The impact of anti-BYOD policies on Generation Z hospitality employee's engagement

As an industry hospitality typically reacts to problems rather than tackling them proactively. One of the greatest problems currently faced by the industry is the low engagement rates across employees. These low levels have been linked to many issues including low morale, productivity and high turnover rates. One way to try to remedy this issue before it worsens would be to look at future hospitality employees and try to understand what will engage them. Doing so will allow human resource leaders to make changes to any polices which currently do not synchronize with these engaging factors. With research suggesting that Generation Z are highly dependent on their mobile devices, the current anti-BYOD (bring your own device) polices which are common in the hospitality industry may prove to be disengaging. Hospitality industry leaders need to find a way to ensure engagement of these potential employees while not sacrificing the level of service associated with the industry. A survey was developed to measure the level of mobile device dependency, the level of disengagement as a result of anti-BYOD policies and the level of importance placed on customer service, should BYOD polices be implemented. Statistical analysis suggests that while both Generation Y & Z are disengaged by anti-BYOD policies, the difference between them was not significant. Interestingly, the high level of importance placed on customer service was not significantly different regardless of generation or level of device dependency. This suggests that giving both Generation Y & Z employees access to their mobile device during work would increase engagement levels and would not reduce the customer experience. There is further discussion suggesting evidence of Generation C, a psychographic interpretation of Generation Y & Z characteristics. Recommendations for both the industry and academia are also made.