The 3rd HR Directors and Managers’ Forum themed Voluntary Turnover: Telling Ourselves the Truth! took place on June 20, 2018 at the George Hotel, Ikoyi. And what better way to start than with the people who manage people? Participants came from Sheraton Ikeja Hotel, Ibis Hotel Ikeja, Deft Consult, Millennium Apartments, The George Ikoyi, Radisson Blu Ikeja, Splendour Hotel & Suites, Peerage Resort and Radisson Blu Anchorage Victoria Island. Many themes emerged from the discussion including: the positive side to turnover, abusive leadership, joint consultative committees, managing your boss, developing trust in the team, setting KPIs to achieve HR goals for training, implementing collective agreements, workplace bullying, and many more. We also shared success stories about how HRs have been able to retain top talent who were looking to disengage. We look forward to having you with us at the next edition
The 2nd HR Directors and Managers Forum themed ‘Total Quality Service – An HR Perspective’ took place on March 21, 2018 at the Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja. Another successful conclusion to what promises to be a platform for developing human capital for our industry. And what better way to start than from the people who manage people? Participants at the forum came from Sheraton Hotel, Amber Residence, Deft Consult, Westwood Ikoyi, Ibis Ikeja, Millennium Apartments, Legend Lagos Hotel, Leola Hotel, The George Ikoyi and Radisson Blu, Ikeja. Some of the themes that emerged include performance, managing owners, training and re-training and re-training, servitude versus service, talent mapping and more. It seems that the campaign for human capital development in our industry has found a key ally in hotel HR professionals. We also heard the inspiring story of Peter Idoko, who is now the first Nigerian to become General Manager of an international hotel chain. The Legend Hotel Lagos Airport Curio Collection by Hilton. We look forward to having you with us at the 3rd edition of the forum in June.
These are just some of the people we’re proud to work with:
7 Key Areas for People Management in the Hospitality Industry in Africa
One of the major challenges we face in our industry is human capital development, particularly here in Africa. Imagine my delight at being invited to a workshop on Sustainable Tourism in Africa to reconsider employment and human capacity development for our region. For anyone working in this industry, this concern will always be in the forefront.
Indeed, I captured the title for this article from Professor Thomas Baum of the University of Strathclyde at a workshop I attended which was held in Johannesburg in September 2017 (By the way, the ‘P’ stands for people!). A Newton Fund-sponsored event, tourism scholars from Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa and the United Kingdom all gathered together at the University of Johannesburg for a gruelling week of presentations and, of course, the statutory tour of the sights and sounds of the amazing city of Jozi!
One of the key ideas that came through from the workshop was the need to find home-grown solutions to the challenges facing human capital development in the tourism industry in Africa. Now this bedrock idea germinated into several mini-ideas in my mind, like what are the issues that exist within the people space in tourism? What do human resource directors identify as their main issues? What do the employees themselves think are their issues? Middle management? Owners and investors? Think about it, by considering the different perspectives each stakeholder group might have, we create a mine of data that could provide the very answers we seek.
My thinking is that before we proffer ready-made solutions for how things could be made better, we need to spend more time digging and getting to the root of the matter. Sub-Saharan Africa is currently the largest growth market for hotels in the world. We need to think how to bring our people up to scratch to support this growth. First stop, what do the HR directors think?
Early December 2017, I organised a focus group discussion with three human resource directors from international chain hotels in Lagos. They shared their experiences and gave first-hand insights into their HR concerns. We concluded that people management for the hotel sector needs to focus on seven core areas:
Each one of these concerns is a challenge in its own right, but holds the key for putting the ‘P’ back in tourism!
So this basically sums up what will be the focus of the series of articles that I will be posting over the coming year. Looking at these core areas, we will explore where we are right now in terms of human capital development, and what we need to do in order to get to where we need to be.
I end with a quote from one of the HR directors:
“You have to be on the shop floor, helping the people…you have your HR coordinators who do the nitty-gritty work for you. But you, the HR Director, you have to be on the floor with the people, talking to them, encouraging them!”
This promises to be an exciting exploration of the deeper perspectives. Hold tight!
Terrorism is an unfortunate “fact of life” that has plagued society throughout the whole of the last two millennia. In recent years an increasing number of attacks, across a wider part of the world, have led to a changing dynamic in relation to the impact of such attacks.
In this research paper David Harper, Head of Property Services for Hotel Partners Africa, provides some unique research on the impact of such terror attacks, with the help of hotel trading statistics and analysis, carried out by STR.
The impact of terrorism on the hotel and resort market in Africa has been substantial over the last few years, making the need for careful analysis of the phenomena essential.
The research bears out the following 13, important conclusions, with some significant implications for how countries and the Travel & Tourism industry deal with terror attacks:
1. The impact of terror attacks across the world is lessening
2. There has been a marked rise in terror attacks in recent years
3. The average casualty count has declined in recent years
4. In general, international tourism is resilient to terrorism
5. Recovery times for all types of locations are improving
6. Recovery time depends on the profile and scale of the market place
7. The impact of terrorism varies by political regime, income and tourism intensity
8. The long-term impact depends on the public perception of safety and on the trust placed in the authorities in that location
9. Political unrest has a longer-term impact than a terrorist attack
10. Frequency of attacks has a greater effect than the severity of an attack
11. The coverage in the media has an important impact on trading
12. The impact of an attack tends to be region-wide, so there is a financial imperative on neighbouring countries to try and stop any attacks being made on their neighbours
13. On average you are five times as likely to die by falling out of bed than you are to die as a result of a terrorist attack
For further information or for a copy of the full research paper, please contact David Harper at [email protected]
