A report published by The Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell provides insight and strategies for managers to use in encouraging employee retention, career growth, staff morale, and best practices in human resources.

The report, Retaining Management Talent: What Hospitality Professionals Want from Their Job, was co-written by Cornell Professor Kate Walsh, Ph.D., and Masako Taylor, doctoral candidate. The study sampled over 2,800 graduates of the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration.

Key findings include:

• Intrinsic rewards such as challenging work and learning ranked higher than compensation.   
• Managers are looking for challenging jobs that offer growth opportunities, competent leadership, and fair compensation.
• Foremost among retention factors is the chance to gain career growth through increasingly challenging assignments.

“Most respondents said their greatest motivation is personal and career growth, as well as the opportunity to make contributions to the organization,” Walsh said. The study also found that:

·        To the degree those desired jobs features are in place, hospitality managers' commitment to their companies and the industry will rise.

·         Money ranked high, as did quality-of-life issues such as flexible scheduling and reasonable work hours. However, both these factors were less critical than the intrinsic rewards.

“This report gives senior managers insight into the factors most important in retaining professional employees,” said Janice Schnabel,  executive director, Marsh's Hospitality Practice. "It will be very useful to those of us in the hospitality industry as it has significant bottom line implications regarding recruitment and retention.”

The report is available free of charge from the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research via the CHR website. To access the report, please click on: http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/chr/research/centerreports.html.