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Hospitality Industry Seeks Immigration Reform
HR leaders shared their thoughts on immigration, training, and recruitment and retention during the second day of the inaugural HR in Hospitality conference in Las Vegas.
There were no arguments on the need for immigration reform among the human resource, union and legal experts comprising the morning keynote panel on the second day of the first HR in HospitalityTM conference, held at the Wynn Las Vegas. "It's not just hotels. None of the service sectors will be able to survive without solving this [immigration] problem," said Arte Nathan, former senior vice president of human resources for Wynn Resorts in Las Vegas. "This is not a problem that is going to go away." Because of the need for workers, he advised HR professionals to "take responsibility" for trying to solve the issue. "Get educated. Educate your boss. Get them involved. ... If we are not the experts, who else is going to be talking about this in our companies?" he said to applause from the attendees. "We are stuck in the trenches ... and we have to fix this." He received no disagreement from the others on the panel: attorney Alka Bahal, a principal with Fox Rothschild in Roseland, N.J., John F. Gray, senior vice president of government affairs and public policy for the National Restaurant Association in Washington, and Maria Elena Durazo, international executive vice president and president of Local 11 of UNITE-HERE in Los Angeles. Moderating the discussion was Esta R. Bigler, an attorney and director of labor and employment law programs at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, which helped develop and produce the program with Cornell's School of Hotel Administration and LRP Conferences, a sister company of Human Resource Executive® magazine. About 550 registrants and about 70 exhibitors attended the inaugural conference, which began Monday and ends today. "Everybody in this country," said Bigler, "agrees that the immigration system is broken but there is no agreement on how to fix it. The issues here are complicated and they are filled with emotion." She noted that the hospitality industry is especially affected. There are an estimated 7.2 million illegal-immigrant workers in the United States, of which one in 16, or 17 percent, work in the hospitality industry. Ten percent of hotel workers and 12 percent of food-service workers are estimated to be illegal aliens, she said. "Because these workers are in the shadows of this country, the numbers, indeed, could be much higher," Bigler said. Although there are some leaders from both political parties working on immigration reform, the issue is "divisive on both sides," Gray said. He advised those in the hospitality industry to make their voices loud enough so that it is "more politically painful not to act, not to solve the problem ... than to act." One of the potential derailers of a solution is the tension between the black and Hispanic communities stemming from a perception some hold that Hispanic immigrants are "taking jobs" from black Americans. "The hiring or non-hiring of African-Americans is something we need to address," said Durazo, although she said the issue should not be one of competing for jobs, but rather that there should be "plenty of jobs that should be open to both [groups]." Nathan said, however, that such tension is a long-standing tradition whenever a new ethic group begins to settle in the United States. "We have watched the shift from one demographic to the next as new immigrants come to this country," he said. "This problem has to be viewed holistically. We have to take this away from ethnicity." If the federal government does not act, Gray said, employers will continue to face "a tightening of the noose" from an increasing "patchwork of regulations across state lines, maybe, in fact, within a state," from cities or counties. Employers may also face the disruption and possible fallout from workplace raids by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, similar to the raids at six Swift and Co. facilities that rounded up 1,300 individuals on possible identity-theft charges, stopped work at the facility as employees were forced to prove their identities and cost the company about $30 million, said Bahal. And, she noted, "this is a company that thought they were doing everything correctly" in regard to certifying employees for work. "The raid is ICE's new enforcement activity. It's on the rise and it's not going away," she said. Partnering for Training
During a session on Tuesday afternoon, presenters shared details of a 15-year-old joint partnership between 30 major hotel/casinos in Las Vegas and the culinary and bartenders unions that has raised the skill levels of culinary and housekeeping workers and led to thousands of job placements. There's no shortage of "compelling stories of people the Culinary Training Academy has helped," said Felix D. Rappaport, president and chief operating officer for Luxor Las Vegas, a member of the partnership. Rappaport is also a member of the academy's board. In response to the impressive growth of the Las Vegas hospitality business and the partnership's success, the academy is undergoing a significant expansion, said Steven Horsford, a Nevada state representative and president of the Culinary Training Academy. "Next week we're breaking ground on a $7 million building that's going to double the size of the facility and the people we train," Horsford said. The building, which will include a full restaurant, is slated for completion later this year. The academy has delivered a clear return on investment for all of the parties, said Horsford, pointing to the placement of 92 percent of its graduates. Many of the enrollees are trained for advanced positions, not just entry-level jobs. "If someone comes in as a kitchen worker, they can leave as a gourmet chef," said D. Taylor, international executive vice president of the Culinary Workers Union, Local 226 in Las Vegas. As part of a negotiated agreement, participating employers contribute to the academy 3.5 cents for every hour each employee has worked. Recruiting and Retention
During another Tuesday afternoon session, Diana Meisenhelter, principal of Riviera Advisors in Long Beach, Calif., said HR leaders need to put themselves in the shoes of candidates. Meisenhelter, a former vice president of staffing and talent acquisition for Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, said the profession is hurt when it doesn't take the candidate experience seriously. "We, in HR, are seen as the soul of the company," she said. "When we aren't careful about the candidate process, it kills our brand." If companies don't do it right, she added, they should assume someone else will. In her presentation entitled "Ten Things You Can Do to Put the WOW Back Into the Candidate Experience," Meisenhelter detailed ways HR leaders in the hospitality industry can maximize the candidate experience. It starts with preparation, she said. "Know the specifics about the job and candidate's resume," Meisenhelter said. Very often, she said, HR directors and recruiters haven't thoroughly reviewed such information in advance. Recruiters also should look at the interviewing process as a conversation. "You need to make sure they trust you," she said, adding that building a relationship with a candidate means closing up the e-mail and picking up the phone to call candidates. "You never know when that person may turn out to be your client someday," she said. If someone isn't qualified for a position, she said, it's best to be honest. "We need to tell the candidate why they didn't get the job, not just that we decided to pursue another candidate." Smart recruiters, she said, will also treat top candidates like a "top draft pick." For those candidates being recruited for hotels, she suggested rooms be upgraded and amenities be provided in their hotel room. "Let them feel special," she said. Meisenhelter said she's a strong advocate of doing candidate surveys. Keep the survey to no more than 20 questions and ask the candidate what they thought of their experience, using the feedback to improve the process. Companies might also want to consider tying the candidate's experience back to bonuses for the hiring managers. The focus was on attracting and retaining future leaders in another session led by Richard Mignault, vice president of human resources for Hilton Hotels in New York, and Michael C. Sturman, associate professor at Cornell's School of Hotel Management. Nobody says they want to hire mediocre or ordinary worker, Sturman said, but seeking out the "best and the brightest" offers difficult recruiting and retention issues. Plus, he said, "There is no 'best answer.' There is no one set of programs [to attract and retain leaders of the future]. There are a lot of different ways to do it right. There are a lot of different ways to do it wrong." Investing in salaries and training are crucial, he said, but so is the "squishy stuff" of organizational culture. "The bad news," he said, "is culture is the hardest thing to change." But changing culture is HR's job, said Mignault, and to get buy-in from the senior leadership team, HR leaders must demonstrate the cost to the company of not pursuing the best applicants and keeping the best employees, he said. Turnover, of course, is the simplest way to show the financial burden of failing to retain future leaders, he said, not just in cost to the company but also in terms of customer satisfaction. Hospitality companies, especially, he said, are not cutting-edge in their policies and benefits, noting that only two such companies appeared on the most recent Fortune magazine Best Places to Work list. What's interesting about the benefits and programs offered by companies that did make the list is that "there is no magic bullet or singular approach that comes from a program or set of programs," he said. Instead of trying to match a set of programs, organizations need a consistent approach to management that incorporates vision, passion, integrity and direction, he said. Organizational culture "influences the infrastructure, not the other way around." "Leaders attract leaders. People want to be part of a winning team."
March 7, 2007 Copyright 2007© LRP Publications |
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