Staffing issues among small hospitality businesses: A college town case

Many studies have reported on the operational challenges that hospitality businesses face, including shortage of skilled labor and high turnover. To date, however, little attention has been paid to whether these challenges differ for small hospitality enterprises (SHEs). In particular, little is known about SHEs located in college towns, where plentiful labor supply of job-ready applicants is available on a constant basis. The present study explores labor issues with 21 small and medium hospitality owners and managers. The findings not only demonstrate that attracting labor is a daunting undertaking among participating businesses, but also that both turnover and other staffing related problems are on top of their list of challenges. These problems are of such nature that other issues, including getting the word out about their businesses or facing competition appear to be rather minor in comparison. Furthermore, only the least participants seem to understand the value of keeping staff for as long as possible; accordingly, these few operators have developed basic yet critical initiatives to promote employee retention. The importance of retaining valuable employees becomes paramount as it may reflect on several areas of the operation, including consistency and quality of service. However, despite its importance, the employee retention component appears to be missing.