HR and human capital development

Scroll down for posts that have been tagged with “HR and human cap­it­al devel­op­ment” as it relates to travel & tourism.

Human resource man­age­ment (HRM) and human cap­it­al devel­op­ment (HCD) are two closely related con­cepts in organ­isa­tion­al man­age­ment. How­ever, there are some key dif­fer­ences between the two.

HRM is primar­ily con­cerned with the admin­is­trat­ive and trans­ac­tion­al aspects of man­aging employ­ees, includ­ing recruit­ment, selec­tion, train­ing, com­pens­a­tion, and per­form­ance man­age­ment. It is a react­ive approach to man­aging employ­ees, focused on respond­ing to the needs of the organ­isa­tion and ensur­ing com­pli­ance with labor laws and reg­u­la­tions. The goal of HRM is to max­im­ise the pro­ductiv­ity and effi­ciency of the workforce.

HCD, on the oth­er hand, is a stra­tegic approach to devel­op­ing and invest­ing in the skills, know­ledge, and abil­it­ies of employ­ees, with the aim of enhan­cing organ­isa­tion­al per­form­ance and achiev­ing long-term suc­cess. It is a pro­act­ive approach that focuses on cre­at­ing a learn­ing cul­ture with­in the organ­isa­tion, provid­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for ongo­ing devel­op­ment and train­ing, and recog­nising and reward­ing employ­ees for their con­tri­bu­tions. The goal of HCD is to build a highly skilled and motiv­ated work­force that is equipped to meet the chal­lenges of the future.

In the con­text of the travel &  tour­ism industry, HRM and HCD play a vital role in enhan­cing the per­form­ance and com­pet­it­ive­ness of busi­nesses. How­ever, the tour­ism industry is highly dynam­ic and con­stantly evolving. There­fore, HCD is crit­ic­al in enabling busi­nesses to devel­op and adapt to chan­ging trends and cus­tom­er needs.

Research sug­gests that HCD can also have a pos­it­ive impact on employ­ee engage­ment, job sat­is­fac­tion, and over­all per­form­ance (Jain & Gupta, 2018). A study by Oku­mus, Alt­inay, and Rop­er (2018) found that HCD prac­tices such as train­ing and devel­op­ment, know­ledge shar­ing, and ment­or­ing were pos­it­ively asso­ci­ated with employ­ee reten­tion and organ­isa­tion­al per­form­ance in the hos­pit­al­ity industry.

In sum­mary, HRM and HCD are both essen­tial for the suc­cess of busi­nesses in the travel & tour­ism industry. By com­bin­ing effect­ive HRM prac­tices with a focus on devel­op­ing the human cap­it­al of the organ­isa­tion, busi­nesses can gain a com­pet­it­ive advant­age and achieve sus­tain­able growth.

Ref­er­ences:

  • Arm­strong, M., & Taylor, S. (2014). Arm­strong’s hand­book of human resource man­age­ment prac­tice. Kogan Page Publishers.
  • Beck­er, B., & Huselid, M. A. (2006). Stra­tegic human resources man­age­ment: Where do we go from here?. Journ­al of Man­age­ment, 32(6), 898 – 925.
  • Jain, R., & Gupta, M. (2018). Human cap­it­al devel­op­ment and per­form­ance: A study of the Indi­an hos­pit­al­ity sec­tor. Journ­al of Human Resources in Hos­pit­al­ity & Tour­ism, 17(4), 406 – 429.
  • Oku­mus, F., Alt­inay, L., & Rop­er, A. (2018). The role of human resource man­age­ment and human cap­it­al in the suc­cess of hotels: A mul­ti­di­men­sion­al approach. Inter­na­tion­al Journ­al of Hos­pit­al­ity Man­age­ment, 71, 41 – 50.

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Living the good life: Can tourism help save a host community from itself?

April 13, 2021
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Barefoot Bar: Living the good life in the Cook Islands. Image supplied by Ani Thompson

Much has been made about how travel & tour­ism exploits host com­munit­ies. But can our industry pro­act­ively improve loc­als’ health and well-being? Ani Thompson thinks so. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, the hoteli­er shares how she has lever­aged the resources avail­able to her to help tackle the scourge of non­com­mu­nic­able dis­eases in her nat­ive Cook […]

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What do the people want? Reimagining Pacific Island travel & tourism

, and March 16, 2021
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Reimagining pacific island tourism for host communities. Image (c) Pedram Pirnia

Thanks to its pan­­dem­ic-induced pause, travel & tour­ism has an oppor­tun­ity to rein­vent itself to bet­ter serve the aspir­a­tions of des­tin­a­tion com­munit­ies, accord­ing to Apis­a­lome Movono, Regina Scheyvens, and Soph­ie Auck­ram. The Mas­sey Uni­ver­sity research­ers draw on their ongo­ing study of five Pacific Island states to argue why the industry should be more attuned to […]

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Why are travel & tourism workers growing mushrooms in rural Sri Lanka?

December 10, 2020
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Oyster mushroom abstraction. Image (CC0) via Pikrepo.

Susan Eardly and Dinesh Pathir­ana are empower­ing rur­al Sri Lankan fam­il­ies pre­vi­ously reli­ant on tour­ism income to devel­op sus­tain­able busi­nesses. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Ms Eardly dis­cusses funguses and answers the ques­tion: “Why fungi?”  (Thanks to “GT” Friend Richard Shep­ard for the intro­duc­tion.) Sri Lanka, the trop­ic­al island set like a pearl in the Indian […]

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How bees, trees, & tourism reduce human-wildlife conflict in Uganda

January 7, 2020

Looking relaxed. Chimp, Kibale, Uganda by Rod Waddington (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/rod_waddington/23355595510/

James Nadi­ope estab­lished the Africa Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Care Found­a­tion to address the prob­lem of human-wild­life con­flicts tak­ing place around Kibale Nation­al Park in west­ern Uganda. AST­CF’s first pro­ject was at Kahangi vil­lage, where com­munity con­sulta­tion led to the emer­gence of both tra­di­tion­al and mod­ern solu­tions to old prob­lems. One of those solu­tions was, of course, […]

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What is destination human capital? It’s the people!

September 1, 2017

Don't forget destination HUMAN capital development!

Peter Semone would advise any incom­ing tour­ism min­is­ter to focus on their des­tin­a­tion’s people as a pri­or­ity.  In this “GT” Insight, Mr Semone sum­mar­ises the chal­lenges and oppor­tun­it­ies for des­tin­a­tion human cap­it­al devel­op­ment and its poten­tial con­tri­bu­tion to the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment goals (SDGs) and to tour­ism industry per­form­ance more gen­er­ally. In 2016, I con­cluded my […]

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Mission vision: Accessible, inclusive tourism for the visually impaired

July 12, 2017

Accessible and inclusive tourism for the visually impaired. Training.

A truly access­ible and inclus­ive tour­ism industry should view people with dis­ab­il­it­ies, such as visu­al impair­ment, the same as any­one else — as a poten­tially luc­rat­ive mar­ket seg­ment and a pro­duct­ive and innov­at­ive human resource — accord­ing to A Lajwanti Naidu in this “Good Tour­ism” Insight. Sens­ory organs play a vital role in life. Among them, eyes are probably […]

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