Introduction
According to Kuballa (2007), employee satisfaction can be defined as a measure of how enthusiastic employees can be towards their duties and their workplaces. Maintaining a high morale at the workplace can be of great benefit to any corporation since contented employees are more probable to produce more; they remain loyal to the corporation and usually take fewer days off.
Maintaining high employee satisfaction involves several factors that can be implemented by wise employers. In addition, satisfied workers are also more probable to be inventive and innovative in developing breakthroughs, which can allow any business to advance and transform positively with shifting market conditions and time.
To determine the level of employee satisfaction, most corporations conduct compulsory surveys of confrontational meetings with their employees to acquire information (Hayes & Ninemeier, 2009). The importance of this subject has led to a lot of research. In this essay, a literature review is conducted on various research works that have been done on employee satisfaction in the hospitality industry.
Literature Review
Hospitality business is one of the industries that is rapidly growing. However, there are still challenges of acquiring and keeping a competent workforce (Tanke, 2001). Basically, there are two things that are most prevalent in this business.
The first one is high incidences of staff turnover influencing the capacity to provide a consistent brand experience, which adversely affects the industry; the second one consists in the fact that most individuals do not view hospitality industry as rapidly developing, which implies that they do not want to stay and advance their careers in such businesses (Gitman & McDaniel, 2009).
These are indicators of employees who are not contented. As it has been mentioned, lot of research has been conducted in this field, however, there are still loopholes that have not been fully explored.
In 2006, Hemdi and Nasurdin conducted research to investigate the employee turnover in the hotel industry throughout the world. In their research, they indicated that the turnover of employees in the hotel industry could be approximated at 60% to 300% per year, which is very high as compared to the manufacturing industry at 34.7%.
This indicates that the turnover rate of employees is very high. Most significantly, they assert that this kind of turnover is unfavorable for the business because it is apparent that they are closely correlated to direct and indirect rates. In addition, it impacts the ethical, output, reputation and subsistence of organizations.
In their findings it is highlighted that, in case the turnover is high, it is implied that employees are not contented with the work or payment. It could as well indicate insecure or unhealthy working conditions or the fact that very few workers perform well, probably, because of impractical expectations or poor employee recruitment. Conversely, low turnover shows employee satisfaction (Yeh, 1999).
There are theories and models that have been used to explain the cause of high employee turnover in the hospitality industry. Some of the most common theories and models used by different authors include two factor theory, job characteristics model, Peter Principle, McClelland’s Theory, and Mobley’s model (Walker & Miller, 2010).
The two factor theory used by Herzberg in 1973 claims that the job an individual performs can warrant needs such as accomplishments, proficiency, position, individual value, and self-realization, which could result into a happy and contented person. However, without such gratification, job nature does not result into a happy and satisfied person.
McClelland’s theory, which was developed by McClelland in 1973, postulates that a person’s desires are developed over time and is formed by a person’s childhood experiences. The needs are classified as the need for achievement, affiliation, and power. These theories have been used to explain the reasons for high turnover in hospitality organizations (Cook, 2008).
Even though, the theories have proved very accurate in explaining the causes of high employee turnover, there is still little research on methods of determining employee satisfaction in an organization. Currently, direct interviews and compulsory surveys are the commonly used methods. However, these approaches have their advantages and disadvantages.
In most cases, interviews with the management can be intimidating, though if done appropriately, could let the employees know that issues are addressed by the management. Nevertheless, the responses could as well be very misleading especially when there is no good rapport between the management and the workers. This implies that some responses cannot be used to make conclusions at the level of employee satisfaction (Kusluvan, 2003).
Identified research questions aims and objectives
Owing to the existing loopholes in the existing research especially with regard to assessment of employee satisfaction, there are areas that still need to be researched. The research questions that need to be addressed include the following: What factors determine the accuracy of an employee satisfaction assessment method?
What are the most appropriate methods of assessing employee satisfaction? How does the employee satisfaction method affect the accuracy of outcome determined? What are the most effective ways of boosting the employee morale in a hospitality industry? How has poor methods of evaluating employee satisfaction affected the results obtained?
References
Cook, S. (2008). The essential guide to employee engagement: Better business performance through staff satisfaction. London: Kogan Page.
Gitman, J & McDaniel, D. (2009). The future of business: The essentials. Mason, OH: South-Western Cenage Learning
Hayes, K & Ninemeier, D. (2009). Human resources management in the hospitality industry. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons.
Hemdi, A & Nasurdin, M. (2006). Predicting turnover intentions of Hotel employees: The influence of employee development human resource management practices and trust in organization. Gadjah Mada international Journal of business, 8(1), 21-42. Retrieved from EBSCOhost database.
Kuballa, J. (2007). Employee satisfaction – A precondition for economic success of service companies? München: GRIN Verlag GmbH.
Kusluvan, S. (2003). Managing employee attitudes and behaviors in the tourism and hospitality industry. New York: Nova Science Publishers.
Tanke, L. (2001). Human resources management for the hospitality industry. Albany, NY: Delmar Thomson Learning
Walker, R & Miller, E. (2010). Supervision in the hospitality industry: Leading human resources. Hoboken, N.J: J. Wiley.
Yeh, Y. (1999). Employee satisfaction of hotel industry: A case study of the Grand Hotel Taipei. Rochester Institute of Technology