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#1 Challenge: High employee turnover
Employee retention remains one of the most significant challenges facing the hospitality industry. In 2024, hospitality and catering recorded a staff turnover rate of 38.7% - the highest of any UK sector. Within hospitality, turnover is even more pronounced in certain sub-sectors, reaching 47% in bars and clubs, 43.2% in quick-service restaurants, and 39.1% in restaurants and cafés. Demanding working conditions, irregular hours and seasonal employment all continue to fuel this churn.
High turnover creates a constant cycle of recruiting and training, disrupting team dynamics, affecting service quality and placing additional pressure on remaining staff. It also carries a significant financial cost. Estimates suggest that replacing an employee can cost anywhere between 30% and 150% of their annual salary, once recruitment, onboarding, training and lost productivity are taken into account. With margins already tight, this makes retention a commercial as well as an operational priority.
So, what can hospitality operators do to combat high staff turnover?
Recruitment and onboarding
Recruitment and onboarding are often treated as separate processes, but in hospitality they are closely linked, and gaps between the two are a major driver of early turnover. When expectations set during recruitment don’t carry through into a structured, supportive onboarding experience, new starters are far more likely to disengage or leave within their first few months.
A joined-up approach helps create a smoother transition from candidate to confident team member. Clear job information, consistent messaging and early access to rotas, training and key information all help new starters understand what’s expected of them and feel prepared from day one.
Using a connected people management suite allows recruitment, onboarding, scheduling and learning to work together, rather than in isolation. For employees, this means fewer surprises, clearer expectations and a more supportive first experience. For employers, it helps reduce early attrition, improve time to productivity and build stronger engagement from the very start of the employment journey.
Fair pay and benefits
Managing labour costs in hospitality while offering competitive compensation is essential to reducing employee turnover. The national minimum wage rates implemented in April 2024 (£11.44 for workers aged 21 and over, £8.60 for ages 18-20 and £6.40 for under 18s) have set new standards for the industry. But successful hospitality operators know that going beyond compliance is key.
Our 2025 salary survey data reinforce this. While salary remains the most important factor for around 95% of hospitality workers, employees are increasingly looking at the whole package, not just base pay, with holiday entitlement, training and development, flexible hours, bonus/tips and mentoring all cited as important benefits alongside wages.
Invest in their future
Clear progression pathways and access to training remain central to retention in hospitality. Employees are far more likely to stay when they can see a future with their employer, rather than viewing the role as a short-term or stop-gap option.
Only 48% of hospitality employees say they have received sufficient training to feel fully qualified for their role, despite training and development ranking among the top four most important employee benefits, alongside fair pay, holiday entitlement and flexible hours.
There are many strategies that can help reduce staff turnover, but focusing on recruitment, onboarding, recognition, fair pay and long-term development gives hospitality businesses a far stronger foundation for retaining great people.
#2 Challenge: Recruitment and talent acquisition
We can’t flick a switch and expect employee turnover figures to flatten out overnight, so having robust recruitment and talent acquisition processes in place is crucial, particularly given the long-term impact hiring decisions have on retention. With the cost of replacing an employee estimated at up to 150% of their annual salary, getting recruitment right from the outset remains one of the most effective ways to reduce churn.
So, what can hospitality operators do to attract the right people and encourage them to stay?
Recruitment in hospitality is no longer just about selecting the best candidate from a large pool. Vacancies across the sector remain persistently high compared with pre-pandemic levels, meaning employers increasingly need to work harder to stand out and persuade the right people to choose them.
You might need to review your pay and benefits package, but that’s not the be all and end all for a lot of employees in the hospitality industry any more. Many are more motivated by a better work life balance, and a great company culture. Employee reviews on sites like Glassdoor can help you demonstrate your commitment to looking after your employees. And social media is an excellent way to show off your company culture to prospective employees.
Another effective way to attract top talent is by demonstrating you have a strong training and development program running in your business. Prospective employees are more likely to choose a company that invests in their growth and provides opportunities for skill development. By keeping these opportunities for advancement front and centre during the recruitment process, you will appeal to candidates who are eager to advance their careers.
#3 Challenge: Training and development
If it’s going to attract great talent, your learning and development programme will need to offer real opportunities, and candidates will want to see that you’ve put time and effort into creating a programme that will work for them.
We work in an industry built on customer experience, so we need to ensure the highest standards of customer service at all times, making continuous training and development essential. But it can present its own challenges; delivery, staff engagement, and tracking compliance are just a few of the issues that HR managers are likely to face when it comes to delivering training across the workforce.
Whether it’s a legally required training course, a business critical one, or development for career progression, making sure you’ve made the right training accessible to everyone is vital. Providing staff with easily accessible and flexible training is key to delivering consistent learning across venues and maintaining control over training and development.
A practical solution: flexible, accessible online learning
Online or E-Learning platforms, such as our learning management systems (LMS) Access CPL Learning Evo, are changing how training is delivered. They give employers and employees the flexibility to engage in training at their own pace. This makes online learning ideal for fitting training around unpredictable schedules. Whether it's learning about new regulations, customer service techniques, or exploring advanced management skills, online learning ensures that employees can stay current without disrupting operations.
Online learning also addresses a key gap highlighted in recent industry research: only 48% of hospitality employees say they have received sufficient training to feel fully qualified for their role. Making learning more accessible, particularly via mobile-friendly platforms, helps close this gap and demonstrates a clear investment in employee development.
Peer to Peer Learning/Mentoring
Pairing new members of staff with longer-term staff members helps create a culture of continuous improvement, inclusion and team building. It provides new employees with support to help them settle into their new role, while also giving experienced staff the opportunity to refine their skills and learn new ones around leadership.
Cross Training
Having your employees trained to perform multiple roles within the business is beneficial to you and the individual as it broadens their skills but also enhances the overall operation of the business. If you have an unexpected rush or face staff illness or shortages, people can “jump on” to other areas. Having this flexibility, where your staff can easily jump between roles, gives your employees flexibility and a feeling of being part of a team.
It can be an absolute game changer for your business as service levels won’t drop during higher demand periods.
Assessments and feedback
Providing your team with regular assessments and feedback forms a critical part of the development process. By incorporating assessments into your training programs, you’ll be able to see the effectiveness of any training and quickly identify areas where change may be needed.
Constructive feedback helps everyone understand how they are progressing, which encourages continuous learning.
Despite the potential logistical HR headaches that come with it, training and development is not something you can afford to let slip in your hospitality business. By employing a mix of traditional and emerging training techniques, you can build a flexible and resilient training model that delivers real value by creating a highly skilled workforce who are more than capable of meeting any challenges they might face.
#4 Challenge: Work-life balance
Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is critical, yet it remains a significant challenge in the hospitality industry. In 2025, only 56% of hospitality employees managed to achieve a good work/life balance, and this number was down from 59% in 2024. The share of people who feel their work/life balance is “not very” or “not at all” balanced has increased compared with 2024, indicating more staff feel things are out of balance.
A practical solution: smarter scheduling and workload visibility
Improving work–life balance in hospitality starts with giving employees greater predictability and fairness in how work is allocated. Long hours, last-minute rota changes and uneven workloads are consistently linked to dissatisfaction and burnout, particularly in understaffed environments.
Smarter scheduling plays a critical role here. Using workforce management tools to build rotas around real demand helps reduce excessive hours, limit unnecessary overtime and ensure shifts are distributed more evenly across teams. Greater visibility of rotas also allows employees to plan their personal lives more effectively, which is increasingly important in a sector where evenings and weekends are often unavoidable.
#5 Challenge: Diversity and inclusion
Diversity and inclusion are vital in the hospitality industry, where employees from various backgrounds often work together.
Fewer than half (48%) of UK employers have a formal inclusion and diversity strategy or action plan in place, meaning many organisations are still taking a reactive approach.
As we’re all influenced by our own upbringing and cultural backgrounds, cultural differences, language barriers and potential biases need to be carefully navigated. Recognising, acknowledging and rectifying our biases leads to a more inclusive workplace.
A practical solution: consistent policies, training and inclusive processes
Building a genuinely inclusive workplace requires more than good intentions. Clear policies, structured training and consistent processes help ensure diversity and inclusion are embedded into day-to-day operations, rather than addressed reactively.
Training plays a key role. Providing team members and managers with accessible learning on topics such as equality, diversity and unconscious bias, like our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Online Course, helps raise awareness of how assumptions and cultural differences can influence decision-making - from recruitment and scheduling to performance feedback and progression.
Courses that explain what inclusive behaviour looks like in practice, why it matters and how to address common workplace scenarios equip your people with practical skills rather than abstract theory.
Tackling HR challenges with a connected approach
In this article, we’ve explored some of the major challenges faced by HR professionals in the hospitality industry today, including recruitment, diversity and inclusion and employee well-being.
Addressing them in isolation can make progress difficult, particularly in complex, multi-site operations, and our Hospitality People Suite is designed to help bring people processes together into one connected approach.
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Create a more consistent employee experience across recruitment, onboarding, training and scheduling, even in multi-site operations
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Reduce manual admin and duplication by managing people data and processes in one connected platform
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Improve early retention by ensuring expectations set during recruitment carry through into onboarding and day-to-day work
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Support fairer scheduling and workloads, helping improve work–life balance and reduce burnout
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Make training and compliance easier to manage, with better visibility of progress and skills across the workforce
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Gain clearer insight into people data, helping HR teams spot risks, trends and opportunities earlier
If you’d like to explore how a connected people management suite can help your hospitality business tackle today’s HR challenges more effectively, speak to our team to find out more.
