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

Master's Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject Tourism - Hotel Industry / Catering, grade: "-", London Metropolitan University (Birkbeck College), course: MSc in Organisational Bahaviour, 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.