Unwanted staff turnover is a prominent HRM problem in humanitarian organisations. In the profit sector, HRM tools such as pay, benefits, socialisation and training have proven to be effective in increasing organisational commitment and decreasing staff turnover. This study explores whether such tools are also effective in humanitarian organisations. Our study indicates that: 1) institutionalised socialisation tactics have a positive effect and individualised socialisation tactics have a negative effect on employees' organisational commitment; 2) some HRM tools could have the opposite effects than expected from the literature; 3) there seems to be no relation between organisational commitment and turnover intentions. It is therefore concluded that HRM tools used in the profit sector should not be blindly copied by humanitarian organisations as their effects may differ.