Satisfaction with Internal Communication and Hospitality Employees’ Turnover Intention: Exploring the Mediating Role of Organizational Support and Job Satisfaction

Abstract

Managing employee turnover is a key function in human resource management (HRM) that has become especially relevant given current staff shortages. The travel and tourism industry has been strongly affected, with many organizations having difficulty attracting and retaining workers. Portugal, as a prominent player in tourism, is no exception, and the workforce shortage crisis has been discussed in various forums and has attracted media attention. The present study examined hotel employees’ turnover intention and its relationship with their job satisfaction and positive perceptions of internal communication and organizational support. The proposed theoretical model included that internal communication contributes to the quality of employee–organization relationships by increasing perceived organizational support and job satisfaction, which in turn serve as sequential mediators of hotel workers’ diminished intent to leave their employer. Multiple regression analyses were performed using data collected from 12 hotels (number = 370 workers). The results support the model as they confirm that a statistically significant negative relationship exists between employees’ satisfaction with internal communication and their turnover intention. These variables are both directly and indirectly connected through perceived organizational support and job satisfaction. Implications for HRM are discussed including the importance of refining internal organizational communication to strengthen employee–organization ties.

Quitters from Hospitality Industry: Misfit or Just Looking for Better Conditions?

“…Despite the observed sustained growth, the worldwide tourism sector currently faces a potential bottleneck, motivated by labor shortages (Jus et al 2022). The Portuguese case is no exception to this (Duarte and Silva 2024). According to the Portuguese Hotels' Association, even though there was some recovery between 2021 and 2022 in the workforce within the accommodation and restaurant sectors, a comparison of 2022 with the year 2019 reveals a distressing decline of 34 thousand jobs, amounting to a reduction of 10.6%.…”

“…First, it relies on data sourced from authentic jobseekers, individuals who are unemployed and actively involved in the pursuit of a new job. This approach departs from the customary practice of relying on data stemming from surveys, which typically involves surveying samples of employees from particular firms, groups of firms, or sectors and asking them about their intention to change occupation (e.g., Duarte and Silva 2024;Erdogan and Bauer 2021;Aho 2020). Second, because of the comprehensive dataset gathered from several sources, this research employs objective metrics to measure the principal variables under scrutiny as potential catalysts for disengagement from the tourism sector (e.g., qualification mismatch, wage differentials, and job stability differentials).…”

“…Second, because of the comprehensive dataset gathered from several sources, this research employs objective metrics to measure the principal variables under scrutiny as potential catalysts for disengagement from the tourism sector (e.g., qualification mismatch, wage differentials, and job stability differentials). This approach differs from the majority of studies that rely on questionnaires, in which revealed perceptions are the primary source of data (e.g., Baquero 2022; Chen and Chen 2021; Duarte and Silva 2024;El-Sawalhy et al 2022). Another original contribution of this study is that among the determinants evaluated as potential drivers for the intention to leave the hospitality industry, not only are the previous job characteristics accounted for (as, for example, in Manolopoulos et al 2022), but also the differences between those characteristics and those of the newly desired jobs.…”