Employee turnover in hospitality Industry – Why?

Developing a Conceptual Framework for Research

This article attempts to investigate and evaluate the impact of employee turnover in the hospitality industry. It will also try to answer the question of why staff turnover is still an issue in this sector. The investigation will try to shed light on possible ways to reduce those issues and point out necessary changes within the management styles to have a productive employee and profitable organization. The above literature review on the association of employee turnover in the hospitality industry and the management strategies shows that up to date there is no intensive study conducted to explore the employee turnover as a severe organization issue and measure the gap in the literature. Some empirical studies have argued for positive relationships in regards to why employees move out of the workplace and the criteria that they look for in the organization. There are very limited sources of information about employee turnover in the hospitality industry. Some authors pointed out to low pay, nature of work and organization's justice as the issues affecting job satisfaction and employee turnover (Cotton & Tuttle, 1986). Therefore, the present research in this matter will attempt to identify the necessary actions needed to improve hospitality industry employee turnover. The table below shows the conceptual framework with the research goals.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The hospitality industry in Singapore from Employer point of view has indicated there are 66 per cent reported that it is difficult to find lower end position in 2013, this category implied to Singaporean and Permanent Resident (The Business Times, 2014). On the same note, Ministry of Manpower Singapore has indicated that there were 61,900 jobs available as per September 2013 compared to 56,400 jobs the year before as this proportion has increased 2.8 per cent to 3 per cent for the current year (Ministry of Manpower, 2014). To identified the reason for this proportion, several industry experts tried to figure out this situation and understand what can achieve to enhance the employee turnover toward retention program to sustain the employee in the organizations. The below literature review also pinpoints the models and organization management styles and needs, which will standardize future growth. There are approximately 1500 research reports directed in regards to employee turnover at the workplace in broad-spectrum. However, only a few of these studies investigate hospitality industry employee turnover (Shaw et al., 1998).

HOSPITALITY ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE

Employee turnover rate is calculated differently to find out the percentage of employee leaving during their current industry in tow process that is Voluntary basis and forced to leave due to other factors. There is a way to calculate the percentage of an employee going during the year against the number of employee working present year in the hospitality industry (Glebbeek & Bax, 2004). Many of the research studies are dedicated to increasing analytical example of voluntary turnover. However jobs satisfaction is unconstructively related to turnover and determined to resign or turnover intention (Bluedorn, 1982). Other core factors are influencing the employee leaving the organization besides the uniqueness of the current jobs (Hackman & Oldham, 1975, 1976, 1980). Facing demanding customer in the food and beverage industry has a significant impact on the hospitality industry market, as employment choices are widely accessible because it is a competitive market. This factor gave a direct effect on the service provider and organization workflow. If an organization lacks industry structure and standard operations procedure set in place in their working area, as a parameter for the employees, it will affect their productivity and performance level. From the managerial point of view, the Standard Operating Procedure needs to be review from time to time rather than implemented for the purpose of the knowledge base. This progress hypothetically will be dangerous to the employees and employer in regards to the uncertainty and lack of job knowledge as well as job satisfaction (Longman, 2001). However, Cole (1998) mentions that an individual etiquette in the establishment is the most crucial factor to have the smooth workflow needs to assured for group or team works. Evans (2003, p. 79 – 80) mentions that employees quality of work, morale, productivity organisation attractiveness are having uncontrollable high turnover.

Average Monthly Resignation Rate by Industries and Occupational Group

Table 1 on the following page indicating, Singapore accommodation and food and services in the hospitality group show the highest resignation average per monthly basis for the years 2018 and 2019. The rate has increased from 4.2 per cent to 4.3 per cent and comparing overall industrial turnover of 2.1 per cent the year before. However, the lowest resignation is 1.2 per cent for two different sectors that is finance and insurance and community, social and personal service sectors. Despite the human resource management doing their best to continue working with jobs centre and industry expert's attempts to hire the right people for the job tasks, the employee turnover is still a significant issue in the industry. 

Organisation Culture

Hospitality industry organization culture has a high impact on the employee turnover, due to the culture differences employee can move out from existing place quickly. In the organization culture, there are subdivisions to four other categories, and this as been deliberate in the following process. The main types are Power, Role, Task and Individual. The Power culture signifies a sufficiently meticulous work environment where the employees do not have any empowerment for themselves towards customer relationship. The Role of learning in the hospitality industry affects employees. These have been explained as the situation where there is always a superior individual that is higher in position and not able to communicate well or understand the lower-level employee's needs.

The task culture in the hospitality industry and the higher management level is when the employees are involved in the assignment -base or task-based operations or function area where they engaged for a while only. This task-based culture uncovers itself mainly at the back of the house (department employees) and among non-managerial individual employees. They do not face the customer on a daily bases Handy (1993). Nonetheless, there is not only back of the house office personnel being affected because of the task base culture, but it is also the same fundamental process taking place among the front of the house staff who interact with customer and have the same issues. Thus the culture in the organization is indeed affecting the organizational productivity and concerning the Singapore employee turnover percentage to hazardous levels as well simultaneously effecting the nation effectiveness Chang, (1996; The Straits Times, 1996).

Organisation Culture

Findings of these studies may not apply to an organization in Asia due to vast differences in the economic, social, and cultural environments (Cotton & Tuttle, 1986). All the other surveys conducted on employee's obligation to organizations and the industry have found compensation ranked immediately below chances to grow and to have an exciting job in the hospitality sector (Withiam, 2005). There is another opinion stating that organizational support towards employee from top management will deliberately have a positive impact, reduce stress towards rank and file staff to have excellent support from the team towards operation (Cooper et al., 2001). Several journalists are contemplating in regards to organization support towards their employees and indicating a direct connection with work-life balance in the hospitality industries. Nevertheless, with stress level employees are facing or conjunction of the daily workload has a more significant impact in the hospitality industry (Fenlason and Beehr, 1994; Cropanzano et al., 1997). 

However, Thomas and Ganster (1995) given different opinion, stating that if there were lack of support from the top management assigned to the employees in terms of improving measurements, it would increase work-life conflict. The hospitality industry is characterized as the service industry with jobs with irregular working schedule requirements and in the non-management category working hours, employees have minimal control over employment work hour schedule.  

As such, we could contend that organizational maintenance will have a positive relation with work-family conflict as well in the non-management category. Besides, corporate support can act as a moderating inconstancy between pressure and work-family friction. Research analyses highlighted that corporate backing acts as a moderating variable of the employee on the relation between the personal strength and occupational stress in the overall outcome of the downfall (Fenlason and Beehr, 1994; Limm, 1996; Winnubst and Schabracq, 1996; Moyle and Parkes, 1999). As importance, research in this area needs to find out why work-life balance creates a conflict between employee and organization and the support that needs to be given to employees in order to sustain them from leaving the job.

Group Dynamic

In the hospitality industry, employees are the critical factor of success of delivering the name and the product that is offered to patrons who are utilizing the services. The end product of each individual item is fixed or prepared by several employees in an organized way. The process is more coherent and systematic, whereby consistency and quality controls are measurable daily. The group is defined as more than three persons and more, and in the hospitality industry, it has been mentioned that more three persons can form a group. There are many ways to separate group as a party of more than one person and as well to uniform a group just for a needs to have more than three persons. Hospitality industry cultivates to have more clusters of groups due to employees individual preferences with the main accomplishment target achievement to reach the common goal of the job and corporate governance towards the customers (Schein, E. H, 1988). The dynamic in-group employer gives a strong emphasis on the teambuilding and involves the team in the environment. Despite the best intents of those activities in the organization, there will be a certain percentage of employees deciding to leave the existing establishment for the same reasons. Customer satisfaction is seen as more important than customer loyalty. A survey conducted in 2012 by the Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) has shown year-on-year deterioration of customer loyalty in the hospitality industry service sector (See Table 2). Customer satisfaction is linked to an employee group dynamic because of favouritism or bias among subordinates or management and line staff. Restaurant, Fast food, Café and Travel agency have shared the same problem and unlikely Attraction, Bars & Pub and hotels are sharing the increase in the loyalty progress. 

Below Link: Hospitality customer loyalty index Singapore 2019

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335788907_Customer_Satisfaction_Index_of_Singapore_-_2019_Retail_and_Infocomm_Results_Release

POWER AND THE INDEPENDENCE 

In the hospitality industry, reshaping or rearrangement the establishment's direction is one of the most corrective engagements in the establishment's workflow. This process taps on employee's concerns and sentiments in regards to the job reassurance. The employees become uncertain about their higher management ability to handle the impulsive changes, which involves them directly and will be done in a timely manner. During the processes of changes, employees intend to have a lack of certainty of the management values and leadership style. The essential factors that matter for hospitality workers are whether they obtain benefits and gratitude from the job and how likely are they to progress within the organization's ranking. (Peter & Waterman, 1982). Hospitality industries have gone through numerous actions in regards to management control mechanism point for the employee and middle management. However, the higher management, i.e. managers, are prompted by certain flexibility in the area of their proficiency in the hospitality sector. The standard operating procedure manual always had been abundance for the new employees because of the style of the current manager way of doing things being well adapted to the working environment. There is no control point for this action in the lower level department and management level to direct the newcomer in regards to the standard operation technique for all areas with the condition. Any organizational attempts to recuperate work-life matters will be offset if staff and supervisors are not encouraging of them (Judge & Colquitt, 2004, p. 397)

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT STYLE

A good leader will always continue to improve and innovate the individual, managers and the subordinates. On top of that, the leaders always try to improve the organization growth and own success for future commendation. In the hospitality industry leaders are the people who show an example to fellow junior in terms of working as a team and motivate an employee to achieve company vision and mission (Lavine, 2000). In the modern-day leadership and management in the hospitality industry is poorly pretentious by managing style towards leadership and the indistinctness about the future developments, as there are not many good leaders with solid knowledge working in this area. Singapore hospitality industry organizations have a lot of significant gaps in current management style and leadership due to lack of experience in this matter. It is often the case that industrial middle management exemplifies the workforce from the local market and is moderately undeveloped in the industrial aspect. The higher management, on the other hand, is mostly industry educated and mostly foreign talent and which has been in the field for several years. Both types of leadership have advantages and disadvantages in their respective sectors. Current styles of management have caused industrial scuffling, which in turn causes employee turnover to happen on a regular base easily.

Motivation

Motivation factors in the hospitality industry or many other sectors cannot be taught in a theoretical, exemplary manner. Motivation can be only explained during the service process and practice while working and adapting to the organization. The comprehensive experience and understanding of their area of expertise will enable the individual employees to provide quality services and good working culture Woodwort, R. (1918). However, Robert, E. G (1960) identified that, there should be some gratitude or appreciation as the motivating part in order to sustain the employee in the organization. Debrah (1993) mentions that the team supervisors with poor management skill and motivation will likely make their subordinate to exit the company and look for to find for better work environment. Clark (1998, 1999) established analytically based model of motivation that requests to illuminate those variables outcome sensible to workflow, which is critical to daily operation needs. This has the competence of predictive, motivated behavior. The Cane model of motivation is based on the past research of others (Bandura, 1997; Ford, 1992). There are three main manifestations of motivated behavior: choice, persistence, and Effort Price and Mueller (1986). The other factors have been associated with Self-efficacy; the self-eager to know what are the things going on behind their back the employee point of view, however when the condition arise while in the working field or not applicable for an employee in the organization. The are other factors that have contributed to motivation are self ability; the employee with this ability can cope with the situation or task in any given point of time and location. They are confident in the outcome and organizing the task with great dignity and professionalism (Bandura, 1997). However, there is one more group called support motivation that believes in vision and mission statement and push the service to the particular direction as a team with helping each others. However, the work environment is needed to be in coherence with the goal set up (Clark & Estes, 2002)

Ekman & Davidson (1994) have mention that in the area of motivation, emotional part of the employee is connected with the work environment. There are positive and negative emotions in every person and this will affect directly the customer as workers face the customer in the front line of service. Positive workplace and feel will create positive and happy behaviour, and the negative environment will create an unconstructive work attitude to the workplace. Eccles & Wigfield (1995) have mentioned that there is a group of employees who believe in the "Interest" in motivation and this group of people are very much involved in the work task and willing to learn the trade and are very focus minded towards the organization they working and give the high commitment to what are they doing. 

Clark & Estes, (2002) have indicated that people have highly selected "Choice" in the first place to enhance the to the next level in their work. The first actions that come to an individual will be chosen and from there can notice whether there is any action for the future development in the organization. Persistence, in the motivation factor explained that people who believe in one area and concentrating and doing continues progress toward the same task over and over again till they have succeed the best outcome. As well, Effort in motivation has indicated that similar indication with persistence and the only difference is in the mindset to work towards the task are higher than other (Clark & Estes, 2002). It is indicating that motivation does not always deliver the desired outcome that is wanted by the organization. It is an instrument that can be used to enhance the service quality and employee towards company progress. However, issues are arising in the hospitality with employee turnover even when the organization has all this system in place for lower the turnover process.

Improving Organizational performance

In hospitality industry enrichment of implementation is one of the key influences, which can recover the efficiency of the business and employee. There are six major areas for possible upgrading, and they are Employee assurance, corporation engagement, productivity, management transformation, elaboration, organization ethnicity and environment. In the hospitality sector, there are many individuals from different countries with a different way of lifestyles and experienced with equipped knowledge in the field who want to work in the same place. These are the influences contributing to decreased levels of morality and increased uncertainty about the employment among workers (French & Bell, 1999). Even the increased amount of work knowledge, training and development among the staff does not guarantee sustainability in the workforce permanently (Berg, 1991; Cotton & Tuttle, 1986).