Mind the gap: a critical reflection on hotel employee turnover

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to provide a critical reflection research that was carried out to understand more fully how employee turnover has been critical to hotel management’s strategies for constructing a better workplace. Human resources decisions need to be made carefully based on a clear grasp of their effects on hotels and their staff. Design/methodology/approach A critical review was conducted with a sample of 160 academic papers that reported findings on staff turnover intentions in hotels. Findings The results include a concept map that highlights the two main dimensions found by researchers: hotel staff turnover consequences (i.e. customer satisfaction and financial performance) and antecedents (i.e. individual, job-related, relationship, organisational and opportunities). Research limitations/implications The findings underline that staff retention strategies need to focus on managing job-related, organisational and relationship variables as hotel managers have little influence on individual and job opportunity factors. Originality/value This study examined 20 years of research summarised in an up-to-date conceptual map. The findings have cross-disciplinary implications.

Quiet quitting: relationship with other concepts and implications for tourism and hospitality

“…For example, managers should have regular (weekly) in-depth discussions with their team members to boost their engagement (Elkhwesky et al , 2022). They should identify and understand employees’ needs and expectations of individual growth and development (Mohsin et al , 2022). Further, they should communicate what the organization can offer to enhance long-term goals achievement, promote transparency and ensure the alignment of organizational and employees’ needs (Sun et al , 2022).…”

“…They should invest in their human capital (Khan et al , 2021) and develop a human-centered HRM strategy to enhance employees’ resilience building and development, all of which are necessary in the hospitality sector (Giousmpasoglou et al , 2021). Moreover, managers should offer flexibility (Mohsin et al , 2022) as well as learning and development opportunities to employees through a competency-based approach that is able to overcome the lack of flexibility of job-based approaches (Capaldo et al , 2006).…”

“…However, its occurrence increased dramatically in the post-COVID-19 period, leading commentators to attribute the observed rise in this phenomenon to the COVID-19 pandemic (Le et al, 2023). In the tourism and hospitality industry, low levels of employee satisfaction had been recorded even before the pandemic, in part due to low compensation, as well as the lack of employee recognition, both of which characterize the tourism and hospitality industry (Formica and Sfodera, 2022;Mohsin et al, 2022). Undoubtedly, COVID-19 has shaken employees and organizations.…”

“…This trend is pronounced in tourism and hospitality, whereby after the end of COVID-19 shutdowns and restart of operations, there was a significantly higher reduction in employee productivity than in other industries (Gordon and Sayed, 2022; Khan et al , 2022). In short, the high-paced nature of work (Kalargyrou et al , 2023); the working conditions typical of tourism and hospitality that demand staff to routinely go above and beyond the call of duty to satisfy customers’ demands – which oftentimes can be excessive or/and expressed aggressively (Wang et al , 2022) – the high levels of emotional labor stemming from the expectation to always serve customers with a smile (Pugh, 2001); the relatively low pay (Mohsin et al , 2022) and respect of jobs in tourism and hospitality (Díaz-Carrión et al , 2020); all create fertile ground for quiet quitting to flourish in the industry.…”

How does emotional labor influence restaurant employees’ service quality during COVID-19? The roles of work fatigue and supervisor–subordinate Guanxi

“…In the case of China, the government began to take a series of pandemic prevention measures in early 2020, and many restaurants have been forced to continuously suspend their business. Nevertheless, because of the nature of the work, restaurant employees need to contact with customers at the work, thereby increasing their risk of being infected with COVID-19 (Chinazzi et al , 2020; Mohsin et al , 2022).…”