Protección del medio ambiente

In industries such as Engineering, music, art, estate etc (e.g. Michaels et al, 2001; Phillips & Roper, 2009); there are clear products which are produced, and this may make it easy to identify talent. However, in the service (hotel) sector, there are no clear products; and this presents problems in how ‘Talent’ or ‘Talented Workers’ can be defined in this industry. In this industry, there is no well-defined output through which ‘Talent’ can be measured against. Also, some industries have unique qualities, which make it harder to generalise the definitions. Thus, we contend that the lack of clarity of the concept talent and its conceptualisation within the hospitality industry is because the hotel industry is highly labour intensive with low skill set and varying labour skills level.

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Therefore, it is not straightforward to borrow the concept of talent and talent management into the hospitality industry (e.g. hotel sector); as it will certainly require different qualities for hotel managers from those of housekeepers. Thus, the requirements for the talent in the hospitality industry may be different from the requirements in other industries. Tansley (2011, p. 266) argued that there are different organisational perspectives of talent. The current meanings of talent tend to be specific to an organisation and highly influenced by the nature of the work undertaken. A shared organisational language for talent is important. There is high level of influence of management consultants in the development of the concept in managing people with unique knowledge and skills. Also, Barron (2008, p. 731) argued that “hotels have a poor reputation as a source of permanent employment — offering low pay, anti-social working hours, menial work, and limited opportunities’ for career progression”. The Thai hotel industry is no exception to this problem. Therefore, it might be difficult to find and retain ‘talented workers’ that deliver service promises that organisations make to their current and potential customers, despite the conditions described above.

Gallardo-Gallardo et al. (2013) made one of the great contributions on the subject of talent; especially in setting out the concept and the approach of defining talent in the world of work. However, this generated debate about how the concept can be applied to business and management in general and in different definitions of ‘talent’. I argue that some of the definitions may not be applicable to every business types. Thus, for example, the IT industry may define talent as high technical skills which lead great contribution to product development while the hotel industry might refer to talent as the individual who contributes to great service delivery. Davies et al, (2007) and Tansley, 2011 support this viewpoint. They suggested that talent might have different meanings depending on people, time, and location/organisation. Thus, for the hospitality industry which is heavily reliant on labour and whose contributed output is the quality of service delivered (and not tangible products); the question therefore is how the concept of talent can be applied to this industry?

The nature of hospitality industry is also different from other industries (as discussed in section 2.4.1), and therefore the concept of talent may not be the same. This is supported by Baum (2008), who argued that talent in the hospitality industry may not

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mean the same thing as in other industries. Also, Iles (2013, p.302) noted that the concept of talent is “often organisation-specific and highly influenced by the nature of the work” (e.g. in health, IT, hotel). Thus, this section will discuss how talent is defined in this research.

Given the foregoing discussion on the different definitions of ‘Talent’ and ‘Talented workers’; the question that arises thereof is which definition(s) of talent is going to be adopted in this thesis and why? The other closely related question is: Does the concept of ‘talent’ exist at all levels of the workforce within the hotel industry.

In terms of who needs to be included as ‘Talent’, we argue that as a general principle all workers with the ‘right credentials and company fit’ need to be considered as qualifying for classification as ‘potential talent’. Within the hospitality industry the workforce has wide ranging ‘skills’. For example, for the housekeeper performance and achievement might be measured in terms of speed; while for the manager, performance and achievement might be measured in terms of strategic thinking and future planning. The main problem with including ‘all workers’ would be coming up with a definition of Talent which encompasses such as a wide range of skills set, and this would be virtually be impossible to achieve especially come-up with. Consequently, for purposes of this thesis, the concept of ‘talent’ will only focus on managerial talent (Micheals et al., 2001). The reason for focusing on managerial talent as a key role is that the management team has to deal with an ever changing hotel environment landscape and they have to have the foresight to drive and steer the boat in the right direction. The outcomes of what they are trying to achieve might not be immediately known until later on in life. Focusing on a particular group of employees also ensures that there is less variation in their skills level being investigated.

Another reason for focusing on middle level managers and high level managers is that these people are involved in the strategic thinking and mapping on the future path of the hospitality industry, and this is particularly so for Thai hotels within the context of emergence of the threat posed by AEC.

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In that regard, the definition of ‘talent’ that will be adopted for this thesis is that it refers to some workers (current and future) in key positions. These are workers who exhibit the following qualities: competence (aligned with the organisation goal) + commitment (want to be with the organisation) + contribute to the great performance (both to customers — meet service quality; and co-workers — guide the other workers to work effectively). Not surprisingly, talent in this research is regarded as the combination of natural ability (willing to contribute the great service by nature) and nurture (experience on dealing with customers, co-workers, and the management of organisation. This ‘talent’ can be considered the source of competitiveness, allowing hotels to remain competitive despite the threat of the AEC. This definition is in line with that propounded by Michaels et al. (2001, p. xii) who viewed ‘talent’ as “the sum of a person's abilities — his or her intrinsic gifts, skills, knowledge, experience, intelligence, judgment, attitude, character and drive. It also includes his or her ability to learn and grow.”

However, managing employees, especially those within the hospitality industry, and especially hotels that come into regular contact with customers is unlike managing employees in non-service industries such as manufacturing (Bowen & Ford, 2004). This is due to the intangibility of the product that is provided by hotels. Hotel employees need to meet customers’ demands for quality products and services, and this requires an equivalent level of skill and ability (Bowen & Ford, 2004). Employee members need to be well educated and trained in order to be able to deliver excellent service (Dotchin & Oakland, 1994a, 1994b; Heskett, Sasser, & Schlesinger, 1997; Lovelock, Wirtz, Keh, & Lu, 2005).

According to Michaels et al. (2001), organisations that are better at managing talent can be 22 per cent better than their competitors (in terms of service delivery). Not surprisingly, if organisations are experiencing talent shortage then this negatively affects the “service quality and firm/industry competitiveness” (Hsu, 2012, p. 9343). The long- term successes of organisations are not only due to its product or service but also having the right quality of employees as the main driver.

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As discussed in Section 2.4.1 (nature of the hospitality industry) the turnover rate is high in the hotel sector. The turnover of key worker hinders the organisation from fully utilising this source of competitive advantage.