Front line staff turnover retention at majestic saigon hotel

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------

Huynh Minh Phuong

FRONT LINE STAFF TURNOVER
& RETENTION AT MAJESTIC
SAIGON HOTEL
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City - 2019


UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------

Huynh Minh Phuong

FRONT LINE STAFF TURNOVER
AND RENTENTION AT MAJESTIC
SAIGON HOTEL

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
SUPERVISOR: Dr. NGUYEN THI MAI TRANG

Ho Chi Minh City - 2019


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The most important feature of the hospitality sector is that it is based on human
element and it is labor intensive. Since one of the competitive advantages of a hotel
business is the customer service, it is crucial to manage its people assets. The
customer satisfaction in hotel accommodation will be greatly depend on the success
of the personnel. Nevertheless, there is a rising problem of staff leaving as opposed to
the ongoing growth of tourism industry and important extension of job possibilities in
Ho Chi Minh City. It is demanding for hotel itself to attract and retain qualified
experts. Reducing the rate of staff leaving and keeping them involved in activities is
the option to lessen economic losses and maintain competitiveness.
This thesis aims at investigating the causes of Majestic hotel’s present changes in
front office personnel. A qualitative research methods via in-depth interviews with
the objective of gaining preliminary perception of human resource management at
Majestic hotel. The goal was to gather more comprehensive data in order to get a
further idea of their work.
The findings are discussed in details in the research along with some
recommendations for the hotel and management board to improve turnover rate in the
hotel.

3


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

A completed study would not be done without any assistance. Therefore, I gratefully
give acknowledgement to all who supported me during the time of doing this
research.
First of all, a special thanks to my supervisor – Professor Nguyen Thi Mai Trang for
all valuable guidance, without her advice this could not have been possible.
I also would like to show my gratitude to my colleagues at work and my friends for a

continuous support. I also send my sincere thankfulness to my parents for their care
and love.

4


TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................... 3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................................. 4
LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... 6
LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... 6
INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 7

1.1 Saigontourist holding company background .................................................................... 7
1.2 Majestic Saigon Hotel ...................................................................................................... 7

2. PROBLEM CONTEXT ............................................................................................. 9

2.1 Overview of the operation of the hotel for 3 years: .......................................................... 9
2.2 The turnover rate status in hospitality industry .............................................................. 12
2.3 The turnover status in hotel ............................................................................................ 13
3.1 Policies on working hours .............................................................................................. 16
3.2 Bonuses and benefits ...................................................................................................... 18
3.3 Working environment ..................................................................................................... 19
3.4 Supervisor support .......................................................................................................... 20
3.5 Cause –and –effect tree................................................................................................... 21

4. CAUSE VALIDATION .......................................................................................... 23
5. ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS .............................................................................. 25

5.1 Alternative solution 1: .................................................................................................... 25
the line manager assign or reallocate the appropriate tasks to staffs .................................... 25
5.2 Alternative solution 2: .................................................................................................... 27
Reorganize training sessions on time management and task leadership .............................. 27

6. ORGANIZATION OF ACTIONS........................................................................... 29
7. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................ 32
8. SUPPORTING INFORMATION ............................................................................ 32

APPENDIX .......................................................................................................................... 54

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................ 55

5


LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Business Performance of the Hotel 2016 - 2018
Table 2. Quantity and income/month of hotel in 2018
Table 3 -4 Training costs for management
Table 5. Action plan
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 –Organization Chart (2018)
Figure 2 – Business results of Majestic Saigon Hotel from 2016 to 2018
Figure 3 – Annual revenue breakdown of Majestic Saigon Hotel from 2016 -2018.
Figure 4 – Analytics of each function ‘s turnover rate
Figure 5– The turnover rate of other hotels 2017-2018
Figure 6 - Recruitment cost 2018
Figure 7 - Cause –and –effect tree

6


INTRODUCTION
1.1 Saigontourist holding company background
Saigontourist was founded 44 years ago since starting from 1975 in Ho Chi Minh city
originated from the travel industry. Saigontourist has diversified its company, and
now manages travel agents, hotels, resorts and restaurants fully equipped . It will
actively grow its branches overseas to guarantee a continuous development in a variety
of fields .
1.2 Majestic Saigon Hotel
Majestic Saigon Hotel is a member of Saigontourist Corporation. A 5 star hotel with
French architecture located next to Bach Dang wharf, in the center of city. The richest
Vietnamese American merchant of Saigon - Gia Dinh built a hotel named Majestic at
the corner of the Catinat . It was renamed Cuu Long, but the name was still Majestic,
under the leadership of the department of tourism. It continued with the upgrade to 8
floors and expanded further to Ton Duc Thang Street until 2000s. On February 27
2007, this hotel was recognized 5 star standard by the Vietnam National
Administration of Tourism. Majestic is also the first five-star hotel by the Vietnamese
self-investment and management. The Majestic Hotel was awarded the "Green Hotel"
by the Asean of Asia Association and includes 175 rooms.
In addition, Majestic also has restaurants:
-

Cyclo Restaurant specializes exclusively in serving food bearing Vietnamese identity.

-

Catinat Lounge serves Majestic's signature tea, coffee, fruit, and cocktails.

-

Breeze Sky Bar opens 24/24 and serves breakfast, lunch, seafood buffet in the evening.

-

Serenade specializes in serving European dishes.

-

Prime hall: accommodating 500 guests, fully equipped with the facilities of an
international meeting room.

-

M bar: serve the food, favorite drink is prepared in Majestic style. Especially the
presence of the band Flamenco.

-

F & B (food and beverage) restaurants are responsible for catering to guests when they
7


come to the hotel.
The customers to the hotel are businessmen, high class tourists, tourists in the form of
MICE (a type of tourism combining conferences, seminars, exhibitions, corporate
travel for employees ) and international visitors.

GM

Asst.GM

DGM

HR Dept

Accounting Dept

Sales &
Marketing Dept

F&B Dept

Housekeeping
Dept

Energy &
Mineral Dept

Front Office
Dept

Figure 1. Majestic hotel’s organizational structure
(Source: Majestic’s Human Resource Department)

8

This thesis focuses on the research of front line staffs who make a direct interaction
with guests. Therefore , it is easy to see that they are valuable assets and play key roles
in the hotel and their contribution are important in hotel growth.
According to the statistics shown in the hotel report, the number of employees leaving
has dramatically increased in the past 3 years from 2016 to 2018. Especially in front
office area, this number of staffs quitted their jobs are even more surprising.
This will be done through the use of qualitative research. Specifically, it will be an
analysis of reviews by employees and managerial responses. The outcome provides a
guidance tool to management, and it relates to turnover levels has to be reduced and
minimized by applying possible methods.
2. PROBLEM CONTEXT
2.1 Overview of the operation of the hotel for 3 years:
This is reflected in the targets of total revenue, profit of the business activities of
Majestic Saigon hotel over the years as follows:

9


Table 1. Business Performance of the Hotel 2016 – 2018

Category

2016

2017
%

Bil.VND

Bil.VND

2018
%

Bil.VND

%

269

100

266

100

253.422

100

Accomodation

147.95

55

149.758

56.3

141.41

55.8

F&B

94.957

35.33

92.568

34.8

87.177

34.4

Other services

26.093

9.67

23.674

8.9

24.835

9.8

II. Cost

150.57

55.97

142.748

53.6

132.112 52.13

84.46977

56.10

82.22

57.6

74.776

56.6

56.237895

37.35

51.53

36.1

48.089

36.4

9.862335

6.55

8.99

6.3

9.247

7

118.43

44.03

123.252

46.4

121.31

47.87

63.48023

53.60

67.538

54.80

66.634

54.93

F&B

38.719105

32.69

41.038

33.29

39.088

32.22

Other services

16.230665

13.71

14.684

11.91

15.588

12.85

I. Revenue

Accomodation
F&B
Other services
III. Profit before tax
Accomodation

(Source: Accounting Division of Majestic Saigon Hotel)
The chart below shows the business results of the hotel over the past few years. :
300
250
200
150
100
50
0

Revenue

Cost
2016

Profit
2017

2018

Figure 2. Business results of Majestic Saigon Hotel from 2016 to 2018.
10


From the data in Table 1 and Figure 2, we see that hotel revenue is decreasing . For
years, profits have not changed much compared to 2016. If in 2016 total revenue
reached 269 billion, then by 2017 total revenue has reduced to 266 VND billion in
absolute terms decreased 3 billion or 1.11% decrease. And by 2018, total revenue was
just VND253.422 billion, a decrease of 4.73% or an absolute loss of VND12,578
billion compared to 2017. Thanks to the cost cutting, the profit of the hotel still
slightly increased. As follows: In 2016, the profit was only 118.43 billion dong but in
2017, the profit has increased to 123.252 billion dong with the increase of 4.822
billion dong and the growth rate is 3.91 percent. 2016 profit reached 121,31 billion
VND has decreased 1.6% or absolute number decreased 1.942 billion compared to
2017.

Annual revenue breakdown (2016 – 2018)
100%
90%

9.67%

8.90%

9.80%

35.33%

34.80%

34.40%

55.00%

56.30%

55.80%

2016

2017

2018

80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%

20%
10%
0%

Room sales

F&B sales

Other sales

Figure 3. Yearly analysis of Majestic Saigon from 2016 to 2018.
Its revenue included sales of rooms, food and beverage and others. Room sales are
always Majestic’s largest share of income . They were 56.3% in 2017 , which is 1.3%
greater than 2016. During this period of time , F&B sales have been fluctuated at
34.4% – 35.3%. Meanwhile, other revenues decreased slightly by 0.9%, which
contributed a 9.8% to total number last year.

11


2.2 A turnover rate status in hospitality industry
Ho Chi Minh city is rapidly emerging as a top worldwide travel destination and
according to the 2018 Tourism Highlights Report of the United Nations World
Tourism Organisation 1, Viet Nam is among the top ten speedy increasing traveller
attractions around the globe. The overall amount of tourist has risen by 19 per cent to
86 million last year, while the amount of global visitors has risen by 29 per cent.
According to Grant Thornton Vietnam’s 2018 Hotel Survey 2, the luxury hotel
industry continued to see a better year with the ration EBITDA in previous year
growing by 1.7 per cent. Revenue per available room for hotels continued to expand,
10.2 per cent for five-star — the study2 showed.

The Vietnam Tourism Association 3estimated a shortage of 40 percent of employees.
Hotel officials remarked on elevated turnover of employees. Indeed, a number of
scientists found that the hotel sector faces the issue of staff shortage according to
Mohamad & Nurzeti 4 . Alan et al 5 mentioned that there is redundant rate of leaving
around 60% of all employees in hotel sector worldwide and Vietnam is not excluded.
As stated by Aizzat Mohd Nasurdin 6, there is always a high turnover among hotel
staffs. The greater intention they are to quit, the poorer service quality.
Based on some opened speeches from representatives of some other hotels and front
line staffs ,in the hospitality industry, employee turnover stays greater than in other
service-oriented companies. Despite ongoing improvements in HRM strategies and
policies, hospitality experts find insecure and unwanted employment in hotels.
In addition, FO manager made a brief about the problem of high turnover rate in
current situation. He shared that :
When I joined the FO team meetings or Human resources member from the hospitality
industry openly shared that in hotel industry, young front line staffs have trend to stay in 1
year and a half to 2 years in the current place before moving to another workplace.

12


2.3 The turnover status in hotel
Based on the HR report and analysis from hotel, as shown in Figure 4, the turnover
rate of hotel staffs was 41% (it means 34 staffs left the hotel) in 2018, which is the
highest number in the last 3 years. The point is that from the secondary data, in the last
three years , the percentages of leavers in FO team has been rising and as the result,
when looking into the turnover rate of total hotel , the overall percentage is quite
competitive in the market. In specific, the turnover rate of a whole hotel from 2016 to
annualized 2018 was quite stable , with 22 % in the year of 2016, 16.5 % in the year of
2017 and 17.3 % annualized in 2018. However, in FO team this rate is much higher
compared to the total hotel. From Figure 3, employees who work at front office have

the highest turnover rate with 41 % in 2017 ( increased 26% compare to 2017)

45
%
40
%
35
%
30
%
25
%
20

FO staffs
Back office staffs
Housekeeping and other

2016
15%
11%
8%

2017
26%
13%
10%

2018
41%

15%
9%

Figure 4. Analytics of each function ‘s turnover rate
The tourism industry is considerably growing throughout the globe and high turnover
of employees is a prevalent scenario for organizations suggested by Ongori7 .
Compared to other hotels in this industry, Majestic hotel has the highest turnover rate
with 43 % in 2017. These rates in others 5 star hotels such as Grand, Rex, Sheraton
are only in the range of 15-22% .

13


45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%

2017
2018

Majestic

Grand

Rex

Sheraton

26%
41%

12%
25%

15%
32%

11%
23%

Figure 5. The turnover rate of other hotels 2017-2018
(Source: HR report )

As a result, employees are a center of hotel activities in a extremely competitive
setting and are often the greatest competitive benefit stated by Zopiatis et al 8.
Increasing turnover rate of employees poses a threat to hotel vision of being a leading
hotel . Ellepola M.G

9

stated that maintaining low turnover rate helps reduce

recruitment and training costs because new –recruited employees do not contribute to
the hotel outcomes during their training and orientation period. Because the high

turnover rate, the front office has to recruit new staffs every month, leading to spend a
lot of recruitment costs ( about 7-8 employees left hotel per month ) . New staffs need
to time to be trained ; therefore the business results of the hotel in several months are
negatively affected. Turnover rate affect negatively to an hotel operation such as
increasing cost of recruitment and training newcomers, reducing performance
efficiency, etc. Lashey C

10

mentioned three types of direct costs when replacing staff

including : the cost of discontinuing of an existing employee, the cost of finding a
replacement, the cost of bringing the new comers onto work and training them to full
effectiveness. Simon et all

11

also found that turnover drives out profits , many of the

specified expenses result from hard to estimate productivity losses
The chart from Figure 6 show the recruitment cost in hotel in 2018 which increased
together with the turnover rate.
14


Million VND
120
100
80
60

40
20
1-2018 2-2018 3-2018 4-2018 5-2018 6-2018 7-2018 8-2018 9-2018 10-2018 11-2018 12-2018

Figure 6. Recruitment cost 2018
( Source : HR department )
Over the past decades, the issue of employee turnover has attained popularity stated by
Shaw et al 12. The staff rotation phenomenon is a key topic for managing people with
the fast development or service economy and global tourism.
However, both scholarly and business studies are challenged to design universal
frameworks to identify the main reasons for job leaving . The topic needs to be
analyzed from an organization's view.
Henry Ongori

7

suggested to differentiate key reasons of staff leaving between the

perception of work-relevant variables - organisational variables within the recent
academics . Every service organization consider labor as a core factor , therefore an
investment in human management is considerably huge. A trend of employees leaving
cause an economic fall for businesses stated by Surji 13.
Moreover, it creates a adverse effect on the hotel image. For applicants, a workplace
becomes unattractive. Team employees stay unmotivated and with little involvement
in the activities by Surji

13

.According to Bryant et al

14

research, all fresh staff

recruitment expenses often exceed the advertised position's annual wages. In
comparison, experienced and extremely qualified staff are guarantees that the hotel
will achieve defined KPI and its long-term policies showed by Bryant et al 14.
While the hotel seems to be a required location to work with each hospitality
15


specialist, line staffs tend to not remain in these roles. According to general statistics
of hospitality industry, since the 2017 40% of all Front Office staffs have quit their
workplaces. Employees at front line are essential because they are the direct contact
point for visitors and as such need autonomy to cope efficiently with the concern of
guests. Therefore, exploring the primary causes for elevated staffs leaving is important
before identifying a way to reduce this issue.
3. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
Luxury five-star hotel normally provides clear strategies for the principles of long-term
employee orientation. They provide greater wages, organized assignments and a
transparent promotion plan. Staff turnover continues high despite attempts to build a
strong workplace. Therefore, the internal reasons for leaving a workplace need to be
analyzed. To make clear the problem, beside theories supported, it is progressed to
collect secondary data and have interviews through three groups : ex line staffs ,
current staffs and line managers. Respondents had to satisfy the fundamental
requirements: they had to work in the front team or involved in the human resources
department.
The issues were intended to view hotel HR strategies from a line employee view.. It
included fields of payment, work environment, benefits, supervisor support. Those
questions were directed at obtaining information on HR policies, working conditions

and payments.
There are some key factors causing the front line staffs leaving at Majestic hotel
including overload working hours, unproportional bonuses and benefits with duties and
lack of management skills .
3.1 Policies on working hours
As the analysis of the finding indicates, majority of employees in Majestic hotel are
well aware of working hours in the hotel are not set up in line with duties . Also on the
interview session’s 8 employees mentioned that additional hours asked for them in
order to complete a shift. They specified unclear duties and not enough information
16


channels. According to literatures, Dess et al

15

described it causing employees

quitting . FO staffs asserted that they had to take on duties not mentioned in their
agreements. For instance, they had to do job without FO assistance. There were also
two respondents who didn’t mentioned about their supervisors since it supposed that
direct supervisors didn’t have sufficient skills.
Most staffs stated that additional hours need to be required for work, however
management doesn’t support the concept. Instead, FO manager has always been
against overwork and has been encouraging timely leave of job policy.However, the
amounts of job needed to stay extra.
In addition, there was no strong worklife balance among 5 out of 8 participants.
After five days of job, their responses generally engaged aspects of being mentally and
physically tired.
A staff stated that :

I think a day working per week is overwhelmed , I couldn’t rest properly and was exhausted
even during the weekend, there is no time for other personal things. A feeling of exhausted and
lack of motivation to continue a job.

All participants were questioned if the job shifts were intended for the benefit of staff
or employers. The responses based on the working hours issue is nearly third quarter
of staffs agreed that shifts or roster schedule intended to benefits for one -side of
employers.Management roles representatives confirmed that both sides benefited
from working hours.The remainder of the participants, however, were not pleased
with the changes as the bus schedule was tightly planned. A participant said that
A shift planning have definitely been arranged in the manager’s favour. Since I had to wake
up at 4am for morning changes and catch the first bus, but I had to run literally to take the
last bus when I had evening shifts .

In conclusion, the working hours category outlines gaps in shift planning
effectivenees. Five working days were physically and mentally difficult for most line
staff to deal with. Employees during the week are not happy because a number of
hours for working and considered it was absolutely not enough for the remainder of
two days. However, schedules have been developed in a favourable manner for shift
supervisors and FO manager.
17


3.2 Bonuses and benefits

All interviewees pointed out a staff wage was competitive to same standard hotels
however the range of duties was insufficient. Luna –Arocas

16

found that the

importance of financial incentives in staff retention goal is huge. The primary reasons
for employee turnover, however, were not low wages. Instead, the participants were
unsure about their duties and were not explained with specific examples of their fields.
Several participants highlighted management's failure to take complete possession of
the activities. One of the participants remarked on wage environments as
My wage was slightly greater than in my past hotel at the same place. But there were far too
many duties. I think the salaries were not proportional to those daily duties. Our hotel here is
much larger , therefore visitors need extra facilities. We are required to work together with
hotel inner strategies and global standards. We had to upsell and be accountable for more of
our equipment.

The primary data is correlated with Zuber’s

17

academics which suggested

implementing “insufficient economic incentive” term to explain insufficient rewarding
and bonus scheme as stated by Zuber17. The study describes elevated employee
turnover from the view, where the staffs with minimal economic incentives are
supposed to be top performers. In addition , hotel has announced benefits scheme
strategies formally. All this mentioned was introduced at the beginning of meetings
but throughout their work, most participants have never earned bonus prize.
One respondent remarked on the bonus scheme as
There was no bonus scheme that was supposed to happen in particular, it is developed as
excellent tables , so a bonus would be given to the worker who could upsell service center. A
supervisor pledged to do this but it never occurred, sadly

Hotel provided a broad variety of indirect bonuses, which are essential in promoting its
employees’ wellbeing. For instance, it provides complete medical insurance and offers
personnel prices for hotel service. It provides meals, supporting vehicle to staff who
need to do during the night. There are some staffs were negative about the quality of
food supplied. To using a system of personnel rates seemed extremely bureaucratic.
Most participants were unable to obtain facilities or rooms because they are bound by
a broad of working on paper and circumstances . Finally, a rate of staff leaving is
18


linked to a huge burden of job which is ambiguous to front line staffs . The work
had more duties, while the award was not comparable . In addition, managers have not
followed up on the bonus scheme, and this scenario can have a adverse effect on staff
and their involvement in the process.
3.3 Working environment
Within working relationships with peers and middle management, all participants
noted the adverse working atmosphere created by FO management. Surienty et al18
provided turnover intention is related to supervisory behavior, work life balance and
job characteristics. Stress variables and inner disputes at job, according to O’Neil’s19
research, are the key reasons for elevated turnover of employees stated by O’Neil

19

.

Employees management tensions do not contribute to a favourable working setting.
Ex- line staffs described stress variables and inadequate working supporting that are
primary causes to quit their jobs. Employees were satisfied with provided learning
possibilities within career advances and training. FO manager commented as
We offer the team members fair chances to give their thoughts or acquire fresh abilities,

creating staff with a helicopter perspective in activities is essential for our organisation

Without prior work experience, line staff valued content training

providing

perspectives and expertise about the luxury hospitality industry. Besides, staffs that
worked in hotel industry before had not discovered a mark of learning during a
training session and tend to involved in a line crossing training where fresh skills are
obtained with another area. For staff, bonuses increase are not proportional with an
amount of duties they had. Most of them outlined that the goals were huge whilst the
bonuses were limited , there was therefore no motive for further attempts.
To sum up, a rising rate of employees leaving is induced by irritating functional
setting and pressure with leadership. Moreover, a system of economic prizes and
bonuses seemed not to be well established. Finally, a rate of leaving would be
triggered by the head board values that aim only to benefit the hotel however , it does
not appreciate organizational distinctions, backgrounds and business changes.

19


3.4 Supervisor support
Hotel management directed at understanding the working relationship between FO
management line staff and head board. Those results showed difference in the middle
of the HR guidelines intended with their execution in conduct. Most staffs stated
supervisor job as inadequate skills. One of the participants commented on initiatives
and fresh thoughts as
I didn’t really feel important in my position. HR division has been independent to operative
hotel units, as well as a leadership has not drived an accomplishment learning.

In addition, the study discovered that employee therapy was varied and unfairly.
Representatives said that
Executives enjoyed some staffs more than others. Managers addressed the attitude and
behaviors of line staff.

Staffs are put under pressure due to the lack of supervisor support in daily operation.
Also, the job duties and working routine are changed by taking feedbacks from
employers only, which made most staffs feel disrespected. An immediate action
should be taken to reduce the number of staff quitting their jobs by building a suitable
training course and improve supervisor support . However, at present hotel has not
been pay attention to these actions. A supervisor who is new recruited from
acquaintances or promoted from a line staff , is not well trained about their abilities
and responsibilities.

There are no criteria to evaluate how experienced they are or

what capabilities they have. According to a normal routine of HR department as said
by HR specialist they just need a meeting before taking the job without standardized
documents. One current line staff mentioned that
The hotel would like to cut costs and look down to the importance of training management
level.

According to Green20 , transformative developing leadership that can assist staffs get
involved and decrease the desire to leave. Poor implementation of HR values and
workplace injustice have been the primary causes for front line staffs to leave the
workplace along with workload and strict shift planning. A hotel itself has put in place
sound policies and conditions for efficient jobs and retention of employees, but the
20

challenge is the application and uncertain plan to implement these values.
3.5 Cause –and –effect tree
The preliminary causes and effect tree will be developed as Figure 7 as bellows:
Working hours

Job
alternatives

Stress factors

Bonuses and
benefits

Payments
&incentives
Indirect bonuses
Unclear duties

Low trust level

Inadequate
skills
Combination
with studies

Working
environment

High
turnover

rate

Biased attitude

Costing on
time. money,
other
resources

Lower
performance
and working
spirit

Supervisor
support

Figure 7. Cause –and –effect tree

21


The turnover of employees result in intention, absenteeism, delay and operating costs
as stated by Lee21 , Angle 22, Mowday23 . Moreover, the low output of the work will
be found by Vandenberghe

24

, Lee25, Mowday

23

. Kwantes

26

stated that the

organizational competitiveness will be reduced if it last in the long term. However,
based on a significance of the problem, the participants in the in-depth interview
verified that the consequences of this problem were: reducing the output and working
spirit of the remaining staffs, adversely affecting the growth of hotel business,
impacting hotel reputation and increasing costs.
First, mentioning the performance and working spirit of the remaining individuals after
some colleagues leaving. For few coworkers left the workplace, it's still okay.
However, the team's spirit can not be as it used to be when the amount of leavers has
increased. The current staff required to cover leavers ' workload, and the commitment
was also not that high. The adverse atmosphere was then distributed to the entire team.
Once they are not driven enough, because of their less contribution and worse results,
hotel development will be affected. In addition, the service delivery can not be retained
owing to the absence of staff in the team. For all service oriented businesses, the
employee rotation phenomenon is a highly sophisticated topic. Employees tend to be
the heart of all activities in these

organisations and are generally the primary source

of competitive benefit as stated by Zopiatas et al 8. As a result, financial investment to
recruit, train and retain staff remains one of the largest expenditures of the
organization. The above figures provide strong evidences that high turnover rate of
front line employees is an outstanding problem for hotel operation. The managers are

looking for solutions to reduce turnover rate and achieve financial targets . In order to
obtain that target, it’s necessary to understand the causes of turnover rate, why hotel
employees want to leave and if those factors have any effects on this rate.

22


4. CAUSE VALIDATION
According to above causes and effect tree, interviews provided by HR department and
respondent interviews, among four above factors, it is found that the problem lies in
skills and leadership of middle management from FO. The management team needs
to do some quick actions to reorganize the workload in the team to ensure the business
will not be impacted. Because of this factor, it requires managers focus on them and
find the best solution to overcome soon. With the high demands, the hotel offers a
competitive wage for staff that is greater than in other comparable hotel and a full of
benefits provided.
Regarding to an average wages presented in the table below
Table 2. Quantity and earnings/month of hotel in 2018
Position
1

Board of director of factory

2

Supervisor

3

Team leader

4

FO Staff

Quantity

Income/month (million VND)
3

26

20

16

52

11

83

4.1

+Receptionist

4.2

+Conceirge

13

6.5

4.3

+Guest Relation

5

7.0

4.4

+ Tourdesk

2

7.0

4.5

+ Bellboy

12

7.0

4.6

+ Security

10

8.0

Total

41

8.5

158

(Source: Human Resource Department)

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As it can be seen from Table 2 whose the data are collected from hotel HR department
, the salaries of employees in hospitality industry are stable and only have a slight rise
in the period of 2016-2017. The fact from the below chart show that hotel is not the
one having lowest salary when compared to other hotels in this industry. Therefore, it
could not conclude that the employees in hotel quit their job for low salary.
Other reasons are not main factors that leading to high turnover rate. In fact, not many
staffs leave hotel jobs because of workload itself only because they accept to the
nature of service industry as a normal situation. Above factors were not the top of
mind idea from most interviewees . HR manager agreed that supervisors’ point of
view on leadership was a main factor that lead to high turnover rate.
Based on the possibility , the management which plays the big part in the reasons that

staffs are leaving. It can not denied that other factors also impact on hotel but
comparing with two above issues , they are less urgent and respondents did not
mention a lot about these .With this approach, it was able to gather a data and
comprehend the experiences of 9 interviewees in a hotel with excellent understanding
of the HR scheme. HR department and relative departments were indicated to
improve this situation, but it is facing some following difficulties:
Firstly, there are only 01 supervisor for each shift while the number of staffs totally
from 20-30 in same time . It means that each middle managers as taken care 25 people
in average. Thus the human resource is not enough to serve well.
Secondly, currently there is training sessions only for new hires and line staffs
operated across the hotel. So supervisors manage the amount of many duties without
systematic methods. It is recognized that the annual training session is less than the
demands of service which are required for job position.
To resolve this situation and be more proactive in providing services, hotel considers
approaching some potential solutions .

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5. ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS
Realizing the urgent of an situation, there are two distinct approaches for interacting
with staffs -managers and concentrate on providing alternatives to solve the problem.
Below are some optional suggestions applied for the current issue .
5.1 Alternative solution 1:
the line manager assign or reallocate the appropriate tasks to staffs
The issue that the manager wants to consider obviously is to assign the suitable
workload to team members. It requires to guarantee employee 's fairness, the efficiency
of the services provided, and the outcome of the entire operation. A current status is
many managers lack the abilities to manage tasks and individuals, leading to the team's
poor working spirit.

They do not have enough time to join the hotel training to get the technique to handle
their staff, coach their staff, motivate their staff and, in particular, assign the job to their
staff properly and fairly. Even high performing staffs would finish their enormous
workload with their efforts, but if the scenario lasted for a long time, their spirit would
be diminished and they would feel unfair, they would decide to leave.
One FO staff said that:
It was stressful because timetable was arranged to work continually eight hours per day with
an extra hour after shifts for add-ons tasks. Therefore I am so exhausted that I can not enjoyed
a break time.

Alternative solution : For now, the business head needs to host a meeting with line
managers, supervisors and indicate the problem. Do not overload current staff is one
significant move that needs to be taken instantly by line executives in the business team.
Negotiating with customers is also one of the most significant components. Dealing
with the timeline that we can deliver to them because of the current resources, explain
the service delivery process at hotel clearly to them and convince them so that people in
the team won't be over-stressed.
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