FACTORS REGARDING EMPLOYEE RETENTION IN THE SALES AND MARKETING DEPARTMENT (CASE STUDY: FIVE STAR HOTEL IN THAILAND). This study was conducted with the aim of studying employee retention factors that influence employees' intention to stay or leave their hotels in the sales and marketing department. The scope of this research focuses on employees in the sales and marketing department of five-star chain hotels in Thailand.
The selection of the interviewees will be selected from five-star chain hotels in Thailand who have more than one year of work experience from various positions in the sales and marketing department.
LITERATURE REVIEW
- Employee Retention Definition
- Impacts of Employee Turnover
- Turnover is Costly
- Turnover Affects Organizational Performance
- Intention of Employees to Leave or Stay
- Employee Retention Factors
- Compensation and Benefits
- Rewards and Recognition
- Working Environment
- Training and Development
- Promotion and Opportunity for growth
- Work-life balance
- Job Security
Most researchers have attempted to investigate possibilities of employees' intention to resign in order to answer why people resigned from their organizations. The need for trust – employees' expectation is that the organization and management team treat them fairly and provide fair compensation within agreed time. The need to have hope – employees' expectation is to reach higher positions and develop their ability and skills.
The need to feel competent – employees' expectations match their talent and abilities and also their desire with their job and their job should be challenging for them. A high degree of job satisfaction will influence the employees' commitment to the organization to be increased, and then they will have positive attitudes towards their jobs and also have motivation to stay in their jobs. Gardner et al., (2004) proved that pay is an employee retention technique to motivate employees. 1997) believed that turnover has a negative relationship with compensation.
It is included that compensation and benefits are the important extrinsic factors that influence employee retention in terms of employee motivation. According to Silbert (2005), rewards are significant because they influence employees' impression of making them feel valued. Finally, there are factors in terms of work environment that affect employees' motivation to work; for example work contains, organizational culture, and also leadership style.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Primary Data Collection Method
Interview Method
- Target Population
- Sample Selection
- Develop Open-ended Question
- Develop Probing Techniques
- Conduct the Interview
The data collection was carried out through the primary resources by conducting interviews with the human resource department to find out about the employee retention strategy they use and employees in the sales and marketing department who both stay and leave the organization. For this research, the interviewees include nine from selected sample of sales and marketing department employees working in five-star hotels who have more than 1 year of work experience. For studying the factors that influence sales and marketing employees' decision to stay or leave the organization.
There are open-ended questions that are applied to encourage interviewees to answer based on their perspective and experience. And if you have a chance of promotion, do you think that opportunity is interesting? Probing techniques are applied to gather in-depth information and ensure the validity of the data.
Sometimes the interviewees are not able to do the interview in person and on the other hand the mobile phone would be second plan. The place for the interview would be the most suitable place required by the selective respondents, but mainly in a place where the respondents can be easily recorded and away from the traffic around people. The site must stay away from third parties or people not involved in data acquisition.
Research Framework
The interview is conducted through two ways of communication, which are face-to-face interviewing and communication via mobile phone. And it also provides a higher level of security towards confidential information and the interviewer got an opportunity to obtain information in the details.
DATA ANALYSIS
The Factors Influence employees to Stay with the Hotels
- Compensation and Benefits
- Recognition and Rewards
- Working Environment
- Training and Development
- Promotion and Opportunity to Growth
- Work-life balance
- Job Security
Moreover, Sales Coordinator of Hotel C also mentioned that she was satisfied with compensation and benefits she receives from the hotel, but it does not influence her enough to stay in this hotel and the most important thing is experience she expects to get out of the hotel. file. hotel. For example, online marketing manager of Hotel A moved to her current hotel because this hotel offers her more compensation than her previous workplace. Sales specialist from Hotel A said that supervisor mainly influenced the learning of new experience and the development of the performance of team and subordinates.
Hotel A's Online Distribution Marketing Executive explained that a good leader can inspire her to perform better and takes pride in being part of the team. However, Hotel C's sales coordinator said: "Supervisors do not have much influence on her, but the working environment that directly affects her is the team and colleagues." In contrast, the sales coordinator of Hotel C said that sales and marketing turnover in her hotel is quite low compared to other hotels because its organizational culture is relaxed and flexible.
In addition, Hotel B's sales specialist said: “Training programs help me understand more about the sales system and ways to customize our packages and promotions to meet different needs. The sales coordinator of Hotel C said that due to her working style in the hotel, she is working overtime for a few days. Furthermore, Hotel A's Online Marketing Manager explained that because of her position as a manager, she encouraged her subordinates to complete their work within working hours.
The Factors Influence Employees to Resign from the Hotels
- Working Environment
- Less Promotion and Opportunity to Growth
- Stress and Work-life Imbalance
A sales coordinator from Hotel C mentioned, "I think this industry is safe because hotels don't have to lay off employees, especially for big chain hotels." A sales expert from Hotel B said, "I think sales is a safe position because every hotel needs sales to find customers and generate revenue, not only in this hotel but also in other hotels." A sales director from Hotel A said, "I didn't get along well with my coworkers, which made me feel stressed both because of conflicts with my team and because of the high competition associated with my position." In addition to this reason, he also explained that I was transferred from another hotel chain last year and that the work style was quite different, which required him to learn a new sales system and a new work style; moreover, his manager complained to him several times about his work style. In addition, a sales coordinator from Hotel D mentioned that "the overall work is good, especially for my manager who supervises me very well, but the main reason I decided to quit is my colleagues." He supported his decision to split his team into two groups that always gossip and when there is a problem they always say it's not their responsibility so he decided to quit because he can't work in it environment every day.
Hotel C's sales coordinator said, "I was very satisfied with my previous workplace, but I decided to move because I needed a promotion." She explained that there is less turnover in the sales and marketing department because they were satisfied with their jobs in all aspects; for example salary, working environment and also work-life balance compared to other hotels, but she had already worked in this position for two years and she felt that her job description could no longer challenge her because she had not learned new things from her previous routine job . According to the interview answers, work-life balance is the main factor that drives employees to resign from the hotel. Group and events manager of Hotel E said: "I worry about whether I will still have to work like this in the next five to ten years, because I sometimes have to work on weekends." Related to her position, if there were events or a wedding on the weekend, she had to work.
Furthermore, the sales and marketing coordinator of Hotel F said, "I often had to work overtime without any compensation and after working for two years, I have health problems related to stress and sleep deprivation." That's why she quit her job and now she works with her family business. After conducting interviews, the factors that mainly influence employees to stay at the hotels are compensation and benefits, work environment, promotion and opportunity for growth, and work-life balance. On the other hand, the factors that mainly influence employees to resign from the hotels are dissatisfied work environment, less promotion and opportunity for growth, and stress and work-life imbalance.
RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSION
- Comparison Between Primary Data and Literature Review
- Conclusion
- Recommendation
- Career Path Development
- Recruitment Process Development
- Setting Individual Training Program
- Research Limitation and Suggestions for Future Research
Last but not the least, generally the work-life balance problem is concerned in the hotel industry included sales and marketing department due to work overload. This research aims to study factors and reasons that influenced employee retention and employee turnover in the sales and marketing department of the hotel industry. After analyzing the factors that mainly affect employees' intention to stay in the hotel and the factors that mainly affect employees' intention to leave the hotel.
As noted in the literature review (MzMahon, F. & Denvir, A., 1992), employee turnover can affect hotels in negative ways both in terms of cost and hotel performance. The recommendations in this paper can help hotels reduce the problem of employee turnover by developing a career path, developing recruitment processes and establishing an individual training program. Hotels should build the strongest career path program to retain employees with clear and strong objectives.
The hotels should solve the problem by starting with employee recruitment to select the right people who can adapt to the hotel culture and also work with current employees. There are ten selected samples, which are five employees who still live in the hotels and five employees who have resigned from the hotels. Therefore, future research should correct data from at least twenty employees in the sales and marketing department, and variables of demographic characteristics should be added to factors influencing employee intention.
Quality of Work Life and Job Satisfaction among Frontline Hotel Employees: A Self-Determination and Need Satisfaction Theory Approach. Labor turnover in London hotels and the cost-effectiveness of preventive measures, International Journal of Hospitality Management.
