About a year ago, a new hiring trend came into fashion. Corporations planning to employ a lot of people started organising recruitment days, drawing a big crowd of applicants. This way they could reduce costs, hire just one venue and save manpower and management time. At the same time, the positive news of a large number of jobs on offer created a buzz among the public. A new Mongkok hotel has developed this idea even further. It will have a series of recruitment days to choose the right staff and is also investing to design a 'fun' day that consists of a set of games to evaluate the candidates. 'When corporations say that they care for their staff and then get the potential staff lining up under the sun for a few hours waiting for an interview, I do not think these two really come together,' said Brett Butcher, the vice-president, operations, Australia and New Zealand, for Langham Hotels International, and general manager of the new hotel in Mongkok - Langham Place Hotel. 'An interview is the first time we meet the candidates, the first time we start motivating them, and I believe there is a better way of doing this.' This new hotel, which will need 350 people when it opens in July, will use a slightly different method. Weeks before the recruitment day it put up advertisements calling for resumes and conducted the first round of assessments. 'On the recruitment day, we will meet the group of people we want to know more about. We expect about 600 people to turn up on the day for the 300 jobs that we need to fill.' Most of the jobs are in the junior to middle level in the front-office, concierge, security, sales and marketing, reservations and food and beverage areas. 'Most managers, including myself, would consider hiring the right staff to be one of the toughest jobs. It is very difficult to get to know a person well and determine if they are fit to do the job within an hour across-the-table interview,' Mr Butcher said. By using games, the system borrows from the Chinese saying: 'One can only find out a person's real character when they play together in mahjong games.' The games are to test if the candidates can adhere to their core values. The hotel uses an acronym to expresses its core values - CHAMPION - C is for communications, H for hospitality, A for actualise, and so on. 'I think values should be extensive and multi-layered,' Mr Butcher said. 'These are the values that we hang on to when treating customers as well as one another. We need to know whether the candidates are team players or followers in the team-building games, whether they can communicate effectively and what their behavioural style is like.' The department managers will be facilitating, observing and evaluating the candidates on the day. 'We also hire university students to help us with the administration work on the days,' he said. The recruitment day is expected to be a good experience for the applicants, too. 'One of the key points is that we want them to enjoy a fun day,' Mr Butcher said. The applicants will receive the comments collected throughout the day. 'This will help them to better understand themselves - their strengths and weaknesses,' he said. Mr Butcher believes in, 'get the right attitude and train the skills'. Good attitude is of utmost importance, more than technical know-how. It is the energy, power and drive within the individuals. 'Hospitality is a dynamic industry. All front-line people need to make numerous decisions within a short period of time. We look for the right attitude, right problem-solving skills and a team player spirit.' In the first two weeks in the hotel, staff will be provided with an intensive orientation programme and a mentorship programme. 'All the staff will be involved. Each will pair up with a supervisory member of staff. It will build a strong network, plus they can then learn by the living examples of work and life experience,' Mr Butcher said. To eliminate any potential morale problems at the opening, the hotel will tightly manage the number of guests in the first week. It wants to ensure that the staff familiarise themselves with the real operations before getting the hotel occupied to capacity. 'We need to manage the business - we do not want to get extremely busy,' he said. 'The issue is that we do not want to scare the staff who are new to everything and eventually create morale problems that can be very costly.' All these might sound new in Hong Kong, but Mr Butcher is not a total stranger to this. 'I have done this before for a resort in Queensland,' he said. With 20 years' experience with other big brands, Mr Butcher is applying best practices for the new venture, one of which is to acknowledge employee feedback. choose with care Care for employees all the way, from the moment of recruitment to working with them. Design 'fun' recruitment days using a set of games to evaluate if applicants can adhere to the company's core values. In the selection, stress overall attitude and skills in communications and presentation, innovativeness, team player spirit and a sense of urgency. Give the staff time to familiarise themselves with the new environment and operations. Managing director $40,000 up, depending on company profit Minimum 10 years of industry experience General manager $25,000-$40,000 2-5 years Area manager $20,000-$30,000 2-5 years Manager $14,000-$20,000 2-4 years Assistant manager $11,000-$14,000 1-3 years Supervisor $10,000-$12,000 1-2 years Captain $8,000-$10,000 2-4 years Waiter $6,500-$8,000
