A workforce to be reckoned with: The emerging pivotal Generation Z hospitality workforce

Abstract

Despite the “perfect storm” of older employees leaving the workforce and younger hospitality employees entering the hospitality industry, there has not been a single study in the hospitality literature investigating Generation Z’s attitudes towards working in the hospitality industry. Understanding this future hospitality workforce is pivotal as empirical studies of past generations (Baby-boomers, Generation X and Generation Y) have reported high turnover patterns among the hospitality workforce to be a major human resource problem in this dynamic industry. This research evaluated the usefulness of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) as the theoretical framework to distill and unpack Generation Z’s perceptions (n = 71) about working in the hospitality industry. Results suggest Generation Z viewed overall positive attitudes about the hospitality industry such as exciting, a people’s industry with travel opportunities along with certain challenges such as dealing with people, long/odd hours and potential workplace health and safety issues.