Calibrating human resources recruitment and selection procedures to talent gaps within 5 star hotels in Malta

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify different recruitment and selection procedures used by the human resources department of different five star hotels and the way they calibrate these procedures to reduce the talent gaps in their company and ultimately to reduce the gaps within the hospitality industry. Furthermore, the researcher seeks to identify the importance of having the right procedures for the company to build up a professional workforce. The methods used to identify the main objectives of this research was through one to one in depth interviews with different employees, at senior level, from the Human Resources department of different five star hotels. The general findings of this study were that every human resources department have adapted the recruitment and selection procedures to the needs of their company, which rendered the use of these procedures easier. It was argued that these procedures do help in decreasing the issues of talent gaps in the company, however since the hospitality industry has been dubbed as an unattractive industry to work in, the human resources departments still struggle to identify the talent which is missing for the company. Therefore, several recommendations were made by the researcher to address this issue. The recommendations made revolved around several ideas which were identified throughout the research. The three main themes of the recommendations were to reduce talent gaps through using new tools with the current recruitment and selection procedures to help understand the issue of talent gaps, increasing the focus on the employee since having a professional iv workforce is of utmost importance in a service industry and also to re-brand the hospitality industry to attract further people for a career in this industry.