International Journal of Hospitality Management 83 (2019) 46–55

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International Journal of Hospitality Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhm

Factors affecting hotel employees’ attrition and turnover: Application of T

pull-push-mooring framework
⁎
Kavitha Haldoraia, Woo Gon Kima, , Souji Gopalakrishna Pillaia, Taesu (Eliot) Parkb,
Kandappan Balasubramanianc
a
International Center for Hospitality Research & Development, Dedman School of Hospitality, Florida State University, 288 Champions Way, UCB 4117, P.O. Box
3062541, Tallahassee, FL 32306, United States
b
Mongolia International University, 13th Khoroo, Bayanzurkh District, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
c
School of Hospitality, Tourism and Events, Faculty of Social Science and Leisure Management, Taylor’s University, 47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This study aims to investigate the turnover intentions of hotel employees in the short-, medium-, and long-term
Pull-push-mooring framework using the pull-push-mooring framework. An extensive review of the literature resulted in eight push, five pull,
Short-term and one mooring factors. A total of 308 five-star hotel employees participated in this research endeavor. The
Medium-term authors collected data using a survey questionnaire from five-star hotel employees in the Kuala Lumpur region.
Long-term
The researchers used PLS-SEM to empirically test the proposed hypotheses. Among the eight push factors
Turnover intention
identified, six factors were supported overall, and three factors were supported in short-, medium-, and long-
Attrition
Hotel employees term turnover intention. Among the five pull factors identified, two factors were supported in short-, medium-,
Malaysia and long-term turnover intention. The moderation effect was significant only in the medium-term. The dis-
cussions and implications include how the results are useful to hospitality HR managers and professionals for
improving employee retention. The authors also discuss the limitations and directions for future research.

1. Introduction catalyst to create and render services. Employee turnover in the hos-
pitality industry is a widely researched topic, and many researchers
The Malaysian people-oriented industry is growing at an unparallel have investigated the predictors that either positively or negatively
rate. In recent years, the growth of the Malaysian hospitality industry influence employee turnover intention: long ‘anti-social’ working hours
has been in line with the growth of the global hospitality industry. and work life conflict (Zhao and Ghiselli, 2016), emotional exhaustion
Malaysia’s hospitality and tourism industry has transformed itself as the (Brown et al., 2015), poor pay, work overload and working environ-
pillar of the nation’s economic success by being the third largest con- ment (Poulston, 2008; Zhao et al., 2016), and career progression
tributor to the nation’s economy (WTTC, 2017). The Malaysian hotel (McGinley et al., 2014). However, a dearth of research has empirically
industry is tremendously growing with a steady inflow of tourists, investigated community fit as a predictor of turnover intention in the
business travelers, and as a MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions, hospitality context.
and Exhibitions) venue. The developments of hotel projects are pro- Furthermore, Pull-Push-Mooring (PPM) theory is widely used in
pelled to promote Malaysia as a tourist destination and as a regional travel and tourism literature from the customers’ travel decision making
center for trade and commerce. And yet, employee turnover remains an perspective but has seen limited application in the hospitality context.
endemically challenging issue in the Malaysian hotel industry. Also, to the authors’ knowledge, no research has been carried out to
In service industries, employee turnover is a common phenomenon, determine the factors influencing the short-term, medium-term and
and it is remarkably high in the hospitality industry because of the 24/7 long-term turnover intentions of hotel employees. Therefore, this re-
nature of jobs. The negative impact of employee turnover involves in- search attempts to fill the gap by determining the factors that encourage
creased costs in terms of multiple stages of HR tasks, such as recruit- and dissuade individuals from joining the hotel industry (Pull-Push-
ment and selection, training, and development. The hotel industry is Mooring factors) and its impact on short-term, medium-term and long-
even more negatively affected by turnover since employees are the term turnover intention. The findings of this study will contribute to the

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (K. Haldorai), [email protected] (W.G. Kim), [email protected] (S.G. Pillai), [email protected] (T.E. Park),
[email protected] (K. Balasubramanian).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2019.04.003
Received 5 October 2018; Received in revised form 7 April 2019; Accepted 8 April 2019
0278-4319/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
K. Haldorai, et al. International Journal of Hospitality Management 83 (2019) 46–55

literature by enabling hospitality human resources to frame policies to interpersonal relation among co-workers in the hospitality industry.
identify appropriate retention strategies as the hotel industry heavily They further reported that employees who experienced relatively high
relies on its human capital to attain a competitive advantage. interpersonal tension at work were more likely to leave their current
job to pursue employment in other industries. Tang et al. (2015) found
2. Theoretical background and hypotheses development high levels of interpersonal tension and poor socialization led to higher
turnover rates in the hospitality industry. Wong et al. (2017) concluded
2.1. Pull-Push-Mooring (PPM) theory Gen Y employees emphasized the need for a cordial interpersonal re-
lationship among co-workers as an important factor for remaining in
This research will apply the PPM framework to determine the fac- the hospitality industry. Employees who experienced healthy inter-
tors that encourage individuals to join (or leave) the hotel industry. To personal relations in the form of cooperative team members and sup-
date, the pull-push framework is one of the most popular and com- portive supervisors had reported lower intentions to quit (Nei et al.,
monly used models for understanding human migration (Hou et al., 2015).
2014). The origin of the PPM theory links back to human migration
studies (Lee, 1966), which considers migration as an outcome of the 2.2.3. Career progression
interaction between push and pull effects from an origin place to a Organizations that provide career pathways for their employees
destination (Chang et al., 2014). This theory was first developed as the create a mutual investment type of relationship with their employees.
pull-push model, and Moon (1995) extended the theory by further McGinley et al. (2014) found that a perceived lack of career progression
adding mooring factors. In migration theory, mooring factors include was one of the prime factors in hotel managers’ decision to leave the
the personal, social, or cultural variables that hinder or facilitate a industry altogether. Wong et al. (2017) found that fair promotions and
migratory decision (Moon, 1995). The negative factors or unfavorable clear career paths were essential for Gen Y to remain in the hospitality
conditions (e.g., loss of employment, natural disaster, poor working industry. Zopiatis et al. (2014) identified career progression as a prime
conditions, limited fringe benefits, and limited opportunity for devel- factor driving employee retention, specifically, long-term career de-
opment) that force an individual to move from the origin are the push velopment are the key motivators for Gen Y employees. Intention to
factors. There is a conceptual similarity between the push factors from quit was lower among promotable employees since they considered
migration studies to that of the factors that encourage turnover inten- they were guided and mentored by their supervisors to perform higher
tion such as low pay, work overload, job dissatisfaction, etc. On the roles (Chan et al., 2016)
other hand, those positive factors (e.g., high pay, better opportunities,
job security, organizational culture, and reputation) that attract in- 2.2.4. Emotional labor
dividuals towards a destination are considered the pull factors. Both In the hospitality industry, service employees’ work is not only in-
pull and push factors are characteristics of the place and are not related tellectual and physical in nature but also involves a great deal of
to the migrant himself/herself (Jung et al., 2017). Mooring factors are emotional labor when dealing with guests. Emotional labor refers to
either positive or negative factors that moderate pull and push factors. how employees manage their feelings and expression in order to match
The PPM model that originated from the human migration theory is the requirements of the job (Brotheridge and Lee, 2003). Goh and Lee
a cornerstone for understanding turnover intention since migration (2018) identified emotional labor as one of the key challenges in the
does not only indicate movement across geographical locations but hospitality industry among Gen Z. Emotional labor has become a cri-
further extends to other daily activities. In other words, one can con- tical factor in the hospitality industry due to the high demands placed
sider moving across jobs and industries as a type of migration. on service quality (Shani et al., 2014). Xu et al. (2017) found surface
acting was positively related to turnover since employees feel strained
2.2. Push factors and turnover intention when they are forced to display an emotion that does not match their
authentic emotion. Humphrey et al. (2015) contended that emotional
This section will focus on the push factors, namely low pay, long labor leads to burnout and turnover based on the frequency of display.
hours, work overload, career advancement, interpersonal tension, Previous researches have well documented the relationship between
emotional labor, and work-life conflict (work interfering with personal emotional labor and turnover intention (Jung and Yoon, 2014; Li et al.,
life and personal life interfering with work) and its relationship to 2018).
turnover intention.
2.2.5. Work-personal life conflict
2.2.1. Low pay, long working hours and work overload Women’s employment in Malaysia has seen rapid growth between
Insufficient and relatively low pay is a global challenge faced by the 2010 and 2016. Health and hospitality services saw the highest influx of
hotel industry that affects the turnover intention of employees. Long female participation in the workforce (HR in Asia, 2018). The influx of
working hours and inadequate pay created a poor reputation of the the younger generation with a different set of work attitudes (Brown
hospitality industry and thus lead to lower commitment level. Previous et al., 2015) in the workforce has necessitated the need to further ex-
studies concluded that poor wages and long working hours are the main plore the association between work and life of hospitality employees.
causes for staff turnover in the hospitality industry (Zhao and Ghiselli, Richter et al. (2015) empirically demonstrated that the interface be-
2016). Lu et al. (2016) reported that front-line employees in the hos- tween work and life is bidirectional in nature; for example, work in-
pitality industry are more likely to change and quit jobs since they terfering with family life and family life interfering with work. Chen
receive relatively low pay. Work overload is a stressor that is frequently et al. (2018a, 2018b) investigated the impact of work-life and life-work
experienced by frontline employees in the hospitality industry due to on intention to quit among Chinese and US hotel employees. They
excessive task demand (Zhao et al., 2016). Buttner and Lowe (2017) found the association was stronger for Chinese women employees.
noted that compared to other industries in the private sector, hospi- Their results indicated a positive association between work interfering
tality industry employees receive relatively low pay, triggering the in- with life and turnover intention. Deery and Jago (2015) emphasized
tention to quit. Hotel industry job characteristics, including long and that the hotel industry can improve its retention rate by securing the
irregular work hours and work overload, also resulted in high turnover work-life balance of its employees. In an investigation across seven
rates (Mohamed, 2015). countries, Haar et al. (2014) concluded ensuring work-life fit essentially
reduced intention to quit. Work-life conflict in the hospitality industry
2.2.2. Interpersonal tension was well recorded in previous researches (Zhao and Ghiselli, 2016;
O’Neill and Davis (2011) stressed the importance of effective Wang et al., 2017).

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K. Haldorai, et al. International Journal of Hospitality Management 83 (2019) 46–55

Hence, it can be hypothesized that: to community dimensions, such as weather, amenities, and general
culture. When an employee experiences better fit with the community,
H1. Push factors (Low pay, long working hours, work overload, low
he is professionally and personally bonded with the organization. Qiu
career progression, interpersonal tension, emotional labor, work
et al. (2014) found community fit was a new emerging theme that ex-
interference with personal life, and personal life interference with
plained the intention to quit among employees in China’s hotel industry
work) are positively related to turnover intention.
although it was not tested empirically. Research on community fit as a
predictor of turnover intention is few and even more sparing in the
2.3. Pull factors and turnover intention hospitality industry context.
Hence we hypothesize that:
This section will focus on pull factors (creative industry, social
H2. Pull factors (creative industry, social status, travel opportunities,
status, travel opportunities, opportunity to meet people, and commu-
opportunity to meet people, and community fit) are negatively related
nity fit) and their relationship to turnover intention.
to turnover intention.
2.3.1. Creative industry
The hospitality industry is increasingly embracing creativity and
2.4. Mooring factor as a moderator
innovation as key drivers to engage their customers. Creative em-
ployees tend to be more efficient and productive and are more satisfied
Mooring factors are those personal factors that can either hinder
with their work (Tongchaiprasit and Ariyabuddhiphongs, 2016). They
prospective migrants in their place of origin or encourage migration to
demonstrated that creativity was negatively related to turnover inten-
a new destination. According to migration theory, the mooring variable
tion among chefs. In a similar vein, Wang et al. (2014) found hotel firms
can moderate push-pull variables and the actual migration decision
that promote creative self-efficacy among their employees could mini-
(Lee, 1966). Scholars have widely explored mooring variable as a
mize their employees’ intention to quit. Also, Kattara and El-said (2014)
moderator in tourism studies (Chang et al., 2014; Jung et al., 2017).
contended Egyptian upscale hotel employees reported lower intention
Chang et al. (2014) found the mooring variable, switching costs,
to quit when the hotel firms valued their creativity and encouraged
moderated the relationship between dissatisfaction and customers’
them to utilize their creative ability to the fullest. In addition, Robinson
switching intention.
and Beesley (2010) and Chen et al. (2018a), (2018b) confirmed that
creativity helps reduce employees’ intention to quit.
2.4.1. Personal life involvement and turnover intention
2.3.2. Social status The anti-social and long working hours in the hospitality industry
The hospitality industry is stereotyped as one with poor pay, in- builds up high levels of stress in employees who want to manage their
adequate working conditions, and low social status. Pizam (2007) work and at the same time get involved in family and other personal
mentioned that hospitality jobs do not enjoy a high status in Eastern activities, including hobbies, interests, community activities, etc.
Europe. Social status was considered to be one of the largest unique Gursoy et al. (2013) reported that hospitality employees found that the
obstacles to the commitment to work in the hospitality industry boundaries between work and personal life disappearing. Work and
(Kusluvan and Kusluvan, 2000). However, countries with developing personal life are two separate domains, and their interference with each
economies perceive an employment opportunity in a hospitality orga- other (work interference with life and life interference with work) can
nization as a high status since there are not many opportunities to work cause stress and lead to turnover intention. Conflict originating in work
in service industries with high compensation. Mohsin and Lengler can affect a person’s personal life, and personal life issues can affect an
(2015) further noted that employees regarded hospitality work to be of individual’s work. Since employees without family responsibilities may
low social status, resulting in dissatisfaction and intention to turnover. have other non-work factors, including hobbies and interest that in-
Wan et al. (2014) found that social status enhanced potential young fluence their work life, the term personal life involvement is used in this
employees’ intention to enter and commit to the Chinese hospitality research in a broader sense to cover family centrality, family involve-
industry. Like China, in Malaysia, due to the assumed high social status ment, and personal life.
of working in luxury hotels, social status is expected to serve as a pull In many cases, individuals hold their personal life involvement
factor. higher than work since higher levels of involvement in personal life
gives them an identity. Work family conflict research conducted by
2.3.3. Travel opportunities and opportunity to meet people Bagger et al. (2008) studied family centrality as a moderator. Bagger
The hospitality industry provides employees with the rare oppor- et al. (2008) investigated the moderating role of family identity salience
tunity to meet people from different cultural backgrounds, socialize on the relationship between family interference with work and work-
with people, and travel as a part of work. Brown et al. (2015) found that related outcomes. They found that when employees have high family
travelling and opportunity to meet people were two of the desirable centrality, work interference with family led to a higher intention to
traits for considering a career in the hospitality industry. They further quit. Similarly, Hsieh et al. (2009) found that involvement in personal
concluded that Gen Y pursued a career in the hospitality industry be- life moderated the relationship between work interfering with life and
cause they expected travel opportunities as a part of their employment the turnover intention among managers. He found that higher the in-
package. Similarly, Goh and Lee (2018) asserted that Gen Z considered volvement level in personal life, the effect of work interfering with life
a career in the hospitality industry as fulfilling with its unique travelling on employees’ intention to quit was more intense. Since family cen-
opportunities and the ability to network with people. Gen Z employees trality and, in a broader perspective, personal life involvement as a
had a strong desire to travel to other countries to gain global exposure moderator has been studied in previous research (Bagger et al., 2008;
during their careers (Schawbel, 2016) and preferred working in firms Hsieh et al., 2009); this study will treat personal life involvement as a
that had ethnic diversity where they could interact with employees mooring factor. Hence the authors hypothesize the following:
from other cultures (Hsiao, 2017).
H3. The negative relationship between work interfering with personal
life and turnover intention will be moderated by personal life
2.3.4. Community fit
involvement.
Some consider community fit as compatibility to or comfort with
the community and surrounding environment. Lee et al. (2014) be- H4. Personal life involvement will moderate the relationship between
lieved that a person’s fit to a job and his organization can be extended personal life interfering with work and turnover intention.

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K. Haldorai, et al. International Journal of Hospitality Management 83 (2019) 46–55

2.4.2. Community fit and turnover intention from Parasuraman et al. (1992). Please note that we modified the WIP,
When individuals perceive that the community meets their needs PIW and PIL scales from work-family conflict to better reflect personal
(activities and interests), there is a negative intention to quit (Lee et al., life. For instance, “I was too tired to be effective at work because of
2014). When an individual has a high number of social relationships family responsibilities” was reworded to “I was too tired to be effective
within his/her community, the less likely he is to have high turnover at work because of personal responsibilities.” Lastly, the authors
intention (Mitchell et al., 2001). Ramesh and Gelfand (2010) concluded adopted the 8-item emotional labor scale from Brotheridge and Lee
that there is a negative association between community fit and inten- (2003) since it was developed to measure emotional labor among ser-
tion to quit. The relationship is even stronger for those with high family vice employees.
centrality. That is to say, with high levels of personal life involvement, The authors also measured creative industry using seven items from
the negative relationship between community fit and turnover intention Robinson and Beesley (2010). They measured social status using three
is stronger. Hence, the authors hypothesize the following: items that were adapted and modified from Kusluvan and Kusluvan
(2000). They also adapted the 3-item career progression scale from
H5. Personal life involvement will moderate the relationship between
Iverson and Deery (1997). The authors operationalized community fit
community fit and turnover intention.
using five items from Mitchell et al. (2001). They also adapted oppor-
tunity to meet people and travel opportunities from Brown et al. (2015)
3. Methodology and Goh and Lee (2018). Both had two items each.
The authors adapted and modified the tuurnover intention scale
3.1. Questionnaire development and measurement from Moynihan and Pandey (2008) to measure short-term, medium-
term, and long-term turnover intention each with a single item. Since
To assess the PPM factors, the authors developed a multi-dimen- there are no existing scales to measure short-, medium-, and long-term
sional and multi-item scale. A review of the literature resulted in turnover intention, the authors operationalized them as follows: For
fourteen dimensions. The researchers received assistance from a native short-term, they used a single item “I am actively looking for alternative
speaker with full professional proficiency in English to review and edit employment.” This item will help to distinguish an active job seeker
the questionnaire. Afterwards, they separately invited three faculty from a person who has the intention to leave at some point in the future
members and three industry professionals to assess the content validity. in the medium-term. The authors used “I will resign from this organi-
The academic panel included three full time professors with nearly zation at the earliest possible opportunity” to measure medium-term
three decades of teaching and researching experience in hotel man- turnover intention. “I am thinking of resigning from this industry” re-
agement from reputed universities. The industry panel included man- flects that an employee does not consider his current job a lifetime
agers from three different 5-star hotels in Malaysia at the senior man- employment and does not consider his workplace an environment
agement level with more than two decades of experience. Both the where he can spend the rest of his career (Moynihan and Pandey,
expert panels not only assessed the content validity but also assisted in 2008). Hence, the authors used this item to measure long-term turnover
refining the items for further use. On completion of this process, the intention or attrition.
researchers pre-tested the questionnaire on 30 employees from 5-star
hotels before they finalized it. Based on the feedback and the results of 3.2. Sample and data collection
the pre-test, they further revised the questionnaire to eliminate re-
dundant questions and clarify unclear expressions. The authors collected data from currently employed full-time five-
The questionnaire consisted of three sections along with a cover star hotel employees with a minimum of one-year working experience.
letter. The cover letter introduced the purpose of the survey and ex- First, they obtained the list of hotels in Malaysia from Smith Travel
plained respondents’ confidentiality and anonymity. It also included a Research (STR). As per STR, there are 2724 hotels in Malaysia, out of
brief instruction on the answering procedure. All three sections of the which, 248 hotels are in the 3-5-star category. Malaysia consists of East
questionnaire had closed end questions. The first section dealt with Malaysia and West Malaysia, and different immigrant requirements
questions related to the fourteen dimensions. The second section had determine entry to both regions. Since the research team had legal
questions to check if the respondents were sincere and honest in pro- permission to enter only West Malaysia, they collected data from West
viding their responses and whether the respondents took adequate time Malaysia. In West Malaysia, there are 95 five-star hotels, out of which
to read the questions carefully. The last section focused on the demo- 28 are in Kuala Lumpur. The researchers collected data from Kuala
graphic characteristics of the respondents. Lumpur, which is the national capital, as well as the largest Federal
Wherever possible, the authors adopted measurement items for Territory of Malaysia.
constructs in this research from previous validated research. The The researchers then contacted the HR departments of these hotels
wordings of the items were carefully revised to ensure the items meet to seek permission to include their employees in the study. Out of 28
the relevance to this particular research context. They asked re- contacted hotels, fourteen five-star hotels voluntarily agreed to parti-
spondents to what extent they agreed with the items on a five-point cipate in this research endeavor. The researchers gave the HR managers
Likert scale ranging from 1-strongly disagree to 5-strongly agree. sealed envelopes containing the questionnaire and cover letter. In order
This study measured pay and working hours using single items to reduce potential bias, the researchers asked employees to drop their
adopted from Poulston (2008).The authors assessed work overload surveys in a drop box, and the researchers visited each property to
construct using four items from Price (2001). Example statement in- collect the completed questionnaires. The cover letter explained the
clude: “I do not have enough time to get everything done in my job.” purpose of the research and assured confidentiality and anonymity of
They operationalized interpersonal tension using five items from the responses. The research team gave the potential participants 10
Janssen et al. (1999). Sample items include: “Personal relationships days to fill in and return the questionnaires. Before proceeding to the
were always excellent here” and “Some members visibly disliked each survey questions, the questionnaire required participants to agree to the
other.” The authors reverse coded negative worded items before ana- informed consent. The questionnaire explained to employees that their
lysis. They tailored items to reflect the interpersonal tension existing participation in the research was voluntary. The data collection took
between co-workers and teams. They also adopted the work inter- place between May-July 2018. Out of 700 surveys distributed, the re-
ference with personal life (WIP) construct from Stephens and Sommers searchers received 376 surveys and eliminated 68 questionnaires due to
(1996) and adopted the personal life interference with work (PIW) not meeting the criteria of a minimum of one-year experience and full-
construct from Gutek et al. (1991). Both scales had three items each. time employee status. The authors retained 308 surveys for further
The authors adapted the three-item personal life involvement (PIL) analysis and had a response rate of 44%.

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3.3. Data analysis Table 1

Reliability and validity for short-term turnover intention.
Since the authors collected data using a self-reported questionnaire, Model Construct Measurement Cronbach Loading Composite AVE
they also had to examine the Common Method Variance (CMV) Items Alpha Reliability
(Podsakoff et al., 2003). We adopted procedural remedies, including
Community Fit CF2 0.838 0.931 0.931 0.771
ensuring the anonymity and confidentiality of the participants, in-
(CF) CF3 0.896
forming participants that there were no preferred or correct answers, CF4 0.844
and the authors desired participants’ honest appraisals of the item. CF5 0.839
Furthermore, the researchers adopted a combination of statistical pro- Creative Industry CI1 0.912 0.852 0.929 0.650
cedures suggested by Podsakoff et al. (2003) to examine CMV. First, (CI) CI2 0.827
CI3 0.770
they performed Harman’s single factor test. Since none of the factors
CI4 0.791
accounted for the majority of the covariance among the measures, no CI5 0.780
serious method bias exists. Second, using PLS, all variance inflation CI6 0.839
factors (VIF) resulting from a full collinearity test was lower than 3.3, CI7 0.782
Career Progression CP1 0.893 0.801 0.919 0.792
indicating the models were free of common method bias (Kock, 2015).
(CP) CP2 0.978
Third, the researchers obtained the first unrotated factor from the CP3 0.881
principal component analysis. These scores formed the “general factor.” Emotional Labor EL1 0.728 0.733 0.914 0.605
The addition of the “general factor” did not significantly increase the R2 (EL) EL2 0.791
of the endogenous construct. Fourth, the researchers adopted the EL3 0.801
EL4 0.883
measured latent marker variable approach. The findings indicated that
EL5 0.777
the change in the R2 value was of a very small magnitude compared to EL6 0.744
the original model without the marker variable. The difference in EL7 0.700
variance on adding the marker variable was 0.013, 0.02, and 0.018 for Interpersonal IPT2 0.812 0.721 0.877 0.708
the short-, medium-, and long-term, respectively. These differences Tension (IPT) IPT3 0.962
IPT4 0.823
prove that common method bias was not a serious concern in this study. Opportunity to OMP1 0.786 0.721 0.836 0.723
The researches utilized SmartPLS version 3 (Ringle et al., 2015) to Meet People OMP2 0.962
analyze the data because it matches the researchers’ prediction-oriented (OMP)
objective. Moreover, the data was not normally distributed, and the Pay P1 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
Personal Life PIW1 0.832 0.838 0.899 0.748
model had a large number of latent variables.
Interfering PIW2 0.881
with Work PIW3 0.875
4. Results (PIW)
Social Status (SS) SR1 0.855 0.845 0.905 0.762
4.1. Demographic profile of respondents and descriptive statistics SR2 0.960
SR3 0.805
Travel TO1 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
Among the 308 respondents, there was nearly an equal distribution opportunities
of male (48%) and female (52%) respondents. 47.7% of the respondents (TO)
had less than five years of experience in the hotel industry, the max- Working Hours WH1 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
(WH)
imum was 32 years of experience. More than three fourth of the re-
Work Interference WIP1 0.908 0.915 0.942 0.843
spondents (88.6%) had less than five years of experience in the current with Personal WIP2 0.920
hotel, maximum was 20 years. The average age of the respondents was Life (WIP) WIP3 0.919
39 years, and the maximum was 58 years. 15.1% were above 42 years, Work Overload WOL1 0.822 0.887 0.892 0.734
and 80% of the respondents belonged to age group 24–41 years. 4.9% (WOL) WOL2 0.860
WOL3 0.823
were less than 24 years of age. The age distribution is in line with the Personal Life PLI1 0.749 0.796 0.854 0.662
global workforce distribution. By 2020, more than three fourth of the Involvement PLI2 0.835
global workforce will be Gen Y, and 5% will be post-millennials (PLI) PLI3 0.809
(Catalyst, 2018). One-half of the respondents were diploma holders.
Participants with foundation qualifications and degree holders were Note: AVE represents average variance extracted score.
equally distributed (16.9%). Regarding their affiliated department, one
third of the participants were from front-of-the house of the food and short-term turnover intention (3.234, 0.864), medium-term turnover
beverage (F&B) department, while 17% were from back-of-the house intention (2.984, 1.022), and long-term turnover intention (2.841,
(kitchen) of F&B. One-fifth of the respondents were from front office 1.004).
and housekeeping. The remaining 30% were from other service de-
partments, including HR, accounting, marketing and sales, and en- 4.2. Reliability and validity
gineering.
The mean value of all latent variables ranged from 2.717 to 3.896 Before proceeding to test the hypotheses, the authors assessed the
with the standard deviation ranging from 0.552 to 1.078 on a five-point validity and reliability. In this study, there are three models: Model 1:
Likert scale. However, the mean values of all variables were above the 13 predictors of short-term turnover intention with three moderation
midpoint 2.50. Opportunity to meet people scored the highest, with a effects, Model 2: 13 predictors of medium-term turnover intention with
mean value of 3.896, while personal life interfering with work showed three moderation effects, and Model 3: 13 predictors of long-term
the lowest mean value at 2.717. The standard deviation was highest for turnover intention with three moderation effects.
work hours at 1.078 and lowest for interpersonal tension at 0.763. The This study validated Model 1 by testing its internal consistency,
descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) for the latent indicator reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. The
variables were: low pay (3.461,0.969), work hours (3.211, 1.076), work authors measured the internal consistency reliability using composite
overload (3.377, 0.747), work interference with personal life (2.962, reliability scores and Cronbach’s alpha (Hair et al., 2014). The internal
0.908), emotional labor (3.073, 0.701), creative industry (3.819, consistency scores ranged from 0.854 to 0.942, exceeding the threshold
0.577), social status (3.714, 0.693), career progression (3.464, 0.740), of 0.7 (Hair et al., 2014), and the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients

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Table 2
Discriminant validity- Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio (HTMT).
CF CI CP EL TOI IPT OMP PAY PIW SS TO WH WIP WOL

Community Fit (CF) –

Creative Industry (CI) 0.409
Career Progression (CP) 0.307 0.729
Emotional Labor (EL) 0.096 0.116 0.074
Turnover Intention (TOI) 0.041 0.181 0.343 0.054
Interpersonal Tension (IPT) 0.130 0.176 0.111 0.150 0.200
Opportunity to Meet People (OMP) 0.281 0.613 0.494 0.060 0.142 0.068
Pay 0.043 0.115 0.081 0.130 0.129 0.343 0.043
Personal Life Interference with work (PIW) 0.151 0.170 0.242 0.325 0.397 0.358 0.142 0.173
Social Status (SS) 0.514 0.715 0.629 0.116 0.188 0.243 0.610 0.099 0.138
Travel Opportunities (TO) 0.325 0.437 0.413 0.160 0.144 0.172 0.188 0.122 0.236 0.427
Working Hours (WH) 0.072 0.089 0.130 0.146 0.200 0.202 0.021 0.366 0.351 0.165 0.079
Work Interference with Personal Life (WIP) 0.127 0.096 0.155 0.268 0.446 0.338 0.044 0.361 0.615 0.132 0.210 0.610
Work Over Load (WOL) 0.064 0.177 0.114 0.366 0.339 0.478 0.060 0.381 0.396 0.176 0.134 0.662 0.609 –

fluctuated between 0.728 and 0.912, exceeding the threshold of 0.7. To data supports the hypothesized model (Hair et al., 2014). The variance
assess the indicator reliability, the authors examined the factor load- explained for short-term turnover intention was 22.7% (R2 =0.227),
ings. Table 1 show that the loadings are above 0.5 (significant at for medium-term, the variance explained was 42% (R2 = 0.420), and
p < 0.01). The authors removed five items (WOL4, IPT1, EL8, TO2, for long-term turnover intention, the variance explained was 38.1%
CF1) since their loadings were less than 0.5. Hence, we can consider the (R2 = 0.381). According to Cohen (1988), the R2 values for the en-
model as satisfactorily reliable. dogenous latent variables are assessed as 0.26-substantial, 0.13-mod-
Next, the authors assessed the validity by testing the convergent erate, and 0.02-weak. Therefore, the R2 values were high enough for
validity and discriminant validity. They measured the convergent va- the models to achieve a substantial level of explanatory power. Hence
lidity using Average Variance Extracted (AVE). All the AVEs were above the authors conclude the variances explained are deemed adequate.
the recommended value of 0.5 (Hair et al., 2014), between 0.65 and
0.843 in Table 1. The authors adopted Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio 5. Discussions and academic implications
(HTMT) to test the discriminant validity (Henseler et al., 2015). Table 2
indicates that discriminant validity was achieved at HTMT0.85. Thus, The current study investigated the applicability of PPM factors in-
the model can be considered as satisfactory with the evidence of ade- troduced by migration studies on short-term, medium-term and long-
quate reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. term turnover intentions of 5-star hotel employees in the Malaysian
Similarly, the authors assessed the reliability and validity for hotel industry. The results indicated that the PPM factors have a sig-
medium-term and long-term turnover intention, employing the same nificant impact on turnover intention. A number of findings emerged
procedures discussed above. For both the medium-term and long-term, from this study. First, the authors will discuss the push factors affecting
the authors achieved adequate reliability and validity. turnover intention followed by the pull factors. Next, we will discuss
the mooring factor affecting turnover intention. Finally, we compare
4.3. Hypotheses testing short-, medium- and long-term turnover intention to identify the factors
that lead to exit from the hotel organization and exit from the hotel
The authors tested the five hypotheses discussed earlier and as- industry.
sessed the significance levels with 500 bootstrap runs. The first hy-
pothesis stated that there was a positive relationship between the push 5.1. Push factors affecting turnover intention
factors and turnover intention. Among the eight push factors identified,
overall 6 factors [work overload (t = 4.145), low career progression Respondents confirmed the push factors (work overload, inter-
(t = 1.788), interpersonal tension (t = 2.992), emotional labor personal tension, and emotional labor) are positively related to turn-
(t = 1.953), work interference with personal life (t = 1.734) and per- over intention in the short-term, and this result indicates that the fac-
sonal life interference with work (t = 3.343)] were supported, and two tors are significant predictors of employees leaving the hotel
(low pay and work hours) were not supported. The second hypothesis organization. In the medium-term, interpersonal tension, personal life
posited that the pull factors negatively related to turnover intention. interfering with work, work interfering with personal life, and work
Among the five pull factors identified, community fit (t = 2.982) and overload led to turnover intention, indicating that these factors are
travel opportunities (t = 1.901) were supported. Furthermore, oppor- significant predictors of employees leaving the hotel organization.
tunity to meet people (t = 1.956) and social status (t = 2.553) were Emotional labor, interpersonal tension, personal life interfering with
supported only under medium-term and long-term, respectively. The work, work overload and work interference with personal life had a
third and fourth hypotheses proposed that the mooring variable (per- positive influence on long-term turnover intention, and it indicates that
sonal life involvement) moderates the link between work interfering the factors are significant predictors of employees leaving the hotel
with personal life/personal life interfering with work and turnover in- industry. It can be noted that the prime factors leading to turnover
tention. However, moderation effect was significant only in the intention in the Malaysian hotel industry are emotional labor, inter-
medium-term turnover intention. In the medium-term, personal life personal tension, personal life interfering with work, and work over-
involvement moderated the link between personal life interfering with load.
work (t = 1.761)/work interfering with personal life (t = 1.728) and This study provides valuable insights on understanding emotional
turnover intention. The fifth hypothesis proposed that personal life labor as a prime contributor of employee turnover in the Malaysian
involvement moderates the positive relationship between community hotel industry. The findings are similar to that of previous research
fit and turnover intention. However, it was not supported. The results (Jung and Yoon, 2014). Since performing emotional labor may have
are summarized in Table 3. potential personal and organizational costs, it is significant to under-
Both, the R2 and the path coefficients show the extent to which the stand the nature and impact of emotional labor on turnover intentions.

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Table 3
Summary of hypotheses testing.
Path Short- term turnover intention Medium-term turnover intention Long-term turnover intention

Path coefficients t-value Status Path coefficients t-value Status Path coefficients t-value Status

Push Factors→Turnover Intention (TOI)

Pay→TOI 0.003 0.055 NS 0.008 0.321 NS 0.001 0.002 NS
Career Progression →TOI 0.008 0.078 NS 0.046 0.132 NS 0.150 1.788* S
Emotional Labor →TOI 0.189 1.953* S 0.066 0.198 NS 0.168 1.864* S
Interpersonal Tension →TOI 0.106 1.655* S 0.168 2.992** S 0.157 1.853* S
Personal Life Interference with Work →TOI 0.130 1.673* S 0.208 3.343** S 0.201 3.194** S
Working Hours →TOI 0.057 0.947 NS 0.048 1.412 NS 0.041 1.099 NS
Work Interference with Personal Life →TOI 0.049 0.700 NS 0.272 1.664* S 0.144 1.734* S
Work Overload →TOI 0.193 2.001* S 0.278 4.145** S 0.263 3.787** S

Pull Factors→Turnover Intention (TOI)

Opportunity to Meet People →TOI −0.024 0.273 NS −0.164 1.956* S −0.056 0.764 NS
Community Fit →TOI −0.219 2.982** S −0.248 2.171* S −0.190 1.740* S
Social Status →TOI −0.070 0.720 NS −0.043 0.241 NS −0.219 2.553** S
Travel Opportunities →TOI −0.194 1.760* S −0.226 1.654* S −0.161 1.901* S
Creative Industry →TOI −0.216 2.362** S −0.201 1.650* S 0.041 0.121 NS

Mooring Factor→Turnover Intention (TOI)

Personal Life Involvement →TOI 0.116 0.402 NS 0.144 1.898* S 0.205 3.241** S
Moderation effect 1 (Personal Life 0.058 0.616 NS 0.141 1.728* S 0.098 1.007 NS
Involvement on Work Interference with Personal Life) →TOI
Moderation effect 2 (Personal Life 0.013 0.169 NS −0.142 1.761* S 0.052 0.521 NS
Involvement on Personal Life
Interference with Work) →TOI
Moderation effect 3 (Personal Life −0.036 0.508 NS −0.044 0.153 NS −0.054 0.541 NS
Involvement on Community Fit) →TOI

Notes: * p < 0.5, ** p < 0.01, (based on 1-tailed). S-Significant, NS-Not Significant.

The second important factor leading to turnover was interpersonal the short-term, along with opportunity to meet people, negatively in-
tension. Interpersonal tensions are harmful to both employees and or- fluenced turnover intention in the medium-term, indicating these fac-
ganizations, leading to negative outcomes. This finding further con- tors are the motivators for remaining in the hotel organization. Beside
firms the findings of O’Neill and Davis (2011) that interpersonal ten- community fit and travel opportunities, social status contributed to
sions among co-workers create a stressful environment that leads to negative turnover intention in the long-term, and it indicates that these
increased turnover intention. Personal life interfering with work factors prevent employees from leaving the hotel industry. It is note-
emerged as another important factor leading to turnover intention. The worthy that creating community fit and providing travel opportunities
results suggest that when employees experience interference from to employees are important paths to reducing turnover intention in the
personal life on work, it may intensify the pressure on hotel employees Malaysian hotel industry.
and make it difficult to fulfill family and personal demands. Thus, The Malaysian hotel employees perceived social factors like com-
quitting a job that interfered with an employee’s personal life reduced munity fit and travel opportunities as attractive features of working in a
his level of stress. This finding is consistent with the findings of Brown hotel industry. Lee et al. (2014) demonstrated that when employees
et al. (2015). Another factor leading to turnover intention in the five- perceive the community meets their needs in terms of activities and
star hotel employees was work overload. This finding further supports interests, the social factors negatively related to turnover. When em-
the findings of previous studies (Mohamed, 2015; Zhao et al., 2016) ployees have a higher number of social relationships within the com-
that work overload leads to turnover intention. When employees are munity, their intention to leave (Mitchell et al., 2001) the organization
overwhelmed by the work load they face, it is possible for the em- is less. Ryan et al. (2011) demonstrated that employees continue to
ployees to start considering a career that has lower level of job demand. remain in organizations because of their peer group since these social
However, the two most cited factors for turnover in the hotel in- relationships create a sense of belongingness that mitigates stress. Ad-
dustry, low pay and work hours, did not contribute to turnover inten- ditionally, Malaysia is a collectivistic society with an Individualism
tion in the short-, medium-, and long-term. This finding contrasts with Index score (IDV) of 26 (Hofstede, 2007). IDV values range between
the conclusions of most previous hospitality literature but is in agree- 0–100; scores close to 0 stand for the most collectivist, scores close to
ment with the findings of Goh and Lee (2018) who found that pay was 100, the most individualist society. This score reflects that long-term
not an important factor among Gen Z employees. Since majority of the commitment to family, extended family, or extended relationships and
survey participants fall in the Gen Y age group, and the Gen Y hotel family unification are perceived to be of greater importance among
employees accept long working hours as a norm in the hotel industry, Malaysians. Findings on positive attitude towards travel opportunities
work hours may not contribute to turnover intention. This finding is are consistent with the findings of Brown et al. (2015). Furthermore,
supported by Brown et al. (2015) where Gen Y employees consider ir- they asserted that Gen Y employees (80% of the participants in this
regular working hours as discouraging but an anticipated norm in the research) regard leisure and vacation highly. The findings provide
hotel industry. further evidence that employees enjoyed the travelling opportunities
provided by the hotel industry and had a community fit. Although these
5.2. Pull factors and turnover intention factors are not distinctive to the hotel industry alone, a combination of
all these together may be difficult to find in any other industry in the
Pull factors including community fit, creative industry, and travel Malaysian context.
opportunities were negatively related to short-term turnover intention,
and this finding indicates that these factors encourage employees to
remain with their hotel organizations. The pull factors that emerged in

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5.3. Mooring factor and turnover intention must also equally optimize and invest in pull factors. This further ad-
vances the literature by shedding light on the relationship between pull-
The mooring variable, personal life involvement, did not have any push-mooring factors and turnover intention. The results also indicate
major impact on turnover intention in the short- and long-term. that employees stayed in their current jobs because they did not want to
However, it did influence the medium-term turnover intention. When lose their community links. In particular, the study shows that em-
the level of involvement in personal life was higher, stronger was the ployees have a strong inclination towards their social environment
relation between personal life interference with work and intention to impacting their short-, medium-, and long-term turnover intentions.
quit. This study also found that higher the level of involvement in The researchers believe the finding will provide an extension to “off-
personal life, the effect of work interfering with personal life on em- the-job-embeddedness” literature.
ployees’ turnover intention was stronger. These results are congruent
with the findings of Zhao and Ghiselli (2016). In the Malaysian hotel 6. Practical implications
industry, potential leavers quoted “too tired to spend time with family”
as the main reason for turnover (Ryan et al., 2011). The results derived from this study have significant practical im-
plications in assisting hotel human resource (HR) managers better un-
5.4. Comparison between short-, medium- and long-term turnover intention derstand and control factors that may lead to employee turnover in-
tention both at the organizational and industry levels. For any
The strongest predictor of turnover was work overload in the short-, organization to succeed, the role of its employees is imperative, and,
medium-, and long-term, and work overload had the highest prediction hence, attracting and retaining them has become prudent. Failure to
(t = 4.145) in the medium-term. Hotel employees are very often re- realize their needs can have detrimental effects to the organization.
quired to fulfill increasing demand during the peak seasons and, at the Understanding employees’ needs and the ability to satisfy them are of
same time, have to maintain the quality standard. This work overload strategic importance to the service industries and especially the hotel
leaves employees stressed. A majority of them are also involved in di- industry as they heavily depend on the service quality provided by
rectly dealing with customers, requiring a great deal of emotional labor, employees to meet customers’ demands. The hotel HR should take effort
the second strongest predictor of turnover. Work overload and emo- to develop tailor made policies to meet employee needs since the
tional labor in the long-term accelerate burnout and, eventually, quit- findings indicate that social factors like community fit and travel op-
ting the hotel industry. Work interfering with personal life was not portunities are the ways to retain employees. They should also develop
significant in the short-term but was significant in the medium- and HR policies and procedures that address interpersonal tension, emo-
long-term. The reason for the insignificant impact of work interference tional labor, and work overload as they are the main contributors to
with personal life on short-term employee turnover is that employees turnover intention and attrition.
may not seriously consider work interference as serious as emotional The 24/7 nature of the hotel industry creates a stressful environ-
labor or interpersonal tension. Hence, it did not serve as an important ment and interpersonal conflicts. Hence the authors suggest during the
reason to leave the hotel organization. However, it slowly burns out hiring process, hiring managers should give importance to demeanor
hotel employees and will lead to their exit from both the hotel orga- and communication style to assess if a candidate will be a good fit.
nization and hotel industry. Moreover, 52% of the respondents were Companies should train employees in social and personal competence.
women. Additional demands on women in developing countries like “Social competence” will increase their ability to realize how other
Malaysia arise from a tradition in which women must play several roles, employees feel, and “personal competence” will help them to express
including caretaker of aging parents, mother, wife, and daughter. Work their emotions maturely and effectively. Hotel firms may provide spe-
interference with these additional demands in the long-run leads to cial rewards or bonus for team success to promote teamwork and co-
physical and mental exhaustion and aggravates the intention to quit the operation. They can also provide “peer-to-peer rewards” by asking each
industry. On the other hand, personal life interference with work is employee to nominate someone he or she works with. In doing so,
significant in the short-, medium-, and long-term and attributed to the conflict can be creatively reframed in such a way that employees see the
Gen Y participants who value their personal lives more than their work good in other employees. Employees must be coached for positive
lives. Furthermore, respondents who experience the negative impact of conflict, which will allow them to respect and accept others’ views.
non-work related stress arising from personal life on their work might Also, during performance appraisals, supervisors may reflect on sig-
have little motivation to invest their energy (physical and mental) in nificant conflict-provoking behaviors and integrate goals for harmo-
their current workplace or in the industry. Interpersonal tension was nious collaborative behaviors. To curb interpersonal conflicts, conflict
significant in the short-, medium- and long-term. Interpersonal tensions management training, stress reducing exercise, anger management, and
are the negative affective reaction of work overload. Since work over- workshops can be conducted for intensely angry and aggressive em-
load was significant in the short-, medium-, and long-term, inter- ployees. Strong employee relations can be built through soft skill
personal tension will also be significant in all these terms. High levels of training, including interactive communication, role plays to manage
interpersonal tension and workload serve as major drivers of both an emotional exchange, active listening, and trust building exercises.
intention to leave the current organization and an intention to leave the To reduce conflict and friction among different generations of em-
industry. The strongest pull factor is community fit both in the short-, ployees, besides mentoring, the authors suggest hospitality managers
medium- and long term but having a higher prediction in the short-term promote reverse mentoring to “reconfigure” relationships and roles. By
(t = 2.982). This significant relationship could be due to Malaysia’s promoting reverse mentoring, the younger generation employees feel
collectivistic culture. they are recognized and valued for their contributions, motivating them
In sum, this study contributes theoretically to hospitality manage- to stay at their jobs. Reverse mentoring not only reduces the turnover
ment literature in several ways. The first theoretical contribution is the intention among Generation Y employees who are predominant in the
applicability of the PPM framework for an in-depth understanding of current workforce but can also foster inclusivity and help hotel firms to
employee turnover intention in the hotel industry. Secondly, to the maintain competitive advantage through knowledge advancement. The
authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to determine the factors that turnover intention of older employees will also shrink as they learn new
influence turnover intention in the short-, medium-, and long-term. The skills in a non-pressurized environment, thus allowing them to regain a
proposed model is comprehensive and can be applied to all generations sense of control in digitally transformed hotel firms. Reverse mentoring
of employees in the hospitality industry. The researchers identified that also fosters effective communication and collaboration among hotel
even if hotel firms take the necessary steps to minimize the effect of employees.
push factors to reduce turnover, their strategy might not work, and they To develop effective interpersonal relationships among supervisors

53
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and employees, the authors suggest training in transactional analysis cordial relationship with supervisors and co-workers. Similarly, iden-
(TA). According to TA theory, individuals operate from three distinct tifying reluctant leavers (due to spouse relocation or unsolicited job
personalities called ego states: the parent, the adult, and the child. For offers) will allow the hotel to be prepared for future turnover by
successful communication and effective interpersonal relations among planning ahead the manpower required, and managers also can take
co-workers or between supervisor-employee, the workplace requires measures, like providing additional family support to counterbalance
complimentary transactions. That is, when an employee initiates a the challenges posed by these external factors.
communication from the parent-child ego state, the response should be Community fit was identified as the strongest pull factor, encoura-
from the child-parent ego state. The authors further explain this with an ging employees to stay back at their current work. The authors suggest
example: When a supervisor reprimands an employee for being late, he hotel firms further increase community fit by organizing social and
communicates from the parent-child ego state. When the employee cultural events such as “annual family day” or “networking evening”
apologizes and promises not to repeat, he communicates from the child- where employees can invite their families and relatives to the hotel
parent ego state. Similarly, when there is a conflict between an F&B firm. The families get to see the workplace and interact with other
employee and chef when a food order is not ready for pick up, if both employees and their families in an informal environment. This can
the co-workers decide to figure out what went wrong, they are com- further strengthen the community fit and serve as a tool for retention.
municating from the adult-adult transaction. These transactions are
complimentary and can lead to effective interpersonal relations. On the 7. Limitations, future research and conclusion
other hand, crossed transactions lead to interpersonal conflicts. Hence,
the authors believe TA training can help in achieving effective inter- A major limitation with this research is its geographical limitation
personal relation among co-workers and supervisor-employee, thereby to Malaysia and, hence, the findings may not be generalized. Since the
reducing interpersonal conflicts. survey participants are from 5-star hotels in Malaysia, the results may
The authors suggest hotel HR be data driven. Hotels can leverage not be generalized to the entire Malaysian hotel industry. HR depart-
from workforce analytics. Prior to hiring, hiring managers should use ments of hotels distributed the questionnaires on behalf of the re-
holistic data about candidate’s previous employment history and pat- searchers. There are chances that their involvement might have affected
terns of work-culture to determine if the candidate would fit into the the responses of the participants although there is no evidence of that.
organization in terms of skill and personality. On selection, the hiring Also, the authors did not consider the various ethnic groups within
manager should explain to the new entrants how the current organi- Malaysia. Future research should determine if socio-demographic fac-
zation is different from other organizations and how their employment tors cause any significant variations in turnover intention. Future stu-
plays an important role using the real time data of existing employees. dies could also explore the effect of generational difference on turnover
They should also discuss the new entrants’ career graph with them, so intention. We collected all the data from a single source. Although
they develop an emotional attachment to the hotel firm. Each and every common method bias was not a serious concern in this study, future
employee should be made to understand how his or her work is aligned studies may collect data from multiple sources to minimize common
with organizational goals and how his or her unique contribution will method bias.
help in organizational growth. This knowledge motivates employees to To conclude, this study is one step ahead in understanding the
plan for a long-term career with the organization. The hotel HR can short-, medium-, and long-term turnover intentions of five-star hotel
carefully observe the “resignation segments” to identify if any parti- employees in the Malaysian hotel industry context. The results identi-
cular age, group (top performers, managers), or department of em- fied interesting and surprising factors that lead to turnover and attri-
ployees are frequently quitting. This will give the hotel HR and man- tion; this knowledge would aid hotel HR managers in taking preventive
agers an insight on how these segments are responding to their work action on time. In addition, the authors hope that these outcomes will
experience. Hiring managers should also use “predictive analytics” to serve as a platform for more comprehensive research on turnover in-
determine which of the organizational and personal factors are af- tention in the hotel industry.
fecting a particular segment’s turnover intention. At the same time,
hotel HR should identify which employees are performing well and References
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