The authors wanted to study hotels because of the alarmingly high turnover of staff, which varies between 22% and 80% across countries. They said previous studies of the importance of HRM had addressed other different sectors in the hospitality industry.
The authors carried out semi-structured interviews with eight males and seven females aged between 23 and 52 years old. They were all at junior, or mid-management, level. They had experience of working in a lot of different departments, including marketing, HRM, front office, public relations and finance. The interviews of between 45 minutes and an hour were carried out in cafes. All names were changed in the paper.
The in-depth interviews revealed that the way in which HR departments implement policies makes all the difference to staff retention rates. The authors said their study demonstrated the powerful role of HR departments in hotels and that hotel employees expected them to play proactive roles in promoting their wellbeing at work.
Studies of the impact of HRM on staff turnover in the hotel sector in China have been rare.
