High Tourism Job Turnover and the Need for Tourism Mentoring Programs
November 2007
One of the areas in which tourism officials and professionals find troublesome is the lack of trained personnel. Tourism is a fast paced industry and often has high personnel turnover. This high turnover can be attributed to a number of causes: (1) many jobs are entry levels positions, (2) many people look at tourism jobs as something to do while they are trying to decide what next to do with their lives, and (3) tourism officials and professionals are often transferred from one spot to another. Others argue that serving the public is not easy and that there is a great deal of job fatigue that accompanies tourism professions. One of the reasons cited is that few tourism businesses offer a real mentoring program. This month Tourism Tidbits addresses the need for tourism mentoring and offers you some ideas as to what we can all do to fill this void.
It is not easy to be a mentor. Because tourism is a highly people oriented business, tourism mentors require special skills. Not only must they guide their mentee through rough business seas, but the mentor has to be able to develop programs that can be of both short and long duration and redone to accommodate constantly changing markets and needs.
- Know if you are meant to be a mentor or not. Not everyone is meant to be a mentor nor has the time to be a good mentor. If being a mentor does not fit your personality needs or you do not have the time to devote to this task, then it may be better to pass the task onto someone else. Never become a mentor because someone gave you the job against your will. You will only end up resenting your mentee and in the end both your mentee and you will suffer. Being a personal mentor requires such skills as: being a good listener and actually hearing what the other person has to say. Good mentors receive a great amount of satisfaction from seeing their protégées succeed, and good mentors are people who grow with their mentee.
- In today’s modern world and with tourism professional often on the go, make sure you pick the type of tourism mentoring that makes sense for your situation. Because tourism is such a high strees job try to avoid what is called “formal mentoring. ” Classically this is when the tourism organization assigns and underlying to you and simply tells you to mentor. Instead take a proactive stance. Few tourism organizations are so large that employees and bosses do not know each other (exceptions are in the airline industry). Due to the manageable size of most tourism centers encourage older and successful employees to take younger employees under their wings and then develop and informal mentoring relationships. Because people may abuse this situation and due to the high rate of travel within tourism, please make sure this relationship is strictly professional!
- Consider other forms of less formal mentoring. One of the most successful forms in tourism is what we may call “situational mentoring”. This is meant as short-term mentoring that revolves around problems and situations as they arise. Mentoring does not even need to be done face-to-face. Because tourism people are constantly on the go, consider telephone meeting or even e-mentoring where problems are discussed via email. While these new forms of mentoring are less personal, at times they may permit the mentee to express him/herself without embarrassment or fear.
- Mentors and mentees do not need to be similar. Tourism is all about accepting and learning from others. In fact, people who work best only with people who are similar are not meant to be in the tourism industry. As such do not be afraid to develop mentor-mentee relationships that are multi-dimensional. In fact, often a mentor who is not like us can provide insights that we may never have considered before. The key is not how much we are alike, but how much the mentor cares and how professional s/he is! Mentoring works best when you mix and match. Word of caution: There are times when personalities simply do not match. Never put two people together who are not comfortable with each other. Good people are not always good for each other. If one of the two parties does not feel comfortable then suggest a change.
- The higher-ups on the career ladder often make the best mentors. They have proven their success and tend not to be fearful of others climbing the career ladder. A good mentor not only teaches his/her mentee but also learns from the person that s/he is mentoring
- Mentoring is best when it is one-on-one. Tourism professionals tend to live in groups. Mentoring ought to be the exception to this rule. Group mentoring simply does not work and tends to depersonalize a situation that is based on people feeling that they have a personal relationship. When mentoring do not speak about others whom you may be mentoring. The mentee will feel as if you are dating two people!
- Mentoring is not only for the young. We all need some mentoring, and older people need to be mentored. Good mentoring produces good results and as long as the person is employed, use the mentoring process to increase “productivity”
- Do not force mentor-mentee relationships. Not everyone does well with a mentor. Especially in high stress situations such as tourism it is essential that we allow people the freedom to be mentored or not. People whose personalities fit the following paradigm tend to do best with mentors.
- People who are career or business oriented. These are people who seek satisfaction and growth in the workplace.
- People who have a good sense of their strengths and weaknesses and be able to visualize a range of advancement and personal growth.
- People who are eager to learn. They are going to be exposed to new skills, people, opportunities etc,. People who already know everything tend to have terrible mentee experiences
- People who are eager to advance and take on more responsibility or to grow their career.
