Employee turnover in the Housekeeping sector in Denmark

Abstract

Human capital, is the main asset for any organization,but most importantly within the dynamic hospitality industry,where retaining the right personnel can lead to long-term success and organizational growth. Employee retention has always been a challenge in the hospitality and service industry, especially in the housekeeping department, where the management has to face constant fluctuation with human capital. Although, employee turnover is present globally, this research focus on the danish hospitality industry, more particularly the housekeeping department, where turnover is frequent,despite Denmark’s strong welfare system. Even though hospitality employees benefits from Denmark labour protection and welfare system, despite these advantages, they might face several issues in a form of work tenure, physical demand and work-life balance. Housekeeping sector is often overlooked, tilted as low-skilled and psychically demanding department, with little or no career development and growth opportunities. However housekeeping is on forefront of the hotel, since it does impact first-hand guest experience and directly effect hotel reputation, which makes it is a critical human capital asset within the hotel industry. Therefore, this study aim to investigate the factors,that contribute to employee turnover and employee job satisfaction within the housekeeping department, in order to gather additional knowledge from housekeepers and the management first hand experiences on turnover. The primary data collection was gathered trough semi-structured interviews based on key themes with the participants. The interviews was focused on career development ,recognition and employee job satisfaction, to gain a deeper and comprehensive view on the turnover in the housekeeping.