Talent management, work-life balance and retention strategies

Talent management, work-life balance and retention strategies

Introduction

Maintaining a stable workforce is a key element in effective talent management strategy and yet over the years this has been something of a challenge for hospitality and tourism operators. Research into the retention of talented staff is ongoing and this article examines the findings from such research to put forward strategies for industry consideration.

There are four key themes to the current research. Firstly, the article examines the literature on models of turnover and the subsequent implications of these models. Seminal work by researchers such as Porter and Steers (1973), Mobley et al. (1979) and Price (1977)has underpinned work in this area by Cotton and Tuttle (1986), Griffeth and Hom (1995), Deery and Iverson (1996), Deery and Shaw (1999) and Ghiselli et al. (2001), these latter three being located in the hospitality and tourism industry. Much of this research examines the role that constructs such as organisational commitment and job satisfaction play in contributing to employees' intentions to leave an organisation. The second theme addresses the personal attributes of job stress and turnover intentions play in the decision to leave an organisation.

The third theme emerging from the literature examines the role that work-life balance (WLB) plays in employee turnover. Work by Wang and Walumbwa (2007), for example, investigates the role that family friendly programs have on work withdrawal, while Dagger and Sweeney (2006) specifically focus on quality of life issues and employee turnover. Finally, research on the fourth theme on strategies to achieve higher retention rates is discussed. Maxwell's (2005) research, for example, into the role of managers in WLB policies and practices informs this fourth theme.

This article, then, scopes the literature to identify past and ongoing debates around perspectives, causes, solutions and organisational strategies surrounding labour turnover and identify the implications of these for approaches to talent management. The article focuses around four themes that appear frequently in the hospitality employee turnover literature. These are the role of job attitudes such as job satisfaction and organisational commitment, personal attributes such as positive and negative affectivity, the role of WLB in employee intention to leave and, finally, the strategic role that organisational activities such as training and career development can play in retaining staff.

Theme 1: job attitudes

The constructs of job satisfaction and organisational commitment have been consistently found to influence employee turnover and have underpinned studies by Tutuncu and Kozak (2007), Robinson and Barron (2007) and Carbery et al. (2003). Much of the debate in previous research has focused on whether it is organisational commitment or job satisfaction that has the greatest influence on employee turnover and, although this issue is examined in the hospitality literature cited here, other issues relating to these job attitudes are also incorporated into the studies. For example, the work by Carbery et al. (2003) investigate that the psychological contract, career expectations and managerial competencies have in the decision to leave an organisation. In concluding, the authors found that “a combination of demographic, human capital, psychological attributes and hotel characteristics, explain significant variance in turnover cognitions of hotel managers” (p. 671).

Robinson and Barron (2007), on the other hand, focus on the issues of deskilling and standardisation that lead to a lack of job satisfaction and organisational commitment and ultimately to the decision to leave the organisation. Research by Tutuncu and Kozak (2007) concur with these findings, noting that the work itself, the pay and supervision within the hotel industry can lead to job dissatisfaction and then employee turnover. Many of these studies use the job descriptive index (JDI) by Smith et al. (1969), in which the key components of job satisfaction are the work itself, pay, co-workers, supervision and an overall job satisfaction variable. The work by Walmsley (2004), for example, uses the JDI dimensions testing the perceptions of these aspects according to both employers and employees. Substantial differences were found between their perceptions. Gustafson's (2002) study on employees in private clubs in USA confirms the role that low pay, and the opportunity for better pay, plays in the decision to leave an organisation. In addition to these considerations, Lam et al. (2002) also focus on the role that mentoring and training play in new employees' decisions to leave an organisation. Importantly, they have found that training new employees significantly mitigates their desires to leave the organisation.

Finally, the work by Ghiselli et al. (2001) and Stalcup and Pearson (2001) examine the causes of turnover using management data. Lawrence and Pearson's study is particularly interesting in that it examines both voluntary and involuntary causes. They note the similarities and differences between the causes cited by the employees and those cited by the organisation. In terms of differences, none of the employees cited a lack of skills or a lack of motivation as a cause, whereas the managers cited these as important influences on the decision to leave. Managers, on the other hand, did not cite integrity or the ethics of the property as causes, as did the employees. There were, interestingly, more similarities than differences between the two surveys and issues such as the organisational culture and work-life conflict were cited in both. Research by Ghiselli et al. (2001, p. 36) also examines the role that job satisfaction and life satisfaction has on the turnover decision. They found that “managers who were more satisfied with the intrinsic components of their jobs, more satisfied with their life and (relatively) older were less likely to leave their position imminently” (Table I).

Theme 2: personal employee dimensions

The second theme focuses on attitudes that the employees have that contribute to their desire to leave an organisation. Psychological dimensions such as job burnout and exhaustion were examined by Lee and Shin (2005) where the job burnout construct used had the three components of emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and diminished personal accomplishment. Emotional exhaustion, on the other hand, refers to a lack of energy “due to excessive psychological demands” (p. 100). Their study used a number of other dimensions including examining the role of positive and negative affectivity on an employee's intention to leave. The authors found that turnover intention was positively correlated with negative affectivity, workload, exhaustion and cynicism. These items were negatively correlated with vigour, dedication and absorption. In their regression analysis, the items of cynicism and workload were the significant predictors of turnover intentions.

The research by Karatepe and Uludag (2007) also tests, among others, the relationship between exhaustion and employees' intention to leave the organisation. Their study found that frontline employees who had difficulty in spending time with their family or in keeping social commitments were likely to be emotionally exhausted. This, in turn, impacted negatively on their job satisfaction and ultimately influenced their intention to leave the organisation. Karatepe and Uludag discuss the relationship between these personal employee dimensions and WLB and the implications of these findings are discussed in the next section.

The final article discussed in this section is that by Rowley and Purcell (2001). While this article examines a number of causes and strategies relating to employee turnover, it does elaborate on the impact that stress and job burnout have on the employees' intentions to leave an organisation. In particular, these authors specify the impact that job overload, through “deliberate understaffing, temporary staff shortages and unrealistic task criteria” (p. 169), together with impact of bullying, has on retention rates in hotels. Table II provides a summary of the key literature in the area of personal employee dimensions.

In summary, then, the pressures that hospitality and tourism employees are under appears to significantly contribute to employee turnover and the lack of staff retention. The excessively long hours, style of management and conflict between work and family life, present barriers to making the tourism work environment an attractive and stable one. The toll that the conflict between work and family/life for hospitality and tourism employees, is discussed in the next section.

Theme 3: work-life balance

The issues relating to obtaining a WLB have received substantial attention over recent years, especially in the area of contemporary organisational research. Less attention, however, has been given to researching the impact of WLB in the hospitality area (Mulvaney et al., 2006). These authors discuss the impact that non-work factors such as job stress and burnout have on an employee's intention to leave an organisation and, in particular, they focus on the roles that job stress, work-family conflict and the characteristics of the job have on this vital decision. Their research, together with that of Mulvaney et al. (2006) has more recently provided the underpinning for future work in this area. Their model, presented here in Figure 1, includes many of the variables frequently associated with the antecedents of employee turnover, variables such as the long and irregular hours.

These authors suggest that the levels of conflict between work and family will be impacted or moderated by the levels of support employees (in this case, managers) receive, the personal attributes they bring to the job, the industry norms and the way all these components are managed in the workplace. Mulvaney et al. (2006), Cleveland et al. (2007), Namasivayam and Zhao (2007) andKaratepe and Uludag (2007), together with Rowley and Purcell (2001), argue, in various ways, that these components work to effect job satisfaction and organisational commitment and ultimately lead to employee turnover.

The research note by Cullen and McLaughlin (2006, p. 510) offers a different perspective on the WLB issue. Cullen and McLaughlin discuss the notion of “presenteeism” defined as “an overwhelming need to put in more hours or, at the very least, appear to be working very long hours”. They argue that there are three rationales that reinforce presenteeism as a managerial value in hotels. These rationales are that firstly, it appears to be the belief of hotel managers that they have a duty to provide emotional support to their staff and need to be available to provide counselling. The second rationale is that hotel managers see themselves as the face of the hotel and need to be continually present to be this. Finally, the authors argue that it is the very nature of the industry, the constancy and complexity of running a hotel that is open at all times, that makes it appear vital that managers be available for excessive long hours. All of this “presenteeism” of, impacts negatively on life satisfaction and the WLB (Table III).

The issues surrounding WLB, those of the long hours, the exhausting work and the stress that arises from customer related activities are only just being examined in any substantial way in the hospitality industry. Interestingly, however, there is sound literature on the success or otherwise of initiatives to combat this issue of WLB and this is addressed in the next theme that examines the strategies to reduce employee turnover.

Theme 4: organisational strategies to assist employee retention

This theme, that of the organisational strategies to assist in retaining employees, comprises the largest number of articles for the purposes of this article. Many of the research studies focus on the functional human resources (HR) activities such as recruitment and training. Examples of these are from Collins (2007), Dermody et al. (2004) Reynolds et al. (2004) and Martin et al. (2006) who focus on the important role that appropriate recruitment plays in retaining good staff. Improving the quality and quantity of hospitality staff appears to be dependent on improving the image of the industry, together with more strategic ways of managing work rosters and workloads. Demody et al. argue that hourly paid staff are best motivated and attracted to the industry through incentive pay programs and innovative benefits such as cash bonuses, flexible work schedules and mentoring programs. Hospitality recruiters need to be more aware of the skills and attributes such as computing and language skills required by the hotel during the recruiting phase – basic allowance for sustenance rates (BAS, 2007) argues that many recruiters are not sufficiently strategic in this area.

Another HR function, and therefore a potential retention strategy, that receives attention in the literature is that training. Research byChiang et al. (2005) examined the relationship between training, job satisfaction and the intention to stay in the hospitality industry. The findings suggest that training quality was positively related to training satisfaction, job satisfaction and intention to stay. Related to the concept of training is that of education and the type of training given by training providers such as universities and vocational institutions. A study by Hjalager and Andersen (2001) explores the difficult question of whether tourism employment is merely contingent, temporary work or whether it is actually a career. These authors address this question through examining research sites in restaurant and catering, accommodation and travel services. They conclude by stating that:

Due to its structure, rapid shifts and the social character of its jobs, tourism seems to be an industry that, more than any other industry in the economy, attracts the ultramobile, the virtual, and the boundaryless (p. 128).

They also suggest, however, that due to the lack of research into the ways that careers and professions develop, it is possible that the industry may develop into what we would now consider to be a profession. Such findings are most informative and perhaps suggest that vocational training and on-the-job training would be more appropriate for the industry. Such findings also have ramifications for the way we view the turnover rates in the industry. The work by O'Leary and Deegan (2005), examining the career progression of Irish tourism and hospitality management graduates, in many ways confirms the findings of Hjalager and Andersen as does that by Pratten and O'Leary (2007) who argue that hospitality and tourism students need to be encouraged to look further afield than those promoted by their training institutions.

The approach taken by Wildes and Parks in their research on food servers, looks at the influence that internal marketing has on employee retention. They argue that building strong relationships within the organisation reduces turnover and, furthermore, promotes recommending behaviour of employees of the hotel to friends. Interestingly, and contrary to the work by Hjalager and Andersen (2001), a third of the food servers saw their jobs as professions and as having a career.

The area that has most recently been a focus for examination regarding the retention of staff is that of the role that balancing working and family life has in turnover decisions. The research by Doherty (2004) and Maxwell (2005) provide insights into the link between the work-life conflict and employee turnover. Maxwell suggests that managers are key to the initiation and implementation of WLB policies with some of those policies being the introduction of flexible working hours and arrangements, providing better training, breaks from work and better work support. All these strategies not only address WLB issues but also enhance employee retention. Doherty also examines WLB strategies, especially as they relate to women, and notes that such strategies may only assist women hen the labour market is tight. She argues, too, that a stronger equal opportunities approach is problematic in that it draws attention to the difference between men and women's working preferences and needs. She suggests that there be a greater and clearer set of rights as well as assisting male managers to provide more balanced lives for both male and female workers (Table IV).

Discussion

The literature pertaining to the retention of staff has, over the last years, focussed on traditional causes such as the lack of job satisfaction and organisational commitment. In addition, the role that stress and various components of stress such as emotional exhaustion and job burnout, has taken a more “front-of-stage role” in being identified as a significant cause of employee turnover. Stress has frequently been incorporated into studies on turnover, but the literature presented here suggests that it is now being perceived as an issue/variable in its own right. The various components of stress, emotional exhaustion and job burnout such as cynicism and sabotage have received greater attention than previously given. Such a focus suggests that stress and its various parts is a growing concern for both the industry and researchers and its impact in employee retention, or lack thereof, is an area that demands more attention by both industry and the academic community.

The most recent addition to the research into employee retention is the role that obtaining a balance between work and life has in an employee's decision to remain with the organisation. It would appear that the conflict between these important dimensions of human activity can cause both job dissatisfaction and hence an intention to leave the organisation as well as causing conflict with family members and family activities. Strategies to ameliorate these tensions have been introduced into a number of organisations, but there is still substantial improvement and trailing of such initiatives to ensure a better balance.

Strategies to ensure a WLB are among many that have been suggested in the literature to retain staff. The most common strategies put forward, apart from the WLB ones, focus on the role that recruitment and training have in improving job satisfaction and organisational commitment and hence employee intention to stay. What is concerning, However, is that these strategies have been suggested to assist in employee retention for some time now and yet, there appears to be little improvement in the rates of employee retention. It is possible, therefore, that strategies such as more focussed recruitment strategies and better quality training programs need to be combined with other elements to achieve the most effective outcome. Figure 2 brings together the various themes and strategies from the literature to suggest a more holistic framework for improving employee retention rates.

The framework presented in Figure 2 provides organisations with a more holistic method of examining the causes or low employee retention as well as suggesting ways to improve job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Such a framework requires further examination of each of the variables within the key categories of the organisational and industry attributes, personal employee dimensions and improved organisation strategies. It is suggested here that this framework should underpin future research in this area. Specifically, it is suggested that organisations undertake a strategic approach to ameliorate employee turnover by firstly addressing the organisational and industry attributes as outlined in Figure 2. More equitable and flexible roistering of staff designed to alleviate the number of unsocial hours worked per employee is a strategy within the control of the organisation. Similarly, the provision of mentoring and a “buddying” system of on-the-job training would assist in the professional development of staff. Management need to be aware of the signs of employee stress and have the capacity to provide counselling and stress management activities such as time out and relaxation methods. Finally, it is argued that organisations need to monitor levels of stress and work-life imbalance through longitudinal surveys; adopting these strategies provides an opportunity to further the relationship between researchers and practitioners within tourism.

Implications for the workplace

The implications for the workplace in retaining staff from this review of the literature include a range of actions at both the government and organisational level. Assuming that the previous research is correct in that WLB issues impact negatively on staff retention, an imperative for governments is to legislate, not only for minimum hours of work, but also maximum hours of work. In Australia, for example, it has been found that according to the Relationships Forum Australia report by Shepanski and Diamond (2007), more than 20 per cent of employees work for 50 hours or more a week and more than 30 per cent work on the weekend regularly. Two million Australians also spend at least 6 hours of family time on Sundays working, without compensating for it during the week. At the organisational level, there are a number of actions that can be adopted to retain good staff as well as assist in balancing work and family life. These include:

• providing flexible working hours such as roistered days off and family friendly starting and finishing times;
• allowing flexible work arrangements such as job sharing and working at home;
• providing training opportunities during work time;
• providing adequate resources for staff so that they can undertake their jobs properly;
• determining correct staffing levels so that staff are not overloaded;
• allowing adequate breaks during the working day;
• having provision for various types of leave such as carer's leave and “time-out” sabbatical types of leave;
• rewarding staff for completing their tasks, not merely for presenteeism;
• staff functions that involve families;
• providing, if possible, health and well-being opportunities such as access to gymnasiums or at least time to exercise; and
• encouraging sound management practices.

These recommendations are made to assist organisations to retain their talented staff and to not only retain them but to provide a more holistic experience that includes a balance between their work environment and their home life. In so doing, employee turnover causes such as stress, work overload, low job satisfaction and little organisation commitment can be alleviated and retention rates of good staff improved.

Figure 1A prososed model of work-family issues for hotel managers

Figure 2A framework for improving employee retention rates

Table IJob attitudes

Table IIPersonal employee dimensions

Table IIIWork-life balance

Table IVOrganisational strategies to assist employee retention

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Training Needs Analysis

Training Needs Analysis: It does exactly what it says - analyses training needs. But how do you do it, and why? Who needs the training, and what for? In this advice page we look at the TNA process and highlight important tips for making TNA more than just a paper-pushing exercise.

Start with the 'bigger picture'

The first question has to be, why does development need to take place?
 The answer to this is to start at the top.
 What is your company strategy?
Where do you want to be next year?
 In five years time?
Look at your company mission and corporate plan, if these things exist.
A corporate plan should give you a clear indication of how the company plans to develop in the near future. In an ideal world, you as HR or Training Manager will already be involved in discussions with those making the decisions about the direction the company is taking,
try to arrange to speak to senior management at this stage about any planned changes which are likely to require new skills or organisational change. There are almost certain to be some!

'Cascading down'

The next step is to cascade this information down so that it transfers into concrete steps to help the company employees work towards these goals.
 A simplistic but relevant example - if the company plans to bring in new technology, some staff will need to train on using and maybe maintaining the equipment. If the organisation is going to undergo major changes in the near future, all staff may benefit from workshops and briefings to help them understand and work with the changes ahead.
Some of these identified needs will be across the organisation,
others will be departmental/team specific and others will be specific to an individual.

'Funneling up'

The second question is to establish who needs to develop the skills and knowledge identified as important. There's no escaping the fact that this part of the process is going to be time-consuming, as any audit process is - you need to establish the skills each individual employee already possesses.

Combining the two

It's natural that individuals may wish to develop skills and experience at work which isn't directly related to the overall plans the company has. In an organisation with the funds and time to allow individuals to develop complementary skills - for instance, learning a new language which is unlikely to be used regularly in the individual's job, this doesn't represent a problem, as both the needs of the organisation and the individual can be satisfied. Succession planning is also a necessary consideration - the individual may not require skills and experience immediately, but may do if they are to fill a vacancy in a few year's time. In today's leaner, financially careful climate, where budget cutting often claims training expenditure as the first victim, it's become more and more crucial that the costs of training can be seen to contribute directly to the success of the business, and this is becoming the case in both private and public organisations. Calculating a return on investment (known as ROI) is a separate issue altogether, and one which is often fraught with difficulties. Read Xebec McGraw-Hills take on it here.

The administrative process - collecting data

We've already established that collecting training needs data can be an extremely time-consuming process. There is some consolation in that once the process has been done once, it's easy to go back and follow up what has taken place and what needs to be added to the plan, but even so, a series of interviews and/or questionnaires need to be distributed/carried out with every employee. To lighten the load, managers or others can be briefed so that they can conduct interviews to establish needs, or assist with form-filling if interviews aren't possible. The process of establishing training needs can be done as part of an appraisal process, or, if performance-related pay is related to this process, you may prefer to keep it separate. A new service coming soon to TrainingZONE will provide an automated version of the process for administering, chasing and collating questionnaires, taking a lot of the hassle out of the process.
When establishing a new process for TNA, like all new procedures, it's vital to brief staff to work to gain their support for it and ensure the new process is as beneficial as possible. One issue that may need to be addressed in particular is to emphasise the fact that training isn't just a 'shopping list', but needs to be relevant to the needs of the company. The knock-on effect is that staff become better briefed about the direction of the company - which could lead to improved motivation as a result.

Analysing what you've found

1)It's important to make sure you have a system which will help you store and analyse the data .
 2)This doesn't have to be expensive: Microsoft Office standard software in the form of Excel spreadsheets or Access databases will cope with this easily.

Implementing the plan

This is easier said than done - everyone who's ever tried knows how difficult it is to free up some employees for formal learning sessions, be it on-the-job, at the desktop or off site. The key is to keep abreast of the learning that is taking place, by putting in place systems to monitor. It's useful to have a nominated representative in each team or department who will report back on what has happened each month. If there is a training budget managed centrally, some of this information will automatically come to the training budget manager anyway, but on-the-job training is often not recognised or recorded properly so will present more of a challenge.

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