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Table of Contents
QUESTION:...............................................................................................................................4
1.0 ABSTRACT.........................................................................................................................4
2.0 INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................4
3.0 ORGANISATION PROFILE...............................................................................................5
4.0 SWOT ANALYSIS OF LUX* GRAND GAUBE...............................................................7
5.0 RECRUITMENT AND TURN OVER................................................................................8
6.0 TRAINING.........................................................................................................................10
7.0 RECOMMENDATIONS....................................................................................................12
8.0 CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................14
ANNEXED..............................................................................................................................15

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Table of figures
Figure 1. Lux* Grand Gaube Organisational Chart..................................................................6
Figure 2 Staff Movement...........................................................................................................8
Figure 3 Recruitment & Turnover..............................................................................................9
Figure 5 Training......................................................................................................................10

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Page |4

QUESTION:
Identify a tourism or hospitality organization of your choice and conduct an assessment of
the key HRM challenges that they face and propose possible recommendations as to how that
organization could tackle these challenges. Your recommendations needs to be feasible in the
Mauritian context and can also be based on examples driven worldwide.

1.0 ABSTRACT
This paper reviews the literature of managing challenges such as staff turnover and retention,
training programs, in Lux* Grand Gaube. It further discusses the issue of motivation,
involvement, teamwork, and achievement of quality by staffs at the workplace through staff
development and training. This paper will additional discuss the current challenges face by
Lux* Grand Gaube followed by recommendations of how to mitigate these challenges or turn
them into opportunities.

2.0 INTRODUCTION
The tourism and hospitality sector is one of the economic pillars of Mauritius. The
government of Mauritius targeted two million touristsarrival by 2015, stated in the Mauritius
Sector Strategic Plan (2009-2015). There are some significant Human resources issues such
as ability to attract, retain and develop competent and qualified staff in the Hospitality
industry in Mauritius.
According to analyses by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (WTO, 2003),
tourism is one of the largest global export industries (Burns and Holden, 1995). During the
latter decades of the twentieth century, tourism developed from a marginal local activity to a
global economic giant representing about 6 per cent of the global economy and creating
approximately 200 million jobs worldwide. In terms of industry size, these statistics mean
that the tourism industry is in the same bracket as agriculture and mining (Weaver and
Oppermann, 2000). There are several reasons for this increase in the size of the tourism
industry.
In a report made upon the request of (AHRIM) Association of Hotels and Restaurant in
Mauritius, De Chazal Du Me (DCDM), on August 2004; Study on Demand and Supply
Trends in the Tourism Industry, it is stated that direct employment in the tourism sector has
evolved significantly over the last 10 years, at an average annual rate of 5.9% (compared to
1% in total employment). Over the same period, the tourism sector share in total employment
increased constantly from 3.6% in 1995 to reach 5.4% in 2003. In the last 15 years, while the
agriculture and manufacturing sectors have regressed both in terms of their contribution to
total employment and the number of people employed, the opposite has been noted for the
tourism sector. this shows that employment in the Tourism sector have been one of the major
employment sector in Mauritius.
Mauritius is over dependant on tourism, following the crisis of the sugar industry reforms and
the first fabric export in the textile industry. Government is laying heavy emphasis on the
tourism sector as a generator of growth and employment for the coming years. Foreign direct

Page |5
investment of Rs 16 billion is expected for the next 3 years in the various hotels and IRS
projects around the island. During the forum of Assises du tourisme held in February 2006,
the Prime Minister called for a national effort from all sectors concerned to attain the
objective of 2 million tourists by 2015. As mentioned by the Prime Minister during this
conference, "Mauritius has the capacity, socially and physically, to receive over two million
tourists a year, almost three times the number received in 2005, where this will help to boost
the economic growth rate. During the last few years, the Mauritian tourism sector had been
stagnant, but growth returned in 2005".
Training will be a key element for the optimal development of the tourism industry.
Hospitality and Tourism training will play a key role and new strategies will have to be
devised to meet this challenge.
There are some other significant human resources issues such as ability to attract, retain and
develop competent and qualified staff in the Hospitality Industry in Mauritius.

3.0 ORGANISATION PROFILE

Lux* Grand Gaube is located in the fishing village of Grand Gaube, in north of Mauritius.
With its 198 rooms and suites, which all sea viewed rooms and built with a Feng Shui
concept and ambiance. This hotel have a stunning view on the northern coast islets with three
beaches and a serene lagoon. It comprise four swimming pools, beautiful gardens of coconut
trees, filaos and banyans there are a choice of 5 restaurants and 3 bars, 24hrs room service,
kids and teen clubs and other services. Lux* Grand Gaube is one of the hotel of Lux*
Resorts.
Moreover, Lux* Grand Gaube is the most romantic hotel, suggested by Trip Advisor. It is
near Grand Baie approximately 10 minutes by car. The hotel has nice view on some islands of
the north like Coin de Mire & Lle Plate. There are free Yoga and Tai Chi course as well as
free wifi and free international call that clients can make full use of it in the telephone booth
near the reception.
Below is the operational organizational chart of Lux* Grand Gaube clearly showing the
structure of the operational organization and the relationships and relative ranks of its parts
and positions.

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Figure 1. Lux* Grand Gaube Organisational Chart

Page |7

The motive why we have chosen this resort is that on the 10 th January 2011, the murder of
Mrs Michaela Harte who was found dead by her new husband John, they were on honeymoon
at the former hotel Legends, now rebranded Lux* Grand Gaube. This issue was brought in
almost all newspapers around England, Ireland and almost all online destination newspapers.
The Lux* Grand Gaube is undergoing many challenges at present and will continue to face
many challenges in the near future. The following are a few challenges that will be discussed
further:

High staff turnover and recruitment challenges

Training of staff

Retention of employees

General
Manager

In order to analyse the challenges mentioned above, it is wise to conduct a SWOT analysis of
Lux* Grand Gaube . A situation analysis is a crucial process i.e. identifying the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing Lux* Grand Gaube as illustrated below.
Resident
Manager

4.0 SWOT ANALYSIS OF LUX* GRAND GAUBE

Strengths:Food &
Beverage
Whether
Manager it

Front Office
&
Houskeeping
theManager
HRM

Maintenance

Executive Chef

Human Resource

Manager
is
or other
management at Lux* Grand Gaube,they
have created a
Manager
situational management system over there. There is a positive environment due to thier
dedication, team work, know the importance of training as well as human values that why
they
offer lots of training to the staffs to reduce labour turnover and increase retention.
Assistant
Food &
Beverage
Weakness:Manger

Assistant
Housekeeper

Assistant
Maintenance
Manger

Chef de
Cuisine

Training
Manager

Whether for local or international tourism market, the murder at Lux* Grand Gaube will have
a negative impact. Even in futur it will be difficult for the hotel to have tourists mainly from
Ireland because the victims was from there.
Bar Manager

Floor
Supervisor

Maintenance
supervisor

Sous chef

Payroll
officer

Moreover there will be always a risk of high labour turnover due to the particular matter as it
has happen at the first six months of the year.
Opportunities:Restaurant
Manager
Grand
Gaube

Valet and
laundry
just among
worker

Maintenace
technicians
best
romantic

Human
Resource
for officer
rest

Chef de
hotelPartie
but

Lux*
is not
the
also is wellknown
and relaxation, marriage ceremony and guest can enjoy the latest technology designed for
massage in the spa.

Lux* Grand Gaube is a hotel where new comers do have the opportunity to learn Human
more about
Restaurant
Cook
Resource
the tourism industry through training
organized by the Human Resource
Traineeactivities Trainee
Supervisor
officer like
Department. The staffs do have the facilities to persue further studies at other institution

Waiter &
Bar waiter

Trainee cook

Trainee

Page |8
university. Hereby the management are flexible in the working hours and encourage the latter
to go ahead in the educational fields.
Threats:
Lux* Grand Gaube is one of the well known hotel in Mauritius for its Feng Shui concept and
ambiance and the good marketing strategy they possess. But unfortunately like other hotels,
Lux* Grand Gaube hotel do has internal and external threats such as:
Internal threat:
The risk of high labour turnover.
Wastage may increased due to the unexperience employees in the day to day running
of the hotel.
Spending too much money on training may result in paying less salary and cutting off
other benefits to the staff compared to other hotels or even investing less in other
profitable departments.
External threats:
The Ministry of labour may open an investigation due to the high labour turnover
which may create obstacles in the running of the business.
Other hotels can take full advantage of the crime incident, to market Lux* Grand
Gaube clients.
The employees may not be satisfied with their earnigs due to the organization long
term debts.

5.0 RECRUITMENT AND TURN OVER

Staff is the appearance of a hotel. People working in the hotel sector form the attitude of the
client for a hotel. For this reason, the Human Resource Department give lots of its effort to
minimize labour turnover in a hotel. Figure 2 below shows the staff movement through the
year for Lux*Grand Gaube Hotel.

Figure 2 Staff Movement

Page |9

Figure 3 Recruitment

Figure 4
Leavers
Labour turnover is the movement of employees in and out of an organization. However, the
term is commonly used to refer only to wastage or the number of employees leaving. Figure
3 is illustrating the number of people being recruited from the first 3 months to the forth last 3
months of the year, whereas figure 4 is showing the number of leavers.
As illustrated in figure 2 the total number of employees have decreased from 1313 to 1268
due to leavers were higher than recruitment as shown in figure 3 and figure 4.
The reasons behind this are as follows:

After having their salary and their end of year bonus, these staffs think they have lots
of money and starts partying night and day.

The staff may have a better offer like cruise, going abroad to work for the UAE hotels
or shifting to another hotel.

The factor of demotivation also arises from their colleague, managers or supervisors.

Using a bad way of communication like foul language or shouting at them make the
employees to leave.

Some staffs wait till the end of January for the distribution of tips.

No increase in salary is another factor of labour turnover.

The right person having not being promoted or awarded have created more leavers.
Enough training was not given to the new comers due to lack of time because of high
occupancy at the hotel.

The murder at Lux* Grand Gaube was another factor affecting labour turnover.

P a g e | 10
Too much overtime, off days are cancelled and too much pressure.
However, as from the third three months till the end of year, figure 2 shows an increase in
staff.
We need to hire the right people and once we get them in the organization we need to train
them we need to empower and motivate them and then reward them and thereafter, I
guarantee they will stay. (Ben Henry et al., 2004).
Based on Ben Henry et al formula, the human resource have rework the hotel structure
resulting an increase in employees for the last 6 months as shown in figure 2 as well as figure
3 shows more recruitment than leavers of figure 4. This is due to the following steps:

Offering a better package like increase in salary, paying overtime and offering
reward to the one who does not absent for the particular month.

Training is given to motivate the staffs and thus resulting in less labour turnover.

The employees are being briefed by the human resource telling them about their
importance for the running of the organization.

6.0 TRAINING
Training is crucial to the ongoing development of the people organization employ and their
retention and success. So, the human resource management is creative to provide diverse
opportunities for training for both employee and organization to gain. Below the pie chart
shows the training review at Lux Grand Gaube Hotel.

Figure 5 Training
Through the above chart it clearly shows how training needs are determined, how training is
viewed by employees, and how training is delivered become critically an important issues for
an organization.
For instance for the first and second three months the chart shows less people was being
given training compared to the following months of the year, this is because of several
reasons which are:

P a g e | 11

Normally at the start of the year the hotel wait to achieve a certain amount profit so as
to plan his expenditure which training also form part of that expenditure list.
There was the problem of staff turnover, resulting other management and the HRM
was more concern finding solution to that matter rather than any other projects at the
hotel.
Due to less staff in the first and second three months, these staffs have to look after
the day to day operation of the hotel.
There was limitation of time because the staffs were working from morning till
evening shift hours.
There was language barrier because some of the people were having problem in
communicating in English or French language. Thus, they were not attending training.

According to May et al. (2004), the attitudinal problem cannot be taken lightly because
wrong attitudes are not easy to train away as many practitioners have been discovering.
Organisations can put on training courses and employees go back into their establishments
with the happy effect of the training programme, but this only lasts for a short while and then
what? It is suggested that more scientific and professional approaches to recruitment are
needed, in particular for the frontline. Tangential to this issue is that of the likely migration of
workers to more favourable markets, leaving a shortage of labour and possibly compromising
the consistency of service quality.
However, the Human Resource have managed to build that trust in the employee mind,
resulting that staffs are happy with training courses and understand the importance in the last
six months of the year as illustrated in the pie chart.
Language training like English, French, Italian and German language was the priority of the
human resource as to make the staffs at ease with language barriers communication to guest.
Training like fire fighting, leadership for supervisors, team member building, and achieving
superior service training by Ron Kauffman were organized to boost the employees morale
and right attitude towards their duty, which also create trust and reduce labour turnover.
According to Sharma (2001), training and development means investing in human capital.
Training and development help top executive to better articulate their vision, listen, delegate
and train managers or supervisors have to lead, how to involve and empower subordinates
more. Employees who are at the bottom of the traditional organizational chart have to learn
how to listen to customers, keep records and solve problems.

P a g e | 12

7.0 RECOMMENDATIONS
Lux* Grand Gaube Hotel can overcome those challenges through the following
recommendations :
The management should increased focus in job training and customer service
strategies, employee incentives such as shift meals, and showing strong leadership in
working side by side with employees which can aid in retaining employees.

Managers can learn what kind of motivation factors should be provided to employees
from many research.For example the study of Dr Kovach during 40 years concluded
that good wages ranked the first through the fifth of the ten items motivational factors
(Kovach, 1987).Motivations seems to be the single most important determinant of
performance ( Lawler,1973),Jaruphongsa (1998) reviewed Motta (1995) that job
performance is the result of motivation and ability.

Ensure that the incentives are reviewed regularly so that they remain fresh.

Ensure incentives are performance based and the staff are briefed on targets and
regularly updated.

The bond between management and employees must rest on absolute trust and
confidentiality. Management must focus entirely on their employees interests and
development. This is the only way that employess can feel safe enough to open
themselves to real learning.

Questionnaires to be filled in by the working people to gauge what they think about
working with the hotel. They will bring up issues that need immediate attention and
management should be prepared to address them so that things don't go out of hand.

The vision and values of Lux* Grand Gaube Hotel do not need to be formal. But it is
important that each and every employee knows where the organisation and the
business are going:

What's important about the way business is done?

What are the organisation's 'guiding principles'?

Values should be clear and everyone in the organisation should know what these values are.
Management should discover the values of prospective key employees by finding out:

Whats important to them?

Do they fit in with what the company wants?

Does the organisational culture allow them to thrive?

As career development is on every employees mind. The management must offer

advice and help on the employees' career development, highlighting how this job will

P a g e | 13
cater to that need. This will let the employees know that the management is interested
in investing time and money in them provided they stick to their job.
Lux* Grand Gaube Hotel must apply mostly all those recommendations so as to reduce high
rate of turnover and retain the work force.Each step must be examined so as to be successful
in achieving low turnover and gain employee loyalty.

8.0 CONCLUSION
There is a saying that one unhappy client will tell 10 friends. Today, with the globalisation of
internet and communication , that number could be in the hundreds or thousands.
As the economy, technology and guest expectations change, staff must adopt to it. Many
consumers now use online travel sites that include reviews by past guest. One wrong word by
a dissatisfied customer can make the difference between an organization and its competitors.
A positive guest experience is more tha a necessity. Hotels must keep employees in top
performance by three or four yearly team-building exercises. Training is not something static
that is done the first day and forgotten later. Hotels must be ready to provide training from the
start till the end of the year which is a way to reduce labour turnover and motivate the staffs.
Communication skill is an important tool in todays life and it should be taken into
consideration by the Human resource to provide this training as a must to the employees.
So, the human resource management must be creative to provide diverse opportunities for
training, reduces labour turnover and gain employee loyalty as success capability rely on the
employees performance.
According to Qu. et al.(2000), several writers have emphasized the benefits of quality in the
form of increased: customer loyalty; customer satisfaction; productivity; profitability and cost
saving, together with improvements in the management of human resources.
In this above statement, to be competitive the Hotel management must provide the adequate
training courses, this will to enhance work efficiency and effectiveness thus increase
productivity, profitability and cost saving and on the other side increase custumer satisfaction.
The Hotel management must also create the promotion opportunity for employees who are
devoted to their work with long track service within the company instead of employing
expatriate with the same working experience. Employees should be an asset for the hotel. The
new sources of sustainable competitive advantage in the new economy have the people at the
center-creativity and talent, their aspirations and hopes, their dreams and excitement. The
companies that flourish in this decade will do so because they are able to provide meaning
and purpose, a context and frame that encourage individual potential to flourish and grow.
Thus human resources management has an important and essential role to play in
organizations in the new economy. To fulfill this role, organizations will needs to evaluate
their existing human resources functions and adapt them to suit the needs of the new
economy and individuals working in organizations in the new economy.

P a g e | 14

REFERENCES
AHRIM. (2008), Human Resources in Hotels Brainstorming Report, Maingard &
Associates
Costa J. (2004), The Portuguese Tourism Sector: Key Challenges for Human Resources
Management; International Journal of Hospitality Management, Vol 16; No. 7. Pp.402 407
Draft report August (2004), Study on Demand and Supply Trends in the Tourism Industry;
De Chazal Du Me Chatered Accountant.
Paul A Whitelaw et al.( 2009) Training needs for the hospitality industry .
May Hinds, Yvette Browne, Ben Henry, Chandana Jayawardena, Wismore Butcher, (2004)
"Current human resource challenges in the Caribbean hospitality industry", International
Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 16 Iss: 7, pp.415 418
Monica Draayer, Mark Julien (2010). Grapeview wines. International Journal of Wine
Business Research Vol. 22 No. 2, 2010 pp. 133-147 Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Ministry of Tourism and Leisure, Government of Mauritius. (2009). Mauritius Sector
Strategy Plan on Tourism (2009-2015) and its related programme budgeting. June.
WTO (2003), World Tourism Organization, available at: www.world-tourism.org, .
Kovach, K (1987).What motivates employees? Workers and Supervisors give different
answers.Business Horizons.pp.58-65

P a g e | 15

ANNEXED
Countesy of LUX* Grand Gaube

Staff Movement

2011
Mar Apr May Jun Jul

Jan

Feb

Aug Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Permanent Staff:
Casual Staff:
TOTAL (Permanent + Casual)
NAS trainees:
TOTAL HEADCOUNT

403
26
429
4
433

399
32
431
3
434

393
50
443
3
446

404
25
429
3
432

395
24
419
2
421

404
8
412
3
415

412
8
420
12
432

425
10
435
11
446

430
9
439
13
452

424
9
433
10
443

425
25
450
12
462

421
20
441
12
453

RECRUITS:
Permanent Staff:
Casual Staff:
NAS trainees:

12
4
0

7
10
0

17

14

13
4

10
0

18
0
12

24
2
1

12
0
0

6
0
0

12
16
0

5
4
0

LEAVERS:
Permanent Staff:
Casual Staff:
NAS trainees:

16
12
2

11
4
0

12
2

30

24
5
1

6
2
0

15
0
3

15
0
1

5
0
0

3
0
1

10
0
0

HEADCOUNT

P a g e | 16
TRAINING REVIEW
Total
number
of
Team
Members trained during the
month
Total number of
hours of
training delivered during the
month

23

26

11.5 293.5

17

24

25

128

272

411

75

198

155

10

11.5

12

23

46

26

18

92

22

0.59

0.5

0.5

Total number of training hours

to date
Average number of training
hours per team member
trained during the month
Average number of training
hours per total number of team
member of the hotel during the
month

0.5

11.3

0.17 0.17

0.6

0.24 0.46 0.142