Exploration of the perceived effectiveness of e-training among training managers, supervisors, and frontline employees in hotels

Abstract

E-training is a method to train employees that has been widely used among various industries worldwide. It is recognized as an effective way to save time and money. After the recovery of hotel industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were numerous new hiring and reinstating in all departments. Frontline employees are the face of a hotel, so newly hired and reinstated frontline employees are needed to be trained and retrained for specific hard and soft skills. However, there is a lack of crossed studies among related personnel regarding the perceived effectiveness of e-training. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the perceived effectiveness of e-training among training managers, supervisors, and employees. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 15 key participants including training managers, supervisors, and employees. Content analysis was conducted to explore themes and patterns of the perceived effectiveness of e-training from different points of view and identify the skills that are suitable to conduct e-training. The results discovered the perception of supervisors, and frontline employees viewed that e-training was an effective method, and soft skills were suitable for e-training according to the themes and patterns revealed that e-training was useful for enhancing thinking, and developing knowledge and skills. However, training managers did not share ideas about the efficiency of e-training, instead they viewed e-training as a supporting role for employee training. Implication of the thematic paper: The findings of this study benefit hotel managers and human resources managers to efficiently spend their resources and plan on e-training for frontline employees. Consequently, frontline employees will have full potential at work and can extensively contribute to their organizations and industry