Retention strategy: How can you keep your staff in your hotel?

  12th March 2024

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A blog by final year Events, International Hospitality and Tourism Management students at the University of Gloucestershire.

By: Abby Slater, Wen Shi, Cerys Davis, Sarah Crombie

Staffing is a current issue in the hotel industry and there are no quick or easy fixes for this problem. Keep reading to get inspiration of approaches that work best to retain staff.

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Retention strategy: How can you keep your staff in your hotel?

The impact of the pandemic (Covid-19) still lingers today within the hotel sector. The demand for services and change in attitude towards eating out and staying in hotels has economically changed the hotel sector. According to the House of Commons, after the pandemic over 166,00 jobs were vacant, Seo state that today there are still 146,000 jobs vacant in the hotel sector. Furthermore, because of the pandemic, employee turnover is still an issue in the hotel industry.  

Employee turnover is influenced by poor hiring quality, lack of recognition and training opportunities however, these factors can be mitigated by managers applying financial and non-financial rewards to retain staff within hotel industry. This blog will explore suggestions for hotel managers to retain staff and reduce employee turnover.

What limited staff in hotels means for managers?

Unfortunately for hotel managers, limited staff raises many issues. A reduced team affects managers themselves, employees and customers. Lack of staff means more work for the existing staff leading to decline of productivity and efficiency, therefore the inability to meet customer needs.

Below are some factors that contribute to high turnover. Some of the main effects of high turnover include decreased productivity, increased costs, decreased customer satisfaction, and elevated employee stress levels. From employees perspective, the lack of communication between managers and employees can lead to a breakdown in the reception of information, which can form a bad relationship with employees. When employees work long hours and have inflexible schedules, these can lead to employee burnout and exhaustion. From the hotel perspective, the main impact of high turnover on businesses is financial pressure. As the number of staff turnover increases, hotels need to spend more money to recruit and train staff. According to Kate’s Employee Turnover Statistics, it is estimated that the cost of replacing employees is as high as twice of their annual salary.

Top tips: What managers can do to reduce employee turnover.

Managers should recognise the impact of having a high employee turnover. High turnover creates uninspired employees and lack of appeal to work for the organisation, suggesting a lack of success in the business and the inability to retain staff. Below are four ways for managers can mitigate staff turnover :

1. Invest in staff

Creating relationships within the workplace by investing in team building activities, staff training and workshops. This will increase morale and skill sets to meet customers’ needs and increase staff well being.

2. Set clear expectation

Setting goals and targets for employee to reach will increase them to meet goals and aims, ensuring all employees are on the same page. Managers should set regular meetings and performance reviews for employees to meet the set targets.

3. Prioritising life work balance

For an employee, the most important factor is to switch off from work. For them to have ‘a life’ outside of work. Employee rotas should be tailored to their needs, this can be challenging for managers however it allows for employees to feel valued within the workplace. Long hours and low pay are huge issue within the hotel industry therefore, breaks should be set regularly.

4. Ensure good hiring quality

The ability to recruit the right person is essential to build staff morale and team relationships. This can be by developing a clear and concise job description, face to face interviews and online assessments before hiring the candidate. It allows for a true representation of the employee and understand the skills sets they can bring to the team.

How to keep staff: Financial & Non-financial rewards.

Engaged employees are essential to service delivery within hotels, it is important for hotel managers to keep employees motivated, and to retain performance especially when serving customers. If employees do not feel motivated or satisfied, they will not perform, subsequently leading to high employee turnover, as they do not feel a sense of pride within their work. Below are financial and non-financial incentives for employees that managers can offer to feel more valued within the workplace.

Next steps: for increasing employee retention.

Hotel managers should incentivise employees within the hotel industry to increase employee engagement. Rewards should be linked towards employee’s performance, to motivate them and increase their job satisfactions in the workplace, in-turn helping the business to succeed in meeting goals. Rewards and incentives should be given out fairly across the teams to ensure inclusivity.

The potential for bias presents a limitation when incentivizing teams, hence prioritizing team rewards over individual rewards is crucial, while also ensuring fair recognition of employee’s individual contributions. Additionally, fostering healthy competition among contribute to maintaining motivation and job satisfaction through reward incentives.

To address the challenges of high turnover managers should acknowledge achievement through rewards this subsequently improves employee productivity, team dynamic, and a good company culture, equally employees feel valued, satisfied and positive about their work.

Survey for hotel manager