ROLE OF CONNECTIVITY & NETWORKING IN HOSPITALITY

The words Connectivity and Networking has a wider perspective than we usually refer it to in our daily life and its implications and adaptations too have a much wider role to play in our profession and beyond. Being on social media has become as necessary as having a good cell phone or being in line with the trends to maintain our status on the whole among friends and associates. If we come across someone in today’s times who says he/she doesn’t have an email id or a profile on a said platform leads to eyebrows on a raise, giving a doubt about the person if he/she is really living in this era or it simply sounds as outdated or an app which needs an update. 

While most of us maintain our presence through various applications on our smart phones to be visible, some like to do it to associate further, some have business angles attached to being present online while there a few who are just there and in the dormant profile category. In my opinion, one needs to firstly understand the need of being there, doing that and to have a clear vision towards how it can help one through the activity. To some it is just a medium to satisfy their anxiety pangs and reaching out to sort their curiosity syndromes as well, no wonder we see that many profile holders have started locking their social media profiles on a few platforms. 

It sounds hilarious to me when I come across a locked profile, gives an impression that the person has locked in loads of valuables, while someone might steal away by peeping in and visiting maybe. An open minded approach is the first thing we should apply and imply when we wish to be present on a wider platform, connecting with people cannot happen with locked approach methodology! The lockdown as it was for all of us in the past year and a half back led to a lot of need and want based connect up strategies by number of people especially aspiring to be hoteliers/chefs/ managers to the already existing ones all through the hierarchies and departments from the world across who started spending time enlivening their social media accounts and profiles to network and find answers to a number of questions which even google could not answer and the search engines too just stopped working on as well.

My ideology of connectivity and networking approach has always been towards visibility with a vision, presence with a passion, impacting the audience with initiation and interest, having a flair towards sharing knowledge, holding up a conversation and maybe looking at possible associations and engagements on a professional front too if things work. While over 60 percent of people I have come across on various networking sites are so weak that they don’t even know how to respond to a hi or a hello message upon connecting. Sounds strange yes, I know but that is the fact, while the other 40 percent of the audience I have come across is so need based in conversations that their very first message starts with need a job- this is my profile/ resume, let me know if you have anything at the earliest… hilarious & strange, typical motive based connectivity which at times we don’t even feel like responding too since it doesn’t give a good first impression. 

A few pointers which I wanted to share for all those who are looking at increasing and elevating their followers count at times even in competition with others just to add for the heck of it should think about the following:

• Connect with a reason: if you wish to make a connection with a professional profile, you should be well aware of why you intend to do so, and what is it that can benefit you to an extent, be it counseling, mentoring, assistance on career guidance, etc. One more point I usually like to make when I speak on this is that we need to be able to look at and learn from these profiles, read about their struggles, and success stories, and check out on search engines what all they had to go through in order to connect with them with a purpose and reason which can motivate one to do better in their professional life.

• Network to maintain: my very own experiences is what I usually share in my articles and one such point is this one, a person or a candidate I knew like ten or twelve years back messages all of a sudden in today’s times asking for favors, references, and recommendations, testimonials and more! A little thought process of even maintaining a connection by occasional wishing/ festive greetings/ new year or birthday wishes can also help keep you in better books of image.

• Communicate with Clarity: referring to our hospitality industry, we are the ones who connect, who are people friendly and customer or guest-oriented in a number of ways, we don’t act out of attitude with ego and we do not like to extend negative vibes and unwanted crap in communication patterns. While we do come across people on social media who at times do not maintain the decorum of communication design, weird typo- ethical errors/ unclear mode of communication, etc. which needs to be handled with care and precision.

• An Attitude of Gratitude: connecting with professional profiles and to be able to get some benefits from the same is a way of life for a number of people who like to network, though there is nothing wrong in it, one should be there to assist, help, refer and suggest appropriate solutions etc to our valued industry connects and aspirants, but as a piece of advice it is recommended to at least maintain an attitude of gratitude, at times it so happens that you refer candidates to a place/ hotel or so and once he/she gets through, you become a dormant unwanted entity. A little sense of saying a basic thank you or acknowledging someone’s efforts should be considered.

• Enliven and Encourage: A big number of student community has been in touch with me over the years and especially during the lockdown it somehow just increased by over 30 percent of what it was, reason being that the aspiring to be future chefs, hoteliers, airline professionals and more had a lot of queries, doubts and needed certain answers to their much reasonable enough why’s ? what’s and how’s ? I came across loads of messages on my own handles saying that the so called professional names, big time image holders, popularity chart busters, lakhs of likes tag holders and beyond are so very busy that they do not even accept, respond, reciprocate and bother to even look at the connects which wanted to do so for a specific guidance aspect looking at them as so called role models and examples. It sounded a little usual to me upon hearing and reading all this coming from young students and professionals but somehow my approach was slightly different, I rather managed to be receptive and replied upon all of them who wanted to do so and were expecting with a ray of hope! To my surprise I was shocked to see a reply which came by from a young aspirant, “it’s nice to see one reply out of a hundred who cares to be realistic and responds to us”- and when we started interacting the entire story of experience what they go through unfolded. 

• Being a good listener rather than like seeker: I also came across feedback from some saying that when we reach out to professionals for advice or so, the first thing they say is that how many likes and followers will you get me in return or what’s my benefit in talking to you? No one helped me during my time of struggle, why do you expect help from me? why should I be in your story of struggle etc? let us somewhere understand that just because I / Me or You had to go through some difficult times during our times doesn’t mean that the current generations too should go through the same, can’t we be a little more matured enough to assist, stand by, encourage and be of help to the ones who are really asking for help on a genuine basis? A little understanding and assisting can take us all a long way!

• The Karmic fare has a universal approach: one thing we should try to relate to is that today someone might be in a good position, post, hierarchy, salary bracket, best of the best etc but somewhere we have all started from a much lower stage in life and have come up with our hard work, commitment, dedication and stability on the whole during our professional journeys. Let us not indulge into biases and partiality approach when we deal with people especially when it comes to connectivity and networking on social media etc. there are even job offering profiles and job seeking profiles who connect and while some get across to their next destinations, some are left behind, some keep trying and some by the time give up. Good deeds never go waste and good help and offerings are always adding into our asset columns in the balance sheet of our lives, let us all try to be more sensible enough to come forward at the right and opportune time to be there to stand with our industry, community and academia as well bridging the gap between demand and supply, quality and quantity etc. let us all strive together to make this a wonderful and much recommended industry to work in and not just have people come in touch base and fly away into other sectors just because somewhere the connectivity fell weak and the net worth was not met up with due to the network.