Assessment 2: Report Assessment Type: Report Weighting: 50% Word Limit: 2,000 words Referencing style: APA Investigate appropriate solutions to the organisational issue or problem you identified which is “High staff turnover of operational and middle management at Compass Group, Restaurant Associates in Melbourne” using both actual workplace examples and academic research to support your opinions. Your submission must be in formal Report format and must be supported by at least 11 high quality academic references including those annotated below. Book, L., Gatling, A., & Kim, J. (Sunny). (2019). The effects of leadership satisfaction on employee engagement, loyalty, and retention in the hospitality industry. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, 18(3), 368393. https://doi.org/10.1080/15332845.2019.1599787 Book et al (2019) attempts to investigate the causes of employee loyalty, engagement, and retention via leader satisfaction and how it affects the economic and an organizations cultural attributes within the hospitality industry. The aim of this journal is to identify the direct and indirect effects of leadership on the employee engagement and loyalty and minimized turnover and how this relationship stands among various age groups of the workforce. A literature review has been conducted by Book et al to understand prior research conducted around the grounds of leadermember exchange theory (Gerstner & Day, 1997). Further secondary research has been conducted to understand the impact of leadership of staff engagement and motivation among the hospitality industry. Primary research in the form of online and paper-based surveys were conducted by the research team in a resort in the south-west of US with the aid of the hotels intranet and HR departments assistant. The research assessed thoroughly on the working relationship between the employees and their leaders and the employees physical, demonstrative and perceptive engagement measurement. It is useful to understand the intentions of employee to stay or leave a workplace based on how productive and strong their relationship is with their leaders and their loyalty towards the resort and its service goals as a result of a positive/negative leader-employee bond. A major limitation of this research has been the conducting of the survey in a resort that already has a less than average turnover rate and a constructive organisational culture thereby providing less insights to potential issues that could arise. Another limitation is that only 322 of 4000 employees responded. However, Book et al depicts that further research should involve more comprehensive age groups and different stages of the employees career to determine more unbiased results. This research helps to understand how employee engagement may have an impact on the increasing turnover rates at Compass Group and identifying how certain attributes of the leadership may have impacted staff retention. It may however fail to address the issue at Compass wholly. It solely helps understand the issues of engagement that could have risen between new management and the productive staff that left Compass Group. Erciyes, E. (2017). The impact of culture, leadership, and power, on staff motivation in the context of international organizations. Retrieved from https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsble&AN=edsble.714116&site=eds-live This is a thesis by Erciyes (2017) examining, broadly, the impacts of culture, leadership, and power on staff motivations for a handful of massive international organisations (OIs) such as the World Trade Organisation. Erciyess research methods include carefully structured interviews, focus group discussions and observations which were conducted among supervisors and subordinates of these OIs. The focus of the research was to establish a theoretical framework which provides notions upon motivation of staff. This paper can be a very useful tool for international organisations to contextualize staff motivation. However, on the context of Compass, the research helps to understand, due to its international exposure, that nationality is not a factor affecting staff motivational levels. It is in fact the recognition, support, and better communication leads to staff motivation. A major limitation to the research involves the fact the findings are rather general throughout OIs based in Geneva and not specific to one OI or regions outside Geneva for that matter. The author suggests further research capabilities to be more specific to a single organisation outside Geneva in order to influence transferability of data. Vasquez, D. (2014). Employee Retention for economic stabilization: A qualitative phenomenological study in the hospitality sector. International Journal of Management, Economics, and Social Sciences, 3(1), 1-17. Retrieved from https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/93235/1/780577841.pdf Vasquez (2014) explores reasons for employees to continue employment in an industry such as hospitality where labour turnover is high. Vasquezs literature review shows research findings of unchanging workforces through active employee preparation and more care from the leaders. Research data was composed with the help of semi-structured in-depth interviews among 12 employees of hospitality establishments in South Florida. The primary data suggested that employees tend to remain in the industry and with a hospitality organisation due to good working relationships with and support and care from management and leaders, two-way communication possibilities, and feeling comfortable with the work environment and responsibilities and involvement in decision-making. To the industry, this article provides an insight as to what can be expected from the good working relations. In the case of Compass, the research data provides significance of good support systems and working relations in order to strengthen and develop and loyal workforce. The minuteness of the sample used in the research, 12, and the financial incapability as mentioned by the author to incorporate a larger sample population in the research are major limitations. However, the study suggested some valuable perceptions that help understand the importance of empowerment, employee engagement, and healthy management styles. Warden, S., Han, X., & Nzawou, A. (2018). Causes and prevention of staff turnover within micro retail businesses in South Africa: Lessons for the Tourism industry. African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure, (2). Retrieved from https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsdoj&AN=edsdoj.94a861d14fa436db1d 58cfe713e4c10&site=eds-live In the above article, Warden, Han, and Nzawou (2018) examine causes of staff turnover in retail organisations and how that can be applied to averting the high staff turnover rates in the tourism industry in South Africa. Research is conducted using questionnaires providing quantitative feedback among the micro-retail businesses in Cape Town, South Africa. The research data covers various factors such as training, working conditions, management techniques, remuneration, and HR matters. The data can be used to understand how management practices can be affecting the staff turnover in these micro retail businesses. The is helpful in the case of Compass Group to understand how informal management practices adversely affect the staff retention. Even though the research suggests formal management practices are helpful in lowering staff turnover, the findings cannot be entirely associated with Compass Groups situation as retail business is only a part of its business, the rest comprises of functions and events. The research by itself has limitations such as the use of a quantitative approach to address a broad and more qualitative subject as expressed by the authors. This above annotation was based upon the initial findings explaining the organisational problem as follows: Increasing staff turnover in the hospitality industry is not a surprising fact (Chalkiti & Carson, 2012). The occurrence of high staff turnover is mostly found among the front line or lower level of any hospitality operation. This is mainly because an entry level hospitality position such as a food/beverage attendants position is always ideal for an individual as a means of covering their daily expenses in order to assist them reach their other important life goals, hence higher-ed students. However, lately, there had been a significant number of staff leaving work among the mid-level and management level employees of Compass Group throughout the venues they operate across Melbourne. Main focus of the report will be to identify the problems that might have led to this loss of productive employees at the venues, National Gallery of Victoria and the Melbourne Museum, which Compass group operate in. A few significant changes took place in the beginning of year 2019, the catering operations manager of Compass at NGV was changed. Similarly, during the same period, the HR employee handling all casual-pool staff across all Melbourne venues was changed. Attention shall be given to whether the operational changes implemented by the new operational head caused any significant changes to the organisations internal culture. A need for information on how operational decisions affect organisational culture and staff motivation is therefore present. The extent to which an organisation such as Compass, values its employees will be assessed, basing on how current employees feel about work and the workplace. Erciyes (2017) explains how the culture, leadership and power can affect staff motivation and this paper can be used to understand any relationship between the situation with Compass. To investigate more on this situation where the key employees from both venues, NGV and the Museum, left employment at a constantly higher rate during a short period and continuing to happen so can mean that there is a relationship restructuring of positions and current staff motivation. Holbeche (1995) attempted to explain the implication of delayering and restructuring on current staff motivation which can be helpful to understand the case, although these finding of Holbeche are quite obsolete. Further research can be made to identify and evaluate ways of rectifying such circumstances. Some key changes made by the new management involved cutting down staff hours at all retail outlets, cafes and the restaurant, and some event operations as well. This resulted in the company being able to reduce a major cost factor, labour. However, this affected the quality of the service throughout the venue. Current employees had a heavier workload than before. And the middle management had to get more work done from less staff which can affect their attitude towards work as a whole. It can be understood that the loss of key personnel from the operational and middle management level could be due to a result in internal cultural and strategic operational changes. And this has resulted in the number of events handle by Compass group to be declining to a significant level than to prior years. There is a need for investigating the reason behind the declining of events held at NGV is only at NGV or whether the MICE industry is at a slump throughout venues in Melbourne. Although, the feedback from repeat customers to the retail outlets explain that there has been a crucial negative impact of the service quality, lately.
