BFUF funding supports research on young hotel employees

Alexandra Erling, together with Andreas Werr and Katja Einola at the Stockholm School of Economics, has secured project funding from the Swedish Tourism and Hospitality Industry’s Research and Development Fund (BFUF). The funding will support research on young employees and managers in the hotel industry.

The research will examine how young employees and managers up to age 35 in guest-facing hotel operations understand and shape their work, and how they view development, responsibility, and their future in the industry. The project aims to generate knowledge that can support hotels in strengthening leadership, development opportunities, and retention.

“I’m particularly excited about the opportunity to build on my previous research on how people make sense of and shape their work, but in a new context,” says Alexandra Erling. “The hotel industry is especially interesting because so many people enter it early in their working lives, yet we still know relatively little about how young people come to understand their work and future in the industry. The same kind of job may be experienced as temporary by some, while for others it may become the beginning of a longer career. This funding gives us the opportunity to explore those differences in depth.”

BFUF has awarded SEK 1.4 million to the research project, titled More than a temporary job? Young employees, young managers and pathways to retention in the hotel industry. It is one of three projects receiving funding in BFUF’s research initiative on leadership and skills development in the hospitality industry.