Soft skills gap and improving business competitiveness by managing talent in the hospitality industry

The purpose of this paper is to develop a deeper understanding of talent management strategies and practices in the hospitality industry context paying additional attention to soft skills gap. This study on talent management is limited and fragmented, that is why integrative literature review has been chosen as a method used to identify and analyse relevant studies, theoretical concepts in order to develop a deeper understanding and create a more comprehensive study of the strategies reviewed, and possibly to provide some solutions. Results from the literature review showed that talent management has a positive and strong association with competitive advantage, performance and talent positioning (Anwar & Nisar, 2014). New theoretical concepts and framework for talent management in the hospitality industry are beginning to develop, and it is a pathway for a hospitality company to reach its strategic goals and objectives. Competencies that have remained on the list of required skills include the soft skills of communication, customer focus, interpersonal skills and leadership (Johnson, Ghiselli, Shea, and Roberts, 2011). The performance of the company can be negatively impacted by skills gap due to unsatisfying levels of productivity and lacking quality (Bennett & McGuinness, 2009). The limitations of this study might be listed as having limited design due to a variety of constraints, that is why it can be viewed as fragmented, although this study adds to adds to the overall scope of literature on talent management, soft skills gap in the hospitality industry. Practical implications can generally help the practitioners to place emphasis on the development of soft skills and implement better talent management strategies to ensure that a positive image of the organization is consistently presented. Based on results, the future research should be conducted on the outputs and effects of these talent management concept and strategies, as well as how it can facilitate the soft skills gap closure on individual and organizational performance. Conducting an empirical research, both qualitative and quantitative, which includes observation or implementation of these practices may be useful to further build on the literature.