadership qualities, collaboration and interpersonal skills. He will be responsible for motivating the employees and assist them in decision making.  He will be responsible for the promotion of the products and services to capture greater share of the market. The individual should possess in depth knowledge of the hotel business and know how to generate high volume of sales by using the techniques of marketing. Must possess immense knowledge of the core business areas of marketing, finance , IT and human resource.

Recruitment Strategy for Singapore

Job description for the position of Hotel Manager

A hotel manager must be aware of everyone in the management team.

Reports to the Senior Hotel Manager

Objective of the job

To deliver customer service in a friendly manner to create a warm and welcoming atmosphere for all the guests in the hotel. The hotel manager will be responsible for supervising, training and motivating the team. The key aim of the hotel manager will be retention of the existing customers and attracting new customers.

Educational qualification

The individual must possess a management degree from a reputed organization in Singapore. The person must have 5 years of working experience in the hotel industry.

Main responsibility

The individual will responsible for delivering excellent customer service ensuring that the guests receive comfort and safety. He must be able to deal with all the enquiries in a professional and courteous manner. He must assist the team in dealing with the complaints in a professional manner. He must manage the administration of all the reservations, cancelations which should be in line with the policy of the company. He must have the capacity to implement effective strategies of marketing in order to maximize the occupancy level.

Major changes have been seen in the labor policies in Singapore. The dependency ratio on foreign labor has been reduced. From 1 July, 2015, the service sector will have a dependency ratio of 40%. Since 2015, the unemployment rate of Singapore is the lowest. There is strong competition for labor for which the hotel industry faces difficulties in the recruitment and the retention of the employees especially in the hotel jobs (Mom.gov.sg, 2015); (BBC News, 2015). There is various negative perceptions about the hospitality industry. This has affected the recruitment and the selection process. The hospitality industry suffers from negative perception of long working hours and low rate of wage.

The new implemented government regulation on foreign labor has been a major problem for the country. Thus it is favorable to hire Singaporeans than the foreign laborers. But it is difficult to get good candidates for the position of CEO and manager due to tough competition from the other hotel industries.

Since it is difficult to hire suitable employees for the post of CEO and hotel manager, Conrad will offer competitive salaries to the employees. The competitive salary package must be according to the standards of the top five star hotels in Singapore. Competitive compensation is a feasible strategy for the retention and attracting the talents. The recruitment at Conrad is done by using the employer branding methods. Employer branding can be defined as the process of in which the external organizational image an identity is portrayed specifically a main element of the organizational culture. After the competitive salary has been offered to the employees, the culture of the organization will be second important focus of the employees. Thus Conrad shows strong culture of the organization to maximize its value (Economywatch.com, 2015).

The recruitment process at Conrad is divided into four stages. They are HR planning, responsibility of the organization, strategic recruitment and decisions and methods of recruitment. Competitive salaries will be offered to the existing CEO and hotel manager of five star hotels in Singapore. Conrad will not outsource its recruitment (Singapore Business Review, 2015); (CNBC, 2013).

Selection Strategy for Singapore

Conrad will use a strict selection strategy for recruiting for the position of CEO and hotel manager. The candidates have to pass through multitude of criteria before the final selection. The initial screening will be on the basis of the educational qualification, experience. After the base line requirements have been fulfilled, there will be various rounds of interview, water confidence test and psychometric test. The final interview round will be taken by the top HR manager of the organization. During the selection process there will be stringent rules regarding the appearance and behavior of the candidate. Negotiation regarding the right pay package will be a criteria for the selection of the candidate.

The strategies for recruiting the right candidate for the post of CEO and hotel manager are outlined below –

The recruitment will be conducted for the post CEO and Hotel manager. For the success of the recruitment process, the staffing resources will be identified at first. The number and type of employees attending the interview will be analyzed. On the basis of the analysis, the suitable candidates will be called for the interview. The differences between the anticipated demand and the forecasted supply of the candidates will be identified. The value of the company in the market will be used as an effective strategy to recruit qualified candidates for the position of CEO and manager. At first the applications of the candidates will be shortlisted on the basis of the educational qualifications and experience. The shortlisted candidates will have to undergo a psychometric test (Osborne, 2014). The test will help to analyze the EQ, IQ and personality of the candidate. The suitable candidate will be chosen. In the next phase, the candidate has to go through two rounds of interview. There will be a telephonic round of interview and the final round of interview will be the face to interview with the senior HR manager. The senior HR manager will conduct the interview and test the capability of the candidate to match up to the expectations of the organization.

Conclusion

The hospitality industry in Singapore is highly complex. It is affected by the stringent policies of the Government and the economic conditions of the country. The hotels have to constantly search for ways to maintain the competitive advantage. Hotel industry is a labor intensive sector. It has to develop the human resource as their core competent area to retain the right talent for the organization. The strategic human resource management will be successful if they can select the right candidate for maintaining the operations of the hotel. The CEO and the hotel manager are two highly esteemed positions. They carry the baggage of huge responsibility. They must possess the personality to preserve the culture of Conrad. The value of the organization will maximize depending on the strategies taken up by CEO. Since, the hotel industry is a highly competitive sector in Singapore, hiring the right candidate will be a tough job for the organization. In order to hire the right candidate, the organization has to pay competitive pay packages. The pay packages should be similar to the ones that are offered at the other five star hotels.  During the process of recruitment, Conrad has to use its brand value to get potential candidates for the interview.

References

BBC News,. (2015). Singapore introduces new labour laws. Retrieved 31 January 2015.

Cheng, A., & Brown, A. (1998). HRM strategies and labour turnover in the hotel industry: A comparative study of Australia and Singapore. The International Journal Of Human Resource Management, 9(1), 136-154. doi:10.1080/095851998341233

CNBC,. (2013). Singapore Firms Hit by Foreign Labor Laws. 

Economywatch.com,. (2015). Singapore Economy | Economy Watch. Retrieved 31 January 2015.

Mom.gov.sg,. (2015). Press Release Detail - Ministry of Manpower. Retrieved 31 January 2015.

Osborne, H. (2014). Psychometric tests in job interviews: what are they looking for?. the Guardian. Retrieved 31 January 2015.

Singapore Business Review,. (2015). Visitor arrivals to grow 7.7% in 2013: DBS. Retrieved 31 January 2015.

Singapore, C. (2015). Conrad Singapore. Conradhotels3.hilton.com. Retrieved 31 January 2015.