Building and maintaining a sustainable workforce in the hospitality sector, where demand for talent consistently exceeds supply across the globe, has only been exacerbated by COVID-19. The need to sustain this workforce behooves the industry to unpack core drivers of employee commitment in order to retain top talent. This paper explores how dimensions of employee empowerment increase organizational commitment and, in turn, reduce turnover intention—leading to a more sustained workforce. Drawing on the results of 346 surveys within the Canadian lodging industry, structural equation modeling was undertaken to examine the influence of empowerment on organizational commitment and organizational commitments influence on turnover intention. Findings suggest that the development of meaning through employee empowerment, particularly when the ideals and standards between workers and their organization are aligned, creates a strong emotional commitment which appears to strongly reduce an employee’s intention to leave. Feelings of emotional connection or duty towards an organization show clear positive relationships with reduced intentions to leave. For an industry struggling with higher-than-average turnover intention and labour costs, focusing on creating work with meaning, and instilling a sense of belonging in the workforce will enable organizations to reduce their employee’s turnover intentions.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the challenges encountered by the hospitality and tourism industry in managing the labour challenges it faces presently and will face in the coming years. Although there are several issues at play, there are actions that industry members can take both internally and by advocating externally for change. Design/methodology/approach: This paper draws on insights from three industry members and two academics to explore key areas in which action can be taken to address labour demand challenges in the hospitality and tourism workforce. The identified action items combine these various types of expertise to provide a holistic frame of action. Findings: The Canadian hospitality and tourism industry is facing an ever-increasing labour demand shortage. Industry members can confront this on multiple fronts, from front-line employee satisfaction to more regional and national advocacy efforts. A combination of activities is recommended. Practical implications: Hospitality and tourism industry members can take numerous actions from this analysis, including developing stronger organization cultures that align with employee needs, exerting effort in balancing wage gap issues and maintaining pressure on government partners to provide support for establishing hospitality and tourism, so that it is viewed as a valuable career path. Originality/value: This paper increases knowledge in the hospitality and tourism field by combining the current human resource management theory with observations from industry experts on the needs that exist now and are predicted in the coming years.

This study examines motivations of employees in the Canadian lodging sector. Data was collected on the preferred job rewards expressed by employees ranging from front line workers to senior executives, as well as their perceptions of job satisfaction. Results were analyzed first at the aggregate level on their own and against extant literature, followed by a more segmented analysis by demographic characteristics of gender, age, income, and education. Results reveal mild but direct differences in motivational preferences based on gender, inferring the continued systemic gender imbalance that continues within the industry as supported by differences that exist by age, educational levels, job level, and income. Outcomes also highlight differences that appear in overall job satisfaction segmented by gender, age, position, and income level. Discussions include relating results to historical demographical job segmentation in the lodging industry, as well as relating the impact of life stage responsibilities and the influence of unmet needs on value propositions. All discussions highlight the contextual nature of motivational factors for lodging employees. Suggestions are made for industry practitioners about how best to invest scarce resources into talent management in order to contribute to more sustainable workforce practices.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to validate and refine, as appropriate, the Service Orientation Scale in the unique context of the Canadian lodging sector, while exploring demographic differences expressed by respondents. Design – The study is based on Groves’ 34-item service orientation scale developed for the hospitality industry. Online self-administration questionnaires were completed by 348 hospitality employees. Methodology/Approach – Confirmatory factor analysis revealed extensive loading issues in Groves’ three-factor model, while also surfacing problems with item inclusion in the four-factor model presented by Kim et al. (2003). Subsequent exploratory factor analysis led to the creation of an improved 22-item service orientation scale (SOS-22). Findings – This research significantly refines the multidimensional employee service orientation scale into a scale that balances the detail of the dimensions with the parsimony of the scale design. The richness of the construct is maintained as the measures span four dimensions: organizational support, service under pressure, customer orientation, and customer relations. As recruiting and retaining employees in the hospitality industry remains a major challenge, the SOS -22 model can be used to improve employee-organization fit at the recruitment stage and help organizations find talent that will improve the customer experience and achieve organizational goals. Originality of the research – The paper demonstrates improved modelling of the service orientation scale (SOS-22) over past iterations that struggles with replication with results both valid and reliable. This research uncovers novel results in the lodging sector of the hospitality industry, while surfacing demographics differences in service orientation, both by gender and job level, missing from earlier studies.

This study employs the Ten Factor Model in a longitudinal analysis to explore preferred job rewards within the Canadian lodging industry. Data from three studies conducted between 1999 and 2016 were analyzed as individual cases in time and a longitudinal study over time. Two findings were made. First, the value of specific rewards and the motives to satisfy them shift over time, influenced by the relative intensity of needs and the context of external events. Second, while desired rewards shifted over time and context and respective values changed across studies, six rewards continually surfaced as top-ranked for employees. Additionally, rewards were explicitly connected with Herzberg’s Hygiene-Motivator Theory. Focusing on valued rewards that can influence job satisfaction or job dissatisfaction will be extremely useful to practitioners.

The hospitality industry is centered on people, wherein service providers and customers are inseparable as they create unique, intangible experiences. The question about what drives and inspires hospitality workers to be productive, positively contribute with the work that they do, and strive to provide outstanding service quality continues to be very important for hospitality operators, especially in the current labour-challenged environment where simply finding and keeping sufficient numbers of workers is difficult. This chapter will explore the issues of employee motivation, looking at both classic theories and more recent research that challenge our ideas of what drives people to perform at work, particularly in the realm of hospitality.