Author(s): Niramol Promnil
Managing hotel workforces during the COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as more complex and challenging for the hotel business. This emerges a body of literature exploring appropriate HRM approaches after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, knowledge on qualifications required for hotel employees concerning new HRM approaches and the pandemic remains scarce. This paper employed qualitative research to interview 16 informants from 3 different types of hotels in Chiang Mai, Thailand, including 3 Thai- small luxury hotels, 3 Thai- medium-sized hotels chain, and 2 international hotels chains. This paper identifies 3 categories of qualifications required for hotel employees after the COVID-19 pandemic, namely the core qualification, the additional qualification, and the new requirement. This paper also implies that the design of employee qualification has been influenced by characteristics of the hotel industry and the national culture of hotel setting rather than its size and nationality.