Role of Human Resource Management Practices in Developing Organizational Resilience in Star-Rated Hotels in Nairobi City County, Kenya

Abstract

Hotel management suffers various disruptive events globally in the like of natural disasters, terrorism, criminal activities, employee errors, negligence and accidents. Dynamism and disruptions are inevitable for those operating hotel businesses. The hospitality industry thus needs to be very sensitive to these disruptions and its resilience is key to its development. This study sought to determine the role of Human Resource Management practices in developing organizational resilience in star rated hotels within Nairobi County, Kenya. Specifically, the study sought to assess the role of recruitment, training, compensation and performance appraisal in developing organizational resilience. This was informed by the Resource Based View and the theory of resilience. An embedded mixed research design was adopted. The study targeted 121 managers in star rated hotels within Nairobi region obtained through stratification sampling. Questionnaire and interviews were main the research instruments. A pre-test was done to test the research instrument for reliability and validity. Out of the 121 questionnaires issued in Google form, 100 were correctly filled giving a response rate of 82.6 percent. Interviews were carried out using Zoom meetings. Regression analysis findings proved a positive and significant effect between, recruitment and selection β = 0.670(p<0.05), training β = 0.657(p<0.05), compensation β = 0.826(p<0.05) and performance appraisal β = 0.680(p<0.05) and organization resilience. Correlation analysis findings established that there were moderate to strong relationships between; recruitment and selection (rho=0.599, p-value<0.05), employee training (rho=0.686, p-value<0.05), employee compensation (rho=0.815, p-value<0.05), performance appraisal (rho=0.737, p-value<0.05) and organization resilience. Overall, Analysis of Variance showed that selected human resource management practices had a significant role in developing hotels’ organizational resilience. Therefore, the results showed that all the studied variables are key element in developing the organizations resilience for star rated hotels. The study recommends that hotels need: to be keen when recruiting to ensure that the right candidate is employed; trainings need to be tailored to solving problems that may hit during crisis; performance-based payment systems is necessary with clear reward systems plus a fair and objective performance appraisal should be adopted.