Employee Retention Towards Achieving Competitive Advantage - Cavendish Hotel in London - Essay Example

The growth of global competition and the regular appearance of London hotels in the local dailies regarding management crisis experienced suggests that it would be quite useful to examine the management and work practices of a selection of these hotels. This is proposed to act as the first stage of a more comprehensive international research study that is deemed to propose creative solutions to the dilemmas faced by London hoteliers. For this reason, it becomes imperative for the researcher to embark on the theoretical framework of the meaning and application of Human Resource Management.

In the views of Armstrong (2006), the concept of Human Resource Management emerged in the mid-1980s against the backdrop of the works of famous writers on management who came up with a list of the attributes that characterized successful companies. Accordingly, Budhwar et al (2009) and Dickmann et al (2008) stress that Human Resource Management “is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization’s most valued assets – ‘the people working there, who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the business”.

Similarly, Cooper et al (2010) assert that Human Resource Management “is the total knowledge, skills, creative abilities, talents and aptitudes of an organization’s workforce, as well as the value, attitudes and beliefs of the individuals involved”. Consequently, research explains that an organization is bound to retain its best employees by adopting the various employee retention strategies open to Human Resource Managers. From this standpoint view, experts have explained that employee retention involves taking measures to encourage employees to remain in the organization for the maximum period of time.

The corporate world in recent times has been wrestling with a multiplicity of challenges emanating from employee retention according to the views of Adele and Phillips (2003). Studies have shown that hiring a knowledgeable workforce in an organization is an essential undertaking, but retaining that force in employment is even more critical to the employer.