Rampant layoffs during the pandemic, coupled with increased work burden, long hours and low wages, has seen hospitality students shift to industries like ecommerce, retail, real estate, consulting and health care
Jerson Fernandes, executive chef of the Novotel Mumbai Juhu Beach Hotel, is at the end of his tether and it is not owing to the challenge of managing six food and beverage outlets or keeping food costs within 28 per cent of revenue. It is the drying stream of young hospitality graduates to join the kitchen staff that is bothering him.
He is also learning to handle the current crop with kid gloves. Two weeks after joining, his recent hire, a young prep chef, threw in the towel and complained to the HR head. "He was uncomfortable with the language used in the kitchens. However, in such high-pressure environments, where temperatures are always high, literally and figuratively, one cannot always be courteous. All chefs have gone through this learning curve," Fernandes explains, adding that today, fewer recruits are comfortable in such an environment, especially when they have options outside the hospitality industry.
Moreover, he has limited options for hiring these entry-level workers. Earlier, the hotel would recruit them from hospitality institutes like Institute of Hotel Management, Rizvi College of Hospitality, ITM Institute of Hotel Management, etc but he is now reliant on vendors who send workers for the day with no guarantee that they would return to work the next day.
Today, this endemic situation is seen across the hospitality sector. It is even more dire as the total workforce requirement of the industry rests at over 18 lakh, with more than 21 per cent of jobs posted for entry-level positions, according to a study published by the National Skill Development Corporation of India.
Rajan Bahadur, CEO of the Tourism and Hospitality Skill Council, notes that the entry-level positions are majorly for food delivery personnel, housekeepers, waiters, cooks, kitchen helpers, kitchen stewards, front office staff, receptionists and pantry associates. This is in addition to the requirement of over 1 lakh people in the tourism sector, including tour guides, travel agents, travel consultants and tour drivers. "The current attrition trends add a further 25-30 per cent to this," he says.
Disillusionment And Dread
So, why are young hospitality graduates resisting to enter the hospitality industry?
Vikram Singh Chauhan, founder, Nile Hospitality, believes a lot of it has to do with the discrepancy between perception and reality. Hotels are associated with sophistication, ease and geniality, but the on-ground experience can seem drastically different for hospitality graduates, especially in the aftermath of the pandemic. "Faced with issues like longer work hours, ever-evolving guest expectations and demands, and lack of market parity in pay, they are wary about muscling in this space. Instead, industries where soft interpersonal skills are in demand, like IT, retail, real estate, logistics and the gig economy, attract them," Singh opines.
The young professionals also witnessed many of their peers putting their health at risk and being part of the nation's frontline warriors during the battle against Covid-19 in 2020 and 2021. This fear of loss of life, coupled with layoffs, could have dented their confidence in the industry's unbeatable reputation of a job creator.
Today, students are also evaluating whether their job roles after graduation are commensurate with the time and money they have invested into the hospitality course. And these are not small investments. Institute of Hotel Management’s diploma in food production and certificate courses in cookery and bakery cost approximately Rs 4,75,000, while bachelor of science in hospitality studies at the ITM Institute of Hotel Management costs around Rs 6,62,000.
Bahadur states that after investing heavily in their education, the majority of graduates aspire to start their careers at a supervisory or management level. Only 10 per cent of the best of students are offered management trainees—a position that trains, skills and grooms a graduate to become a supervisor or manager through an in-house dedicated programme.
Moreover, the temperament of the millennials and GenZ is distinct from that of their predecessors. For these purpose-driven generations, experiences, personal growth and learning are just as critical as the position, compensation, and prospects.
Abdul Nasir Shaikh, Group CEO of the Lexicon Group of Institutes, points out another reason for students jumping ship: the massive gap between academia and the industry. "Students passing out from hospitality institutes are not up to date regarding the industry other than the little exposure during their industrial internships. It affects their performance and leaves them unable to cope at work," he says. Trained in soft skills and basics of interacting with customers and product knowledge, hospitality graduates hence prefer moving to profiles like retail, aviation, and real estate as these sectors offer attractive compensations with various other benefits, he adds.
Then there is also the valid aspect of ambitions abroad. "Many hospitality professionals seek employment opportunities overseas, specifically in the Middle East, which has a high demand for trained professionals and where salary levels and quality of life are far better," says Dilip Puri, founder and CEO of the Indian School of Hospitality. With Qatar's FIFA World Cup in sight, young professionals are making a beeline to the Middle Eastern nation as job opportunities abound.
Feeling The Heat
With the resumption of international travel and the continued interest from domestic tourists, the hospitality industry is finally getting the much-needed kickstart after two years of sporadic operations. The current workforce crunch has resulted in stunted growth for the sector which is desperately needs business recovery.
Moreover, hotel chains are expanding to Tier II and Tier III towns where travel has seen a considerable uptick. Traditional hiring patterns and roles have changed as people are expected to multitask and handle the growing digitisation in the business.
"Even those seeking to work in the hospitality industry are looking for careers in functional disciplines such as sales and marketing, revenue management and HR, and do not want to work in operations. This is largely because of a stereotyped, albeit correct, notion that such jobs require long working hours and are not paid as well as other disciplines," says Puri. There is a critical need for the industry to change this perception and increase the attractiveness index of operations in hospitality, the hotelier-turned-educator adds.
Currently, the hospitality industry is facing an over 60 per cent demand-supply gap in manpower. While the sector faced a shortage of trained workforce in food and beverage service and housekeeping in pre-pandemic times, this shortage has worsened as many skilled staffers were retrenched during Covid-19. These employees, who either returned to their native towns, entered other verticals or even started their own businesses, are unwilling to return to the sector.
Quoting an estimate from an internal study conducted by the Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Association of India, Mehul Sharma, founder of Signum Hotels, dolefully says that the strain comes from the fact that while the total number of trained workforce required for the sector would be close to 60,000, 40,000 will be required for the department of tourism-approved hotels alone.
Bridging The Gap
To tackle this massive human resource challenge, hotels are now taking a step back to revisit the sector's perception as one with inhumane hours and low pay. There is an increased emphasis on employee wellbeing, health and safety as they introduce revamped benefits strategies, offer more flexibility and even overhaul their workplace culture to make it more people friendly. Signum’s Sharma even recommends adopting strategies like mid-term salary revisions and extraordinary pay raises to retain efficient employees.
In terms of work hours, Ravi Pachamuthu, chairman, SRM Group points out that the sector is shifting towards nine-hour duty, two days off, better pay packages and progressive designations, saying that these policies would help the company ramp up its workforce which currently has 400 people on its payroll.
How hotels treat and care for students during their industrial training makes all the difference. Shaikh bats for weekly engagement by the executive committee, senior leadership, and one-on-one with the general manager at regular intervals of the training program. "Through this bond, the engagement will be high and thereby the absorption in the industry," he says.
Hotels are also on a hiring spree now. Lemon Tree Hotels, which retrenched several employees last year, plans to hire around 1,500 people as it opens 20 hotels. Royal Orchid and Regenta Hotels also plan to hire 1,000 people as it expands to new markets and cities by adding 100 hotels to its portfolio in 2022. "We have stepped up our hiring efforts from entry-level to senior positions across the group. Hiring today, at our group, has been recovery-led," says Chander Baljee, the CMD of the group.
According to the Naukri JobSpeak Index, hiring in the hospitality sector, including hotels, restaurants and airlines, grew by 58 per cent in November 2021 as compared to the year before. Hotel chains expanding to Tier II and Tier III cities also opens up opportunities. KB Kachru, vice president of Hotel Association of India and chairman emeritus and principal advisor, South Asia, Radisson Hotel Group, says that this expansion has increased the need for front desk and housekeeping staffers in addition to software and app developers, process automation specialists, and data analysts. "Apart from the metros, cities like Jaipur, Vadodara, Kochi, and Hyderabad have maintained positive hiring momentum, which is expected to grow in the coming months," he says.
AK Singh, director of FHRAI Institute of Hospitality Management, talks about the service-oriented nature of the business and how hospitality professionals in the organised sector require in-depth training which can range from six months to three years. "The high demand in the unorganised sector is often met by untrained but experienced staff. However, we still need to train people in the unorganised sector under the Hunar se Rozgar skill development programme for skilling, reskilling or upskilling," he says, suggesting a way to bridge the gap.