Challenges of Managing Talent in the Hospitality Sector

Research Project

Table of Contents
Topic – “Challenges of managing talent in the hospitality sector...................................................3
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
LO1..................................................................................................................................................3
P1 Research proposal and literature review ..........................................................................3
Research aim and objectives..................................................................................................3
Rationale of research..............................................................................................................4
Time Scale..............................................................................................................................4
Literature Review.............................................................................................................................5
Theme 1: Importance of Talent Management........................................................................5
Theme 2: Challenges of managing talent...............................................................................5
Theme 3: Ways to develop and manage talent.......................................................................6
P2 Appropriate research methods ..........................................................................................6
Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Method Research.........................................................6
A Sample................................................................................................................................7
Ethics, reliability and validity.................................................................................................7
Analysing data........................................................................................................................7
LO2..................................................................................................................................................7
P3: Primary and secondary research using appropriate methods ..........................................7
P4. Analytical tools to analyse research findings and data..................................................10
LO3................................................................................................................................................20
P5: Research outcomes in an appropriate manner................................................................20
LO4................................................................................................................................................21
P6 Reflect on the effectiveness of research methods ..........................................................21
P7. Alternative research methodologies and lessons learnt in view of the outcomes..........21
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS .........................................................................22
Conclusion ...........................................................................................................................22
Recommendations ...............................................................................................................22
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................1
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Topic – “Challenges of managing talent in the hospitality sector
Introduction
Today, to earn a competitive image, it becomes highly essential for a company, to develop
and manage the talent systematically. It concerns on abilities, skills, knowledge and expertise
which determine productivity of workers, to achieve corporate goals (Flick, 2015). For this
purpose, management focuses mainly on bringing new talent and managing existing ones at
workplace. A research regarding with this concept, including challenges that a company may
face while managing talent, is done in present project. To conduct study on such a wide concept,
Cosmos Holiday is chosen which is a Tour operator of UK and founded in 1961. It offers a range
of tour and travel related services, cruises as well as railway journeys in more than countries. A
number of employees who are highly talented are worked in this company, who give their best
performances to increase satisfaction of customers. Since there are number of organisations
present like Globus, Trafalgar, Insight Vacations and more, that operate business in same sector,
therefore, management of Cosmos Holidays highly concerns on managing and retaining best
talent at workplace.
Talent management is one of the important functions of a company, which concerns on
attracting top talent, employee engagement and motivation, increase their performance and more.
This would help in retaining top talent and improving business performance, as well as higher
client satisfaction also (Murillo and King 2019). In context with Cosmos Holidays, as it deals in
hospitality industry where competition is much high, therefore, it is essential for this firm to
manage talent. But before developing strategies for talent management, the challenges or
problems which may arise in front of organisation, are needed to identify first. For this purpose,
to conduct a study, following aims and objectives will be addressed, by a number of
methodologies like literature review, primary data analysis and more.
LO1
P1 Research proposal and literature review
Research aim and objectives
Research Aim: “To determine the challenges that a company face in talent management at
workplace”. A research on Cosmos Holidays
Research objectives:

 To evaluate the importance of managing talent at workplace.
 To identify the challenges which may arise in front of Cosmos Holiday while developing
and managing talent at its workplace.
 To determine ways by which talent can be managed systematically within an
organisation.
Research Questions:
 What challenges a company may face during talent management that deal in
hospitality sector?
Rationale of research
For making research on a wide concept, Talent Management as the main topic is chosen
by present researchers, because it will help them on analysing why developing own skills is
essential, to work in a large company. It will also give opportunity to analyse value of a talented
person in organisation, so that during academics, researchers of present project will concern
more on enhancing own skills and knowledge.
Time Scale

Literature Review
Theme 1: Importance of Talent Management
As per views of Budhwar and et. al. (2019), it has been analysed that talent management
is the main human resource function of a company. It concerns on hiring, managing, developing
and retaining most eligible employees at workplace, who have capabilities to give best
performance for achievement of corporate goals. In context with Cosmos Holiday, it will give a
number of opportunities to attract skilled and talented employees, that helps in creating an
employer brand also. Along with this, as today, people before taking tour and travel services
used to evaluate how much company is able to meet their expectations. Therefore, talent
management will help Cosmos Holiday not only attract new employees but also in retaining the
new one.
Theme 2: Challenges of managing talent
According to Murillo and King (2019), it has determined that in managing talent, a
number of challenges can be faced by a firm. It includes ethnic and cultural difference because
hiring workers from different-different background would arise diversity at workplace. As
Cosmos Holidays offer services in more than 40 countries therefore, it has employed workers
who are efficient in having knowledge of different languages. So, embracing talent could be

more difficult in such case, because it forces such companies to hire new employees, which
demotivate existing ones as well as increase gap and knowledge skills also (Diversity in the
workplace: 4 Common Challenges and Solutions, 2018). Furthermore, respecting and managing
such type of difference arise issue in front of management to deal with socio-cultural problems
and develop collaboration among all.
Theme 3: Ways to develop and manage talent
As per views of Karim Ansari (2017) for managing talent and overcome from the same, a
number of strategies can be made. It includes creating effective job description, which includes
necessary skills, work relationship, overall duties, company’s code of ethics etc., so that new
applicants can acknowledge themselves about how to work systematically (Six Simple Talent
Management Strategies, 2017). Similarly, assessing candidate cultural fit and creating a culture
of trust, between management and among employees will also help managers of Cosmos
Holidays to increase employee engagement. Furthermore, providing continuous training and
development opportunities will aid managers of respective firm to overcome from challenges of
talent management.
P2 Appropriate research methods
For conducting research, both primary and secondary sources are used that will help in
addressing research problems in most effective manner (Gioia, Corley and Hamilton, 2013). In
this regard, primary research will be conducted by developing a self-questionnaire method,
where employees of Cosmos Holidays will be taken as respondents. While secondary research
will be carried out by undertaking a number of articles from authenticate sources, that will help
in gathering expert views to resolve research problems.
Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Method Research
A number of research methods can be applied for making a project on a vast topic –
Talent Management. It includes qualitative, quantitative and mixed research methods, which
provide different-different techniques. Qualitative research is used to conduct theoretical study
while quantitative is for numerically analyse the information. In context with present project,
mixed research methods will be used to collect, analyse and integrate both qualitative and
quantitative information.