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Identifying Key Drivers of Success in Hospitality

A study of hotels in the US and Caribbean reveals key insights about which emotional intelligence competencies fuel success in hospitality.

Overview

Situation: The hospitality industry is a highly competitive labor market, with some of the highest turnover rates of any industry. Attracting and retaining talent is a major challenge.

Solution: To investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence competencies and success in hospitality careers, and identify specific competencies highly correlated with success at various career stages.

Results: The participants’ emotional intelligence skills were highly correlated with success, and one particular competency predicted each of the success factors by itself in the early stage of supervisors’ hospitality careers.

“Dr. Steinbock’s research provides a guide for the enhancement of human capital in hospitality, from hiring and onboarding to training and development.”

Ilaria Boffa

Six Seconds

Situation

Attracting and retaining talent is a major challenge in the leisure and hospitality industry. A report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2017 reported an annual separation rate of 73.8%, which was the highest of all listed industry groups. Dr. Erich Steinbock decided to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence competencies and hospitality career success, with the goal of revealing key insights on the development of human capital in hospitality.

Solution

Dr. Steinbock administered the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Assessment (SEI) to 440 participants across 7 luxury hotels in the US and Caribbean islands. The participants represented a range of roles and length of supervisory work experience. The SEI measured 8 emotional intelligence competencies as independent variables and 4 subjective success outcomes as dependent variables. The lead author then analyzed the results and compared them with objective data on participants’ age, role, work location, and more.

Results

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EQ FUELS SUCCESS

Emotional intelligence competencies explained the success factors across all age groups.

MOTIVATION IS KEY

For managers with less than two years supervisory experience, the only EQ competency to explain all 4 success factors is Engage Intrinsic Motivation.

MONEY ≠ WELLBEING

The study found that income had little influence over quality of life and subjective wellbeing of hospitality employees and managers.

Products & Services Delivered

Organizational Research

Utilizing Six Seconds’ R&D expertise, orgs link internal performance metrics with the measurable, learnable skills of EQ to identify top areas for opportunity.

EQ & Success Assessment

SEI – Six Seconds’ Emotional Intelligence Assessment is a validated psychometric tool for measuring emotional intelligence, used with over 250k people worldwide. Read more about SEI. 

Research Grants

Six Seconds supports scholars to utilize best-in-class assessment tools in their research. See https://www.6seconds.org/education/grants/ for details.

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