INTRODUCTION
1.1 OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
The subject matter of the research work focuses on ‘human resources management as a tool for efficiency in the hospitality industry’. Effective human resources management is pivotal in any business or non business organization where people are groups collectively for the purposes of achieving organizational goals and objectives. It is true that some people adhere to the fact that finance is the life wire of any organization but without human resources finance cannot combine other factors of production to achieve the desired goal of the organization. Human resources is so important and should be seen as invaluable assets of a firm as asserted by Agbato (1980:27) that a company’s most important resource, or asset, is its human resource. The human resource is the personnel and personnel department who staff the firm with the desired workers or managers. Their importance cannot be over – emphasized. Any company’s success, on the final analysis, depends most on the quality of the people who work for it-that is personnel or human resources. This, of course, includes workers and managers at all levels in the organization from top to bottom. It is a common business fact that a financed firm or even the best equipped plant will not function properly or make good enough profit if its workers and managers are incompetent.
This, then, is the reason why the human resource must be well managed in any type of organizational set-up.
It is, however, regrettable that although most managers recognise the value of company personnel, only very few of such managers put value or high premium on the firm or company’s human assets. To illustrate this assumption, take an example of a company whose Balance sheet lists a typewriter as an asset.
Question, “shouldn’t the typist also be listed as an asset? After all, without a typist one would say rightly so, a typewriter is useless to a company. To this end a good management of people is vital to the success of any organization and this is done not only by a Department know as the personnel department, but more so by the individual managers under whom an employee works.
Today, as the business world progresses, it is being gradually recognized that the personnel Department has a distinct role to play. Its traditional functions include recruitment of new employees; training, development and appraisal of employees, motivation, and industrial relations (labour union, organization, collective bargaining, development in labour relation). Services relationship and advisory relationship.
The hospitality industry cannot succeed without organizational effectiveness of her human resources. It is truism according to Etuk (1995:243) organization effectiveness, the capacity of an organization to adopt, maintain itself, survive, and grow in the face of changing conditions, depends to a considerable degree upon how effectively its work-force can be managed and utilized. This is so because the human resource of an organization which comprise all individuals, regardless of their role and status, who are engaged in any of the organizational activities, are its most important and valuable assets.
Industries generally and business organizations in particular have been slow to realize and accept that their personnel are usually more important than machines. This is why the history of labour unions is replete with stories of conflict between management and employees. But the growth of powerful labour unions and scarcity of qualified personnel have jointly forced management to change their attitude by showing that they are interested in each employee as an individual and by developing the spirit of cooperation. The specialized responsibilities for employee relations are now generally recognised as a primary staff function performed by the personnel manager who is the specialist in charge of the personnel department.
Lack of effective management of human resources is a constraint facing Nigeria as a developing country. The limitation is not only restricted to one sector of the economy, the hospitality industry as a service oriented business suffer more in terms of the adverse effect. The cumulative effect and evidential impact could be cited for low service delivery and the dearth of excellent services in the hospitality industry. According to ONWUCHEKWA (1995:7) personnel management has become very important in the achievement of the objectives of any business organization. It helps the business firm to maintain an effective work force. The personnel manager understands the expectations of the workers and society in human resources development. So, through the activities of personnel management, the organization, the individual and society can satisfy their objectives.
The role of personnel management has significantly changed in modern times. At first, the dominant role was to satisfy top management in procuring and maintaining a work force that would be instrumental in organizational productivity. As acknowledge by flippo, 1985 in ONWUCHEKWA (1995:7) the manager understands the necessity for the ascertaining and accommodating the needs of human beings who constitute the work force. He or she constantly searches for the programme which would support the accomplishments of both organizational and individual objectives.
As has been pointed out, Nwachukwu (1990:175) observed that human resources of an organization are its most important asset. The success or failure of the enterprise depends on the people who must work there. Failure by an entrepreneur to recognize this may lead to many un savory results.
The entrepreneur must recognize that the selection of employees is one of his most important tasks.
The hospitality sector of the Nigerian economy is very wide within the tourism industry as asserted by Okoli (2001:12) on the component of tourism drawning from the experience of Thomas and Thomas (1992:14) identified the most important components of tourism product as transport, stay and attraction. Included in the modes of transport are land, water and air while attraction component of tourism involves climate, nature, shopping facilities and leisure. Examples of tourism attraction facilities in Nigeria and elsewhere are the National War Museum, Umuahia (Abia State), Ogbunike cave (Anambra State), Yankari National park (Bauchi), Oguta lake Hotel and zoological Garden Nekede (Imo State) and Argungu fishing festival (Kebbi State), among others. On stay, as a component, hospitality business takes care of it as the lodging of a tourist in hotels, motels, guest houses etc, the food and beverages served, how they served, when and the manner constitute tourism attractions. These functions are done by human resources.
John I. N. Inyanga and Ifeoma I. Ifegbo (2006:98) supported the view of Okoli that hospitality sector is part of tourism industry and stresses on the essence of hospitality aand tourism thus “Rest, relaxation and leisure are synonymous with tourism. Rest has its own place in life. God created the day for work and night for rest and also created official and unofficial hours and also provided for rest. But does man really rest? How many of us actually take time out to rest and visit places of our interest when we tend to work during leave periods? Rest is what repairs the body mentally, physically and otherwise. A rested person is bound to be more productive (Agibe 2006:5). This is where tourism comes in as a brain box towards the growth of every man on earth.
From the words of Bassey (2006:22), tourism markets have the potential to enhance lives in a sustainable framework through providing wealth creation, choice, innovation and competition. The travel and tourism industry contains these four elements that enable it becomes dynamic market force for sustainability in the future. It has the capacity to increase exports, bring in capital investment, boost economics (GDP) and create employment.
Following these opportunities of the sectors, the federal, state and local governments and some private business entrepreneurs invested much resource on tourism in Nigeria. The extent to which the benefits realized are equated to the investments made is still another subject matter. What is important is that for tourism business to be highly developed and promoted in Nigeria, the sector operators have to be well equipped with component human resources.
| Project details | Contents |
|---|---|
| Number of Pages | 78 pages |
| Chapter one | Introduction |
| Chapter two | Literature review |
| Chapter three | methodology |
| Chapter four | Data analysis |
| Chapter five | Summary,discussion & recommendations |
| Reference | Reference |
| Questionnaire | Questionnaire |
| Appendix | Appendix |
| Chapter summary | 1 to 5 chapters |
| Available document | PDF and MS-word format |
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