Bridging the Generational Gap in the Hospitality Industry: Reverse Mentoring—An Innovative Talent Management Practice for Present and Future Generations of Employees

Abstract

In the present generational context, talent management approaches and practices have evolved from the stage of "war for talent", defined by competitiveness and elitism, to a more collaborative and inclusive "post-war stage". Innovative solutions are increasingly important. In this framework, the main aim of the paper is to confirm that reverse mentoring, a talent management practice which appeared as a response to the necessity to bridge the present generational gap, can be considered a valuable approach in hospitality. Two case studies on the successful implementation of reverse mentoring in Swiss hospitality are presented: the Shadow Comex (Accor) and the ExCom-Y (Mövenpick). Results of a focus-group discussion on the topic of identifying the attitudes and opinions of Romanian employees regarding the implementation of reverse mentoring in hotels are further analyzed. Results support the idea that reverse mentoring has developed and offers great potential for innovation. The present study offers interesting and useful ideas to companies in hospitality on how to implement reverse mentoring. Results from the group discussion demonstrate that Romanian employees have high expectations and innovative approaches regarding the implementation of reverse mentoring, similar to the employees from Switzerland, but they lack trust in their employers regarding the real possibility to implement it.

Constructive Leadership and Employee Innovative Behaviors: A Serial Mediation Model

“…A number of scholars have recommended that leadership is favorably associated with the business commitment and employee innovation in companies [33][34][35]. For example, constructive management approach could generate employee innovative solutions [36]. Research has also suggested that the improvement of a hotel organization's innovativeness could be positively affected by the capability of the leader to show the constructive behaviors [37].…”

“…In addition, past studies on creativity and innovation in the hospitality field have generally counted on qualitative contexts and students for sampling [80][81][82]. That is, few studies have focused on employee innovative behaviors in the hospitality context [14,36]. Therefore, there has been a call for more studies to empirically explore the hypothesized relationships between creativity and innovation in the service industry [83].…”

Transitioning HRM to HSM - Human Self-Management Goes beyond Traditional HR

“…Reverse mentoring is emerging as an innovative talent management practice, allowing for the bridging of skills, generational, digital and other workforce gaps. Romanian and Swiss hospitality industries experienced the challenge of a lack of trust by employees on whether managers can effectively implement reverse mentoring as a talent innovation strategy, where the younger generations teach and develop older employees on 4IR integration [13]. Today's dynamic business and 4IR environments require managers and employees to gain business agility and flexibility.…”

“…HR and line managers must negotiate, engage, nurture, mentor and coach employees at all levels. Reverse mentoring and coaching allows for younger generations to train, develop and transfer skills and competencies into older employees and vice versa [1,13,17]. HR has transformed to integrate technological systems and analytics in the 4IR landscape; thus becoming a key driver towards further transitioning.…”

“…HCM and talent creation approaches must bridge internal skills gaps via skills development and personal development plans [8]. Talent creation risks are avoided when talent strategies support the bridging of skills, generational, digital and other workforce gaps using reverse mentoring and coaching approaches [6,8,13].…”