Talent pool exclusion: the hotel employee perspective

The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of employees excluded from a talent pool and to identify what career development is provided for them.



A qualitative approach was adopted, and narrative inquiry was selected as the optimum route to obtaining detailed and rich accounts of the experiences of employees excluded from a talent pool. Fifteen in-depth interviews were conducted with eight employees and seven managers in a small hotel chain in the south of England.



The study shows that employees who are excluded from a talent pool feel frustration, mistrust in the organisation, have low expectations of career development and show an intention to leave the organisation.



The study was conducted in a chain of hotels where talent management (TM) strategies are one of the key priorities in the organisation. The results may be different in hotels where TM strategies are less formal and talent pool segmentation is not clearly identified.



Hotel managers should consider employees who are excluded from a talent pool and build effective TM strategies and provide career development to minimise adverse reactions and improve commitment and motivation.



This research contributes to understanding talent pool exclusion and its consequences for the hotel sector. Narrative interviewing is used in this context for the first time.

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abstract: The concept of dehumanization lacks a systematic theoretical basis, and research that addresses it has yet to be integrated. Manifestations and theories of dehumanization are reviewed, and a new model is developed. Two forms of dehumanization are proposed, involving the denial to others of 2 distinct senses of humanness: characteristics that are uniquely human and those that constitute human nature. Denying uniquely human attributes to others represents them as animal-like, and denying human nature to others represents them as objects or automata. Cognitive underpinnings of the “animalistic” and “mechanistic” forms of dehumanization are proposed. An expanded sense of dehumanization emerges, in which the phenomenon is not unitary, is not restricted to the intergroup context, and does not occur only under conditions of conflict or extreme negative evaluation. Instead, dehumanization becomes an everyday social phenomenon, rooted in ordinary social-cognitive processes.

title: HR practices and affective organisational commitment: (when) does HR differentiation pay off?
abstract: We argue that differentiating HR practices across employees leads employees to compare their situation with colleagues to assess the favourability of HR practice outcomes (e.g. money). These perceptions can be negative (i.e. feeling set back), neutral (i.e. feeling treated the same) or positive (i.e. feeling advantaged). Data from 13,639 Belgian employees showed that perceived favourability of HR practice outcomes is positively associated with affective organisational commitment, but the relationship is attenuated at positive levels. Thus, differentiation may be a double-edged sword as the losses among employees feeling set back may temper, neutralise or even outweigh the benefits among those feeling advantaged. The relationships found were especially salient for work practices (e.g. autonomy) compared with economic practices (e.g. bonuses). Developmental practices were found to be least suited for differentiation across employees. No evidence of a moderating role of employees’ preference for equality (vs. differentiation) was found.

title: The Need for Effective Leadership in Talent Management in Mauritius
abstract: The importance of linking leadership to talent management is a priority for the Mauritian economy at a time when the economy shifts from the industrial and labour-intensive sector to a services and knowledge-based economy. There is a necessity to link leadership to talent management where local managers are in need of improving their leadership abilities and develop the talent that their organisations may in turn depend upon. It is not merely learning or getting trained in leadership that matters but, more importantly, the need to generate talent from effective leadership strategies. This research article firstly explains the importance of leadership linked with talent. The text then focuses on innovative practices that selected Mauritian companies have undertaken and where talent leadership matters. From this standpoint, the researcher selects effective leadership strategies that might be much needed based from practices that are successful abroad and have positively impacted on the international context. The research emphasises new coaching methodologies linked with the development of leadership talent. Techniques like ‘coaching outside in coaching inside out’, ‘onboarding’, ‘pivotal leadership’, ‘reinforcement coaching’, are just new approaches that differ from traditional orientation and that are also much relevant in developing leadership talent in the current and future economic conjecture of Mauritius. They have to be adapted to the Mauritian context. Though the research is not exhaustive and is more focused on qualitative than quantitative interpretation, it sheds light onto the fast-developing concept of talent management in business organisations and the need to link leadership in a more conclusive manner.

title: Servant leadership and perceptions of service quality provided by front-line service workers in hotels in Turkey: Achieving competitive advantage
abstract: The aim of this article is to examine the relationship of service employees perceptions of servant leadership provided by their supervisors/managers and employee’s reports of service quality provided to clients by their hotels.  Data were collected from 221 frontline employees, a 37 per cent response rate, working in four- and five-star hotels in Cappadocia, Turkey. Previously developed and validated measures of servant leadership (Liden et al., 2008) and service quality (Parasuraman et al., 1988) were used and both were found to be highly reliable in this study.  Respondents were generally young, had relatively short organizational tenure and had high school educations. Respondents having longer organizational tenures and those working in five-star hotels reported lower levels of servant leadership. Longer tenured employees, and males, rated some dimensions of service quality lower as well. Service employees reporting higher levels of servant leadership fr...

title: Perceived barriers to career advancement and organizational commitment in sales
abstract: This paper identifies three potential barriers to career advancement in sales: being excluded from informal networks, a lack of cultural fit, and a lack of mentoring. Using a sample of 241 account executives and managers from an organization in the television broadcasting industry, study results suggest that perceived barriers to career advancement (PBCA) have a significant negative impact on the organizational commitment (OC) of these sales employees. Effects are estimated with path analysis, and the effects of common method bias and job satisfaction are considered. Demographic variables (age, gender, company tenure, job level) are also hypothesized to moderate the relationship between PBCA and OC. The negative influence of PBCA on OC is found to become stronger as company tenure increases. Data also suggest that the negative relationship between PBCA and OC is more powerful among account executives than sales managers/directors. Managerial and research implications are discussed.

title: Employee loyalty in Hungarian hotels
abstract: This paper's focus is the association between Hungarian employees’ job satisfaction and their loyalty to the organisation. Data were collected from over 600 hotel employees throughout Hungary by questionnaire, designed to elicit their attitudes to loyalty and perspectives with respect to job satisfaction. Principal component analysis identified potential key contributors to job satisfaction (personal satisfaction gained from participation and recognition, social involvement, career development and salary and benefits) and to employee loyalty (commitment to managers and company, job conditions, personal benefits, service element and location, and career and status). An examination of the inter-relationships revealed that managers’ treatment of employees and the positive benefits of social involvement in the workplace had a greater impact on employee loyalty than monetary rewards.

title: The significance of firm and occupation specific human capital for hiring and promotions
abstract: This paper analyzes firms' hiring and promotion patterns, and infers the relative significance of the firm- and occupation-specific human capital required for each job rank. The results suggest that firm-specific skills are just as valuable as occupation-specific skills, and that the value of these specific skills increases in job rank. However, there is great heterogeneity across occupations. This paper also shows that the lengths of firm- and occupation-tenure are noisy measures of firm- and occupation-specific human capital, and contrasts our results with those of other recent studies on the returns to firm- and occupation-tenure for wages.

title: From hotel career management to employees’ career satisfaction: The mediating effect of career competency
abstract: The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships between perceived hotel career management, career competency, and career satisfaction. It also aims to examine the mediating processes through which hotel career management contribute to employees’ career satisfaction. Results from structural equation modeling (SEM) show that career competency mediates the effects of three dimensions of hotel career management (career appraisal, career development, and career training) on career satisfaction. The article concludes with implications for theory development and management practice.

title: Overcoming Language and Literacy Barriers: Using Student Response System Technology to Collect Quality Program Evaluation Data from Immigrant Participants
abstract: Student response system technology was employed for parenting education program evaluation data collection with Karen adults. The technology, with translation and use of an interpreter, provided an efficient and secure method that respected oral language and collective learning preferences and accommodated literacy needs. The method was popular with parents and staff, and provided reliable data, ensuring that participants were well represented in the evaluation results.