The impact of Work environment on employees satisfaction in 5 star hotels in the USA - Essay Example

Running head: Work environment and Employees’ satisfaction The impact of Work environment on employees’ satisfaction in 5 star hotels in the USA Name: Student Ref: University: Course: Date: Aim: This research seeks to examine the magnitude of the impact of the working environment in relation to employee’s satisfaction and motivation in 5 star hotels in USA. Objectives: To determine the relationship between the working conditions and employees satisfaction. To provide an up-to-date view regarding productivity as a function of working conditions and employees satisfaction. Offer recommendations to managers on how they can provide more effective leadership to their employees. Review the knowledge that exists on the subject with the view of providing an update. Literature Review: 1.1 Introduction. There exists a significant level of formal knowledge on the subject of employee satisfaction in relation to the working environment. This chapter will briefly evaluate specific areas of knowledge that assess how the different aspects that form the working environment such as general environment (cultures and beliefs), hotel environment (leadership strategies and team work) and organizational behavior will impinge on the employee satisfaction. Also of interest are the consequent effects on productivity. 1.2 Work environment. Employee’s attitude and behavior are influenced greatly by the quality of their work behavior are affected by the quality of their work environment Work environment can be broken down into general environment (cultures and beliefs), hotel environment (leadership strategies and team work) and personal impact. Jacques (1951) defined organizational culture as the customary or traditional ways of doing things which are shared to a greater or lesser extent by all members of an organization and which new members must learn and partially agree in order to be accepted in that organization. According to Cole and Thomson (1995) culture is described as a summation of values visions perspectives, standards and modes of behavior in any organization. Human resource strategies have a major influence on shaping the working environment. These strategies include those activities that are necessary in the recruitment of a workforce, providing employees with their payroll, drawing benefit plans, and administrating their work-life needs. The development and utilization of this resource is in a broad sense done in order to advance the organization’s objectives. Working environment is considered by employees to be great if they feel appreciated, cared for and fairly compensated. A recognition system called XL has been developed to reward employees according to their contribution (Erstad, 2001). Appraisal, rewards, and the opportunity for growth is a strategy that improves the working environment. According to Arnold, J. Coopers, C. Robertson, I. (1998). There are two kinds of psychological contract, relational and transactional. The former refers to a long-term relationship where the employee offers loyalty and conformity to values, commitment to goals and trust in their employer not to abuse their goodwill. This is the kind of behavior that every manager should aim for because the benefits are automatic and cannot be overemphasized. Elsewhere Beardwell, Holden and Claydon (2004) noted that in modern organizations it is the employee behavior and attitude that produces the all-important competitive edge. This clearly shows the need to cultivate a working environment that inspires the best attitude in the employees. Lickert, R.1 distinguishes four categories of leadership; Exploitative-authoritative Benevolent-authoritative Consultative and Participatory – This is the most ideal. Participation being the key word. Communication leads to commitment on goals and all needs are addressed. Stress at work plays a major role in shaping the environment. It goes without saying that no job is completely devoid of stress but excessive stress affects productivity negatively. Factors that cause stress at work include; insecure job climate, autocratic supervisor, lack of control over one’s job and lack of authority to match responsibility. (Newstrom, J.W. & Davis, K. 2002). 1.3 Work environment and employee satisfaction. Employee satisfaction is a widely studied subject and determines if people like their work and if they are getting what they want from it. The literature focusing on employee satisfaction comes from its association with performance and positive work attitudes (Hackman & Oldham, 1980). The environment at the workplace is closely related to, and is a major cause of job satisfaction or lack of. A conducive work environment produces equilibrium between work and life of the employee leading to stability. Today’s changes in employment practices and shifts in management structure have put commitment on centre stage of the strategies for gaining workplace control and competitive advantage (Lincoln & Kalleberg, 1990). The link between service and profit has been justifiably documented by various sources as an important tool for analyzing the relationship between employees, working environment, customer satisfaction and profits. (Kamakur, Mittal, de Rosa & Mazzon, 2002; Gelade & Young, 2005). However, other scholars have suggested that job satisfaction and productivity are not related. Graham, H.T. & Barnnet, R. (1998) 1.4 Five star hotels in USA. The American hospitality industry is highly competitive. In recent times however, security concerns have shifted focus of industry movers. Currently, a more comprehensive strategy reviewing the various aspects of hotel management practices is required to ensure competitiveness. Studies have revealed that of all industries, hotels (especially five-star hotels) are most conservative in the integration of modern management ideas. In-fact most hotels in America have stuck to good qualities such as friendliness, and a sense of grace and grandeur. Hardly has it been pressing to focus on modern human resource strategies, policies and procedures. The different aspects that constitute the work environment have been shown to greatly influence highly skilled hotel employees to remain loyal and motivated. This is a pre-requisite to the fulfilment of guest’s prospects in five-star hotels. Studies in hospitality industry have shown that in modern methods for innovation, quality is more than just customer satisfaction but involves employees and all stakeholders (Fache, 2000). It is therefore imperative that 5-star hotels embrace modern cultures in their mission statements and operationalise them. Conclusion. It is clear from that employee satisfaction affects their attitude and behavior towards work. This in turn affects customer satisfaction and influences financial performance. In the hospitality industry customer satisfaction is a goal that should be pursued diligently, more so in five-star hotels. If steps were taken to improve the working environment in five-star hotels, this could provide the competitive edge of any establishment. There has been no systematic approach designed to guide top management in five-star hotels on improving the working environment. Justification: Work environment and its impact on employee satisfaction is a study of great importance. It’s clear from the literature review that it has a correlation to the attitude of the employee to customer and consequently profits. However in-depth study in five-star hotels in USA is lacking. Methodology: Due to the inherent strengths and weaknesses in different techniques of gathering data, the researcher will use a multi-method approach combining both quantitative and qualitative techniques in the research in order to converge on a balanced conclusion. Qualitative technique will aim at generating more sensitive data and will employ two tools of data collection namely; face-to-face interviews and questionnaires. Questionnaires will be drawn by the researcher and will be of a mixed format, that is, will have a dichotomous section, a multiple-choice segment and open-ended segment. The researcher will follow a laid down plan by creating a list of questions and arranging them according to the themes to be explored. To ensure reliability of the questions, they will be put to test also before they are finally distributed. The researcher will employ the services of an assistant whose main duty will be to provide any necessary logistical support. Interviews will focus on hotel’s strategies on improving the working environment and employee job satisfaction. In order to facilitate further analysis, all interview sessions will be recorded with permission from the hotels management. Quantitative analysis on the other hand will be used to test the hypothesis. The sample size is set to be 25 out of a population of 100. SPSS software will be used to perform analysis on the quantitative data. Subsequently, inferential statistics especially correlation coefficient will be used determine the strength of relationship between the two chosen variables. Anticipated findings: The researcher expects that there will be a predicted relationship between work environment and employee job satisfaction. This will showcase the importance creating positive working environment in the hotel industry. References Arnold, J. Coopers, C. Robertson, I. (1998). Work psychology. Organizational behavior in the workplace Beardwell, I. Holden, L. & Claydon, Tim. (2004). Organizational behavior, Prentice-Hall Erstad, M. (2001) Commitment to excellence at the Forte Group, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 13 (7), 347-351. [Online] Available: Published by MCB UP Ltd. ISSN 0959-6119 http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/EUM0000000006004 Fache, W. (2000) Methodologies for innovation and improvement of services in Tourism. Managerial Audit Journal 10 (6), 356-366. [Online] Available: Published by MCB University Press. ISSN 0960-4529 http://www.emeraldinsight.com/0960-4529 Graham, H.T. & Barnnet, R. (1998) Human resource management Financial Times Prentice-Hall Gelade, G. & Young, S. (2005). Test of a service profit chain model in the retail banking sector. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 78, 1-22 Jacques, E. (1951). The changing culture of a factory, London, Tavistock Journal of human resource in hospitality & tourism, Volume: 4 issue: 2 ISSN: 1533-2845 Pub date: 12/5/2005 . Hackman, J., Richard & Oldham, G. R. (1980). Work Redesign, Addison-Wesley Reading, MA. Kamakur, W., Mittal, V., de Rosa, F., & Mazzon, J. (2002). Assessing the Service- Profit Chain. Marketing Science, Newstrom, J.W.& Davis, K. (2002). Human behavior at work, Organizational behaviour, 11th Ed. Tata Mc graw-Hill. http://www.rkm-research.com/whitepapers/esurvey.pdf. Read More