Frank DiMeo/University Photography

Timothy Hinkin and Bruce Tracey discuss their Turnover Cost Evaluator, which helps hotels and restaurants calculate how employee turnover affects the bottom line.

Hotels and restaurants now can accurately compute all the costs associated with losing and replacing an employee, thanks to a free Web-based management tool from Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration.

The new tool, Turnover Cost Evaluator, can be accessed through the school's Center for Hospitality Research Web site: http://chr.cornell.edu, under the heading "Tools for the Hospitality Industry." New visitors to the site are asked to register, at no cost or obligation.

The evaluator, co-developed by Cornell Hotel School Professor Timothy R. Hinkin and Associate Professor J. Bruce Tracey, allows users to enter data that is specific to their organization and provides them with a detailed cost analysis of employee turnover. It can be used to assess the turnover costs associated with a number of line, supervisory and managerial positions and allows users to modify their entries to examine a variety of scenarios.

Currently the tool is focused on the lodging industry, but it contains a food-and-beverage section that can be used by restaurants as well.

"The key value of the tool is that it brings to light costs that are very often hidden or overlooked," said Hinkin. "The lodging industry turnover rate for line-level employees averages over 65 percent a year. Without the tool, companies may not be aware of how much they are spending on employee turnover."

"We are excited to make this management tool available to the industry via the center's Web site and establish industry benchmarks that can be used for diagnostic and planning purposes," stated Tracey.

Hospitality industry practitioners give the evaluator positive reviews. Jo-Anne Kruse, executive vice president, human resources, in Cendant Corp.'s travel distribution services division, said, "The evaluator provides human resource staff and managers with the data and tools necessary to proactively manage their business, as well as make critical human capital decisions."

Hinkin and Tracey, who have done extensive research and consulting on hotel and restaurant employee turnover, hope over time to incorporate hospitality industry norms for wages, turnover rates and training costs in the evaluator so that users can compare their results to industry averages.