Performance is crucial for organisational success. Employees’ performances refer to employees’ abilities to effectively carry out their job obligations and responsibilities. Businesses in the hotel industry often rely on their employees to deliver high-quality services to maintain a competitive advantage. Bahang Bay Hotel in Pulau Pinang received many complaints regarding their staff performance, including unfriendly staff, terrible check-in service, poor customer service responses, and unsatisfactory housekeeping service. Customers’ complaints can harm the hotel’s reputation, causing a decline in the number of hotel guests and increasing the risk of business closure. Effective employee management is essential to prevent employees from feeling overburdened and to motivate them to provide excellent service. Therefore, this research aimed to identify the factors influencing the operational employees’ performance and to determine the most important element that had a major impact on the performance of Bahang Bay Hotel’s employees. A quantitative approach was utilised. An online survey was conducted on 44 hotel employees from various operational departments, including the front office, housekeeping, food and beverage, and food production departments. The study analysed five factors: training, transformational leadership, teamwork, work environment, and performance appraisal. Results showed that transformational leadership and performance appraisal significantly impacted hotel employees’ performances. This finding indicated that transformational leadership is the most important element and has a major impact on performance. In conclusion, these findings provide insights for improving employee management strategies in the hotel industry.