Challenges and Strategies for Employee Retention in the Hospitality Industry: A Review

Bilqees Ghani,Afraseyab Khattak,Antonio Ariza-Montes,Khalid Rasheed Memon,Heesup Han,Rezwan Ullah,Luis Araya-Castillo,Muhammad Zada

doi:10.3390/su14052885

Abstract

Despite the issues that the hospitality industry encounters in retaining talented employees, little attention has been paid to the development of retention strategies, resulting in poor organizational performance and sustainable growth. The current study, therefore, aims to review and discuss the employee retention strategies in the hospitality industry in order to keep talented employees for a longer period of time. The study is based on past literature and peer-reviewed articles published between 2010 and 2020. The databases Web Knowledge, Emerald, Google Scholar, and Science Direct were used to find the relevant papers using the key words such as “Hospitality Industry”, “employee retention”, “employee turnover”, and “employees”. The findings of this study suggest that employee retention is contingent on employee satisfaction, which is comprised of four factors: sustainable positive work environment; sustainable growth opportunities; sustainable & effective communication; and sustainable & effective recruitment and selection practices. The paper contributes to a comprehensive review of the literature on employee retention strategies in the hospitality context. The study proposes a model for the hospitality industry to revamp its recruitment and selection practices in order to retain its employees. Furthermore, the study provides a focused directions that will aid in the establishment of employee retention strategies and practices. It was concluded that satisfied employees are less likely to leave their current job, while unsatisfied employees are expected to leave their current job for a better career opportunity. Managerial implications were also discussed.

Highlights

It has been acknowledged that people are a significant source of competitive advantage; organisations adopt numerous policies and procedures in order to retain their talented employees for a long time
The findings suggest that the retention rate in the hospitality industry is highly contingent on employees' level of satisfaction, which is composed of four factors: sustainable and positive work environment, sustainable growth opportunities, sustainable and effective communication, and sustainable and effective recruitment and selection
The findings suggest that the hospitality industry can cope with the challenge of employee retention by employing the proposed model

Summary

Introduction

It has been acknowledged that people are a significant source of competitive advantage; organisations adopt numerous policies and procedures in order to retain their talented employees for a long time. The hospitality industry, found a most dynamic and globally growing industry, plays a significant role in the economic and social development It is a significant component in boosting economic growth by attracting millions of foreign visitors annually. The primary objective of the hospitality industry is to manage their employees effectively and keep them on staff in order to get the best out of them [11]. From this point of view, keeping employees longer and gaining an advantage from them is an important task, which is perhaps the biggest challenge for the hospitality industry [12].

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