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Changing careers demand different organisational principles
The hospitality sector has been facing the same challenge for years: too many vacancies, too much staff turnover. In early 2023, the hospitality industry alone had 35,000 open positions. Yet many organisations continue to rely on the same solutions: better recruitment, more attractive contracts, higher salaries, and vertical career progression. Is that enough? According to BUas researchers Yoy Bergs and Hugo Mutsaerts, it is not.
The ladder no longer works
A career used to be straightforward: you started at the bottom, climbed step by step, and ideally stayed with the same employer for years. Those days are over. Today's employees, particularly younger generations, are not looking for a predictable path. They want autonomy, variety, and work that contributes to something meaningful. Organisations that cannot offer this will see their people leave.
Think like a climbing wall, not a ladder
Bergs and Mutsaerts argue that modern careers call for a different way of organising: more flexible, more human, less hierarchical. They look to Buurtzorg, a Dutch home care organisation where more than 14,000 employees work in small, self-managing teams with no managers. Teams organise their own schedules, support one another through personal circumstances, and work from shared values rather than job descriptions. The result, high employee satisfaction and a turnover of €400 million.
What the sector can learn from this
There is no need to copy the model wholesale. The principles, however, are transferable: give teams more responsibility, acknowledge that employees have lives outside of work, and define an organisational purpose that goes beyond revenue alone. What does your hotel, restaurant, or attraction genuinely want to stand for? Small steps in that direction can make a real difference, for both staff and guests.
This article is based on 'Van ladder naar klimmuur: organisatieprincipes die dynamische loopbanen faciliteren' by Yoy Bergs (Sr. Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour & Sustainable HRM) and Hugo Mutsaerts (Lecturer-Researcher Operations Management & Organisational Behaviour), published in the NRIT trend report (Edition 46).
