Developing Sustainable Talent Management in the Hotel Industry : Can Sustainable Talent Management lower the turnover rates in hotels?

Abstract: The hotel industry is characterized by high staff turnover rates and it seemingly struggles to keep its talented employees. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify central factors relevant for the development of Sustainable Talent Management in the hotel industry. To understand why employees in these departments either left or stayed with an organisation four different focus groups were conducted. The four focus groups consisted of 14 participants total who all either were or had been employed in the Swedish hotel industry as recently as three years prior to this study. Another criterion for participation was that they had to have been employed within one of the three departments with the highest annual staff turnover rates in Europe. Front of house, food and beverage or housekeeping. The data from the focus groups were analysed using a thematic analysis. It was concluded that sustainable talent management in the hotel industry should contain instances of retaining and developing talent in an organisation, whilst taking an internal social responsibility for parameters regarding employees’ health and factors that the organisation can control. As well as instilling a sense of purpose for the employees. While also viewing the employee as a form of human capital, valuing them for their knowledge and capabilities whilst also including them as the most important internal stakeholder. All without the intent of financial maximization. The reasons why employees within the stated departments left an organisation was predominantly due to job dissatisfaction with aspects such as a lack of safety through insufficient work-life balance, no clarity in what was expected of the employee and no work autonomy, issues with development including unclear career paths and a lack of advancement opportunities. Why these employees stayed were job satisfaction regarding the same aspects. What also emerged from the results was that the satisfaction of safety and development job aspects would outweigh the monetary aspects of employment. Indicating that loyalty to the organisation had been made through the creation of incentives to stay. If loyalty can be created through incentives to stay, then sustainable talent management actions could possibly lower the turnover rates in the hotel industry.