Employee Turnover - Research Paper Example

 Employee Turnover Abstract Following the findings of the worldwide researches, employee turnover has been found to be among the highest in the hospitality industry. Among the non-management hotel employee in the US, studies have shown that the average turnover level is about 50% and 25% among the management staff[CHA09]. Averages of annual employee turnover level is said to be between 60 to 400% according to the research conducted by the American Hotel and Motel Association. This leaves hotels in the losing end as they spend thousands every year in recruiting and training new employees who come to replace the seasoned ones. Normally, the major reasons for a job change have to do with better benefits or satisfaction. The employees have a tendency to move towards an industry with better motivation in terms of benefits as well as satisfaction. They also assume a lifetime perspective as they make choices about job change. Employees therefore make such choices to change their jobs while considering the future changes in job satisfaction and enrichment as well as maximized benefits. This research paper is meant to diagnose the problems associated with the luxury hotels that bring about the high employee turnover as well as the suggested ways of how to deal with the high turnover rate. Introduction Luxury hotels are among the categories of hotels in the hospitality industry. These kind of hotels are specifically built in strategic areas where there is targeted market of high class people in the society as well as foreign and domestic tourists. They are normally positioned in the big cities of a country where the GDP of that country is high and centre for business district where politicians, renowned business men, diplomats and other dignitaries can access them. They are also situated at tourist attraction centers where the tourists can get access to them whenever they visit the centers. These hotels are normally very expensive to board considering the kind of architecture they employ as well as the high standard of service that they offer. According to their positions or where they are situated, some of these hotels operate only on a seasonal basis. This is so because tourism makes the largest of their clients and when the tourists are not around, the hotels remain closed for a better part of their operation yearly. There are different categories of employees that do exist in the luxury hotels and these are together with; management as well as non-management. Management employees consist of those employees involved in the major decision making about the hotels which forms the basis for running the hotels. These might be together with the Chief Executive officer, Managing Director, Chief of Staff as well as Departmental Heads. They are involved in the major decision making about the hotel. The other category of employees is the non-management employees. This category consists of workers of lower rank like the casual laborers as well as the departmental employees a part from their heads that fall in the management category. Reasons for High Turnover in Luxury Hotels There are various reasons why employee turnover rate is very high in the luxury hotels. Some of these reasons are together with the seasonality of the hotel customers, low compensation level as well as low job satisfaction and enrichment that reduces the employees’ self esteem due to low employee motivation. (a) Seasonality of the Industry The major clients of the luxury hotels are the tourists a part from those built in the city centers which do not necessarily have to depend on tourists. Tourism as well known is a seasonal industry where the tourists may come to a country to visit different sites just during a particular season after which they go back to their country and attend to their other duties for the rest of their time until the season returns. Due to problems of seasonality, several employees face forced and unpaid leave for the period when the tourists are not around and this makes them be unable to provide for their families as they used to do before. They remain penny less for that whole period until it is time again that the tourists return. This is a hard situation to remain in as one needs to attend to their needs as well as providing for their families which is practically impossible to maintain without proper source of money. Because of this problem, the hotel employees put on forced and unpaid leave; to make ends meet, try to look for other sources of employment that can be permanent to be able to satisfy their needs throughout the year. Because of all that, the hotel also undergoes great losses including losing its trained employee hence loss of resources. This will mean that when the season picks again, the hotel will have to recruit and train other new employees to replace the lost ones which is a very expensive exercise as well as the hotel risking losing best services from best employees which water down to losing customer loyalty. (b) Low Compensation Level One will find that in the luxury hotels, everything looks expensive including the hotel architecture, the furniture and fittings; the kind of service provided as well as the environment itself has a lot of aesthetic value. This makes the charges for the use of the hotel facilities very expensive hence not many clients board it and if they do, then not very frequently. As we know, all businesses are started with one major aim, which is to make profit and maximize on that profit, hence, the hotel will try to minimize on its expenditure and costs as they maximize their income. By so doing, the hotel will try to cut down on certain costs in order to remain with maximum profit. Some of the costs that the hotel cut down on include the pay for the employees. Therefore, the employees will remain less compensated for the services they offer. This makes the employees be unable to satisfy all their needs from the job they do hence keep looking for new jobs elsewhere. They would only remain in their current hotel job before they get other new employments but once they get other sources of funds better than the hotel, they keep on moving to pick up such greener pastures. Such circumstances make employee turnover in hotel industry be high and continue being so unless the employee compensation is revised. (c) Low Job Satisfaction and Enrichment Third reason for high employee turnover in the luxury hotels is low job satisfaction and low job enrichment. In any service industry, the most important thing is the level of employee motivation that makes them continue offering the best services since a happy employee is a happy client due to a good service delivery. To have a good employee satisfaction program, it is not only adequate to give good pay to your employees but it has more to that. Employees need to feel that their needs are catered for a part from feeling loved as well as feeling motivated through incentives and job security. Employee insubordination lowers job enrichment hence to have fully motivated employee lot, and then there should be good employee relation between the bosses and non bosses. Recommendation To have a happy and satisfied lot of employees who will work well and bring about customer loyalty, then there should be program in place to keep employee compensated throughout the year and well and he employee morale also busted through provision of incentives, job security, sense of belonging as well as good bosses and junior staff relations. Job satisfaction in general for this industry need to be improved through use of employee motivational factors such as making them feel loved, giving them incentives, keeping them paid throughout the year with good money and in time, giving them bonuses, assuring them of job security among others motivational ways[San09]. Employees need to feel cared for by the company. A motivated employee is a satisfied employee; therefore they will be able to deliver quality services in the industry to make the business booming by attracting and maintaining customer loyalty. Conclusion In a nutshell, employee turnover is a serious concern in the hospitality industry where it goes to up to 400% per year. This is a problem brought about by low employee compensation in the hotel business as well as the seasonality of the clients together with low employee satisfaction. Employees need to feel cared for them to keep up the good service and enable the company retain its loyal customers also the company needs to save the losses it incurs every time recruits and train new employees to replace the ones gone. For a hotel industry, a satisfied employee is as good as a loyal client since it it when they are satisfied that they offer good services that retain the customers and make them coming back over and over again. References CHA09: , (CHA-International, 2009), San09: , (Sandra, Andrew, & Mitesh, 2009), Read More