Influence of recruitment practices on employee turnover in hotels and resorts in Kilifi County, Kenya

Abstract

The hotel industry is a labour intensive industry with high labour costs on goods and servicesproduced. In order to ensure quality of goods and services at a reasonable price, and compete inthe market, hotels’ and resorts’ management in Kilifi County must have control over theirrecruitment practices, satisfy employees and decrease undesired employee turnover. This paperestablishes the influence of recruitment practices on employee turnover among hotels and resortsin Kilifi County. Employee turnover has been found to be a big challenge for managers andemployees in Kilifi County hotels and resorts and, therefore the most effective way to manage it isthrough adoption of effective recruitment and selection practices. The study adopted bothexplanatory and descriptive research design employing stratified random sampling technique toselect respondents working in the different levels of the hotels. From a target population of 602employees in twenty four (24) hotels, a sample size of 180 respondents was drawn. For datacollection, questionnaire guide was used. Both inferential and descriptive statistics were used indata analysis which thence is presented in tables. The authors recommend making the workforceof employees not majorly composed youth category and hiring professional employees withcollege certificate or diploma for vacant positions. All hotels and resorts should have a humanresource office that handles all human resource related matters and which will spearhead therecruitment and selection function; with an annual budget allocation, a recruitment and selectionpanel, and performance of job analysis before filling of vacancies. Having accurate jobdescriptions and person specifications is a pre-requisite to the process.