According to Ferres (2015), any genre of the organization that wants to achieve success in

business must focus on an essential role of the human element in management. Today, when the
wave of international integration develops, human resource management, especially employee
retention, is a critical issue for business leaders. Furthermore, in the digital age, it will be a
significant loss unless organizations come up with an effective employee retention strategy,
especially in the hospitality industry, where employee is one of the most important sources of
organizational competitive advantages. According to Scott (2015), hospitality managers face
some of the lowest employee retention rates of any industry, which leads to poor customer
satisfaction and decreased profitability. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported over 4.5
million employee separations in 2014 because of resignations, layoffs or terminations.

The factors driving the emergence of high employee turnover and employee retention issues are
diverse included general aspects of business operations such as management capacity, working
environment or even colleagues. Society for Human Resource Management studies (2018) have
shown that employees often rely on four factors to make their decision to leave their
organization. For example, employees have the idea of changing jobs when the company cannot
meet their requirements or they feel dissatisfied with their workplace (Picincu, 2020). Employee
dissatisfaction includes issues related to employee benefits such as traditional strategies and lack
of good employee benefits. Traditional retention strategies namely monitoring workplace
attitudes and addressing revenue drivers have hit employee retention programs directly. In
addition, failure to provide good employee benefits makes employees feel unappreciated and
cared for, leading to high levels of labor turnover. As a result, this factor creates obstacles to
employee retention programs leading to high turnover in the industry. A study by the Society for
Human Resource Management (2018) found that 29% of employees in the hospitality industry
have left their current organization for a better employee benefits package.

Unsafe or lack of flexibility in the workplace and an increase in work-related stress are other
contributors that make it difficult for organizations in the hospitality industry to retain
employees. Erica (2019) highlighted that 63% of hospitality workers experienced sexual
harassment on the job. Work-life balance is becoming a top concern for many employees (AXA,
2019). Due to the characteristics of the hospitality industry, employees face many difficulties in
balancing work and life. Most employees are unable to enjoy vacations with family and friends
during peak seasons such as public holidays and weekends. Moreover, unsocial hours and shift
patterns that are not family-friendly leads to poor or non-existent career structures and the use of
casualized seasonal employment due to insufficient human resources in the industry.
Consequently, employees tend not to sign long-term contracts and new-generation employees are
likely to be reluctant to work in the hospitality industry.