Work–life balance indicators and talent management approach: a qualitative investigation of Indian luxury hotels
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-05-2021-0206 |
| Published date | 04 April 2022 |
| Date | 04 April 2022 |
| Pages | 1241-1258 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Sunil Budhiraja,Biju Varkkey,Stephen McKenna |
Work–life balance indicators
and talent management approach:
a qualitative investigation of Indian
luxury hotels
Sunil Budhiraja
SMLS, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India
Biju Varkkey
Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad, India, and
Stephen McKenna
Curtin Business School, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of the study is twofold: (1) it captures the work–life balance (WLB) experiences of
front-office employees to inductively classify a set of WLB indicators for the locally owned Indian luxury hotels
and (2) it further examines the existing WLB practices of the select hotels with the lens of talentmanagement
(TM) approach of key human resource management (HRM) practices (Thunnissen, 2016).
Design/methodology/approach –To explore and classify WLB indicators, an exploratory, qualitative
approach is utilized by administering seven focus group discussions involving 70 front-office employees
working in Indian luxury hotels. Seven in-depth interviews with HR professionals were triangulated with
secondary data to capture and analyse the existing WLB practices of sampled organizations.
Findings –Four clusters of WLB indicators that are grounded in the lived experiences of front-office
employees are identified and presented. Interview data from human resource representatives unveil that hotels
consider existing WLB practices as key HRM practices with an inclusive TM approach. The findings also
surface the differences in expectations of front-office employees and WLB practices followed by the hotels.
Research limitations/implications –First, the paper addresses the issue of WLB from employees’
perspective which is crucialfor designing effective WLB practices. Second, the paper contributes to the existing
TM literature from the perspective of WLB practices.
Originality/value –The originality of the study is grounded in the employees’lived experiences to classify
the WLB indicators for India and further examine the WLB practices through the lens of the TM approach.
Keywords India, Luxury hotels, Talent management approach, WLB indicators
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The luxury hotels industry has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic and the industry
has to revise, innovate and transform its business strategy to get back on track (Kaushal
and Srivastava, 2021). In the post-Covid-19 scenario, the industry would expect greater
resilience, enthusiasm and commitment from customer-centric employees (Le and Phi,
2021). The Indian luxury hotels need to reconsider the talent management (TM) approach
and human resource management (HRM) practices since it long suffers from people
management issues like monotonous work, long working hours and challenges of
balancing the professional and personal life of employees (Kaushal and Srivastava, 2021;Le
and Phi, 2021;Kumar and Mokashi, 2020). Major industry players understand the
importance of people management and have modified their TM approach (Gupta, 2019b)
WLB
indicators and
TM approach
1241
The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of the employees of the hotels in proving the
data for the study.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 16 May 2021
Revised 7 January 2022
15 March 2022
Accepted 15 March 2022
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 44 No. 6, 2022
pp. 1241-1258
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-05-2021-0206
and work–life balance (WLB) practices in the recent past (Singh and Munjal, 2017). This is
particularly relevant for attracting the best of talent (Maurya and Agarwal, 2018)and
institutionalizing progressive WLB practices (Chan et al., 2016). Modifications in WLB
practices are known to impact talent attraction, development and retention (Kaya and
Karatepe, 2020), which are major areas of concern for the Indian luxury hotel industry
(Chathoth et al., 2020). Also, the concern about WLB seems to be more prevalent amongst
the front-office staff who have higher role demands and expectations, and are less
substitutable (Sun et al., 2020). It has been argued that, in comparison, employees in the
back office and supervisory roles in hotels experience comparatively better WLB (Jauhari
and Manaktola, 2009).
WLB is originally a western context studied concept, and researchers in the Indian
subcontinent have so far examined the antecedents and outcomes of WLB from the
perspective of workplace practices (Le et al., 2020;Rajadhyaksha, 2012;Bhargava and
Baral, 2009). Most of the researchers are able to assess the impact of WLB practices on
individual performance and organizational outcomes (Chaudhari et al., 2020). While
designing the WLB practices, most research is centred on HRM interventions and the role of
managers (Kumar and Mokashi, 2020), whereas the viewpoint of employees is largely
ignored, and existing research has not attempted to explore and classify the indicators of
WLB (Singh and Vanka, 2019). It is evident that understanding of WLB indicators
strengthens the WLB practices, improves employees’job performance and reduces the
turnover intention of employees (Thakur and Bhatnagar, 2017). But it is extremely
important to listen to the employee voice (Kandasamy and Ancheri, 2009) while formulating
key WLB practices, particularly in the hotel industry as the industry is built on high levels
of personal service which cannot be replaced by machines or automated systems (Yadav
and Morya, 2019). Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the perspective of the front-office
employees working in luxury hotels, about their experiences and expectations from the
WLB practices existing in the respective hotels.
The second pertinent question that the study attempts to answer is how Indian luxury
hotels are weaving the WLB practices with their TM approach. The findings of global studies
have indicated that WLB practices are positively associated with TM and intention to stay
(Deery and Jago, 2015;Kar and Misra, 2013). Although some research has been conducted on
TM dimensions across Indian hotels, and it has been established that TM practices enhance
perceived organizational support and supervisor support and thus reduce employees’
intention to quit (Gupta, 2019a,b), research on establishing relationship between WLB
practices and TM approach adopted, is still at a nascent stage.
The above discussion gives rise to two important questions: first, what are the experiences
of front-office employees in response to existing WLB practices administered by luxury
hotels in India? and second, deriving from this, can the existing WLB practices be considered
as an inclusive TM approach of key HRM practices in the Indian context?
In the next section, literature review is performed, which is followed by sections on
research methods and data analysis. The findings section has been divided into two
segments, namely, findings from the focus group discussions (FGDs) and findings from the
semi-structured interviews with HR representatives. The findings section is followed by a
discussion, implications and limitations of the study.
Although the data of the study were collected before the Covid-19 pandemic (early 2020),
the findings can be useful for the industry in the post-Covid-19 era, when the hotels open to
business (Kaushal and Srivastava, 2021), but with modified work processes and guest
management protocols, while upkeeping the luxurious user experience. The modifications
can mean more work-related demands on employees that can impact the TM practices
and WLB.
ER
44,6
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