8 ways to increase staff retention in your hospitality business

It's something we hear a lot here at Access Hospitality. When discussing businesses learning and development needs, staff retention is always a high priority. The operators we talk to know that retaining top employees is a key strategy for hospitality and they want to know what practical things they can do to improve staff retention in their business. 

In this article, we’ve got eight proven and effective strategies for hospitality operators to improve staff retention and reap the benefits of keeping skilled workers in their business. 

Why does hospitality have a high staff turnover? 

Okay, if you’re new here, you might be wondering why hospitality has a higher staff turnover than other industries. Many hospitality roles involve working long and unsociable hours with a high frequency of minimum or zero-hour contracts which creates concerns about earning a consistent and reliable income. A perceived lack of development opportunities can also mean that hospitality is not always viewed as a long-term career prospect.  

According to the 2024 Hospitality Salary Survey, the top three factors that are most likely to keep hospitality employees in their roles are:  

• Working with great people 
• Career growth  
• Supportive management 

We believe that employers can increase staff retention by focusing on these areas and building a culture of learning and development.  

Instead of your young part-time workers seeing their hospitality role as a short-term placeholder while they do their studies, they should be able to see a clear pathway for development within your company – whether that’s working up to management, developing in a vocational role like a chef or moving into head office to join marketing, your business offers a wealth of career development opportunities for your team members. 

Strategies for attracting and retaining top talent in hospitality 

So, how can you improve staff retention in your hospitality business? Check out our eight proven and effective strategies for increasing staff retention.  

1. Recruiting top talent   

Increasing staff retention in hospitality starts with effective recruitment. Many employers want to skip investing in new talent and prioritise experience – but we think this isn’t a winning strategy. Looking for traits such as being inquisitive and genuinely interested in the role, showing interest in the career prospects and development opportunities as well as demonstrating crucial interpersonal skills that will lead to delivering excellent customer service and working alongside a team are much more valuable assets than prior experience.  

To attract this kind of candidate, ensure you create a clear job description with outlines and highlights the opportunities for career development. Emphasise the benefits of the role to find the right candidate match, for example, highlighting the flexibility of the role and how it might fit around other commitments with flexible shifts.  

Remember, you have around 10 seconds to make an impression with your job advert – so make it count.  

2. Build up benefits  

Many hospitality roles indeed require working at the weekend, late nights, and even over holidays – and this can be off-putting for new hospitality recruits. A common mistake is not being upfront about expectations for working these kinds of hours, so your employees aren’t happy when they are expected to give up their bank holidays or Christmas. Instead, focus on building up the benefits of working in the role to offset the perceived sacrifices.  

Our 2024 Salary Survey unsurprisingly picks out a fair salary as being the most important employee benefit to employees (95% of respondents), but increasingly the best employers are realising that it’s more than salary that retains staff. 88% rated training and development sessions as being an important employee benefit along with 75% for mentoring, highlighting the priority for staff development opportunities.  

Hospitality careers offer some unique benefits that are a hit with employees such as the flexible hours, tips, and dining discounts available, but in addition, many are also rating things like team building activities, wellbeing sessions, and counselling.  

The key is ensuring that your business is offering a competitive opportunity with clearly communicated benefits outlined and made easy to utilise.  

3. Offer career development opportunities 

The Salary Survey highlights the impact of offering career development opportunities in retaining staff in hospitality with 88% rating training and development as an important work benefit.  

There are several ways you can develop a strong culture of career development within your organisation and in turn, improve staff retention.  

First up is having a strong onboarding programme of training that initiates your recruits into your operation. There is a balance to strike here so your new employees are prepared and confident in their roles, but not overwhelmed or bombarded with huge amounts of training to complete.  

Next, remember to tailor your training and development to individuals. Your employees will have different goals and ambitions and even the rate at which they want to develop. Nurturing open regular communication between employees and their line managers to ensure they are on the right path of development for them as an individuals will help you retain more staff.  

Mentoring was rated as an increasingly important employee benefit in the Salary Survey. Employers who want to stay competitive should look at whether this might work in their organisation. Both having a mentor to demonstrate career development and the opportunity to mentor newer staff members will bring a huge amount of job satisfaction to your teams.  

And don’t forget to lead with examples. Share stories of success from across your organisation about career development. Hospitality businesses often have amazing career development stories with people starting in entry-level roles and working their way up to senior management over time. These stories also serve to show how you reward long-time employees and recognise ability and achievement.  

4. Support a healthy work-life balance  

Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is important for ensuring the mental and physical wellbeing of your teams. It will also promote loyalty and increase staff retention. According to the Salary Survey, 59% of hospitality workers report having a good work-life balance, an increase in 2023 (which was 51%). This increase also correlates with an increase in the happiness employees have in their current roles and how proud they are to work in the hospitality industry in general.  

It’s clear that a healthy work-life balance is an important part of staff retention for hospitality operators. Employers can ensure they protect the work-life balance of their employees by offering flexible shifts that help accommodate employee’s personal commitments and preferences. There should also be a clear notice period for requesting specific shifts off and fair rota planning to ensure everyone gets a fair number of weekends or holidays off.  

It’s also important to recognise your employees’ personal circumstances where possible. Students for example may need to work around their class schedule or parents may need to work around childcare. When you can be flexible to accommodate your team members and recognise their personal challenges, they will be more likely to stay with you as an employer.  

5. Recognise and reward your hard-working employees 

Creating a positive culture of recognition and reward will improve staff retention in your business. This could take the form of an employee of the month programme, where management or colleagues can nominate outstanding performance for reward. You could also implement sales challenges or reward excellent service or other achievements.  

You should also consider celebrating the achievements of your employees outside of work. Your team members are amazing individuals who might be raising money for charity, competing in a sport, or taking part in a community project and you can support them by acknowledging and sharing achievements with the wider business. A company newsletter can be a great way to do this.  

This positive acknowledgment helps your staff feel appreciated and valued and will mean they stay with you for longer.  

6. Create a safe and inclusive work environment  

One of the most effective ways to retain staff in hospitality is to create a safe and inclusive work environment for everyone. Hospitality is strengthened by its diverse workforce of people with different backgrounds. Employers can demonstrate their commitment to an inclusive and safe work environment by providing workplace training on diversity, creating opportunities for underrepresented groups, and supporting people in their roles. This might include providing training in multiple languages or supporting people with disabilities with reasonable adjustments in the workplace.  

Policies and procedures for diversity, equality, and inclusion in the workplace should be clearly communicated and your staff should know how to report any concerns or incidents.  

Businesses can also celebrate the diversity in their teams by supporting cultural events and calendar dates, such as religious festivals like Diwali and Eid, or participating in events like Pride and International Women’s Day.  

7. Nurture self-directed learning journeys 

If you want to create a culture of career and not just jobs in your business to help increase staff retention, you need to deliver the tools and resources for your employees to take ownership of their professional development.  

To develop a self-directed learning environment, you should provide access to a wide range of learning resources in a range of formats, such as online courses, access to gaining qualifications, videos, webinars and articles. To encourage employees to take control of their learning journey, you’ll need to encourage and demonstrate continuous learning by keeping content up to date, supporting employees in setting career goals, and directing them to learn content.  

What this content looks like will differ from business and role to role, but imagine skills-based content for baristas, chefs, and bartenders that helps them develop their proficiency. Or perhaps it’s leadership or management skills to help them on the path to their goal job position.  

8. Listen to your employees  

Do you know the current level of employee satisfaction within your business? 

One of the most important things you can do to help retain staff in your hospitality business is to regularly survey and collect feedback directly from your teams – and make sure you really listen.  

Collect feedback on specific areas such as what employee benefits they currently enjoy and how often they utilise them, what they would like to see in the future if they are happy with their development opportunities, whether they are happy with their work-life balance, and do they feel confident in their roles. 

Many employers are unaware of the practical pain points that their teams experience daily, especially for those working on the front lines of the business. Are your current processes difficult to manage? Too process or admin heavy? Are admin tasks taking up too much time? Are you understaffed and employees feel under pressure?  

Listen to your employees and action feedback to help create an environment where staff feel heard and are more likely to stay with the business.

Ready to boost staff retention in your business? 

You found this article because you’re looking to improve staff retention in your hospitality business. Hopefully, some of the practical strategies we’ve looked at will be an effective starting point to make positive changes in your operation.  

However, if you’re currently missing the tools to implement these strategies effectively or your current solution isn’t delivering the results you need, you might want to look at software solutions that will help.  

Here at Access, we have hospitality specialist software to support workforce management in your business. From optimised staff scheduling with Rotaready to an enhanced learning and development platform in Access CPL Learning and a comprehensive Access People solution to support your HR and people operations. Find out how to use Access software to deliver engaging training, development opportunities, surveys, and more.