This narrative analyzes dimensions associated with the choice to work at a hotel, specifically in a front desk operations role. The chapter details the motivational dimensions that lead to a decision to accept work. It also analyzes how non-monetary benefits associated with a job can provide significant value for an employee. Such benefits are primarily social in nature, such as connecting with colleagues and enjoying a fun culture. Other motivational drivers include capturing experience to pursue a career pathway. These alternative benefits factor into job motivation and can reduce an employee's intent to voluntarily separate. The chapter also analyzes ideal work-life balance models for hotel employees and the impact of change to an organizational framework for employees. The chapter concludes with a practical analysis of how an employer can address low organizational commitment among its employees by strategically impacting the effective of role-specific engagement thereby reducing intent to voluntarily separate.
TopIntroduction: Why Do People Work?
The question of why people work is one that can be traced back further than recorded human history and transverses the disciplines of psychology, social sciences, and economic theory. Ultimately, people work because they have skills that can provide value for another. By entering a transactional arrangement, money (or other goods of value) is exchanged for goods or services. As economies became more formal, and cash standards were adopted by governments, employment agreements were formalized and quickly became a global standard in industrialized and non-industrialized nations around the world.
Employment provides critical manifest (income, health benefits, and retirement benefits) and latent (time structure, social contacts, collective purpose, status and identity, and regular activity) resources (Jahoda, 1982). Affective organizational commitment is an important work attitude representing an “employee's emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organization” (Meyer & Allen, 1991, p. 67). High affective organizational commitment is important to employers because it predicts higher motivation and performance, and lower levels of counterproductive work behavior (Dalal, 2005; Mathieu & Zajac, 1990; Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002; Riketta, 2002).
This chapter explores the specific characteristics associated with being employed in the hospitality industry and the unique employment challenges and opportunities that a seasonal service-based sector provides. The narrative explores different facets of how work can be more effectively managed in the hospitality sector. Specific components of discovery include the specific elements of what attracts an employee to one type of role versus an another, the benefits of having fun at work and how that can be a strategic pathway for retaining talent, how exhaustion and burnout impact employees within a hospitality workforce, maintaining an effective work-life balance for hotel employees, the effects of organizational change on the levels of demonstrated commitment and practical strategies associated with impacting low organizational commitment and employees’ job insecurity.