Much of a hotel's success rests on getting its staff to perform to a high standard and keeping them there. But how is that achieved? Which Human Resource Management (HRM) practices are worth an organisation's investment if it hopes to attract and keep excellent employees?
There are hotels that set out to give their staff unusually good conditions in which to work. The approach traces back to certain employers — typically outside the service industries — where fun and enjoyment were treated as part of a healthy work–life balance. Hotels and the wider service sector, by contrast, have largely not adopted such ideas, and even basic needs like decent working conditions have often gone unaddressed.
According to Reinholt (1995), any organisation hoping to thrive in a global marketplace must put money into Human Resource Management (HRM), since this is what lets it take on staff whose skills outstrip those of rival firms — an edge that pays off competitively. Yet despite how widely the value of developing employees is acknowledged, weak and underdeveloped HR practices have long been the norm across the hospitality sector (Halvorsen, 2003).
Halvorsen goes further, arguing that the way HRM is actually practised seems built neither to encourage positive dealings with staff nor to reflect a style of management capable of nurturing and releasing people's full potential — and this holds even where workers are broadly content with much of what their jobs involve (Halvorsen, 2003). Perhaps as a consequence, the sector has repeatedly struggled with employees departing in large numbers. The reasons commonly given range from meagre pay and thin benefits to unpleasant surroundings and the flagging morale and attitudes that come with them (Petrakis et al., 2007).
Dubois and Renner (2009) showed that employees develop a stronger sense of obligation to remain with a firm when their managers acknowledge their contributions, encourage them to cooperate, and clear away the barriers to good performance. Almeida et al. (2012) put it neatly: when staff are given support, they gain both the assurance to do their work well and the incentive to stay. It follows that hospitality businesses can lift motivation and retention by improving the conditions their people work in — conditions tied to the wider working environment.
It might seem plausible that how workers respond to the features of their jobs is coloured by some tendency to see their surroundings in a poor light; yet Kowalski et al. (2001) found nothing to bear this out. What does seem true, as Bergström (2010) observes, is that most people, given the chance, will find some grievance about where they work. Employees' perceptions turn out to be firmly tied to particular aspects of their environment that fall outside the tasks themselves — things like company rules, wages and holiday entitlement.
Nowhere are such conditions more of a concern than at the luxury end of the hotel market, where high-quality service — and the refined HRM it demands — is treated as a vital competitive edge (Petrakis et al., 2007). Through the service they give, hotel staff in a real sense stand for the industry itself (Faber and Lund, 1994), though that has usually been confined to what guests experience. The implication is a split: the polished environment laid on for guests, set against the conditions in which employees themselves must work.
For that reason, those managing hotels must build HRM practices capable of both motivating able staff and keeping them on. Doing so means grasping what actually drives employees — and that differs according to where they sit in the management hierarchy and how far along they are in their careers (Costa and Marek, 2001). In short, hotel managers gain from working out which practices do most to raise satisfaction and retention.
Adler (1967) suggests that human needs fall into two broad categories. The first covers extrinsic factors — those tied to the setting in which a job is done rather than the job itself, such as job security and working conditions. Where these are poor, workers may grow dissatisfied. What is striking, though, is that meeting these needs does not by itself make anyone satisfied; it merely takes away dissatisfaction (Petrakis et al., 2007).
Workers also have intrinsic needs — the motivators — among them a sense of achievement and being recognised. These, unlike the extrinsic factors, are the ones that can genuinely produce job satisfaction (Petrakis et al., 2007). Adler's framework stresses that the two kinds of need must be held in 'balance'.
Researchers have also examined the part fun can play in motivating people at work. Okonkwo, Vance and Ruiz (2014), for instance, studied workers at an American chain of themed cafés. They found that activities designed to be enjoyable had a favourable effect on productivity, while managers' support for such fun proved valuable in reducing turnover. Their results back the view that fun can genuinely help — provided the way it is framed is matched both to the company's aims and to the personalities of the staff. As the authors put it, 'Managers must learn to strike the delicate balance of letting employees enjoy themselves at work while keeping standards high.'
Vinstad (2009) has put forward several steps an organisation can take to hold on to good employees while helping them keep work and home life in balance. Those best suited to the hospitality industry include making sure staff get sufficient rest during their shifts, arranging social events to which families are invited, and offering chances to look after health and well-being.
