Legal Obligations in Recruitment and Selection

The concept of company strategy battles with the continuing issue of shaping the overall purpose and scope of an organization. From a current point of view, it involves in the dimension of long-term goals and objectives that will add value to the business and cope with the vagueness of modern times. As a practice, it consists of adopting courses of action and allocating resources in essential ways for carrying out the overall objectives.

Companies approach towards hiring their personals is depends upon company overall strategy and it also reflect their attitude towards competition. In United Kingdom hospitality industry employs 1.7 million people, about 6% of the total working population. According to Visit Britain, 27.7 million overseas visitors came to the UK in 2004, a 13% increase on the previous year. With the recent boom in travel and tourism industry, hospitality Industry is also experiencing unprecedented growth and prosperity. Recruitment Criteria Hospitality Industry, well-paid job options are drawing many individuals towards this industry. In this current scenario it becomes very evident that hospitality industries will rapidly rise to higher levels as various Asian and western countries are working towards strengthening their travel and tourism industries.

Source:( www.caterersearch.com)

Number of Employees in Different Famous Hospitality and tourism Groups

The hospitality industry provides some of the most exciting opportunities for employment today. The industry relies on

Skilled

Well trained employees

Strong customer focus

Strong interpersonal skills

Good communication skills and cultural awareness

Ability to work as part of a team

Good product and local knowledge

Selling skills

Technical skills

The right attitude

As a new personnel assistant, my immediate line manager jayne stines give me some tasks, which are followings,

An analysis of the recruitment process in tourism and hospitality

Legal and ethical obligations in recruitment and selection

The importance of job description

The role of person specification

The structure and content of CVs

1. An Analysis Of The Recruitment Process In Tourism And Hospitality

Recruitment planning chart

As an assistant manager I analyse different hospitality and tourism recruitment process that are vary from one place to other place or one department to another department. As per my knowledge and research, why is different from one place to an other (one company to another) there are some reason which are given below,

Recruitment Policies, The need for efficient manpower in these hospitality industries has been sub divided into various categories which include;

Reception,

Customer relations,

Marketing,

Accounting

Financial management,

Back office

Horticulture,

Engineers,

Communications

IT and recreations.

Fast growth in tourism and travel industry has lead to the emergence of hospitality industry. And with the corroboration of these industries such as travel and tourism (Which basically include hotels, restaurant and airlines) a huge demand increase for

Educated peoples

Professional peoples

Effective manpower for Management

Speaking a number of languages fluently is as much essential as the international understanding of business and worldwide trends in the travel and hospitality industry.

Today’s Hotel Manager needs to understand all that; he is a business manager and public relations star, a marketing genius and has brilliant financial and business acumen.

Recently most of the Companies in hospitality and tourism are using competency outline frame work to outline the type of person that they are seeking, the focus of competency is depends on the following,

The behaviour of job applicants

The use of competencies tends to focus on areas such as

Team orientation

Communication

People management

Customer focus

Result orientation

Problem solving

Employer In hospitality and tourism increasingly desire employees with,

The right attitude (social and interpersonal skills)

Appearance

The right attitude encompasses aspect such as social and interpersonal skills, which are big concern ensuring that employees are,

Responsive

Courteous

Understanding with customers

2. Legal and ethical obligations in recruitment and selection

It is essential to recruit the staffs in the way that does not breach the legal rules, which supervise the recruitment process. The penalty of not comply with legal legislations can be damage,

Adverse publicity for the Service

Case to an Employment Tribunal for unfair discrimination.

There is wide range of legislations, which cover the recruitment process. Basically this legislation is dividing in to three main groups.

Employment law

Anti-discrimination legislation

Data protection legislation

Employment law

The law of contract, especially to the employment relationship

The law on the minimum wage

Working Time Regulations 1998

The Human Rights Act

Occupational qualifications (European Law, including provisions relating to mobility of workers)

Anti-discrimination legislation

Employment legislation, including the Employment Rights Act 1996 and the Employment Act 2002

Equal Employment Opportunity

Disability Discrimination Act 1995

Fixed-Term Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2002

Race Relations Act 1976 (Amendment) Regulations 2003-09-05

Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000

Sex Discrimination (Indirect Discrimination and Burden of Proof) Regulations 2001

And many mores legislation which also covers the recruitment process

Anti-discrimination Legislation

The Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations 1999 makes it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of,

Gender obligations in employment

Vocational training

The Equal Pay Act 1970 makes it unlawful to discriminate between women and men in their contracts of employment, including

Wages

Overtime

Holidays

Other contractual bonuses.

The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 make it unlawful for employers to discriminate against employees

Trainees or job seekers

Age

Workers age (in terms of training and promotion)

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and 2002 Amendment makes it unlawful for an employer,

To treat a disabled person less favourably, because of their disability

The Race Relations Act 1976 makes it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of the followings,

Colour

Race

Nationality

Ethnic

Language

Education

Housing (the way of living)

Purveying of goods

Facilities and services

The Employment Relations Act 1999 gives working parents the right to employee,

Unpaid leave and off time in case of emergencies

The Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 makes it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of the followings,

Religion, religious belief

Different philosophical belief.

Data protection legislation

The Data Protection Act 1998 puts responsibilities on an employer to process personal data in a fair and proper way. The Act gives individuals certain rights in respect of the processing of their personal data and those carrying out selection processes must comply with the Act.

The chart given below shows in which countries this legislation is active.

3. Importance of job description

In a modern recruitment process , job description is very important and is a chart of the

General tasks

functions

Responsibilities of a position.

Typically, it also includes to whom the position reports, specifications such as the,

Qualifications

Experience required by the person in the job

Description of the ideal candidate

Salary range for the position.

In other word the job description produce by the job analysis include

The tasks

The sequences of tasks needs to perform the job

Areas of knowledge and skills needed by the job

A good job description,

Serves as a reference guide for determining perfect person on best level, and the best time at best price.

Helps maximizes spent on employee compensation for the position by ensuring experience, and skills needed for the job, are detailed and matched to prospective applicants.

Functions as a reference material for developing interview questions for specific position.

Fully Details information about the position that can be assimilates into “help wanted” ads.

Dissuade employees from refusing to do something because “it is not my job.”

Provides a basis for employee reviews, increase in salary, growth paths for the achievements of organization set goals

Serves as legal documentation that can be useful in the event an employee files a termination or discrimination lawsuit against the company.

A job description should include the following:

Job Title

Clarifies the position, job title, and rank or level

Salary Range

Sales Incentive

Performance awards

Annual pay bonus, etc.

Statement of Purpose and Objectives

A general statement, brief in three or four sentences,

Purpose or objective of the position.

Job Description

A fully detailed list of exact duties and tasks in their order of importance, this list should cover every activity that will take 5% or more of the employee’s time and include any liability the employee may have for meeting certain objectives.

Experience and Skills

Be as precise as possible when specify the experience and skills required to perform the job. For example, if the position requires the use of a computer, list the type of software or hardware used to perform the job.

Description of Ideal Candidate

Fully Detail other strengths needed to perform the job such as,

Well-developed communication skills

Ability of working with minimal supervision

Result oriented, cooperative, capable of working in tight deadlines

4. The role of person specifications

What Is A Person Specification in Hospitality and Tourism?

A person design describes the requirements a jobholder needs to be able to perform the job adequately. These are likely to include:

Education and qualifications

Training and experience

Personal attributes / qualities/ skills

Strong customer focus

Strong interpersonal skills

Good communication skills and cultural awareness

Comparison Between Person Specification And Job Description

A job description describes the job

A person specification describes the person needed to do the job.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

The most common approach now used by recruiters is to use what are known as “competencies” to design the person specification. These are then classified as

Essential

Desired

OR

To analyze which are most important.

Competencies might include some or all of the following:

Physical attributes

Health

Aged

Speech

Attainments

Highest level of education completed

Relevant market experience

Ability to supervise/manage

Customer service skills

Aptitudes

Verbal reasoning

Numerical aptitude

Communication skills power

The right attitude

Interests or activities

Social activities

Sporting activities

Personal circumstances

Ability to work in different shifts

Full or part time

Ability to work as part of a team

Good product and local knowledge

Selling skills

Technical skills

Person specifications have to be prepared and used with great care. In particular, it is important to ensure that the list of essential or desired competencies does not lead to unlawful discrimination against potential employees.

In hotel industry or others HR plays a significant role and they work according to the requirement of the company and the role of the particular job.

5. The structure and contents of CVs

CV is the only thing that the employer has in hand that will give him/her an impression about you. Hence, everything in a CV – the paper, the presentation, the language, and the overall looks – describes you.

Name

Address

Contact information

Brief biography

Objectives

Basic Education

Undergraduate education

Graduate education

Scholarships information

Internship / Training

Skills

Research experience / Specific Research knowledge

Work placement

Employment history

Awards & honors

Technical & computer skills

Language skills

Professional licenses and certifications

Hobbies

The information that can be include in Candidate curriculum vitae. The elements that include will depend on what we are applying for, so be sure to include the most relevant information to support in CV.

The paper for the CV should be a decent quality; Too shabby or too gaudy papers will have the same result – impression of bad taste

Letter Cover should match the CV paper and letters typeset

Use typeset bigger than 11 pts because it makes easy into reading. Use Arial or Times New Roman as the font.

The standard margins for the CV should be 1inch in on all sides; in case you need to, may reduce the side margins to maximum 0.5 ensure that the typed matter is in the centre of the page

Check for typographical errors manually, as many times automatic spell checks create major howlers

What the CV should include depends very much upon what the job entails.

The Structure Of CV

Personal details such as

Name

Address

Sex

Phone numbers

Email address

Marital status

And so on…

Future plans

Objectives

Qualification (professional and academic)

Any skills

Any exceptional qualities

Work experience (in reverse order, with the last job you had, mentioned first)

Any Additional responsibilities (outside your designation / job description)

Job specific skills which you possess

Interests (Should be brief here, unless it is something that will enhance the skills required by the job in that organization)

Any Two References (most of the times a guarantee you offer that what you say stands true)

Any supporting comments regards the job which you are applying

Overall CV should be should be brief, maximum 2 pages

Well presented

And concise

In this recession, most of the companies cutting down there paper work. This saves money. Now a day’s most of the hospitality and tourism companies are recruiting staff online, which is easy and safe way to keep the record of the all applications. (E.g.) Hilton hotel, Intercontinental hotels group are taking most application online which save time for the appellant and for organization.

Conclusion:

As per my Research & studies, Hospitality and tourism is fast growing industry through out whole world. In this current recession time, hospitality and tourism is an only industry, which is still growing fast. In United Kingdom, as European Union is getting more strong tourism is increasing in United Kingdom. Most of the United Kingdom hotel occupancy is more than 85%- 90% through out whole year. I think hospitality and tourism is the industry, which is full with the different cultural peoples, where employee can use his/her own personal skills in better way and can learn new things.

In my research, I find this is a huge industry offering variety, diversity and tons of different jobs and career opportunities to suit everyone. One in every 10 people in the UK, that’s over 2.5 million people working in more than 30,000 establishments. Also, 1 in every 5 new jobs fall into this sector with another 400,000 new jobs created by 2006 according to The British Hospitality Association.

Due to the huge growth in Hospitality and tourism, in the last 10 years, international tourism has accounted for 1 in 6 of all jobs, 125,000 tourism businesses exist in the UK and 1.75 million people are employed in these businesses.

In hospitality, leisure, travel or tourism industry only Qualifications alone are no guarantee of a job, it depends a lot on your personality, attitude, communication skills and – common sense approach to work and life in general.

One thing, which I realize, that in hospitality and tourism you can taste and learn almost all types of jobs that’s why it attracts peoples towards it self.