Long-term hotel employees deserve more than a service award and a speech about loyalty. Twenty or thirty years can hold real pride, friendships and a love of the work. Those years can also hold compromises the hotel has never asked about.

A person may have watched ownership change, helped new managers find their feet and taught colleagues who later moved into bigger jobs. They may be exactly where they want to be. They may also be wondering whether the building they have given so much to still has anything useful to give back.

You cannot learn which it is from their anniversary date. And it is a mistake to assume that someone who stays is comfortable with everything they have learned to tolerate.

I understand the appeal of belonging to a place. Hospitality can give people a craft, a community and the satisfaction of making someone else’s day better. Leaders should take those attachments seriously enough to ask what they make possible, and what they make difficult.

Long-term hotel employees stay for reasons a dashboard cannot explain

A familiar team can feel like an important part of a person’s life. A colleague knows how their shift works. A regular guest remembers their name. They have learned a hundred small details that make the property easier to operate and the service feel personal.

That can be a rewarding career in its own right. A person should not have to want a management title to have their skill respected or their pay reviewed. Progress might mean becoming excellent at a craft, gaining a more workable schedule or being given proper time to teach.

The original 2001 research on job embeddedness examined attachment through relationships, fit with work and community, and what a person would give up by leaving. It helps explain why staying can involve more than satisfaction with a job, while leaving the individual employee’s reasons for them to describe.

For someone at your hotel, moving might mean giving up trusted colleagues, familiar arrangements or benefits they value. It might mean taking a risk they cannot easily afford. Ask about those considerations without assuming age, tenure or job title tells you the answer.

People can love the work and struggle with the workplace

The 2024 research on abusive supervision in commercial kitchens described camaraderie and passion for kitchen work helping sustain commitment even amid abusive leadership. That finding raises an uncomfortable possibility: attachment to colleagues can help people remain in conditions that deserve to change.

A person may stay because they do not want to leave a younger colleague alone with a difficult manager. They may feel responsible for a department that keeps getting rebuilt. Those are possibilities to explore carefully, not stories leadership should assign to someone who has never told them.

If a loyal employee feels the team will fall apart without them, the hotel needs to examine coverage and succession. Their sense of responsibility should not become the reason nobody else takes responsibility for fixing the operation.

And please do not use affection for the team as evidence that pay is fine. People still have bills and a life outside the building. Meaningful work gives the hotel a reason to treat them well; it does not settle their compensation.

Ask what long-term hotel employees have been able to choose

Could they use the time off they earned? Could they decline another extra shift? Have they been offered development that fits what they want? Would raising a concern put a valued relationship or a workable schedule at risk?

Those questions need an answer outside the anniversary celebration. Give the person room to speak without an audience and without making a promotion the only respectable goal. Listen for the future they want, even if that future involves a different role or leaving well.

Care also includes fair treatment of newer colleagues. An experienced person’s history deserves respect, and the same behavioral standards should apply throughout the team. Tenure should help them contribute, teach and be heard without giving anyone permission to bully the next person.

A hotel can support continuity while making room for new ideas. Ask the people who know the operation which knowledge is worth carrying forward and which habits they have wanted to improve for years.

Make the next year worth choosing

Pick one commitment from the conversation and make it concrete. Review compensation where it is overdue. Protect a training role with time and recognition. Fix an arrangement that keeps making leave difficult. Help the person plan a transition if that is what they want.

Tell them who owns the decision and when they will hear back. A sincere conversation becomes another disappointment if the hotel gathers the answer and never does anything with it.

Long-term hotel employees can be among a property’s greatest strengths. I want leaders to honor the person doing the work, including the parts of their life that never appear in a guest review.

When you hand someone a twenty-year award, be ready to explain what the hotel is doing to make their next year better. The photograph will be easier than the answer.

Continue reading Hospitality Field Notes, and explore the operating references in Hospitality Intelligence.