Industries
Why hospitality employees leave and how to understand why
Hotel, restaurant and banquet staff leave for reasons that vary by department and season. How to ask what sits behind the first answer and act on it.
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Hospitality
HR for Country Clubs and Member Clubs: Long-Serving Staff, Members and Committees
A member club serves people who own a stake in it and expect to be known by name. Here is how to organise a long-serving team, a committee that changes and members who see everything.
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Share your requirementsHow the work is organised
A country club, gymkhana or member club serves families who pay to belong, not guests who pay once. The team looks after dining rooms, bars, banquets, sports facilities, a pool, guest rooms in some cases, gardens and the office that manages membership, accounts and events. Many clubs have employees who have served for decades and know members' habits, while others use outsourced staff for kitchens, cleaning or security. A general manager or secretary runs daily affairs, but is accountable to an elected committee whose members change every year or two and who may not agree on priorities. Members are close observers: they notice slow service, a changed menu or a missing familiar face, and they may complain directly to a committee member. Weekends, festivals and annual events bring heavy loads, and weekday afternoons can be very quiet.
Who does the work
- General managers and club secretaries
- Dining, bar and banquet service teams
- Kitchen staff and stewards
- Sports coaches, marshals and facility staff
- Reception and membership office staff
- Maintenance, gardening and housekeeping teams
- Outsourced security and cleaning teams
Where HR strains in country clubs and member clubs
A committee changes direction every term
New office-bearers bring new ideas on staffing and pay, and decisions made by one committee are reversed by the next without a written record.
Long-serving staff and thin records
People with twenty years of service have informal arrangements, unclear job roles and pay that does not match their current duties.
Members complain to the person they know
A member raises a concern with a committee member, who then instructs a staff member directly, going around the manager.
Service depends on familiarity
Staff know members' preferences by heart, but little is written down, so a retirement or a resignation takes that knowledge with it.
Younger hires do not stay
Fresh stewards and trainees see little career movement and move to hotels or restaurants, leaving an ageing team.
What a working HR set-up looks like
- 01
Agree a staffing policy the committee adopts
A written policy on hiring, pay revisions, promotions and discipline, approved once and carried from one committee to the next. The HR policies and governance work covers it.
- 02
Update every role in writing
A current description, grade and pay for each long-serving employee, discussed with them, so that informal arrangements are replaced by clear ones. The role design and job descriptions work provides the format.
- 03
Set one route for member feedback
A simple way for members to give feedback through the manager or an office, with a rule that committee members do not instruct staff directly.
- 04
Capture member knowledge before it leaves
A short guide for each section about regular members' preferences, event traditions and how things are done, built with the staff who know them.
- 05
Offer younger staff a visible path
Steps from trainee to steward to supervisor with training and a review date, so people can see where they are going. The learning and development process helps.
What to put in place first
- List every employee with their joining date, current duties and pay, and mark where the three do not match.
- Check whether the last two committees left written decisions on staffing and whether the present one has seen them.
- Ask the manager how many instructions to staff in the last month came from committee members directly.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the employment, society or association and record-keeping obligations that apply to your club.
Confirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
Where GullyHR helps
- HR policies and governance
Staffing rules approved by the committee once and applied consistently as office-bearers change.
- Role design and job descriptions
Current role descriptions and grades for long-serving staff, replacing informal understandings.
- Succession planning
A plan for the manager, chef and key section heads, so a retirement does not leave the club exposed.
- Employee engagement and culture
A way to keep long-serving staff and younger hires working as one team.
Every engagement starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes. Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Blogs worth reading first
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in hospitality, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
HR Process
What should an employee handbook include?
A practical contents list for an employee handbook in a growing Indian business: what to cover, what to leave to policies, and how to keep it usable and current.
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HR Management
"What if this person resigned tomorrow?" A succession exercise for small companies
A two-hour exercise that names the roles you could not fill quickly, who could cover them, and what readiness would actually require.
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HR Management
The engagement survey that made things worse
Eighty per cent responded, the report was thorough, and six months later trust was lower than before. What went wrong between the survey and the silence.
8 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Agree a grade structure and compare each person's current duties with it. Discuss changes with the person and the manager before the committee approves anything.
From their manager. Members and committee members raise concerns through the manager or office, who then instruct the team. Write this down and share it with the committee at the start of each term.
Start with a clear conversation about what is expected, offer training or a changed role and keep a written record. Take advice from a qualified professional before any formal step.
Treat them as part of the club's standard: share the service rules, check how the contractor manages attendance and training, and agree one contact on each side.
Show a path, train them properly and recognise good work in front of the team. Many leave because no one explained what might come next.
We would meet the manager and, if useful, the committee. The questions would be whether each long-serving employee's joining date, duties and pay match on paper, who gives instructions to staff, and how member complaints reach the right person. A first piece of work could be a staffing policy the committee can adopt and carry across terms. Scope is agreed in writing afterwards.
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