Employee turnover and its effect on work flow in the hospitality industry, a case study of selected hotels in the Kumasi Metropolis

Abstract

Employee turnover is one of the major problems facing the hotel industry the world over with Ghana being no exception. Generally, the hotel industry depends on humans as part of the product, with unnecessary employee turnover being an element of critical importance to bottom line performance and workflow. To this effect, the aim of the study was to examine the factors that influence employee turnover and its effect on work flow in selected hotels in the Kumasi metropolis. This study adopted a descriptive research design. From an approximate population of 500 permanent staff members of the selected hotels, random sampling was used to select a total of 100 respondents comprising 25 management members and 75 employees for data collection with the aid of a structured questionnaire. The data were analysed using SPSS v18 to generate descriptive statistics and ranking analysis using relative importance indexes. The study revealed that the most important employee expectations in the hotel industry as expressed by the respondents were increased financial returns (66.7%), adequate welfare (64%), improved benefit package (60%) and good working conditions (54.7%). Also, it was found that turnover was unhealthy for workflow in the hotels. For instance, the highly rated effects of employee turnover on productivity and workflow by the respondents in the hotels were service delivery breakdown (65.4%), negative impact on the hotel’s performance (56%) and reduction in profit (53.3%). In conclusion, the factors that influence employee turnover in hotels in the Kumasi metropolis relate to their expectations of gainful employment. The lack of these expectations affect their turnover rate which negatively affects workflow. In order to boost the job-embeddedness of employees whilst slowing down the inclination to engender turnover intention, hotel management should look at how they will use rewards to motivate their workers.