Reducing employee Turnover In Hospitality

By: Venugopal Naidu


An organization is as good as its people, and nobody can deny the fact that manpower is the greatest asset of a company. Moreover high attrition rates incur major costs to the company including recruiting expenses, training expenses, unemployment insurance and guest service of a quality less than one has been striving for.

Lets get to the crux. Employee turnover figure in the hospitality industry is a whopping 50%, enough to make employers lose sleep over the tangible and intangible costs of employee turnover. Turnover has an immediate effect, particularly in customer service-dependent areas of the business. A vacant position means more work for the remaining employees, without making a compromise on the customer service front. Little wonder then, that hospitality companies with low turnover rates report higher customer satisfaction and higher profits.

The ‘always on’ hospitality sector does not afford these kinds of figures pertaining to the turnover of employees. Consider the following points when planning for employee retention.

Respect
Any relationship blooms under the swathe of respect. It is, therefore, important for the employers to honor cultures, languages, traditions, and age of their employees.

Transparent policies and procedures
After induction, employees need to be educated about the policies and working procedures of the hotel. Keeping them transparent, fair and consistent will help employees see you in good light.

Recognition of performance
More than a round of applause or a pat on the back, compensation in terms of bonuses, rewards, peer recognition etc. is necessary as a recognition strategy. Innovative performance based perks such as an insurance cover and time off are good ones too.

Training programs
Make development initiatives and training programs a part of the job. Repeated training is a good way to ingrain particular concepts into employees’ minds. Such initiatives help employees hone their skills at the same time allowing you to use them as per your requirement. Employees are also glad at the prospect of career development through continuous training.

Discuss career paths
Career development is on everybody’s mind. Offer advice and help on your employees’ career development, highlighting how this job will cater to that need. Let employees know that you are interested in investing time and money in them provided they stick to their job. This will help you both achieve mutual goals.

Make yourself approachable
Making employees feel comfortable enough to share their problems with the management always comes in handy. Managers, who take weekly rounds of departments finding out the way employees function and whether anybody has a grievance, make them appear friendly and approachable.

Analyze
Find out the reasons for the turnover rates at your hotel. This can be effectively done through exit interviews of the employees planning to leave. Train your HR department in doing these and derive an inference from the answers to such questions. This will give you an insight into the needs of the employees and allow you to sort out any problem areas.

Conduct employee surveys
Give out questionnaires to be filled in by the working people to gauge what they think about working with the hotel. They will bring up issues that need immediate attention. Be prepared to address them so that things don’t go out of hand.

Make working fun
Form social groups within the organization, wherein your staff can mingle. Arrange outings, or make a newsletter that carries information about and for the employees that is important to them. Find out if any of the staff members is volunteering for a socially responsible group. If yes, plan a donation for it, or at least make a recognition of his contribution to society by patting him on the back.

Conclusion
Your employees are no less astute than your customers. Among all the above mentioned ways to retain your workforce, think of other ideas such as child care during non standard time including evenings and weekends or synchronized working patterns for employees, to some extent if not otherwise. Retaining employees using these tips based on common sense will seem to be peanuts.



Venugopal Naidu is the business development head at Ista Hotel in Bangalore, India. Associated with Ista for the past five years, he has been active in projecting the hotel as a luxury five star hotel in Bangalore. Catalyzing the growing popularity of Ista, Naidu foresees a major fillip in the customer base of luxury business accommodation worldwide