A Study of the Extent and Nature of Labour Turnover in Hotels

This thesis sets out to investigate the extent and nature of labour turnover in hotels. The general thrust of the work is to build up on existing knowledge. This knowledge, as appraised in a review of the past literature, is based primarily on measures and manifestations of labour turnover which are external to aD organisation. Thus, while the work starts from a broad base illustrating the overall extent of staff turnover in the hotel industry, the main part of the study concentrates on the phenomenon of labour turnover on a smaller scale and from an intra-hotel perspective. To this end traditional concepts of labour market theory are used to comple.ment the principal theoretical framework used in this thesis, a framework which is concerned with internal labour markets. From this theoretical base is derived an index of managerial practices which is instrumental in building up a composite picture of the internal labour market structure of hotels. The different characteristics of labour turnover are then examined with regard to this structure. Five principle findings emerge from this thesis: That hotels arean example of very weak internal labour markets; That hotel managers work in a relatively unconstrained environment, yet appear to do nothing in response to labour market pressure; That the phenomenon of labour turnover in hotels can be concieved in terms of a stable and an unstable element in all establishments; That the extent of variability within hotels and within occupations suggests some other common influence. The evidence here indicates this influence to be managerial practices; That, although labour turnover in hotels was confirmed to be very high, some of the other reputational cliches on the subject have been ·"brought into question by the findings.,'The greater instability of 'back of house' staff is queried, and that particular occupations are inherently unstable is thought doubtful.