HR and an ownership attitude

Ramani Kangaraarachchi

Human Resource Management (HRM) is the coherent approach to the management of an organization’s most valued assets - the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the business.

The terms ‘human resource management’ and ‘human resources’ (HR) have largely replaced the term ‘personnel management’ as a description of the processes involved in managing people in organizations.

Maju Gamage. Picture by Rukmal Gamage

In simple words, HRM means employing people, developing their capacities, utilizing, maintaining and compensating their services in tune with the job and organizational requirements.

In that respect the role of the HR Head in any company is very vital towards achieving its objectives.

As such Daily News Business started to feature a HR Head in companies fortnightly to educate readers on different aspects of HR and new developments.

This is the third of the series where Hilton Colombo Residence HR Head Maju Gamage is featured this week.

Excerpts of the interview.

Q: What made you to select HR as your career path?

A: My first job was in the Sri Lanka Air Force where I worked for 14 years. It was a very good experience. Then I joined Colombo Dockyard which was highly unionized.

The Dockyard work environment was different to my previous experience which I did not enjoy very much.

Although I have qualified in several areas, I felt I am a people’s person. I had more empathy. When I got the opportunity to join Hilton Hotel Group in the Food and Beverage department I left the job at Dockyard in 2001.

After sometime the post of HR Head became vacant during a crisis period and I was invited to takeover that appointment by the Management. So It happened accidentally but I must say that I am enjoying the work upto now here. I am well looked after and I continue to do my best for the company.

Q: What is the nature of your company ?

A: Hilton Residence is a four star hotel and our major marketing segment is long stay people, leisure sector, and both local and foreign tourists. It has a sports complex catering to health sector as well. There is a work force of 300 people.

Q: Why is HR important to hotel industry?

A: One of the most important departments of any hotel staff is human resources management. Proper human resources management can be the difference between a really well run hotel and a poorly run hotel. The human resources manager can control almost the whole feeling and presence of the entire hotel. This makes the importance of human resources management for hotels very evident.

Q: What are the HR issues that companies in this industry should give attention to?

A: At present, we have only 14,000 sellable rooms in the country. It is a major problem that we have to look at fast. We expect a large number of tourist arrivals in the coming years. The number of rooms we have are not sufficient at all may be because the industry did not go forward during the time of ethnic problem. But now the industry has started developing again and with that the staff also have to be developed.

Recruiting and training suitable people for the industry cannot be done overnight.

Although we have a large number of unemployed youth their awareness about this industry is very poor.

Most of them do not know about the opportunities and they do not consider it as a career path. Therefore turnover of people is high.

Sometimes they leave us to go for overseas positions. But we encourage that because there are many opportunities in the trade abroad and they come back to the country one day with a lot of experience and a good exposure. They not only develop the industry domain in the country but also bring foreign exchange to the country.

At Hilton we have introduced an ownership attitude but some do not like to accept it. But if they come and learn there are immense opportunities. There is a huge demand for hotels in the Middle-East. Many leading hotels there are led by Sri Lankan people. There were many awards at culinary competitions for Sri Lankans. There are opportunities in countries like Malaysia, Hong Kong and Canada as well.

So we need to educate our young generation about these and change their attitudes to be able to make use of future opportunities. This is a challenge that the industry has to look at carefully.

Q: What are the strategies that hotel has implemented to retain people ?

A: Job satisfaction of team members is very vital in retaining people. In the first place our staff is known as team members, we do not call them employees. They are looked after very well.

We have introduced a comprehensive opinion survey to measure their job satisfaction. The survey is conducted both in Sinhala and English by a reputed outsourced company in UK.

I am proud to say that 98 per cent of our team members are satisfied with their jobs. This survey helps us to retain people. We have eleven departments and in some of them annual turnover is zero and in some others 27 percent.

When a new batch of people come we give them a warm welcome after an orientation program.

All our team members are visited at their homes by a member of HR department on their birthdays and gifted with a Hilton cake to enjoy with the family. The service of a in house doctor is available 24 hours and there is also an insurance scheme. These are some of our strategies.

Q: How do you recognize best performance of your team members?

A: We believe in recognition. It matters to our team. We have a succession plan and the team members could go up in the ladder based on their performance.

Q: What are the global challenges in the industry?

A: In terms of HR, skill is a challenge. We always try to identify training needs locally and internationally and improve their skills to suit the requirements of our customers and fill the gaps.

We have a fully fledged training department and we hold monthly meetings to voice the opinions of our team members in order to upgrade skills and personal development which is very important for the industry.

Q: What is the advice you like to give to those who are in the hotel industry and those interested to join the industry?

A: Think nationally and have a positive attitude towards the industry in order to achieve success which is a never ending journey.