Employee retention and engagement have become one of the most important issues for hospitality industry in most of the western countries as the industry is known for its high turnover and younger generations are characterized as disloyal. Organizations have recognized the need for more and deeper insights in engagement and retention for future practices. This thesis has been written to study and better understand the conceptions of HR professionals and experiences and expectations of graduate hotel school students on engagement and retention in the Dutch hospitality industry. The main objective of the thesis was to study and understand the context and conceptions of both HR professionals and Generation Z around engaging and retaining Generation Z in the Dutch hospitality industry. To meet the objective, three research questions were formulated to guide the research. What are the conceptions of HR professionals in the Dutch hospitality industry on their organization’s present actions on employee retention & engagement and generation theory? What are the expectations and experiences of graduate hotel school students in The Netherlands on retention and engagement in the Dutch hospitality industry? What recommendations can be made to organizations in the Dutch hospitality industry regarding engaging and retaining Generation Z? The research has been limited to a specific industry and country to better understand the complexity of the subject. After the literature review, qualitative research methods were chosen to get insights from both, future employees and HR professionals. Data was generated by conducting semi-structured interviews for 5 graduate students and 4 HR professionals from the Dutch hospitality industry. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the gathered data. The results of this thesis conclude that organizations are right to focus their attention on training courses as Generation Z is looking for development, growth and opportunities. Training courses in the hotels interviewed are either ...