Centre name: ICS Learn

Candidate name: Rianne Lemaitre

CIPD Membership 55487180 ICS student 21046981
Number: number:
Qualification title: Level 7 Advanced Diploma in HR Management
Unit title(s): Resource & Talent Management Unit code(s): 7SBL

Assessment number 40572/20

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Burdaky

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1st Submission Date 24/2/2023 Word Count 3294

2nd Submission Date 13/03/2023 Word Count 3224

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An analysis into the management of employee recruitment &
retention within the hospitality sector: A strategic business report
on a UK based hotel chain

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Executive Summary

This report gives an analysis into the current issues of recruitment and employee retention in a
rapidly growing UK based hotel chain. The study analyses the contributing factors into the current
conditions, which appears to be a result of, inadequate styles of management, gender inequality,
operating in a tight labour market, and ineffective recruitment strategies. The report gives
recommendations that have been researched and appropriately selected to help improve the
current conditions of the organisation.

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 Analysis

Employment Market

To achieve successful recruitment and employee retention within a business, resourcing specialist
must be aware of the current conditions of their labour market and be able to strategies ways to
navigate through any potential implications the market environment may have on their industry.
Throughout the last few years, the conditions of the labour market have had a significant impact on
all industries, however according to the House of Commons Library the hospitality sector saw the
biggest economic decline of all sectors during the pandemic. In the House of Commons Library
(2022) it was noted that from January 2022 to December 2021, the number of workers in the sector
fell by 3.6%, this compared to a 1.3% decline in jobs across all industries over this period. When the
pandemic came to an end, it became apparent to all that the sector was facing staffing shortages.
There were a multitude of factors that contributed to this, but the major ones seemed to be that too
many businesses were hiring at once, workers had moved away during the pandemic, and workers
did not return from furlough and decided to pursue other careers or further education.

The development and changes of technology is another labour trend which can potentially impact
recruitment and retention. Social media accounts are very common, and organizations are using
them as a form of advertising. Over the years, many types of social networking sites have been
launched, and as of today, some of the most popular are Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn in terms of
hiring tools (Villeda.M et al., 2019). Businesses are now competing for engagement from job seekers,
by using more social media apps such as, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Snapchat
adverts. By doing this they are appealing to a younger audience and those that are not privy to that
world will miss out on these opportunities. Companies now have their own social media pages for
recruiting job applicants (Melanthiou et al., 2015). For instance, companies are now creating their
own Facebook page and using it as an advertisement tool to help attract talent (Andrews, 2012).

There has also been an increase in Facebook usage by human resource professionals with the
intention of finding "detailed information about job applicants," and to screen and select the best-
suited applicants (Brown & Vaughn, 2011, p. 219). The traditional sources of recruitment are
becoming obsolete, newspapers, posters, notice boards, or word of mouth are no longer deemed as
popular. Therefore, it is possible that there is a pool of experienced Hotel Managers and
Receptionist that have not had the opportunity to put their applications forward to the vacancies
that have been advertised within the hotel chains. Perhaps the organisation may benefit from
reverting back to incorporating some of the traditional resources alongside the popular trends, this
will maximise the company’s opportunity of finding suitable candidates. Technology has also vastly
impacted the way in which people communicate at work now, the use of Microsoft teams, Zoom and
Webex through company laptops and work phones means that people can work remotely.

It has been reported that more younger people are staying in full-time education for longer than
they used to. According to the Labour Force Survey, (LFS), the share of young adults in full-time
education has grown appreciably over the last 40 years. Nearly 90% of 16 and 17 year olds are now

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in full-time education (up from 50% in the mid-1980s) and nearly 60% of 18 to 20 year olds
(Wadsworth.J,2021). This means that people are becoming more highly qualified and have less
interest in low skilled work, which influences sectors that require learning a trade. A further point
from this is that the millennials and Gen Z with immigrant parents who worked in those lower skilled
jobs, are now faced with the pressures from their families to achieve higher academically and in
their respective career paths. This may cause familial pressure for these children to do well in school,
since the sacrifices were made for the sake of their education, they are expected to make the most
of that opportunity. In addition, having the child understand the sacrifices made by their parents in
order to provide a better education for them may cause them to place additional pressure on
themselves in order to avoid disappointing their parents (Murphy. M, 2021). Hotel Receptionist and
Manager roles may not be deemed as the most glamorous roles to the younger generation.
Therefore, it would benefit the organisation to possibly target Gen X (43 – 58-year-olds), to generate
long standing employees. This demographic is thought to be less likely to move around in their
careers and are focused on stability. There is also a demographic of young people that may not have
done so well academically, and are looking for roles that do not require any qualifications and will
allow them to work their way up.

Conclusion

What the study reveals is that the organisation appears to be operating in a tight labour market. A
‘tight’ labour market is one in which employers are obliged to compete fiercely to secure the
services of the people they need. This state of affairs arises when there are fewer people looking for
jobs than there are jobs available; in other words, when demand for labour outpaces supply
(Taylor.S, 2019). As a result of this there is now a decline in the number of people with the desired
skill set looking at the roles that are being advertised by the organisation. Also this has had an
impact on staff turnover within the Hotels, as employees have resigned knowing that they will not
struggle to find similar if not better opportunities. However, the current issues within the
organisation have not been conducive to what is happening in its labour market environment. There
is a vast number of female staff leaving both roles, which is likely to be linked to the discrimination
cases. It appears that the organisations management team is male dominated, and the current style
of management is not being received well. The recent use of the mobility clause that requires staff
to work in any hotels within their region, appears to be one of the factors that have contributed to
the number of female staff resigning, alongside working unsociable hours.

Alongside the poor management style, one of reasons why the organisations management team is
male dominated is because men with families often have the privilege of being able to have more
flexibility with their lifestyle as opposed to their female partners. A recent Trades Union Congress
article stated that women are much more likely than men to have flexible work arrangements that
lead to loss of hours and pay. Therefor it seems that it would be easier for male managers to work at
hotels in other regions and have a shift pattern that frequently changes to assist with cover. It also
appears that these managers have not been given adequate managerial training which could be
contributing to the discrimination cases.

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Recommendations

As a result of this analysis and conclusion, the below recommendations have been researched and
appropriately selected to help improve the current conditions of the organisation.

Recruitment

During the recruitment stage the company adverts, and branding will be competing with other
employers to attract suitable candidates, so it is imperative that you appear to stand out from the
rest. As it seems there are more job vacancies than there are job seekers, so people can choose to
be rather particular with what roles they apply for. As previously discussed, the Hotel should be
targeting job seekers that are looking for stability and content with this level of career choice, as this
will generate long-standing employees. To find these types of candidates, it is advised that the
organisation uses an informal recruitment method which is ‘word of mouth’. An employee referral
scheme should be introduced as an incentive to the current employees that are able to refer their
friends or relatives to the two vacancies. If the Hotel wants to find similar candidates to the current
employees that have been in their roles for many years, then this will maximise the chance
generating more long-standing members of staff. The referral scheme will offer £100 for the
receptionist and £250 for the manager, only upon successful completion of both probations. The
company should actively encourage the employees to refer suitable staff as a way of addressing
these staff shortages. The CIPD states that this also an alternative approach to support greater
diversity and inclusion is to use targeted ‘word of mouth’ referrals to encourage current staff to
share vacancies with underrepresented groups in their networks.

The second recruitment method advised to find Hotel managers is to offer a Hospitality Manager
(level 4) apprenticeship training course. The duration of the course will be for 18 months and the
qualification is equivalent to higher national certificate. The benefit of this method is that it will
attract a multitude of candidates, although the scheme will be open to all ages there will be a large
amount of college leavers that may not want to pursue higher education and are looking roles that
do not require graduate level qualifications. The cost of this course from training providers is a
maximum of £2000 per individual, and there are two options the company can use to have this
funded by the government. The first option is for the government to invest 95% towards the training
and end-point assessment fees for the apprentice with an approved provide, and the business will
need to pay the remaining 5 %. Alternatively the organisation can opt to pay the apprenticeship levy
fee and will be given funds to spend on training and assessing the apprentices, the government will
then add 10% to this. The business can also get £1000 to support the apprentice if they are one of
the following: 16-18 years old, 19-25 years with an education, health and care plan, 19- 25 years old
and they used to be in care.

If there isn’t a large talent acquisition team within the organisation then it would be beneficial to use
a recruitment agency that specialises in the hospitality industry. The benefit of this is that they will
already have a large pool of candidates that they have built a rapport with and can vouch for, they
will also be able to cater to the businesses needs and find the specific demographic of candidates
that are required. At this point in time the Hotel needs to focus on maintaining the retention of the
current employees, rather than spending money on job boards and time sifting through advert
responses, marketing and calling potential candidates. The agency will advertise the job descriptions
given to them on various platforms, thoroughly vet the candidates, and schedule the interviews. The
larger agencies will usually have a fixed fee/percentage for their services, but smaller agencies are
likely to be open to negotiation. For example, if the company makes an offer to a Receptionist with a

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£25,000 salary, the agency could charge a 10% fee which would be £2500 as an added cost to the
Hotel.

Selection

The selection process is about candidates finding out more about the organisation and considering if
it’s where they want to work. First impressions matter; the process should be transparent, timely
and fair for all candidates. Candidates can share their experiences online, so inefficient, poorly
designed recruitment processes can negatively impact the employer brand and the ability to attract
candidates (CIPD, 2022). An additional key part of resourcing is attracting a wide range of
candidates. Equality, diversity, and inclusion should be integral throughout the process, with
practices and systems regularly reviewed to ensure resourcing methods are inclusive and hidden
bias is removed. Everyone taking part in activities such as shortlisting and interviewing must be
aware of relevant recruitment legislation and the need to avoid discrimination in recruitment and
selection. The Equality Act 2010 provides the UK with a discrimination law, this makes it unlawful for
employers to discriminate against job applicants (and existing workers) because of one of the
‘protected characteristics’: age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual
orientation, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity.

It is recommended that the organisation should use competency-based and situational structured
interviews during the selection process with a minimum of two people on the panel. Structured
interviews have a number of common features; the interaction is standardised as much as possible,
all candidates are asked the same series of questions, replies are rated by the interviewer on a rating
scale, and dimensions for rating are derived from predetermined critical aspects of on-the-job
behaviour (Anderson and Shackleton, 1993). Structured interviews will also help the interviewers
remain impartial and on track, as opposed to unstructured interviews there is more chance of
unconscious bias. The competency-based questions will specifically target skills or competency
relevant to the roles, and the candidates will be asked to share examples of how they used or
demonstrated that competency in the past. Situational interviews, on the other hand, use
hypothetical questions where candidates are asked to imagine how they would behave in a given
situation.

Induction

The induction process is the final stage in the recruitment and selection process, this is where the
new employee is first introduced to their job, workplace, and colleagues. The induction for the
Receptionist and the Manager should include the same principles and workplace information,
however they should be tailored to their respective roles.

It is recommended that on both employees first day at work their reporting to manager must:

 Firstly, sit them down and have a quick catch up on how they are feeling about their first day,
the journey to work, if they had any issues commuting etc.
 Give them an overview of the plan for the day and what is to be expected from them
 Ensure they are equipped with all the resources they need for the role

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 Give overview of company policies and provide company handbook
 Health & safety overview
 Give clear instructions about what the role requires and its purpose
 Introduce them to the team and ensure they receive a personal welcome from the senior
manager of the department
 Give them a tour of the building, show them where all the facilities are located

Retention Strategies & Diversity Management

Due to the current retention issues that have been caused by mobility causes in their contracts being
utilised, the frequent shift covers and having to work unsociable hours. It is recommended that the
business employees zero-hour staff members for shift cover and shifts hours that are outside of
standard business hours. Zero-hours contract is an agreement between the employer and employee
that they may be asked to perform work but there is no minimum set contracted hours. The contract
will state what pay the individual will get if they do work, and what will happen when they turn
down work offered. This will be more cost effective than using agencies as the employees will be on
the company’s payroll and there would be no extra cost to an agency. The vacancies can be
advertised through the companies website, ‘word of mouth’ which will be included in employee
referral scheme, posters near campuses to targets students, and on any free job board platform. This
will tackle the resourcing issue and give the current employees a better work life balance.

The business should also offer the Hospitality management apprenticeship scheme discussed in the
above, to internal employees in lower skilled roles. The employees interested in the scheme should
have completed a minimum of 1 years’ service and ideally shouldn’t have any performance
concerns. research was questionnaire-based and involved asking over 1,500 employees about their
perceptions. Allen and Bryant (2012: 72–3), stress the vital importance of providing employees both
with training and development opportunities, and career advancement opportunities. If they get the
former, without the latter, they are more likely to leave. Only when both are provided at the same
time will investment in training and development lead to improved employee retention. As well as
internal recruitment being cost effective, it also helps in the establishment of a strong internal
labour market, giving people a reason to stay in the organisation rather than moving on to develop
their careers elsewhere. This means that the organisation is maximising its return on investment in
staff training, while also enhancing motivation and commitment among existing staff (Taylor.S). The
company should also offer the managers at least one working from home day where possible. For
example, if they have an admin focused day and there is another manager onsite, then they should
have a rota between them to allow each employee to get the opportunity to work from home.

The HR team will need to set up a monthly training session with the management team, this can be
held via teams due the number branches across the country. These sessions will cover performance
management, absence management, welfare cases, disciplinaries, grievances and the company
policies. Employees are more likely to leave their managers than they are to leave their organisation.
They could be paid well, with good development opportunities accessible to them, but will still
decide to leave if they no longer wish to work for a manager who they dislike. In short, poor line
management, as well as ineffective leadership on the part of more senior management figures, is a
major driver of unwanted turnover (Allen and Bryant, 2012: 89–94; Grotto et al, 2017: 460; Investors
in People, 2018: 8).

To further add to the importance of diversity management, there needs to be overall strategies and
workplace behaviours suggestions incorporated into the business. To achieve successful diversity

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management within the business, the focus needs to be on developing an inclusive culture,
approaches to employment policies and practices, to personal behaviours and by managing equality
and diversity issues in ways that also support business contexts. The following practices should be
introduced:

 Train all employees to understand and engage with equality, diversity & inclusion in how
they do their jobs and work with colleagues.
 When advertising, role requirements should be clear, specific and behaviour based. Any
biased language should be removed from the adverts
 Anonymise applications and avoid asking candidates about the dates of their employment
history
 Reduce bias in automated sifting, include more marginalised candidates in the shortlist, and
avoid using social media to sift applicants
 Embed EDI in performance management frameworks and all managers’ roles; they have a
key role to play, behaving in an inclusive way and contributing to diversity goals.
 Introduce mechanisms to deal with all forms of harassment and bullying, making clear that
such behaviour will not be tolerated and setting out the consequences of breaking the
organisation’s behaviour code.
 Build EDI concepts and practices into staff training courses, management training and
teambuilding programmes to increase awareness of the need to handle different views,
perceptions and ideas in positive ways.
 Set diversity targets for recruitment and analyse recruitment data to prioritise inclusion
efforts.

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References

House of Commons Library, 2022

Hospitality industry and Covid-19
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings
Last accessed: 20 February 2023

Villeda.M, McCamey.R (2019)

College of Business Administration, Tarleton State University, USA
Use of Social Networking Sites for Recruiting and Selecting in the Hiring Process
https://doi.org/10.5539/ibr.v12n3p66

Melanthiou, Y., Pavlou, F., & Constantinou, E. (2015)

The use of social network sites as an erecruitment tool.
Journal of Transnational Management
20(1), 31-49. https://doi.org/10.1080/15475778.2015.998141

Andrews, C. (2012)
Social media recruitment. Applied Clinical Trials, 21(11), 32.

Brown R., V., & E. Vaughn, D. (2011).

The writing on the (Facebook) wall: The use of social networking sites in hiring decisions
Journal of Business and Psychology, 2, 219. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-011-9221-x

Murphy.M, 2021
Investigating Academic Pressures on the Children of Immigrants
Bridgewater State University
Last accessed: 13 March 2023

Wadsworth.J, 2021
School’s in: are more of the young staying in education during the downturn?
Economics Observatory
https://www.economicsobservatory.com/schools-in-are-more-of-the-young-staying-in-education-
during-the-downturn#:~:text=As%20Figure%201%20shows%2C%20according,18%20to
%2020%20year%20olds.
Last accessed: 13 March 2023

Traded Union Congress, 2022

TUC: Women much more likely than men to have flexible work arrangements that lead to loss of
hours and pay
https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/tuc-women-much-more-likely-men-have-flexible-work-arrangements-
lead-loss-hours-and-pay
Last accessed: 13 March 2023

Taylor.S, 2019
Resource and Talent Management
02 Employment markets and regulation, Employment market conditions

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CIPD 2022
Recruitment: an introduction, Attracting applicants
https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/people/recruitment/factsheet#gref
Last accessed: 20 February 2023

Taylor.S, 2019
Resource and Talent Management
02 Recruitment advertising, internal recruitment

ALLEN, D.G. and BRYANT, P. (2012)

Managing employee turnover: Dispelling myths and fostering evidence-based retention strategies.
New York: Business Expert Press.

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