Employee Fluctuation

High employee fluctuation in the hospitality industry
Helping you to reduce employee turnover in the hotel industry

Employees are a company’s most valuable asset

Worldwide researches have suggested that employee turnover is among the highest in the hospitality industry. But what exactly is employee turnover? Generally speaking it is the rate at which an employer gains and loses employees. Many hoteliers are familiar with this costly problem. When employees leave, valuable knowledge is lost and even guests may follow the departing employee. Moreover, getting a new employee ramped up to performance levels similar to the one you’ve lost takes time and money. Hoteliers who actively find ways to retain employees gain a sustainable competitive advantage. Solutions by protel hotel management can support you in creating an effective and success-oriented strategic workforce management.

What are the reasons for high staff turnover?

The key for a long-term and productive relationship between employer and employee is providing a stimulating workplace environment, which fosters happy, motivated and empowered individuals. In order to create a work environment that promotes personal and professional growth, an employer needs to address both “hard” and “soft” factors underlying employee retention.

“Hard” factors include things of material value such as staff remuneration, bonus payments and agreements about overtime and vacation days. “Soft” factors, on the other hand, are much harder to measure but just as important. First and foremost these include the general work environment and atmosphere which are mainly influenced by congenial collaboration as well as the validation, respect and support managers show their employees. In the hotel industry employees experience the highest stress levels when personally dealing with guests: True to the motto “the customer is always right”, employees need to stay friendly and smile no matter what the guest does or says. If this isn’t compensated by a positive leadership the frustration level will continuously increase. Career planning also plays a significant role in employee retention. Employees need to be able to define short and long-term development needs that support the hotels’ objectives and the employee’s career goals. Another emotional aspect which influences an employee’s willingness to leave or stay is the company’s prestige and philosophy. Too many discrepancies in regard to these factors cause dissatisfaction and consequently high employee turnover.

How much does employee turnover actually cost?

When assessing the future of the global hotel industry, it is apparent that high employee turnover will continue to plague the industry. It is thus essential that operators create robust strategic plans to retain their employees and manage turnover. According to research conducted by the American Hotel and Motel Association, average annual employee turnover ranges from around 60 to 300 percent. This is bad for the business and for employee, both of whom have invested time, effort and money while on the job. Actual employee turnover costs range between 25 percent and 250 percent of annual salary per exiting employee depending on the job type. More than ever, this immense cost factor underlines that the only way to put the customer first in the hospitality industry is by putting the employee first.

How do I develop a successful retention strategy and decrease employee turnover?

When looking at the most common causes for high employee turnover, hoteliers won’t need magic to lower it. Every hotelier has the opportunity to increase their employees’ satisfaction to create and maintain sound teams that inspire creative ideas and work willingly towards a common goal of delivering the best customer service possible.

We have put together a few tips for greater satisfaction of the employee:

• Take team dynamics into account when hiring employees
• Create a friendly and pleasant working atmosphere
• Build a positive employer image
• Create development plans with your employees
• Delegate more responsibilities to your employees
• Offer training and opportunity to grow
• Reflect on your leadership skills and competencies and improve leadership style
• Respect and take your employees seriously
• Allow feedback and give annual employee performance reviews
• Offer competitive and equitable salaries as well as attractive benefits
• Recognize and reward a job well done with incentives and vouchers
• Reduce employee’s workload by increased use of hotel management system

Ambitious hoteliers can thus have only one goal: improve employee satisfaction by creating exemplary working conditions, an atmosphere of growth as well as ensuring fair compensation. A continuous improvement of satisfaction will affect employee commitment and loyalty and will have a positive impact on organizational performance.

How can protel add to employee satisfaction?

The increased use of hotel management systems such as protel SPE can support your employees by automating routine workflows to reduce the daily workload.

One of the most effective methods to increase both productivity and satisfaction of an employee is by offering incentives and vouchers. Outstanding performance and success when reaching revenue goals for example can be rewarded with wellness packages or restaurant vouchers. This will please both employee and employer. To be able to offer such incentives, employers should create tax-effective remuneration packages. Once those have been defined, protel hotel management can help you manage vouchers with the protel add-on protel Voucher. Vouchers can easily be created and managed with protel Vouchers.