Reconciling the Needs of Hotel Housekeeping Department, Employment Agency and Flexible Workers

Using qualitative methodology in the form of semi-structured and in-depth interviews, this paper aims to understand the nature of relationship among hotel housekeeping managers, their partner agency managers, and their flexible workers. Based upon the interviewees’ responses and other documentary sources, we find, among others, that pursuing labour flexibility appears to be inevitable in hotel industry; that the three-tier flexible firm model (i.e. Atkinson, 1984) does not provide a full account of supply chain relationship between hotels and the employment agencies; and that employees are being relatively treated as a ‘cost’ – as opposed to a ‘resource’. The paper concludes with some implications for utilisation of flexible workers in the supply chain relationship between the client hotels and their partner agencies.

Key Words: Employment agencies / Labour flexibility / Hotel sector / Housekeeping / Supply Chain Management