Read and React 4

The article “Why do employees stay? A Qualitative Exploration of Employee Tenure” by John T. Self and Ben Dewald explore the various reasons for why employee turnover is so high in the hospitality management specifically in food and beverage. They wanted to explore and issue that is important in the industry and decided that the best way to draw conclusions would be to interview people who have managed to stay in a job for longer than a year. The different arguments for lowering the employee turnover include making job descriptions more realistic, hiring more mature people, and hiring people who have responsibilities, and or friends that work. The best way to lower employee turnover is by giving employees an incentive to stay and most of the times they come from external factors. The authors explain that if an employee has bills it pay, they are more likely to stay in the job in comparison to someone who has a job for fun. The argument that I agree with the most is that most of the times employees leave a job because they are “dissatisfaction with the job and relationships with supervisors.” For the most part, people are less likely to want to be in a place of hostility, therefore if they don’t get along with their coworkers, or they don’t feel a line of connection with their superiors, they are less likely to want to be in the job in the first place.

My initial Disney College Program was only supposed to last until January but I ended up extending my program until July. The reason why I was so keen on staying for a longer program was because of the work environment. While working at my location can tend to be difficult, because we are either closing or opening a shift which tends to be stressful, but the one thing that makes it all worth it is the people. When it comes to getting through a shift, I don’t think I would be able to if it weren’t for my coworkers. Whether it is having a casual conversation in the workroom, making plans outside of work, or making sure a station is cleaned up on time for closing, having people next to you going through the same thing is comforting. At the same time, having leaders who are understanding, are willing to help, and are easy to talk to makes everything more doable. It seems that the reason why people have stayed in Port Orleans French Quarters is because of the people. For the most part, everyone gets along pretty well, and because people work better with each other, they are more likely to get things done in an efficient manner. Personally, I prefer working at night because there are more CP’s and because we all want to get done at the same time, we constantly push to help each other out. That work dynamic is enjoyable. In my program, about half of the CP’s have extended which comes to show that something is being done well.

In terms of keeping the magic alive, I’ve noticed that disney makes a point of making cast members feel special. For part time workers, there are parties held that celebrate the amount of times cast workers have worked. They also make a point of celebrating birthdays and overall making people feel like individuals rather than just workers. Lastly, to add to the arguments made, financial responsibility is a huge reason for people staying in the company. When I speak to cast members who have been with the company for a while, they have mentioned wanting to buy a house or paying for college. This is one of the major reasons for people staying with disney. This is especially true now that the company is making a point of paying for college tuition for full time workers. Now cast members are willing to stay in the company and earn a degree at the same time. All in all, disney does a great job of keeping their cast members because they seem to care about their progression not only in the company but as individuals.