In EAP 507, to complete a 2000 words review of literature is the final goal of this course. In order to finish this project, I have read 10 articles which are about “talent management” since my topic is Talent Management Strategies for the Hospitality Industry: Implication for China.
The review of literature is a kind of research paper which I will always write in upcoming graduate school. Therefore, I have learnt how to build a logical structure in my paper and use professional language to express my ideas from this experience in writing a research paper.
This is my review of literature:
Talent Management Strategies for Hospitality Industry: Implication for China
Introduction
Hospitality industry is one of the largest and fastest growing industries accommodating over than 10% of the workforce globally (Baum, 2002), which plays a critical role of the national economy development and makes a great contribution to local economy. However, the labor shortage is considered as a top driving factor influencing the development of hospitality service and its bad impact on hospitality industry will continue into future (Terry, 2005). UN’s Population Division data reported that both developed and developing countries are in aging population process proved by a stable contracted number of 15-29 year-old engaging in work labor (Deloitte, 2005). It shows the labor shortage within hospitality industry is increasingly serious. Furthermore, companies are complaining it’s difficult to recruit high quality talents due to poor reputation (Barron, 2008). To solve these problems, talent management strategies were suggested as an effective approach (Taylor and Finley, 2009, p. 83).
According to ten articles I have read, they presented diverse understandings of talent management and offer a set of strategies for talent management within the hospitality industry. For instance, Hughes and Rog (2008) clarified three conceptions of talent management and its significances to employees’ recruitment, retention and engagement. Scott and Revis (2008) focused on studying talent development and they indicated it consists of seven core elements including recruitment and selection, career management, training and development, succession planning, performance management, compensation and benefits and strategic HR planning. Yet Taylor and Finley (2009) indicated the labor shortage is a big challenge faced by the hospitality industry, no explicit solutions were identified to address this issue.
Thus, the purpose of this review of the literature is to address this gap by exploring three links of talent management strategies – Employee’s recruitment, retention and development – these are three critical strategies for managing talents. I will also review the literature on recognitions of talent management and find out a specific definition within the hospitality industry context. Hence, I proposed two driving questions: What is the most appropriate definition of talent management that can be applied to hospitality industry; How might help hospitality managers recruit and retain talent by establishing strategies on employees’ recruitment, retention and talents development.
Understanding of Talent Management
The Conceptions of Talent Management
Even though scholars build diverse meanings into talent management, they are alike with minor differences. In the middle of 1990s, the term talent management was first minted by McKinsey and Company, which was considered as a process including discovering and developing potential employees via an interview, a recruitment and helping new workers fitting to a company’s culture, and then attracting talents and retaining current employees to work for a company (Barron, 2008). It’s similar to a report from CIPD (2006, p.1), talent management was identified as a new approach to fulfill a succession plan through selection, improvement, retention, engagement and development of high quality staffs in a particular context. Therefore, with the evolvement of human resource management, the meaning of talent management was precisely extended and detailed by scholars. Lewis and Heckman (2006) had three perspectives on talent management. They described “talent management is comprised of ‘a collection of typical human resource department practices’” (p. 140), such as recruitment, selection, development opportunities and staffs’ promotion. Furthermore, they argued that talent management can be a predictor or a model for the turnover of human resource within organizations. What is more important, a little bit different to McKinsey and Company and CIPD, souring, developing and rewarding employee talent were identified as primary objects to talent management (Lewis & Heckman, 2006). Baum (2008) concisely defined the concept of talent management, he presented that talent management is “an organizational mindset” which ensure employees can be put into right positions and develop their ability based on business needs as well as Waston (2008) suggested that talent management as “an integrated business strategy” help employees fulfill themselves by developing their abilities.
The Importance of Talent Management
The paper focuses on talent management as the tool for coping with the labor shortage because its significance in HRM. In Hughes and Rog’s (2008) article, they concluded two reasons accounting for the significance of talent management: talent management can assure recruiting and retaining talents for companies; Talent management can enhance employees’ engagement (Morton, 2005, p. 11). They also declared that talent management is the latest weapon belonging to human resource management which can upgrade competitiveness. Hiring, developing and retaining best people are an ability showed by companies prior to peers (Cooper, 2005). Standing on a distinct perspective, Walsh and Taylor (2007) argued that talent management can increase the possibility of sharing talents within a firm and in this way, it also helps retain talented employees. These all side highlights the importance of implementing talent management for the purpose of enhancing competitiveness of companies.
Talent Management in Hospitality Industry
Scott and Revis (2008) said that talent management owned a property of adaptability, it can be adjusted to meet requirements in the hospitality industry. Indeed, talent management can be defined generally as well as it can be well-defined specifically. For example, abstract definitions of talent management in three broad fields in PWC (2007), respectively are “Blue World”, “Green World” and “Orange World”. In “Orange World”, talent management plays a functional role in human resource department and it maintains the competiveness of companies. Baum (2007) argue only “Orange World” can be probably suitable for applying to hospitality sector because it identifies a diversity of talents which satisfies customers. However, Clake and Winkler (2006b) explicitly presented the most appropriate recognition for hospitality industry, they said “managing talent is not just about identifying future leaders or developing senior employees, there are also key operational and technical roles that need to be considered if organizations are to succeed”. Since people know that workers in hospitality sector are paid low salaries and they enjoy low social status, it acknowledges the value of technical workers which will greatly encourage staffs to work hard and deliver nice service to customers.
Talent Management Strategies for Hospitality Industry
According to investigate 1,396 managers in 60 different countries, they found that organizations greatly concerned about the ability to recruit new talents and retain current staffs and these are perceived as two most critical issues faced by hospitality service (Deloitte, 2005). In addition, employee engagement directly influences an ease of recruitment and retention (Hughes & Rog, 2008). These three links interact with each other. That’s why talent management strategies contain several links, but here, I am focusing on three of them- employees’ recruitment, retentions and their engagement. Although driving factors of employees’ recruitment, retention and their engagement may seem trivial, they are in fact crucial because they influence the collection of corresponding strategies.
Driving Factors of Employees’ Recruitment, Retention and Engagement
Perrin (2005) found major driving factors of recruitment by an investigation to Canadian workers, included “competitive base bay, work/life balance, career advancement opportunities, competitive benefits, challenging work, salary increases linked to individual performance, learning and development opportunities, competitive retirement benefits, caliber of coworkers and reputation of the organization as a good employer” (p. 748). Different from Perrin (2005), work-life balance is regarded as a motivation of employees’ retention. Battlefront staffs care about staying with families and friends. If they can not have enough private time for entertainment, they are more likely to leave the jobs (Karatepe & Uludag, 2007). Perrin (2005) also found potential motivations of employees’ retention, they are “organization’s success at retaining others with needed skills, opportunities to learn and develop new skills, base salary, manager understands individual employee’s motivations, satisfaction with organization’s people decisions, retirement benefits, senior management acts to ensure organization’s long-term success, fairly compensated compared to others doing similar work in organization, appropriate amount of decision-making authority to do job well and reputation of organization as a good employer” (p.749). “Job satisfaction and life satisfaction” (Ghisell, 2001, p. 36) are considered as driving factors that has an impact on flow of employees.
Top driving factor of employees’ engagement included a trust between employees and employers, the level of employees’ participation and managing themselves, well-understanding the object of companies and know how to make contributions to it, career promotion opportunities, a strong company staffs proud of, team members, employees’ development and the nice relationship between managers and workers (Gibbons, 2006, p. 6).
Effective Strategies of Talent Management
After learning incentive factors which can improve employees’ recruitment, retention and engagement, I collected relevant talent management strategies from ten literatures.
For dealing with the labor shortage problem, recruiters are responsible to provide more chances for employees to learn skill and develop their abilities; They should communicate more with employees and learn their needs; Companies should enhance their cultural brand and give guidelines for staffs (Deloitte, 2005). Relating to solutions proposed by Holt (2006), he also mention useful approached to ease shortage of labor, organizations should focus on “outsourcing, improving productivity, recruiting in target markets, developing attractive employment policies, marketing as employer of choice, and increasing skills of employees” (p. 84). Baum (2008) concluded several approaches for the weak labor market including a well-defined understanding of talents, training and developing employees, improving the environment of work place.
Discussion and Implications
Even though china is a great populous country, due to the family planning policy, the aging population is serious. Coupled with the poor reputation in hospitality industry, hospitality sector is hard to recruit and retain talents.
Here are solutions might help hospitality organizations solve this problem.
- Assuring what is the definition of talent management and its objectives
- Ensuring that the CEO commitment and leadership to make the business case for implementation
- Establishing talent management and strategic objectives of the organization
- Establishing talent assessment, data management and analysis system, to ensure that people have the necessary skills to analyze use them
- The development of a broad-based implementation plan, a clear management best practices and evidence-based human resource management practices and structures
- Responsibility audit, making changes as needed
- Formalized process to establish an effective employer branding and employee value
- Ensuring that the organization claims managers at all levels have the necessary skills to retain talent and attract valuable employees.
REFERENCES
Bernadette Scott & Sheetal Revis (2008). Talent management in hospitality: graduate career
success and strategies. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management 20(7), 781-791.
Dana- Madalina Avram (2013). Aspects of International Human Resource Management in
the Hospitality Industry. Valahian Journal of Economic Studies 4(18), 19-26
Hui-O Yang & Nita Cherry (2008). Human Resource Management Challenges in the Hotel
Industry in Taiwan. Asia Pacific of Tourism Research 13(4).
Julia Christensen Hughes & Evelina Rog (2008). Talent management: a strategy for improving
employee recruitment, retention and engagement within hospitality organizations.
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 20(7), 743-757.
Margaret Deery (2008). Talent management, work-life balance and retention strategies.
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 20(7), 792-806.
Norma D’ Annunzio-Green (2008). Managing the talent management pipeline. International
Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 20(7), 807-819.
Paul Barron (2008). Education and Talent Management: Implications for the Hospitality
Industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 20 (7),
730-742.
Sandra Waston (2008). Where are we now? A review of management development issues in
the hospitality and tourism sector. International Journal of Contemporary
Hospitality Management, 20(7), 758-780.
Tom Baum (2008). Implications of Hospitality and Tourism Labor Markets for Talent
Management Strategies. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management, 20(7), 720-729.