Employer branding: A new approach for the hospitality industry

Abstract

The Western hospitality industry experiences a shortage of skilled professionals due to a poor image and competition from other sectors. Employer branding, which is used as a human resources strategy to differentiate brands, has the potential to deal with some of the problems. An employer brand is closely connected to a company’s corporate and customer brands. Elements include attractiveness to outsiders, engagement and retention of talent. For this research, 23 senior hospitality decision makers were interviewed. The interviewees acknowledged the current problems in the hospitality industry. The majority had heard about employer branding but only a few had started to implement it. Some conceive employer branding as ‘job advertisement pimping’ instead of being a strategy. Based on the interviews and the literature, a number of suggestions were formulated to implement employer branding.