Human-resource-management-approaches-in

International Journal of Hospitality Management 35 (2013) 339–347
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
International Journal of Hospitality Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhosman
Human resource management approaches in Spanish hotels: An
introductory analysis夽
Bartolomé Marco-Lajara ∗ , Mercedes Úbeda-García
Departamento de Organización de Empresas, Universidad de Alicante, Campus de San Vicente delRaspeig, CP E-03080 Alicante, Spain
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Keywords:
Human resource management
Universalistic approach
Contingent approach
Tourism management
Competitiveness
Hotels
a b s t r a c t
Although Spain is one of the most important tourism destinations in the world, Spanish tourism firms
need to be more competitive in order to continue attracting citizens from other countries and human
resource strategies can help. The present study aims to identify the specific human resource practices
applied by hotels. The variables of interest are those related to human resource profile (number of employees, nationality and sex) and to human resource strategies (recruitment, hiring and training strategies).
A survey of the hotel establishments in the Valencian Autonomous Region shows that a hard human
resource approach prevails and that hotels apply the same human resource strategies regardless of their
category or competitive strategy (universalistic approach).
© 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Tourism is one of the driving forces of the Spanish economy;
perhaps even the most important if one considers its contribution
to the nation’s GDP (around 13%). The weight of tourist activities
in Spain also becomes evident when we consider that it is the
third destination in the world for international tourists, after France
and the United States, although it ranks second in terms of tourist
income, with only the United States receiving more income (WTO
– World Tourism Organization).
However, it is also true that Spain has to face growing competition from other destinations (mainly countries located along
the shores of the Mediterranean Sea) which attract an increasingly
high number of international tourists every year. One of the possible reasons for this situation lies in the higher competitiveness
of foreign firms – which offer a similar service at a lower price
than Spanish companies. In this respect, the human resource strategies applied by firms in this sector are bound to help improve their
competitiveness to a large extent.
It is evident that Spanish tourism firms need to be more
competitive in order to continue attracting citizens from other
countries, and that the possible human resource strategies applied
夽 This study forms part of the project TRACE2009-0200, financed by the Spanish
Ministry of Science and Innovation.
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 965903606; fax: +34 965903606.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (B. Marco-Lajara),
[email protected] (M. Úbeda-García).
0278-4319/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2013.07.006
by enterprises in this sector can contribute to increasing their competitiveness.
Accordingly, the present study aims to identify the employment
characteristics (number of employees, nationality and sex) and
other specific strategies (recruitment, hiring, training, turnover) of
Spanish hotels, as well as the differences which may exist according
to establishment categories and geographical areas, as the literature shows that not all firms apply the same strategies, depending
on their size, market segment, etc.
This information will allow us to identify the HRM approaches
followed by companies in the Spanish hotel industry and, therefore,
how they should manage their human resources in order to be more
competitive than foreign companies.
As mentioned above, the present paper aims to study Spanish
hotels and, although Spain is made up of 17 autonomous regions,
most of the hotels are located along the Mediterranean peninsular
coast (i.e. the regions of Catalonia, Valencia, Murcia and Andalusia)
and in the two island regions (Balearic and Canary Islands) (Map
1).
In any case, the present study carried out by members of the
Tourism Observatory of the Valencian Autonomous Region (Observatorio Turístico de la Comunidad Valenciana, http://otcv.org) is
initially confined to the geographical boundaries of the Valencian
Region (Map 2) – our goals include extending the analysis to the
whole of Spain.
With this purpose in mind, the present paper is structured as
follows: first, a brief review is made of the academic literature on
human resource management in the tourism industry; then the
methodology is described. Finally, the results obtained are shown,
together with the main conclusions.
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B. Marco-Lajara, M. Úbeda-García / International Journal of Hospitality Management 35 (2013) 339–347
Map 1. Main tourist Spanish Regions.
2. Literature review
2.1. HRM: definition and approaches
People management in firms has progressively evolved over
recent decades, from the so-called personnel management to the
most recent Human Resources management (HRM) and Strategic Human Resources Management (SHRM). According to Storey
(1995, p. 5), HRM “is a distinctive approach to employment management which seeks to achieve a competitive advantage through
the strategic development of a highly committed and capable workforce, using an integrated array of cultural, structural and personnel
techniques”. In other words, the challenge for HRM consists in
recruiting, rewarding performance, compensating and motivating
employees so that they can adhere to the corporate strategy and a
competitive advantage may be gained. As pointed out by Jinzhao
(2007), HRM must play a more strategic role in the success of an
organization.
Storey (1987) also proposes two versions of HRM, hard and
soft, which other authors such as Ishak et al. (2011) have studied in the hotel industry. The hard version follows an economic,
rational approach to HRM where the firm obtains a competitive
advantage by minimizing labor costs; this is a quantitative, calculating view of human resources – which are seen as just another
of the firm’s resources. Conversely, the soft version adopts a more
humanistic version which considers employees to be proactive as
well as trustworthy and seeks to obtain their commitment, trust
and productivity.
In turn, Boxall and Purcell (2000) suggest another two
approaches to human resources strategies. On the one hand, the
contingent approach, which seeks to establish a link between
the firm’s competitive strategy and HRM practices (Schuler and
Jackson, 1987); thus, human resource strategies will vary depending on whether the firm follows an innovation strategy, a quality
enhancement strategy or a cost reduction strategy. And on the other
hand, the universalistic approach, according to which there is a universal, ideal way to manage human resources in any firm (Pfeffer,
1994, 1998; Huselid, 1995).
2.2. HRM in the hotel industry
Map 2. Provinces of Valencian Region.
What is the prevailing approach in the tourism sector in general
and the hotel industry in particular? It might be desirable for hotel
managers to recruit, train and motivate their employees for the
purpose of gaining a competitive advantage (soft version). But is
this the case in practice?
The importance in sheer numbers of employment within the
tourism and hotel industry can hardly be questioned at this stage.
According to the World Tourism Organization, tourism-related
activities provide employment for 230 million people worldwide,
which represents ca. 8.7% of the jobs existing in the world.
Nevertheless, the dark side of these figures refers to the quality
of many of these jobs, characterized by poor working conditions,
low pay, high staff turnover, problems with recruiting skills in a
number of key areas, a high level of labor drawn from socially
B. Marco-Lajara, M. Úbeda-García / International Journal of Hospitality Management 35 (2013) 339–347
disadvantaged groups, poor status and absence of professionalism.
As Wood (1997) points out, there is a predominance of “marginal
workers”, such as women, young workers, casual employees, students, part-timers and migrant workers in the tourism industry.
However, the truth is that they are not marginal workers but
workers who are marginalized by their firms and their working
conditions. This has been shown by various studies according to
which the number of women managers in tourism and hospitality
is disproportionally low given the overall level of female representation within the workforce (Obadic and Maric, 2009; Mayling,
2003; HCIMA, 1999; Mooney and Ryan, 2009; Pinar et al., 2011) –
even though women and men have been shown to be equally effective business managers (Marco, 2012). Other works such as those
by García-Pozo et al. (2012) and Thrane (2007) show that women
earn lower salaries than men. This is one of the reasons why diversity management has been gaining more and more attention lately
(Burges et al., 2009; Devine et al., 2007; French, 2001; Kamenou,
2012; Meriläinen et al., 2009; Verbeek, 2012).
Furthermore, most of these jobs correspond to front-line staff;
precisely those who should be the best paid, best trained and most
motivated employees so that they can offer customers a quality
service. However, these workers are actually the worst paid and
least trained in tourism firms (Guerrier and Lockwood, 1989; Deery
and Jago, 2002). This apparent paradox has been confirmed by
many authors; for instance, Keep and Mayhew (1999) highlight the
following problems in tourism and hospitality HRM: low wages,
overrepresentation of women and ethnic minorities in low-level
operative positions, non-existent career structures, overreliance
on informal recruitment methods, difficulties in recruitment and
retention of employees, high levels of labor turnover and lack
of evidence about best HRM practices, amongst others. Similarly,
MacDonald and Sirianni (1996) describe two kinds of service jobs:
large numbers of low-skill, low-pay jobs and a smaller number of
high-skill, high-pay jobs, with few jobs lying halfway.
Many empirical studies illustrate the poor conditions of employment in the tourism and hospitality sector, suggesting that there is
little adoption of an HRM philosophy in hotels and providing little
evidence of human resources being seen as a source of competitive advantage (Kelliher and Johnson, 1997; Kelliher and Perrent,
2001; McGunnigle and Jameson, 2000; Wilton, 2008; Smith et al.,
2011). By countries, the United Kingdom is one of the most studied
cases. The British hospitality industry includes over 180,000 establishments, 76% of which employ fewer than 10 people (Watson,
2008, p. 420). Women represent ca. 58% of the tourism and hospitality workforce; approximately 17% of the employees come from
abroad (3% from Western Europe, about 7% from Eastern Europe
and another 7% from outside Europe), and workers belonging to
ethnic minorities amount to 11% (compared to 9.6% in most industrial sectors). As for human resource strategies, the proportion of
part-time employees reaches 35% (compared to 25% in most industrial sectors) and about 10% are temporary workers. Recruitment
methods were studied by McGunnigle and Jameson (2000), who
found little evidence of the use of more contemporary recruitment
and selection procedures by UK hotels. Within the United Kingdom,
Martin et al. (2006) provide data for the specific case of Scotland,
indicating that only 38% of tourist workplaces incorporate training and development plans, as opposed to the 43% found in other
industries, and that only 8% of workplaces are engaged in training
(compared to 10% in other industries). As for the labor turnover
rate, it reaches 44% in the Scottish hotel sector whereas in other
industrial sectors it stands at 23%.
In short, this all points to economic determinism (Riley et al.,
2000) or the prevalence of the hard version of human resource
practices, which entails a short-term perspective on managerial
decision-making and strategy and, consequently, a low-cost strategy (Guerrier and Lockwood, 1989; Hales and Tamangani, 1996).
341
As for the reasons explaining these results, scholars have mainly
stressed the following: the predominance of SMEs in tourism and
hospitality, which lack the necessary means to implement good
human resource strategies, fluctuating demand, labor market characteristics, etc.
Nevertheless, although numerous studies infer the adoption of
the hard version in hotel HRM, it would be interesting to have some
more precise indicators at our disposal which could permit more
relevant conclusions. The employee turnover rate which, as shown
in the preceding paragraphs, constitutes one of the most significant problems for the tourism and hotel sector, could possibly be
one of them. Many works have tried to explain the reasons for high
turnover rates, which may be found in factors of a psychological
nature (Martin et al., 2006), in the feeling of stress at the workplace (Ryan et al., 2011) and, in general, in job satisfaction levels
(Gallardo et al., 2010). In turn, Luna-Arocas and Camps (2008) relate
salary strategies, job enrichment and job stability to employee commitment and turnover intentions. A number of works go further
to establish a direct relationship between turnover rate and the
hard and soft versions (Ishak et al., 2011; Zheng, 2009). According to these studies, turnover rates above 15% or 20% are directly
associated with the hard version of HRM.
Another indicator which some authors have linked directly with
the hard and soft approaches to HRM is recruitment methods (Yang
and Fu, 2009). More precisely, Zheng (2009) points out that the
use of innovative recruitment channels (internet and HR agencies
among others) is a practice that falls into the soft side of HRM
approaches.
Nevertheless, and despite all the previous comments, there are
also examples of best human resource practices in the hotel industry. Evidence of this can be found, for instance, in the study by
Hoque (2000), although the author himself admits that the hotel
sample used has an average staff of 125, in a sector where 81%
of establishments have fewer than 25 employees; or the study
by Altarawneh and Aldehayyat (2011). The survey carried out by
Melián-González (2004) also quotes the cases of large firms like
Florida Theme Park (Mayer, 2002), Forte Hotel Group (Erstad, 2001)
and Five Star Hotel (Haynes and Fryer, 2000). These situations are
typical of the contingent approach, as they provide clear evidence
that human resource practices change depending on hotel size.
As a matter of fact, most of the works devoted to analyzing
the contingent approach try to relate a number of specific human
resource practices to the competitive strategies described by de
Miles and Snow (1984); for instance, Úbeda-García et al. (2013) for
training strategies in the Spanish hotel industry. However, other
authors examine the differences between hotels, taking as a reference their category by star rating (Pereira, 2004), as this can be
a determining factor for the competitive strategy followed by the
firm.
The following question arises at this stage: What is the situation of hotels located in the Valencian Autonomous Region? Do
they follow a hard or a soft approach to HRM? Are their human
resource practices dependent on their competitive strategy (contingent approach) or do they always apply the same practices
(universalistic approach)? The following pages will try to answer
all these questions.
3. Methodology
3.1. Sample selection and data collection
In order to collect the data required for this study, a questionnaire – previously agreed with experts in employment and
professionals from the tourism sector – was designed and sent to
the hotel establishments in the Valencian Region. After drawing up
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Table 1
Distribution of hotels per province.
Province
Number of hotels
Percentage of the population (%)
Alicante
Castellón
Valencia
375
143
209
51.6
19.7
28.7
a preliminary questionnaire, 15 respondents carried out a pre-test
which was used for validation purposes.
As seen in the questionnaire (see Appendix), the employment
variables of interest to us are the following: number of employees
per management area, nationality of employees, sex distribution
among staff, recruitment methods used, type of contract and work
schedule, staff turnover and percentage of employees who receive
training.
Several databases were consulted (local tourist supply,
Turespaña, Sistema de Análisis de Balances Ibéricos – SABI) in order
to build the hotel population. The conclusion was that the number
of firms eligible for the population in this survey was 727.
The population identified for the study corresponded to the following provinces in the Valencian Region (Table 1).
The distribution per hotel category was also analyzed (Table 2).
The questionnaire was initially sent by post, addressed to
the manager of each of the 727 hotels located in the Valencian
Autonomous Region. After a few weeks had elapsed and only a few
answers had been obtained, an e-mail reminder was sent to the
hotels which had not answered at that stage. In view of the response
index, a second selective mailing effort was made in order to cover
the population strata. Given the difficulties in obtaining responses
from some of these strata, phone calls were eventually made to
some of the establishments seeking to achieve their cooperation.
At the end of the process, it was possible to obtain 112 valid questionnaires, which implies a response rate of 15.4% and a sample
error at 95.5% of 8.6% for the overall sample.
The survey was first sent in early 2011, so that the respondents
could have access to the employment data from the financial year
that had just ended and, at the same time, they could give answers
on their plans for the year which was just starting.
3.2. Structure of the empirical study
The questionnaire contained a number of control questions
which would make it possible to divide the study into several
parts. Specifically, these questions concerned the tourism segment that the business focuses on (holidays, urban and rural), the
province where the hotel is located and the hotel category, since the
employment profile and the implementation of human resource
policies might vary depending on these variables. Indeed, out of
the three provinces, Castellón has the greatest relative weight of
rural tourism – characterized by smaller establishments – whereas
Alicante is the province with the highest relative percentage of holiday tourism and Valencia leads in urban tourism, with these latter
two provinces having larger hotels. Furthermore, tourism in Castellón has a more seasonal nature, compared to Valencia and Alicante,
which include such important destinations as the city of Valencia (with highly developed urban tourism) and Benidorm (visited
Table 2
Distribution of hotels per category.
Hotel category (stars)
Number of hotels
Percentage of the population (%)
1
2
3
4
5
116
183
253
157
18
15.95
25.17
34.80
21.60
2.48
by holidaymakers all year round). Concerning hotel category, it is
usually related to competitive strategy since higher-category hotels
tend to follow a competitive differentiation strategy, whereas
lower-category hotels are more focused on costs. All these differences might influence the human resource strategies applied by
hotel establishments.
Therefore, the study is structured into three parts: global analysis of all the hotels in the Valencian Region; analysis by province
or geographical area; and analysis by hotel category. The first two
parts will help us determine whether the predominant approach in
the Valencian Community is hard or soft. With this aim in mind, our
overall analysis of the HR practices and strategies adopted by hotels
will also focus on the value of two specific variables: employee
turnover rate; and recruitment methods used. Thus, turnover rates
above 15% or 20% and/or the limited utilization of innovative
recruitment methods (Internet, HR agencies, etc.) will tell us that
the hotel firms are probably using the hard HRM approach.
The third part will allow us to decide whether the hotels in this
area adapt human resource practices to their competitive strategy
(contingent approach) or apply them regardless of their strategy
(universalistic approach). In this case, the same variable used to
determine the establishment category – star rating – can prove
helpful when it comes to comparing the contingent and universalistic approaches. Nevertheless, it is important for us to highlight
that the main contribution made in this paper revolves around the
hard and soft approaches to HRM. Table 3 summarizes these last
ideas.
3.3. Data analysis techniques
The study of the hard and soft approaches in the first part –
overall analysis of the Valencian Region – took a data descriptive analysis as its main reference. The second and third parts –
analysis by province and analysis by hotel category, respectively –
complement the data descriptive analysis with the application of
an ANOVA analysis for one factor in order to check the potential
existence of significant differences between the mean values for
each variable across the different provinces and establishment categories. The data were treated with the SPSS version 20 statistical
package.
4. Results
4.1. Global analysis
This section presents the results corresponding to the total
population of the Valencian Autonomous Region, with no distinction regarding hotel category or the province or geographical area
where the hotels are located.
The first results analyzed are those related to the human
resource profile, that is, the number of employees per management
area, their sex and nationality. The focus will then be placed on
the results for certain human resource policies and strategies, such
as recruitment methods, type of contract and work schedule, staff
turnover and training.
With regard to the number of employees in each management
area, the data in Fig. 1 show that the areas with the most employees are: the operational catering areas, with 7.27; and floors and
maintenance, with 6.30, whereas the operational administration
area hardly reaches an average of 1 employee. As for front-desk
staff, the average is 3.77 employees per establishment. In terms of
management, hotels in the Valencian Region employ an average of
2.73 employees. On the whole, the total average number of employees per establishment is 20 – with 50% of hotels not exceeding 12
employees.
B. Marco-Lajara, M. Úbeda-García / International Journal of Hospitality Management 35 (2013) 339–347
343
Table 3
Analysis variables and relevant questions.
ANALYSIS
Per Geographical Area: Valencian
Region or Provinces
Per Hotel Category
RELEVANT QUESTION
Hard or Soft Version of HRM
Contingent or Universalistic
Approach of HRM
VARIABLES
Turnover Staff Rate
Use of Innovative Recruitment Methods
Establishment’s star rating
0%
50%
Management
employess
48.02
Operaonal A.
front-desk staff
Fig. 1. Average number of employees per management area in Valencian Region
hotels.
Regarding staff nationalities, Valencian Community hotels
recruit employees from a variety of countries (Fig. 2). The prevailing nationality is Spanish for 90.77% of the hotels, whereas
the remaining 9.23% shows a uniform distribution between certain
EU and Western European countries (France and Norway), Eastern
Europe (Romania) and Latin America (Colombia and Ecuador).
Employee gender is also analyzed within the employment profile. Fig. 3 reveals that the female sex prevails in all operational areas
with the exception of higher and middle management posts, where
women are slightly less represented than men. As for categories, the
floors and maintenance area ranks first in female staff, with 84.93%,
followed by the administration (back office) area with 61.93%, front
office with 58.24% and catering with 54.94%. Regarding higher
and middle management, the percentages are 48.02% women and
51.98% men.
After analyzing the human resource profile, the time has come
to discuss the results obtained and their correlation with certain human resource policies. Starting with recruitment methods
(Fig. 4), the method most widely used by Valencian Community
hotels is recommendation, reported by 62.69% of establishments,
and direct contact with candidates, used by 59.70%. Other frequently utilized methods are former employees (38.81%), national
employment services (34.33%), job websites (28.36%) and company
websites (16.42%). Conversely, the recruitment methods least used
Operaonal A.
administraon
51.98
58.24
Operaonal A.
floors &
maintenance
Operaonal A.
catering
100%
84.93
54.94
15.07
45.06
61.93
Women
41.76
38.07
Men
Fig. 3. Employees per management area and sex in Valencian Region hotels.
by Valencian hotels are consulting firms (2.99%), job advertisements (7.46%) and temporary work agencies (11.94%).
Concerning hiring strategies, the results show that 61.8% of
employees in Valencian hotels have a permanent contract, whereas
38.2% have a temporary contract, while 81.1% of employees in
Valencian hotels have a full-time job and 18.9% are part-time.
Another relevant issue related to hiring strategies and policies is
staff turnover. As shown in Fig. 5, the highest turnover percentages
occur in the floors and maintenance operational areas (26.91%) and
Fig. 2. Nationalities (in order of importance) of the employees in Valencian Region hotels.
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B. Marco-Lajara, M. Úbeda-García / International Journal of Hospitality Management 35 (2013) 339–347
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%100%
Recomendaons
62.69
Former Employees
37.31
38.81
61.19
Company Websites 16.42
Job Websites
40.30
Job Adversements
7.46
92.54
Consulng Firms
2.99
97.01
Temporary Work…11.94
88.06
State Employment… 34.33
It is used
Operaonal A.
Front-desk staff
71.64
59.70
Other 10.45
63.77
100%
36.23
Operaonal A.
Floor &
maintenance
56.12
43.00
43.88
57.00
Operaonal A.
Catering
51.01
48.99
Operaonal A.
Administraon
55.80
44.20
65.67
89.55
It isn't used
Fig. 4. Recruitment methods and percentage of Valencian Region hotels using each
of them.
catering (25.43%), whereas the lowest percentages correspond to
higher and middle management (6.05%) and operational administration staff (5.18%). In the specific case of the front-desk area, the
staff turnover rate is 18.74%.
Finally, training is another of the strategies and policies analyzed
here. According to Fig. 6, the employees receiving most training are
0%
Management
employees
50%
83.58
28.36
Direct contact with…
0%
50%
Management
employees
6.05
Operaonal A.
Front-desk staff
18.74
Operaonal A.
Floor &
maintenance
26.91
73.09
Operaonal A.
Catering
25.43
74.57
Operaonal A.
Administraon
5.18
100%
93.95
81.26
Receive training
Do not receive training
Fig. 6. Percentage of employees receiving training per management area in Valencian Region hotels.
those who occupy higher and middle management posts (63.77%),
followed by front-desk operational staff (56.12%) and administration staff (55.80%). Conversely, the employees who receive the least
training are those in the floors and maintenance operational area
(43.00%).
The overall analysis of all these data allows us to infer that the
hotels located in the Valencian Region follow the hard approach
to HRM: these are establishments with few employees, where the
percentage of female workers is quite high and the provenance of
workers is highly varied. More importantly though, high employee
turnover rates can be seen in numerous management areas – even
above 25% in some – and more innovative recruitment methods such as consulting firms, job advertisements, temporary work
agencies and company websites are hardly ever used.
4.2. Analysis by geographical area (province)
Turnover
94.82
No turnover
Fig. 5. Staff turnover rate in the various management areas in Valencian Region
hotels.
This section presents the results obtained depending on the
province where hotels are located. For this purpose, the same
procedure will be followed as in the previous section; in other
words, the first analysis focuses on the results related to the
human resource profile (number of employees per management
area, sex and nationality), after which attention is paid to the
results concerning certain human resource policies and strategies
(recruitment methods, type of contract, work schedule and training). However, the results shown here only refer to the differences
existing between these 3 provinces.
Fig. 7 shows the average number of employees in each management area of Valencian Community hotels, depending on the
province where each hotel is located.
At least two interesting points may be made in this case. Firstly,
hotels in Alicante and Valencia have the most employees in every
management area, whereas the number of staff in Castellón hotels
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345
Fig. 7. Employees, measured by management area, in Valencian Region hotels, for
each province.
is considerably lower. And secondly, another salient feature is that
Castellón hotels show no significant differences regarding the staff
employed in each management area, whereas such differences are
clearly visible in Alicante and Valencia; the floor area along with
the maintenance and catering area have a far higher number of
employees in both provinces. In any case, it must be highlighted
that the aforementioned differences are not statistically significant
according to the ANOVA analysis.
The same applies to other HR practices. For example, concerning the nationality of employees, it is worth mentioning that a
wide variety of countries of origin exist in Alicante (Spain, some
EU-15 countries and Latin America), whereas such heterogeneity
is less present in Valencia and Castellón hotels; the differences
are not statistically significant, though. However, some differences
concerning the number of women employed in the different management areas in each province are statistically significant. For
instance, hotels in Castellón have the most women in management
posts and in catering jobs.
With regard to the type of contract and the work schedule, hotels
in Castellón use permanent contracts the least often and Valencia hotels have the fewest part-time staff. This last difference is
statistically significant.
Finally, the analysis of training strategies in all three provinces
reveals that higher and middle management staff receive the
most training, followed by front-desk operational staff. However,
what seems most surprising is that employees in the province of
Fig. 8. Average number of employees per management area in Valencian Region
hotels, depending on hotel category.
Castellón receive the most training in both management areas, and
the differences existing in this case are statistically significant.
However, the most important conclusion that can be drawn
from this section is once again the confirmation that the hard
approach to human resource management is most probably followed by hotels in the Valencian Region.
4.3. Analysis by hotel category
As discussed above, hotel category is another of the variables
used for segmentation. As in the preceding section, our study is
confined to the analysis of the differences between the different
establishment categories when it comes to applying HR strategies.
Fig. 8 presents the average number of employees per management area in Valencian Community hotels by establishment
category.
The figures suggest at least two interesting issues. Firstly, 3star hotels and 4- and 5-star hotels follow the normal pattern
regarding the average number of employees in each area (that
is, they have more staff in the areas of catering and floors and
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maintenance), whereas the 1- and 2-star hotels follow an irregular
pattern, with the front desk having the most employees. Secondly,
it also deserves to be highlighted that the number of employees increases with the hotel category in all management areas.
Thus, 4- and 5-star hotels have the most employees in each area,
whereas 1- and 2-star establishments have the lowest numbers –
which makes sense, considering that the stars allocated to the hotel
are an indicator of the variety of services offered. Interestingly,
the ANOVA analysis shows that these differences are statistically
significant.
Regarding other variables related to staff profile, such as the
nationality of employees or the percentage of men and women in
each management area, the most important difference between
all the hotel categories established for this study (1- and 2-,
3-, 4- and 5-star hotels), is that, surprisingly, variety in most
of the staff’s countries of origin is much smaller (Spain and
some Eastern European country) in 4- and 5-star establishments,
whereas the predominant nationality may vary to a great extent
in 1- and 2-star hotels (Spain, EU-15, Eastern European countries,
and Latin America). However, this difference is not statistically
significant.
Focusing on human resource strategies and policies, differences
exist and they are statistically significant in the work schedule,
insofar as hotels in the highest category (4- and 5-star hotels)
have the fewest part-time employees. Finally, regarding the percentage of employees who receive training in each management
area, there are some noticeable differences depending on hotel
category. For example, it can be observed that the employees
who receive the most training in 3-star and in 4- and 5-star
hotels belong to higher and middle management, whereas 1and 2-star hotels give the most training to operational administrative and catering staff, and this difference is statistically
significant. Nevertheless, the most surprising result, at least at
first sight, is that hotels in the highest category (4–5 stars) devote
the least effort to staff training in each and every management
area.
Therefore, it becomes evident that differences exist in a number of human resource practices and strategies, which in turn
could suggest that Valencian Region hotels follow the contingent
approach at least for those practices and strategies.
5. Conclusions, implications and future research
Hotels in the Valencian Autonomous Region show an employment profile which is quite close to the normal behavior of the hotel
industry, insofar as the areas with the most employees are catering
and floors and maintenance; there is a predominance of permanent,
full-time contracts; the prevailing nationality is Spanish, women
are a majority in the floors and maintenance area; and the highest
turnover rate is found in the areas of floors and maintenance and
catering.
The dark side of all this is that the number of employees per
establishment remains small, that the proportion of part-time and
temporary workers is still high, that there is also a great diversity
as far as employees’ countries of origin are concerned and that, on
the whole, the employee turnover rate is high. As for recruitment
methods, those most often used by Valencian Region hotels are
recommendation and direct contact with candidates. However, as
Zheng (2009) and Nickson (2007, p. 1003) ask themselves: “could a
sufficient pool of suitable candidates be attracted using less expensive methods?”
In the light of these results, it may be concluded that the hard
approach to HRM prevails in Valencian Region hotels, both on the
whole and in each of the three provinces, although the influence of
this approach is far more visible in Castellón.
It may also be concluded that hotels apply the same human
resource strategies regardless of their category or competitive
strategy (universalistic approach). However, although this seems
to be the prevailing approach, it is worth highlighting that
some practices vary depending on hotel category (contingent
approach).
In any case, the most relevant conclusion is that, as in many
other places around the world (Yang and Fu, 2009), HRM does not
seem to be a competitive strategy in the hospitality industry. This is
one of the reasons why Spain, one of the main tourist destinations
in the world, suffers from the competition of other substitute destinations more intensely every year. Spanish tourism companies
in general, and particularly hotels, need to be more competitive. If
it is very difficult to compete with hotels located in foreign destinations using a low cost strategy, then it will be necessary to
compete by adopting a product differentiation strategy. For this
reason, Spanish hotels must move away from the human resource
strategy that they have applied so far and come closer to the soft
model.
In this respect, hotels need to achieve a higher degree of commitment to the firm among their employees so that the turnover rate
in all areas can be much lower. Certain human resource practices
and strategies such as pay, training, and even the use of other more
innovative recruitment methods which make it easier to select the
most suitable employees, can play a highly relevant role in the
fulfillment of this task. In our view, hiring women or employees
from abroad should not be a problem for these purposes, as long
as appropriate HR management is applied and the decision to hire
staff from these groups is not simply an excuse to reduce costs.
5.1. Future research
The title of this article shows that it is an introductory paper
which requires future enlargements in order to draw better conclusions. In this sense, the research must be extended to the whole
of the Spanish territory, or at least to the six most important
tourist autonomous regions (Mediterranean coast and the Balearic
and Canary islands), since the structure of this industry is not the
same in every Spanish region. For instance, the competitive strategy of tourism companies is more differentiated in the Balearic
Islands than in the Valencian Region, because Valencian hotels target lower-purchasing-power tourists. This enlargement will allow
us to acquire a better knowledge of the Spanish tourism industry.
However, the Valencian Region stands out as one of the main
tourist regions in Spain, which is why the conclusions obtained
in this paper cannot differ much from those that would have been
obtained with a more comprehensive study. Moreover, the fact that
our study is focused on one region actually enables us to perform a
more in-depth analysis, where it is possible to target all the hotels
located in the region; a nationwide analysis would have required
selecting a sample of hotels to investigate, because it is very difficult
to study the more than 20,000 hotels which currently operate in
Spain.
Regardless of the geographical scope of the study, it is actually
clear that future research will need to delve deeper into the analysis of the hard and soft approaches to HRM followed by Spanish
hotels. In order to achieve this aim, it is not enough to observe
proxy variables such as the employee turnover rate or the use of
innovative recruitment methods; attention must be paid to other
dimensions which are directly related to the soft approach, such
as team cohesiveness, work environment and the communication flow (Ishak et al., 2011). With regard to the contingent and
universalistic approach, it will be necessary to compare the aforesaid dimensions with the competitive strategy adopted by Spanish
hotels.
B. Marco-Lajara, M. Úbeda-García / International Journal of Hospitality Management 35 (2013) 339–347
347
Appendix.
ANALYSIS
Per Geographical Area: Valencian
Region or Provinces
Per Hotel Category
RELEVANT QUESTION
Hard or Soft Version of HRM
Contingent or Universalistic
Approach of HRM
VARIABLES
Turnover Staff Rate
Use of Innovative Recruitment Methods
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