Challenges of Attracting and Retaining Employees in the Hospitality Sector

Running Head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Human Resource Management

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Recruitment and Selection...............................................................................................................2
Managing Diversity and Work- Life Balance.................................................................................3
Motivation, Rewards and Compensation.........................................................................................4
Employee Turnover and Retention..................................................................................................5
Evaluating and Improving the Human Resource Management (HRM) function............................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The hospitality sector consists of the wide range of fields within the service sector such as theme
parks, lodging, travelling, cruise line, event planning, transportation and fields of tourism sector.
With the passage of time, the hospitality sector has turned into a multi- dollar sector which is
basically dependent on the disposable income and leisure time. Multiple groups like direct
operations and facility maintenance form the part of the hospitality unit such as amusement park,
hotel or restaurant.
Attracting and retaining employees constitutes an important part of any sector and contributes
towards the success of the organization. In the industries or organizations where the employee
turnover is high, it is difficult to maintain the performance and productivity. Recruitment of new
employees from time to time requires training to be provided to them which, in turn, becomes a
time consuming process. It further leads to increasing the cost of the organization/ sector. It is
not easy to attract great talent as it is scarce and its requirement is increasing day by day.
Leadership development and improvement of processes can assist the employers in the attraction
of the employees in the workplace (Wallace, Lings, Cameron & Sheldon, 2014). However, in
case of the hospitality sector, the attraction and retention of the employees is a challenging task.
This essay will focus on the attraction and retention challenges in the hospitality sector and the
topics involved in this essay are recruitment and selection, managing diversity and work- life
balance, motivation, rewards and compensation, employee turnover and retention, and evaluating
and improving the HR function.
Recruitment and Selection
Recruitment can be defined as the overall process which involves attracting, shortlisting,
selecting and hiring the right candidates for jobs. In other words, recruitment is a process that
involves searching for and obtaining the potential candidates with the required skills, knowledge
and experience in order to allow an organization to select the most suitable individual to fill the
job description against defined specifications and position descriptions. On the other hand,
selection can be defined as the process which takes place after the identifying the pool of
candidates through the recruitment process in order to get the most appropriate candidate. The

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basic motive of the selection process is to ensure that the selection of best individual is made for
the role using the fair, effective and equitable assessment activities (Dlaza & Chinyamurindi,
2017).
In the hospitality sector, it is difficult to connect with the suitable candidates. Since the
hospitality sector is highly competitive, there are a number of recruiters who are reaching out to
the same candidate. Therefore, it becomes difficult for the organizations in the hospitality sector
to catch the attention of the candidates having the needed skills and competence. Moreover, the
candidate is receiving jib offer from a number of organizations in the hospitality sector as the
demand for the skilled employees is very high. This is the fact due to which the organizations
often lose the competent candidates to another hiring team (Stone & Deadrick, 2015).
Moreover, selection of the right candidate further constitutes a big challenge for the hospitality
sector. Structured interviews are required to be conducted for the purpose of selecting the skilled
and experienced workers who can effectively meet the requirement of the position. More options
can be available only when a lot of interviews are taken by the organizations, which is often a
time consuming process. Therefore, a lot of time is required to be spent by the companies for the
purpose of avoiding the hiring mistakes which is a challenging task (Timming, 2015).
Managing Diversity and Work- Life Balance
The term diversity can be defined as the concept which recognizes that certain unique
characteristics and traits are possessed by the individuals which set them apart from the other
individuals in the society. There are different forms of diversity and includes race, age, life
experience, sexual orientation, disability, physical qualities, work experience, personality, career
responsibilities, marital status, educational level, physical qualities, geographic location,
religious beliefs, income level, socio- economic background, etc. (Blancero, Mouriño- Ruiz &
Padilla, 2018) On the other hand, work- life balance is a term used for the purpose of describing
the balance required by the individuals between the different aspects of life and the time
allocated for work. The different aspects of life may involve family, personal interests, social or
leisure activities. The technological development in the form of increased use of e- mail,
smartphones, video chat, etc. have made it possible to complete their work without a typical “9
to 5 work day” (Carpenter & de Charon, 2014).