Retaining students as employees: Owner operated small hospitality businesses in a university town in New Zealand
The retaining students as the employees from this study found that even though employee retention represents a managerial issue for the small hospitality businesses, it is not of significant importance to them. The restaurant managers/owners did employ various retention strategies for providing a good organizational culture but still accepted the transient nature of the student workforce. The findings suggest employee retention strategies to keep student employees while they study in the town’s university. This research also recommends the need for small hospitality businesses to work closely with hospitality education institutions to form a closer link between study and part-time employment, for example through internship, to alleviate the inherent problems of the transient nature of the student workforce. This study provides the first major in New Zealand context, providing new insights into understanding employee retention among student workers in small hospitality businesses.
Employee retention is seen as the biggest issue faced by hospitality businesses, with the need to advocate employee retention strategies as highly important. Indeed, much previous research has been conducted on employee retention strategies and practices in the hospitality industry. Few of these previous studies, however, have focused on small hospitality businesses particularly in a university town, with the exception of Alonso and O’Neill’s (2009) study. In particular, previous research shows the highest turnover, rates among young staff who are aged under 29 years.
According to the study findings, student employee retention was an important issue for the small hospitality businesses under research. As a result of heavily employing students, the small hospitality businesses in a university town faced high and cyclical turnover rates, just like the rest of the hospitality industry. However, employee retention was not seen as a major issue for these businesses because of availability of large number of students. Even though most of the students left when they chose a career, others were easily available to take their place. It can thus be interpreted that other industry employers hiring students for jobs more closely related to their chosen career might not face a high turnover, but retaining them would be essential depending upon their availability.
As such, this study found support for Alonso and O’Neill’s (2009)conclusion that, generally, employers are not involved in solving student retention issue in a university/college town, but, rather,they accept the high turnover culture. The current study also revealed a number of effective strategies to retain their student employees until they graduate, including provision of fair wages, a flexible work schedule, favorable working atmosphere, decision making autonomy, fair and just treatment, good communication, meeting employee expectations, and rendering other benefits. In addition to these strategies, this study advocates working closely with tertiary hospitality institutes to provide a step toward improving the transient nature of this industry. The strategy of having a good organizational culture to make student employees stay until the time they graduate and recommending it to others can potentially be expanded to other industries, for example other retail sectors, in a university town hiring students for casual work/jobs. Moreover, it can be interpreted that if other industries employ student employees in areas apart from their course of study they will also face the cyclical turnover every year. Similar to the hospitality sector, other industries might not be able to prevent the cyclical turnover, but can try providing their student employees with a good working atmosphere so that they remain in the workforce longer, even if only over the period of the duration of their study. Thus, although further research is required to confirm this conclusion, it is suggested here that both the recommended strategies can apply to other small businesses in a university town that are employing students for any non-career related job.Although the sample size in this study is small, with only 10 participating businesses, findings of the research provided important qualitative insights into the retention of students as employees working in owner operated small hospitality businesses in a university town in New Zealand. In particular, the case study presented here reveals student employees to be a distinct labor market worthy of further investigation. As such, one future approach to this study could be to take the themes presented here and develop a structured survey to test them on a more representative sample in other university towns, thereby seeking to validate the conclusions drawn here.
In addition, further research which seeks to ascertain the motivations and experiences of student employees working in the small hospitality business sector would provide further important insights into the retention of students as employees – in the small hospitality sector as well as other small business types. A study among student employees could also elucidate, in particular, their perceptions of organizational culture and the treatment from their employers. Do student employees value retention strategies? It is also a premise of this paper that future research in this area should focus on exploring the role of the tertiary hospitality training institute in recruitment and retention processes among local small hospitality businesses. This may include exploring strategies by which hospitality training institutes and small businesses can work together to potentially change the transient nature of small hospitality business employment. It may also involve evaluating training issues appropriate to the constant cyclical turnover of student employees every year. Further research on employee retention and human resource issues is also warranted – both in the context of small hospitality businesses and other small businesses employing students for both career and non-career related work. On a wider level, it would also be interesting to investigate the potential effects of the recent economic recession on staffing and other human resource issues faced by small businesses hiring student employees.
Finally, there are many interesting and important areas of future research required to more fully understand the experiences of small hospitality businesses in a university town, this paper calls for further research in this area.