Publication Date: 2023/03/05
Abstract: The Tourism and Hospitality Industry—one of the world's fastest growing and most competitive sector— considers interpersonal communication an important skill (Lansangan-Cruz, 2018; Al-Ababneh, 2017; Loreto, 2020). In the Philippines, however, two-thirds of employers find it hard to locate and hire employees who are proficient in this skill (Acosta, Igarashi, Olfindo, & Rutkowski, 2017). Hence, the purpose of this research is to develop the interpersonal skills of fourth-year hospitality management students in the first district of Albay towards their sustainable employability, through the help from the viewpoints of industry professionals. The study used a mixed method research design to determine the perceptions of both students and employers, while Kendall’s Coefficient of Concordance was utilized in order to appraise whether there is a significant relationship between the two perspectives. The analyzed data revealed that the students believed they ‘often’ exhibit interpersonal skills in terms of communication skills (3.30), decision-making skills (3.28), cross-cultural and diversity competence (3.47), and emotional intelligence (3.40). Meanwhile, the employers claimed that all the interpersonal indicators used in this study are ‘always’ important for employability. Furthermore, all the abovementioned variables were tabulated t at 1% had a value of 2.58 which clearly indicates a significant relationship between the two perspectives. Therefore, the degree of interpersonal skills as perceived by the students is in line with what businesses consider to be necessary for employees to possess. However, since the students only perceived their skills as ‘often’, further development is still needed to facilitate their long-term career success and help them adapt to the changing needs and expectations of the industry.
Keywords: Social Science, Communication, Interpersonal Skills, Sustainable Employability, Hospitality, Mixed Method
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7699171
PDF: https://ijirst.demo4.arinfotech.co/assets/upload/files/IJISRT23FEB1121.pdf
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