Top tips to increase staff retention
15 June 2011
Poor staff engagement is a major threat facing the hospitality industry and its importance will only magnify as the ‘war for talent’ continues to impact the sector. Hotel leaders must focus and invest time to address the employee attachment factor if they are to keep employees fully engaged within their organisation.
Engagement issues, such as staff motivation, identification with the company goals or willingness to ‘go the extra mile’ are rarely discussed at a senior level as hoteliers tend to focus on the all important revenue and profitability factor. But how do you drive sales and revenue when your sales people are leaving you?
Unless the industry is able to implement the systems it needs to motivate, engage and ultimately, retain its employees, it will continue to suffer especially against other industries with the capacity to offer higher wages and other benefits.The fact of the matter is that replacing staff is an expensive exercise with retention or attrition rates impacting directly on your bottom line. It is said that the average cost of losing an employee equals their annual salary – even higher for executive level and sales staff. This includes funds spent on recruitment, hiring, training, orienting, and supporting the new employee plus other related costs such as lost management time and energy spent replacing staff.
Training
One area where I can see improvement is investment into more systematic delivery of training programmes. This is especially important upon generation Y employees who are easily bored, and known to leave an organisation after reaching 90% learning capacity. Think of training as career development for your employees, and something that should be imbedded into your company’s DNA. Companies need to develop well planned career development programmes and strategies that offer every employee the opportunity to up skill. Companies too often provide training which just reinforces old skills instead of building new ones. By offering challenging training opportunities, companies greatly increase employee engagement and retention.
Training schedules should be mapped out for staff early each year or during their annual appraisal. Work together with employees and offer them an opportunity to offer their opinion on areas they feel up-skilling may be required. This will increase their interest and commitment to the training ahead. Training programmes should be well thought out and offer value to both the employee and the company. Work with human resources staff to assess needs and ensure that the training provider can add value by taking a look at some of their past work.
Staff retention is a serious issue and starts at the top. Training and career development programmes should be part of a company’s overall retention strategy and not viewed as a by-product of the training alone. Companies need to appreciate and understand their staff at a deeper level nowadays and constantly work to keep them.
Andrew Chan, MBA is the CEO of TMS Asia Pacific (TMS) and is responsible for the company’s presence, operations and strategic direction. He joined TMS in 2005 and has previously served as Managing Director – Asia before being appointed to his current role.
Andrew’s experience in the hospitality sector includes working for brands such as the Stamford Hotels and Resorts and the Carlton Hotel Group where he was Regional Marketing Manager. He later joined Hospitality Marketing Concepts (HMC) as their Director of Business Development, where he oversaw all sales and marketing functions in Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
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