ON THE MOVE: MANAGEMENT RELOCATION IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

"Don't buy a house; it'll just make things more difficult when it comes time to make a move. " - Advice from a hotel company's vice president to a manager.

During a meeting with the vice president of marketing of a major U.S. hotel company, we were privy to a telephone conversation between the vice president and a regional marketing director. The conversation revolved around trying to fill a director of marketing position that had recently become available at one of their hotels. The conversation was not going well. Apparently, the regional director of marketing had been turned down after offering the job to one of the marketing directors in that region. When the vice president finished the phone call, he turned to us in exasperation and said: "Would you believe it? Here I am responsible for driving revenue for one of the largest hotel companies in the U.S., and my biggest problem is human resources! No one wants to move anymore! I cannot afford to have an immobile sales force!"

The conversation made us wonder whether other companies were having similar difficulties with employee relocation and whether employees were behaving differently today than they had behaved, say, five or ten years ago. If the VP was right and no one wanted to move anymore, we wondered what interventions companies could design to mitigate the problem. This article discusses some of those issues.

While there are a limited number of articles in the management literature that investigate the predictors of willingness to relocate,(1) we found no recent empirical research (i.e., since 1985) investigating issues specifically associated with management relocation in the hospitality industry. Ironically, we found several articles written by hotel executives in practitioner journals discussing the revenue opportunities that exist by marketing to consumers who are interviewing and house-hunting during a relocation.(2) We seek to fill that gap by reviewing the recent literature on management relocation and presenting a case study that shows how one hotel company handles relocation. based on the case study, we offer a new relocation model, the "hurdle model," which summarizes the steps that generally apply to a transfer decision.

A Conceptual Framework

The most recent comprehensive study on management relocation in the United States, published in 1993, was based on a sample of 827 employees from 20 Fortune 500 companies in eight industries (including hotels).(3) Examining a number of demographic characteristics that the researchers thought might predict a manager's willingness to relocate, the researchers found only age to be significantly related to that willingness. Young managers were more likely to be willing to relocate than were their older peers. Such other factors as gender, marital status, the number of children at home, and spouse's employment status were not significantly related to willingness to relocate - and neither were race or level of education.

Looking at career characteristics, the researchers found only income and job function to be significantly related to willingness to relocate. Low-wage earners were more willing to relocate than those with high incomes, and compared to people holding other jobs, sales-and-marketing types were likeliest to want to move. Interestingly, the number of prior relocations, length of time with the employer, or length of job tenure were not found to be significantly related to willingness to relocate. The researchers highlighted a number of career attitudes that significantly related to willingness to relocate. Employees who were ambitious, who saw future opportunities with the organization, and who had positive attitudes toward moving were more likely to be willing to relocate than those who did not display those attitudes. Not surprisingly, a spouse's willingness to relocate was the most significant factor in determining an employee's willingness to relocate.

The Case of Inflexible Lodging, Inc. (IFL)

With the above study as background, we examined the case of a single U.S. hotel company to find out as much as we could about the firm's spoken and unspoken management-relocation policies. This company owns and manages over 50 hotels from coast to coast. Although the company franchises hotels, the case study pertains only to its managed hotels. We conducted interviews with current managers and analyzed company literature on relocation policies and procedures to compile the following information.

 
Exhibit 1 
 
Factors affecting an employee's willingness to relocate 
 
Significant Factors                   Non-significant Factors 
 
Age                                   Gender 
Income                                Race 
Job function                          Marital status 
Ambition                              Number of children 
Expected future opportunity           Whether spouse is employed 
Employee's attitudes toward moving    Education 
Spouse's willingness to relocate      Job … 

Source: http://business.highbeam.com/4074/article-1G1-54793249/move-management-relocation-hospitality-industry

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