IMPACT OF COVID 19 ON EMPLOYEE RETENTION IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY.

Abstract

The hospitality industry is labor intensive and hence, a major contributor to employment opportunities. Despite the high job opportunities that the hospitality industry has always created, the Covid 19 pandemic brought about negative impacts to most hostels and restaurants in Kenya. This stud established the influence of Job redundancy on employee retention in the hospitality industry. The sample in this study comprised employees working in Hospitality Industry that provide comprehensive services, including restaurants and gyms. At the time of this study, there were 22 major hotels in Kenya, of which eight received a total of 400 copies of a questionnaire. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS. The study found that a unit increase in the job redundancy would lead to a decrease in employee retention in the hospitality industry. The study also established that the influence was significant. Based on these findings, the study concluded that there was a negative significant influence of job redundancy on employee retention in the hospitality industry. The management should include the employees in some of the decisions that will affect the workers and their working conditions, and if the organization is having some challenges, it should not be hidden from the employees so that there will be the ‘WE’ feeling and the employees will be able to work hand in hand with the management to go through the challenges together and ensure better organization performance and also reduce drastically employee turnover.