Journal of Tourism & Hospitality
Open Access

Strategic Innovations in Talent Management for Enhanced Retention in the Hospitality Sector

Urvashi Atri^* and Urvashi Kumari ^*Correspondence: Urvashi Atri, Department of Hospitality and Tourism, GD Goenka University, Gurgaon, India, Email:

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Introduction

The hospitality sector is now struggling with several issues, some of which include the unstable job situation of hotel staff and the deplorable working conditions that already prevail. According to the findings of this study and others like it, it is abundantly evident that businesses need to take action to encourage their employees to form ties with one another that are based on trust. Talent management should be given top priority to achieve the goal of cultivating a work environment in which employees feel appreciated and respected because human capital is the most important asset that a company possesses. Because human capital is a company’s most important asset. As a direct consequence of this, the morale of the workforce should improve, which should help the organization keep more of its employees [1].

Purpose of the study

The purpose of this study is to conduct a comprehensive review of talent management strategies and innovations within the hospitality sector, focusing on the critical areas of recruitment, training, promotion and retention. By examining current practices and identifying key challenges and developments, this study aims to provide valuable insights for hospitality businesses striving to enhance employee performance and loyalty. The ultimate goal is to offer a framework that helps organizations in the hospitality industry effectively manage their human resources, improve organizational performance and maintain a competitive edge in a dynamic global market.

Research question

This study's objective is to explore the effects of putting in place talent management programmes on the performance, loyalty and retention rates of hospitality organizations as well as their overall competitiveness. The importance of capturing new talent in the organization.

Research objectives

Resolve frequently arises in the workplace due to a lack of guidance from superiors, which prevents employees from advancing their careers and failing to live up to the expectations of the firm. To implement creative career development plans and talent management programmes for the employees. Crucial phases in the talent management process leading to effective and optimized talent management strategies in the hospitality sector [2].

Materials and Methods

Global context

Talent management has been an essential focus for many businesses because of its proven capacity to increase agility and ultimately, productivity. To succeed in today's sophisticated and cutthroat global market, it is crucial to create and maintain a solid talent pipeline. Recently, PwC surveyed worldwide CEOs and found that talent availability has been a constant top 10 worry over the last decade. The World economic forum's conclusions of rising skills supply-demand mismatch in many organizations and across occupations and nations are corroborated by these results. Management of people is defined as the "process of discovering, getting, developing and managing suitable talent”. To meet the long-term strategic requirements of an organisation, a system must be put in place to ensure its short-term productivity and this "process" is an integral aspect of that system.

The hotel business is struggling to compete globally and attract and keep top talent because it has failed to adapt to shifting workforce demographics and employee expectations. This has a direct impact on the company's struggles to maintain market share. Keeping this in mind is crucial if you want to attract and retain the greatest talent in the United States. Employers, on the other hand, should be open to the idea that their employees could want to cultivate their distinct leadership styles. For these models to be effective, they must include measures for both attracting and retaining personnel [3].

Scholar and practitioner interest in talent management is rising rapidly, making it one of the most rapidly expanding areas of study in business and management. As a result, both SMEs and MNCs struggle with talent acquisition, development, retention and deployment.

•To do a concise literature review on talent management in the hotel industry.
•To learn about issues, developments and solutions that are unique to the hospitality industry.

These were our aims in doing the research. Initiating this effort was motivated primarily by a desire to make an early contribution to the ongoing research on these topics.

Indian context

Like many other sectors, the hotel business struggles with finding and retaining qualified workers. Significant problems with talent retention, turnover and dedication plague India's hotel industry. The hotel sector has begun to regard Talent Management (TM) as a strategic lever to improve organisational performance via committed and engaged personnel in response to macro-level issues such as the recent pandemic. Even though studies on organisational commitment are many, few have focused on the relationship between TM and commitment in the Indian hotel industry. To investigate what factors might explain the connection between TM practises and organisational commitment, this study reviewed the relevant literature and then evaluated three hypotheses. The hypotheses were tested through the application of structural equation modelling in AMOS 26. The research concluded that TM practices in the hospitality industry had a major impact on employee dedication to the company [4].

According to Mellahi, strategic talent management is the process of systematically identifying crucial positions, creating a pool of high-potential people to fill those roles and implementing a differentiated human resource architecture to acquire a competitive edge. Talent management should be adopted as a standard approach to managing human resources by all firms to improve the industry's standing as an appealing place to work and a provider of high-quality products and services. The industry as a whole will benefit from the increased positivity this creates. Strategic human resource management also involves identifying and cultivating a pool of potential candidates for open positions. To remain competitive, talent management is essential because it increases productivity and efficiency.

Research gap

The majority of hospitality businesses have problems with employee productivity and attitudes toward their jobs because management has failed to establish an institutional structure that would make it possible for employees to participate in career development programmes, which are necessary for ongoing skill improvement. It is essential to have career development programmes in place to improve the performance of an organisation and its operational capabilities.

Research methodology

As part of this study, an in-depth analysis of a pioneer in the field of talent management will be conducted. The hotel company is now discussing the concept as part of its ongoing attempts to boost the efficiency of its operations. Most of the key information came from administrative and staff individuals. Concerns about assessment and measurement, the cost-benefit relationship and the difficulties of implementing a talent management strategy will be raised. To better understand how employees feel about the talent management programme (Figure 1) [5].

Figure 1: Talent management's crucial phases.

Data analytics

The participant demographic characteristics for this article are shown in Table 1 below. According to the respondents' gender of participation, 86 respondents (or 35.8%) are female and 154 respondents (or 64.2%) are male. This suggests that there are more male workers than female employees in the hospitality business of the organization under investigation. According to the respondents' work experience, 86 out of the respondents have worked in the hospitality business, compared to 31 who have worked there for 11 years or more and 123 who have worked there for 6-10 years. The results show that, about the age distribution of the participants, 87 individuals (36.3%) are 46 years of age or older, 113 individuals (47.1%) are between the ages of 36 and 45 and 40 individuals (16.7%) are between the ages of 20 and 35. Furthermore, the participants' educational backgrounds revealed that 8 respondents (or 3.3% of the sample) held a PhD; Of the participants, 78 have a diploma certificate, making up 32.5 percent of the total, 46 have a master's degree, making up 19.2 percent and 108 have a bachelor's degree, making up 45.0%. This implies that respondents with bachelor's degrees and other educational backgrounds are more common than other participant demographics [6].

Table 1: Demographic profiles of participents.

Table 2 (below) displays the regression findings, which show that the three talent management. Dimensions talent acquisition, talent development and talent retention have a major impact on employees' discretionary work behavior in the hotel industry. The findings indicate that, in hospitality organizations, talent attraction has a noteworthy and positive impact on altruistic behavior (0.669*; p<0.05). Talent development follows this trend, with an additional increase in progression and positive effects on sportsmanship (0.703*; p<0.05). Next in importance and having a beneficial impact on conscientiousness is talent retention (0.844*; p<0.05). Altruism may account for 45% of the variation in talent attraction, according to the models' R² values. Sportsmanship may account for 49% of the variance in talent growth, according to the second model, while conscientiousness can account for 71% of the variation in talent retention, according to the third model. Additionally, the data demonstrate that there is no sampling error because the models

R² and adjusted R² differences are less than 5%. Since the computed F Stat. values (192.797; 232.586; 590.363) are more than the tabulated 3.89, which supports the rejections of the null hypotheses while accepting the alternative hypotheses, the models' authenticity was noteworthy [7].

Table 2: Hypotheses results.

The aforementioned findings support the notion that talent management is a predictor of discretionary work behavior in the hospitality sector by demonstrating that talent management characteristics have a substantial impact on measures of discretionary work behavior. The results of this study have demonstrated the tremendous potential for talent management strategies focused on attracting, developing and keeping employees to influence the approaches taken by the hospitality sector to manage personnel.

In this analysis, the discriminant validity of the constructs applied in this study is tested based on Fornell Larcker criteria as depicted in Table 3 below. This table shows the average variance extracted for each construct stated in the diagonal line and ranges from 0.039 to 0.157, all in bold. Thus, for the measure of employee retention, optional calculation shows that the square root of AVE is equal to 0.840 which was higher than the correlations of the factor with other constructs ranging from 0.501 to 0.602. Thus, this proves the hypothesis that employee retention is a unique construct and does not include other related ones. It also reveals career development with a square root of AVE equal to 0.818 and thus higher than its correlations with other constructs represented by the values between 0.544 to 0.661, this proves that the career development variable is fairly well-defined relative to other variables included in the study. Competency mapping for the organizations maintaining average issue association values, having a square root of AVE of 0.849, also determines the construct’s differences, as it rises higher than correlational coefficients with other constructs, varying from 0.501 to 0.555. It has been determined that for the case of employee engagement AVE has a square root of 0.798, greater than the values of other constructs: Thus, the correlations being greater than 0.546 to 0.744, confirming its distinctiveness. Lastly, as related to performance management, the organization gets the square root of AVE of 0.808 with other constructs, it is higher than the correlations with other constructs, which are 0.529 to 0.744, which also justifies the discriminant validity of the supposed constructs. In total, discriminant validity R-squares range from 0.85 to 0.97, with the square roots of AVE for each construct higher than their respective maximal inter-construct correlations. This rules out that the measures applied are fit for assessing the peculiarities of talent management strategies in the hospitality industry and it validates the reliability of the constructs in this research [8].

Table 3: Discriminant validity Fornell and Larcker.

Path coefficient shows the interactions of distinct constructs and their bearings on the aspect of employee retention in the hospitality industry. There is also the path coefficient that shows the influence in the figure, where Career Development (CD) is found to have the highest impact on the level of employee retention. 450, thus the importance of this variable. It is followed by Performance Management (PM) which has a positive link strength of 0.309 with a special focus on its use in retention strategies. Retention is also significantly influenced by EE, though the path coefficient isn’t as strong as 0.211. Although the growth factor in Competency Mapping (CM) has been surveyed to have constructive implications on retention, the path coefficient identified is low at 0.166, meaning it has an indirect impact through career development and performance management. The coefficients indicative of the factor loadings of each of the constructs vary from 0.756 to 0.861 suggesting the reliability of the measures used. In sum, this study highlights the urgent and significant roles of well-developed career development initiatives and effective performance management systems in the improvement of retention in the hospitality sector (Figure 2) [9].

Figure 2: Path coefficient.

Results and Discussion

Hospitality businesses operate in an environment that is both dynamic and complex, employee operational capability, skills and working competence will all improve as a result of an organization's ability to strategy today and strengthen its most prominent capability and differentiating edge. This is because the environment in which hospitality businesses operate is complex. It is possible to sustain a high level of performance through the use of career mentoring, provided that it is used to supplement the on-the-job training of employees with professional guidance, training and feedback. Because of this, companies that operate in the hospitality sector are strongly encouraged to foster a welcoming culture inside their workplaces by providing their employees with career counselling and a wide range of chances for professional development [10].

Suggestions

According to the report, companies should encourage and formalize career counselling programs as a proactive way to offer a long-term structure that will enable employees to get the operational skills required to perform better on the job in a normal company. This is based on the facts that were previously discussed and indicate that companies ought to institutionalize and support career counselling programs. If a company wants its employees to be successful in their roles, one more area that needs a lot of attention is career mentorship programmes, which can train employees while they are on the job. In conclusion, management needs to devise a method for routinely assessing the level of expertise possessed by employees. If they do so, then their employees will have a greater opportunity to learn new skills that will assist them in being more proactive in their operations and adapting to the changing environmental variables.

Limitations

The use of a case study research design and more broadly, a single-case inquiry will be significant limitations of this work. This strategy was necessary due to the limited number of organisations using talent management software and difficulties with gaining entry to such programmes. While this restriction may impact the study's generalizability, the study's novelty and the depth of its inquiry may more than make up for it.

Future scope

Future research could track the long-term career trajectories of participants in talent management programs to assess their professional development and the sustained impact on organizational performance. Additionally, expanding the study to include multiple case studies across different regions and sectors would enhance generalizability and provide broader insights.

Conclusion

In addition, talent management is intricately connected with a wide variety of theoretical frameworks of contemporary organisational improvement. As a result, there is an increase in both individual and collective levels of achievement. In today's technologically advanced and increasingly competitive climate, it is essential for every company that hopes to thrive to provide its staff with the training and education necessary to be innovative, creative and ingenious. A focus on talent management produces several beneficial effects for both individuals and organizations, including increased productivity, superior problem-solving abilities for both parties, improved career planning and employability, a sustained competitive advantage, increased organizational commitment and improved organizational retention. All of these results are advantageous to the organization overall. In addition to this, fostering a culture of lifelong learning helps to preserve a committed workforce. Therefore, the most effective way to ensure a company's continuous success is to identify its talent pool and invest in the professional development of its employees who show the most potential for advancement within the company.

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