What It Takes to Be a Manager

nd nd 2 worldwide host ON course AND frugal enquiry (2 ICBER 2011) achievement WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A MANAGER THE CASE OF Malayan FIVESTAR RESORT HOTELS Rozila Ahmad (emailprotected edu. my) Noor Azimin Zainol (emailprotected edu. my) Universiti Utara Malaysia Sintok, 06010 Kedah ABSTRACT This article suss outs the extremity for directrial spotlights in tailfin-star animate hotels in Malaysia. Despite the out harvest of hotel labor in Malaysia, pedantician literature particularly soft confirmable piece of subject rent foc apply on the gentleman big(p) require of the perseverance in the country is scarce.Different from sepa rate industries, in the hotel labor a Bachelors Degree hardly guarantees the growth of anxiety frame. base on audiences with 42 hotel employees including 19 managers from six hotels, this article intimates that twist interpret and attractions science is crucial for hotel managers to contract their job. Other necessitys argo n pay off, information and side of meat growth. This suggestion is support by the employees profile. The implications argon discussed, emphasizing the indigence to consider increase hotel students pop off get it on in the pains and enhancing their leading acquisition.Keywords gracious pick perplexity, hotel application, c beer, attractership, bringing up, colloquy INTRODUCTION at that place is a deficit of adroit p subroutines in Malaysia imputable to its cursorily growing economy (Business Monitor outside(a) Ltd. , 2010). touristry is among the main contrisolelyor for the economical growth and its alignment with hotel industry has created legion(predicate) job opportunities to the transcendical anaesthetic population. Based on the statistics by Malayan connecter of Hotels (2011a) from 2007 to 2010 the teleph bingle number of tourist arrival has increase from 20. 9 million to 23. million and this was fol ruggeded by the emergence in the number of hote ls and motels from 1567 to 2005. This has led to the cease little growth of habitual and private institutions fling hotel anxiety courses to fill the clobber force take of these hotels. Despite the increase number of hotel graduates, hotels atomic number 18 still facing buy the farmer dearths ( Malayan standstill of Hotels, 2011b). As in consummationual countries, Malaysian hotels atomic number 18 having lines in attracting and concealing adept and informal kneaders (Patah, Zain, Abdullah & Radzi, 2009 Cheng & Brown, 1998).On virtuoso proceeding, the shortage of scienceed runers in Malaysian hotels is caused by the unattractive impart atmosphere of the industry. On the new(prenominal) hand it is caused by Malaysian melt downforce lower status to attain steering correct. Similar to the amplifyed countries, Hotels in Malaysia ar facing problems in attracting and retaining skilled and acquaintanceable achievementers due to low salary, rigid job traits a nd conventional hyphen of expire-down operation (Ahmad, Solnet & Scott, 2010 Yamashita & Uenoyama, 2006 Davidson, Guilding & Timo, 2006).However, such problem is less prevalent in Multi depicted object Corporation (MNC) due to their strategic human imagination heed practices that managed to attract and retain skilled workers from competing hotels (Ahmad et al. , 2010). MNC are mandatory to convoluted more than local anesthetic anaesthetics in middle and top focal point place. However, after three decades of growth irrelevant international hotel managers still shadow the Malaysian hotel industry and this could be due to the decreased take aim of human seat of government among the Malaysian workforce (Lazzeretti & Petrillo, 2006).Numerous academic literatures in Malaysia throw discussed on how the industry thotocks retain their skilled employees. However, literature on how academicians foundation increase their students employability for 2040 nd nd 2 external assem bly ON business organization AND economical look (2 ICBER 2011) talk counselling blank space is scarce despite the indication of Malaysian workforce lower status to attain management spot. This deficiency in the literature gives rise to the research research of this article. The research enquiry of this article is, What are the necessitys for managerial post in Malaysian five-star hotels? Although articles on indispensable skills for managerial post or similar articles from other countries can serve as a guide, such articles base on empirical lease in Malaysia is beneficial to put forward a more specific breeding. Furthermore, to maximize the foreign exchange revenue and the physical exertion of the local population, local colleges and universities need to increase their graduates employability. precedent to that, the students moldiness be equipped with the knowledge, skills and abilities compulsory for managerial post.The purpose of this article is to go over and highlight what are the knowledge, skills and abilities required by the local graduates to attain management survey in Malaysia. This article get alongs theoretical and possible contribution. It increases the number of academic literatures concerning human resource issues in the Malaysian hotels. It investigates the practitioners perception of what is required for management post. By including non-management employees perception, it suffers comprehensive information of the requirements.This article leave advance the hotel industry in the long term. With the drift to scale down skilled workers shortage and hotel graduates un drill, it coordinates industry necessity with academic institutions supply. LITERATURE REVIEW delicate Workers Shortages Since 1970 there has been a rapid growth of touristry industry in Malaysia (Goldsmith & Zahari, 1994). To furnish tourists needs the supply of hotel and motel rooms has been increased to 158,480 in 2010 (Malaysian Association of Hotels, 2011). The rapid amplification of the hotel industry has exaggerated the demand for employment of competent people.This resulted in skilled workers shortages (Malaysian Association of Hotels, 2011 Business Monitor outside(a) Ltd. , 2010). Based on Malaysian Association of Hotels men Survey reports, in 2008 there was a shortage of 2113 workers in the hotel industry. To palliate the problem hotels sedulous foreign workers to work in all the departments except finance and human resources. This has reduced workforce shortages to 1146 in class 2009. In both historic period viands and Beverage (restaurant) department faced the highest worker shortages while the housekeeping department busy the highest number of foreign workers.The high role of foreign employees in housekeeping (10%), stewarding (9%), and viands and drink (restaurant) (5%) is understandable because Malaysian could bring in more doing other jobs such as rubber tapping. Furthermore, the Malaysian Muslim s are interdict from serving liquor and this coerces occupation in food and beverage (restaurant) department less favourable to them. However, the employment of foreign workers for top management posts (6%), executives (3%), and other posts in sports and entertainment (5%) and front patch and reservation (2%) is disturbing.It suggests that Malaysian workforce (including hotel management graduates) is non skilled enough for these posts. Existing literature lends roughly support to this suggestion. cordial reception Education in Malaysia The employment of foreign workers to mitigate skilled workforce shortages is acceptable in the ancient but now it is a dilemma. such practice whitethorn lessen the benefits (such as employment opportunities for the locals and foreign exchange revenue) gained from tourism activities.In 1994 colleges did non require the capacity to suffer sufficient number of graduates to meet the change magnitude demand for skilled workers because there w ere scarcely ten private schools and colleges and 2 public institutions (Goldsmith & Zahari, 1994). To date, there is at least(prenominal) 61 private colleges and universities, five public universities, five polytechnics and six community 2041 nd nd 2 outside(a) CONFERENCE ON BUSINESS AND stinting RESEARCH (2 ICBER 2011) legal proceeding colleges (Ministry of soaringer Education, 2011). well-nigh of these colleges and universities return a number of branches.Despite the rapid growth in the hotel instruction arena, shortage of skilled workers in the industry still persists. In Malaysia, local graduates Bachelors Degree in Hotel vigilance hardly guarantees the attainment of management position. This is different from other countries. Besides act ining management employees internally, hotels in equivalent manner inscribe graduates straight from the university (Mullen, 2007 Yamashita & Uenoyama, 2006). Therefore, the attainment of a managerial position is any by hard work by starting from an entry level position or by a desist get behind through having an academic reservation (Mullen, 2007).Hence, there are managers who gift never graduated from the university. They started their locomote as non-managerial employees and by being among the best performers they energise been promoted to a managerial position. While internal forwarding is common in Malaysia, direct enlisting from the local university for management posts is rare. Hotels, especially MNC prefers to recruit by advertising through the internet, newsprint and words of mouth in accompaniment to establishing links with government agencies and related associations (Ahmad, 2010).Fresh graduates are perceive to be incapable of intervention management duties. Reduced human resource capital in Malaysia is among the reasons for skilled workers shortage in the hotel industry. valet resource capital is at a lower standardised than the 1980s because the level of slope progress and service orientation is lower among the young person workforce (Lazzeretti & Petrillo, 2006). Different from their juniors, the senior workforce primal knowledge was in side (Lazzeretti & Petrillo, 2006 Hanapiah, 2002). Thus, their English proficiency is better. They are looked upon as those who can epresent the organization because of their ability to slip away and deal in English style (Hanapiah, 2002). The immenseness of English proficiency is more obvious in MNC hotels whose customers and managers usually run in English. Besides English proficiency, other requirement for hotel management post is education, skills and knowledge ( practiced, human resources, finance and grocery storeing), ad hominemity (dedication, creativity, sociability, adaptability and ambitious), leadership persona and work visit (Jayawardena, 2000 Hanapiah, 2002).However, fresh academic literature on these skills inwardly the context of Malaysian hotel industry is scarce. There are a number of ho tel management literatures from puzzleed countries which discussed more or less management skills with implications for educational institutions. Kay and Moncarz (2004) stressed on the importance of knowledge in fiscal management and human resource management competencies. They suggest educational institutions provide proper coverage of financial management course. Likewise, they upholdd the industry to recruit graduates from cordial reception curriculums with strong financial management curriculum.Their opinion has deviated from earlier research on management skills that suggested leadership and interpersonal skill as the more or less significant skills for hotel managers. However, the importation of leadership skill has doggingly been supported by recent academic literatures (Boone & Peborde, 2008 Brownell, 2006). check to Boone and Peborde (2008), there are five total leadership skills and these are establishing credibility, managing sentence, being proactive, empower ing others to act and net running(a).Based on their article, credibility concerns on constituents dedicate and potency of their manager, being proactive is better and executing what needs to be through for the organizations benefit, empowerment includes enabling egotism leadership, providing choice, developing competence and confidence and rearing office and networking is developing personal contacts to get valuable support, feedback, insight, information and resources. They argued that leadership is non a charisma that one may or may non possess it consists of attitudes, behaviours and skill that can be adopted, learned and mproved through practice. Therefore, they 2042 nd nd 2 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH (2 ICBER 2011) go on suggest college students and early locomote workers to superior the fundamental leadership skills to come along a strong leadership base. Hotel management students should be properly tooled with the knowledge, skill s and abilities required to attain management position and then, face and handle the industrys challenges (Kay & Moncarz, 2004 Boone & Peborde, 2008 Brownell, 2006).Prior to that, it is beneficial to investigate what are the knowledge, skills and abilities required to attain management position within the context of the local hotel industry. With the aim to equip Malaysian students with the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities, the skills required for management position in Malaysian five-star hotels are prizeed in detail. METHODOLOGY The methodological approach used in this speculate is framed within qualitative research. Respondents were contacted through e-mails and phone calls to request for an interview.A personal interview method was used for entropy show which was carried out in May and June 2008. Interviews were conducted correspond to the respondents schedule and availability and at their best-loved location. It is grievous to provide a relaxed surround during t he interview to win the respondents to openly and amply discuss the topics (Cooper & Schindler, 2003). The interviews were unstructured to give respondents the hazard to provide more information. The interview started with communicate respondents the purpose of the research and their right(a) to leave off from the research at any time to ensure they were comfortable.To ensure confidentiality, develop presumption and encourage the respondents to provide full information, label were coded. M1 refers to the first managerial employee interviewed while NM2 refers to the chip non-managerial employee interviewed. Interviews were recorded on tape with the respondents permission. tape the interview allows the investigator to concentrate on the discussion and listen to the interview as often as needed. Repeatedly auditory modality to a taped interview enables the researcher to capture the essence and meanings of words, which facilitates tincture compendium of data. ANALYSISThe d ata collected was analysed using message synopsis. To capture the emotion, content analysis of transcripts was conducted manually and respondents attend tos were quoted in the findings. A software program was not used to analyse the data because relying on computers can run the peril of trivializing the meaning of texts (Krippendorff, 2004). Content analysis is a research technique for making replicable and validated inferences from texts (or other meaningful matter) to the contexts of their use (Krippendorff, 2004, p. 18). soft content analysis allows a researcher to discover what the text reveals.All interviews were transcribed. The transcripts were read quadruplex times to understand the context of individually statement and to enable the researchers to become immersed in the data The sample size for the postulate was 42 respondents, 19 managerial employees and 23 non-managerial employees. All respondents were from six Malaysian five-star resort hotels that employ more t han 300 fulltime employees and involve been in business for at least 12 long time. All respondents had more than one years working make with the hotel industry to ensure that they had the capability to provide the in-depth information required.Twenty-one respondents were employees of three MNC hotels. Four of the hotels employed expatriates for common manager post. Foreign workers were employed for management and nonmanagement post. The respondents profile is described in duck 1. An exploration of respondents views on requirement for managerial post was sought. 2043 nd nd 2 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH (2 ICBER 2011) exercise Table 1 Respondents Profile Respondents government agency Work image Education MNC M1 HR Director 20 age Non Hotel parchment v M2 Chief Security 16 days Non Hotel sheepskin v M3 HR representationr 17 historic period SPM M4 HR double-decker 18 long time Hotel fleece M5 ripened Security Officer 19 age STPM M6 Securi ty Officer 11 years SPM M7 Assistant Front Office coach-and-four 10 years Non-Hotel parchment M8 Training Manager 10 years Hotel Diploma M9 Landscape administrator 9 years native School M10 HR Officer 15 years Hotel Diploma v M11 Assistant Pastry Chef 20 years A Level v M12 Assistant Chief Engineer 17 years Non Hotel Certificate v M13 administrator Housekeeper 19 years SPM v M14 Executive Housekeeper 16 years Hotel Certificate v M15 Executive Chef 15 years SPM v M16 HR Manager 20 years Non Hotel Degree v M17 Executive Housekeeper 18 yearsHotel Certificate M18 Food and Beverage Manager 21 years SPM M19 Personnel Manager 10 years Non Hotel Diploma NM1 housework supervisor 17 years SRP v NM2 F superior 12 years Non Hotel Certificate v NM3 F Captain 9 years SPM v NM4 F Cashier 8 years SPM v NM5 Recreation Coordinator 14 years SPM NM6 Senior life guard 18 years SPM NM7 Account Clerk 18 years SPM NM8 Driver 15 years SPM NM9 Accounts supervisory program 12 years STPM NM10 Hostess 6 years SPM NM11 Commis/ Cook 14 years SPM NM12 washout Supervisor 13 years SPM NM13 Receptionist 12 years Hotel Diploma v NM14 Public sphere Supervisor 8 years Islamic School NM15 Laundry Supervisor 5 years SPM v NM16 Driver 11 years basal School v NM17 Room ensuant 9 years STPM v NM18 housekeeping Coordinator 15 years SPM v NM19 Technician 13 years SPM v NM20 Public Area Supervisor 14 years Primary School NM21 Landscape Supervisor 9 years Non Hotel Certificate NM22 Housekeeping Supervisor 15 years SRP 2044 nd nd 2 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH (2 ICBER 2011) PROCEEDING NM23 Food and Beverage Supervisor 7 years Islamic School FINDINGS To answer the research question, respondents were asked to describe the requirements for a hotel managerial post.The requirements mentioned by respondents were positive attitude, leadership skill, parley skill, interpersonal skill, self- pauperism, determination, ruttish intelligence, knowledge, make love, education and English proficiency. Experience was near oft mentioned followed by leadership skills, knowledge and education. Table 2 summarised respondents views of the requirements for a managerial post in the hotel industry. Work learn was the most frequently mentioned criterion. Majority of the respondents perceived it to be the most consequential criterion to attain managerial post.Unlike other industries, those people with education but without experience are least probably to be in managerial positions. This assumption is supported by the recitations below In the hotel industry, an applicant for a managerial position requires more than a degree. Most of the university hurl students here for three to six months industrial provision. But that isnt enough. That is not strong enough. You can be a manager in some hotel, but how are you going to make decision If you go int spend a penny enough experience and you make the wrong decision, youll become the express joy stock to your lag. You have pioneer staff in the hotel.You have supervisors who testament question you back. If you work in the government sector or any other sectors, thats a different story. In hotel industry, you rattling need the experience. (M7) The importance of having work experience in the hotel industry was mentioned by most of the respondents. jibe to the respondents, even those with a fleece moldinessiness start from the entry-level position, and from there it depends on their performance. While M17 clearly stated that work experience is more measurable than education, NM4 gave example of problems faced by new managers without working experience.Even the managers started at the entry-level like us. Then, they learned and learned. High education without work experience is not good enough (for managerial position). From what Ive seen, fresh graduates who started at management level have heavyy to organise things. (NM4) The following criterion most frequently mentioned was lead ership. Some managerial respondents highlighted the importance of leadership qualities. The managerial respondents stated that managers who seek excellence from employees should have leadership qualities. Those with leadership qualities are see by their subordinates.They are able to make subordinates embrace the organizations polish and they manage to get things entere and perplex good results. 2045 nd nd 2 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH (2 ICBER 2011) PROCEEDING Table 2 Requirement for Managerial pose Respondents Leadership M1 v Knowledge Experience Education English Proficiency v v v v v v v M5 v v M6 v M7 v M8 v M9 v M2 M3 v v M4 M10 v M11 v M12 v v v v v v v v M13 M14 v v v v v v v M15 M16 v M17 v M18 v NM1 v v v v v v v v NM2 v v v M19 v v v NM3 v v NM4 v v NM5 v v NM6 v v NM7 v v v v NM8 NM9 v v v NM11 v NM13 v NM14 v v NM15 v v NM16 v v v NM12 v v NM10 v v v NM17 NM18 v NM19 v NM20 v NM21 v v v NM22 v v v NM23 v v v 2046 v v nd nd 2 INTERNATIO NAL CONFERENCE ON BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH (2 ICBER 2011) PROCEEDING A leaders personal characteristics mentioned by respondents were determination, positive attitude, selfmotivation, emotional intelligence and efficiency. In do-gooder, they felt that managers should be smart, creative and credible. M1 stated the followings 1. A leader has positive attitude, emotional intelligence, self motivation and determination. . Managers must have leadership tincture to spread the organizations agriculture to all their subordinates. 3. Leaders guide their subordinates and makes them established the importance of satisfying invitees which leads to customer inscription in addition to employees subjection. Therefore, the organization will attain long term profitability. 4. We train them, we guide them, we coach them, and if theres derailment, we put them back on the track. The influence of a great leader is evident in some of the non-managerial employees and apt(p) below is an examp le.I enjoy my work because I got the chance to meet the guests My former general manager used to say You must take good care of the guest because if you dont, they will go to other hotels. When this hotel is out of business where can you work? He advised us to make the guests happy and to do what we should do. It is not difficult at all. When the guests come, I open the penetration for them, greet them they are like kings and we must treat them well. (NM8) The importance of knowledge was alike frequently mentioned by the respondents. Knowledge is gained from experience, education and trainingWe must be familiar in all aspects the department that were handling and the departments that are related to us. We must at least have the canonical knowledge of the functions of front office, maintenance, food and beverage and kitchen. Another thing is how to manage human. This is grievous. If you inadequacy to be a good manager, you must know how to manage your subordinates. (M18) Acco rding to M11, those who have worked in some places, including overseas, are knowledgeable and they bring in new ideas. M15 stated that it is also consequential that managers know the underway issues in the hotel industry.Other knowledge listed by the respondents as important included how to do makeup works (NM21) and how to communicate with colleagues (NM15). Although education is not the most important requirement for a hotel managerial post, it is compulsory in enunciate to be promoted to a high-level management position. In some five-star hotels, employees are required to have at least a university credentials in order to be promoted to a management position in addition to other requirements. In other five-star hotels having a university parchment is a necessity. presently we require at least a diploma. In the past there were not many hotel schools. wholly those who are rich can present to cultivation overseas to learn somewhat hotel management and hotel industry. Bu t now, even Malaysia has Hotel forethought School. However, for me, education is secondary because in hotel industry you need experienced people. Experience comes first. (M18) Of the 19 managerial employees interviewed, five managers had a protection (including STPM and A Level) seven managers had a diploma and one manager had a degree. vii of these managers were MNC hotel employees.Based on the respondents profile, even those without college or university credential had the opportunity to be managers in MNC hotels. At present, only those with certificates are appointed as managers. 2047 nd nd 2 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH (2 ICBER 2011) PROCEEDING Another requirement mentioned by respondents was English proficiency. Out of 42 respondents, only eight mention slightly the importance of English proficiency. According to the respondents, to be a manager they must be able to communicate in English.While the softness to communicate in English will di squalify them for managerial positions, fluency in English is an advantage for them to further develop their careers. M18 stated that English proficiency is important because majority of their guests are foreigners. Interest to work in the industry is another important criterion that is rarely mentioned in the literature. According to a managerial respondent, students cheer to work in the industry is important because it competency affect the quality of their work.Whenever students come and work in the hotel industry, I ask them are you here because of your father, or you yourself desire to come here. If mortal says, I dont like hotel work, my father asks me to come here, I will say, concourse up your bags and go home. Seriously, if you deficiency to work in hotel industry, you must have the interest. If not, you will waste money, time and bm to do something that you dont like. So you better dont do it. Make your decision now, do you want to be a hotelier or not? Honestly, th e quality of workers now is rattling different compared to the last fifteen years. Now there are so many opportunities.So the quality is not there anymore. (M18) parley skill and interpersonal skill was also listed by the respondents as one of the necessary skills. However, it was mentioned by very a couple of(prenominal) respondents and not much was said about the two skills. Majority of the respondents mentioned about the importance of having work experience. Although it is clear that work experience is more important compared to education, this finding does not suggest that work experience is more important compared to other skills such as leadership and interpersonal skill. The objective of this study was to investigate what are the equirements for managerial post and not to rank the skills importance. DISCUSSION Based on the literature review and the findings of this study, the requirement for managerial post in Malaysian five-star hotels is work experience, leadership skill , knowledge, education, English wrangle proficiency, communicating skill, interpersonal skill and interest to be a hotelier. The significance of most of these skills for managerial success has been mentioned in existing literature. However, the significance of work experience and English run-in proficiency is more pronounced in the Malaysian context.This study found that having work experience is a necessity for graduates employment for managerial post. Knowledge and leadership skill are developed through education and work experience. While management theories and staple technical skills can be taught by academic institutions, leadership skills such as analytical and conceptual thinking, relationship building, and self control requires experience in the field (Brownell, 2006). Furthermore, work experience proved students technical skill. Technical skill efficiency is important for the first level managers due to their law of proximity with the non-managerial employees (Daft, 19 98).Therefore, a partnership with the industry through industrial training is crucial to develop students leadership skill which is necessary to foster high-performing organisation (Brownell, 2006). Sending students for industrial training is a normal practice for hotel schools. However, it was perceived insufficient by the hotel managers. Therefore, it is beneficial to elongate the industrial training period and to encourage students to do irregular at hotels. odd-job(prenominal) employees are employed during peak date when there is abundant of task to be completed.Therefore, besides earning some money, students can gain experience and enhanced the required skills. 2048 nd nd 2 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH (2 ICBER 2011) PROCEEDING Different from developed countries, education is perceived as secondary to work experience in Malaysian five-star hotels. However, the importance of education keeps increasing due to the increasing number of hotel manage ment schools and hotel management graduates. The findings of this study reveal that currently even those without higher education could attain management position in MNC five-star hotels.However, these managers have had many years of working experience and have bypast through a number of supervisory and management trainings conducted by the hotels. Even the local independent and chain hotels provide continuous training to their employees (Ahmad et al. , 2010). Due to the social and demographic changes, at present more educated individual is required for management post. Thus, only those with sufficient work experience and academic qualification could attain management position while others have to start from entrylevel position.To encourage hotels to recruit management candidates straight from the university like in the developed countries, local universities need to produce graduates who have sufficient work experience and are capable to handle management duties. The importance of English proficiency for graduates employment and career development especially in the hotel industry is prevalent in Malaysia (Hanapiah, 2002). Although English proficiency was mentioned by few respondents, it does not suggest that it is not as important as other skills. Furthermore, none of the respondents stated that it is less important compared to other skills.In fact, they stated that it is significant for the labour market employability and workforce advancement. The importance of English language proficiency has been highlighted in existing academic literatures (Lazzeretti & Petrillo, 2006 Hanapiah, 2002 Brownell, 2006). Due to the importance, Malaysian five-star resort hotels have been providing English language training to their employees (Ahmad et al. , 2010). faculty member institutions can produce graduates who are unstable in English by using the language as the medium of instruction.Other than that, it is beneficial to interview students during their admission proce ss to assess their personal characteristics and English proficiency (Brownell, 2006). Selecting the right candidates for the industry can make producing quality graduates easier for the academic institutions. Interest in the field is another factor to qualify candidates for management post. Unlike other professions such as architecture and engineering, it is difficult to find students whose want is to be a hotelier or hotel employees. Academic institutions play an important role to develop students interest.Such interest can be developed by inviting successful guest speakers from the industry to share their experience and provide information of their job and how much they earn. However, the interest built can be destruct overnight if the students encounter negative experience such as workplace push around during their industrial training or part-time employment in the industry (Patah, Abdullah, Naba, Zahari and Radzi, 2010). Therefore, practitioners have to ensure that their empl oyees can be a role model to the students and not someone they want to avoid.On the other hand, students should be educate to face the challenges at the workplace. LIMITATION AND component OF THE RESEARCH This study lists the requirements for managerial posts but it does not rank the requirements ground on their importance. Although it states that work experience is more important compared to education, such statement is made based on respondents words. The qualitative nature of this study does not allow for ranking. Skills listed in the findings came from respondents mind. Respondents were not given any list of skills for them to rate and rank.Therefore it is imprecise to suggest that work experience is more important compared to leadership skill just because more respondents mentioned work experience as the requirement for managerial position. This article contributes to the hotel management literature by explaining about the requirements for the attainment of management post i n Malaysian five-star hotels and provides suggestions on how to develop and enhance the skills needed in the industry. The suggestion is based on practitioners view that is supported by 2049 nd nd 2 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH (2 ICBER 2011) PROCEEDING he previous(prenominal) literature. This article can serve as a guide to the academicians, the university and colleges students and to those in early career positions in the hotel industry. CONCLUSION It is of the essence(p) for the industry and the academic institutions to have a partnership and unity of effort to mitigate the issue of skilled employees shortages. The academicians need to exonerate the importance of producing skilled workforce congruous with the industry human capital needs and the industry need to provide a more favourable workplace that graduates may perceived as an avenue to build their career.Increased unemployment of hotel management graduates coupled with increased settlement on foreign workers does not benefit the country, the industry and the academic institutions. Parents will eventually stop sending their children for hotel management syllabus when they realized that it does not guarantee a good future for their children. 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