Managing Emotions in the Workplace - Essay Example

International Resort and Spa Management International Resort and Spa Management “Boundary spanner is getting across borders; limits or section to build relationship, interconnections and interdependencies in order to manage complex ,” (Williams, 2002) they are characteristic of organization that directly interacts with the customers. As shown below: Boundary Spanners are the connection with internal and external of the company; they can refer to the senior management, middle management and employees (the Frontline Boundary Spanners). (Ejim, 2014) So the Frontline Boundary spanners of the company are very important for running a hotel industry. On one hand, they interact with the customers and getting the information from an external environment. On the other hands, Boundary Spanners are also the communicate stage between management team and customers. So the company has to achieve and motivate them to get the effective performance. The Boundary spanning individuals develop partnerships and collaboration though building sustainable relationship, seeking to understand the motives, responsibilities and roles and also managing through influence and negotiation. For the organizations, they will create the strategic alliances, to join working arrangement and partnerships of collaboration to pass the organizational boundaries. (Williams, 2002) As the theory from Kurt Lwin and his associates at the University of Lowa (1938), they mention about the different style and level of empowerment to the staff such as Autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire. It verifies the important of employee to be empowered and how it provides a higher quality work with participative leadership. (Cherry, 2014) The empowerment in management is needed, it provide the area and stage for the employee to make a decision and critical think the best way to finish the job, it improve work and staff quality. In the hotel industry, one of the best examples of a successful business with empowerment in management is Ritz-Carlton. The Ritz-Carlton was the best employer again in 2013 because the company always trusts and says, “This award identifies the valuable contribution each person makes to our business on a daily occasion. We pursue to build a culture that stands up to our credo and where each principles of trust are applied, respect, honesty, veracity to exploit the talent to the advantage of each person and the company.” (Ritz-Carlton, 2013) The company respects and trusts the employee’s opinions and offers them the empowerment to make a decision during interact with customers. It brings up the positive effect for the staff performance, satisfaction, and personal achievement and also decreases the stress potential. However, the example of Ritz-Carlton is just one case. The question of empowerment of employees is that empowered employees always bring a positive impact to the company such as performance and productivity, and this had been discussed in the study. And the approach is view the fact for giving the employees the sufficient flexibility and enough autonomy to allow them to handle the problems and service customers. This approach seems attract many Management Company and hotel industries: but empowerment still not universally used by all countries. The author read the study from Silvia C. Peters and Elham Mazdarani (2008), which had been used the study by (Looy et al 2003) to supply empowerment is positive affect the boundary spanner and definite the dimensions of empowerment with five dimensions such as: Meaning: the extent to the individual experiences with personally values. Competence: the confidant of self-ability. Self-determination: the sense of individual that how to accomplish the job. Strategic autonomy: the extent of influence an individual has on job content. Impact: the extent of influence a person has on the straight work environment. But Looy et al also pointed out the employees cannot be empowered without the organization support. As Looy said “empowered organizations have everything in place to expedite the pushing down of info, knowledge, power and rewards.” (Looy et al, 2003) Then empowerment for employees can be success. These dimensions are all related to independence of the employee regarding work and service, and to achieve the management and staff satisfaction. There is much research of empowerment, but the empowerment research for hotel industry is less and it still inconclusive for the study. So the report has to find out is that empowerment always positively influences Boundary spanner role’s performance in hospitality industry. The study used theories and literature sources to analysis and also provided a comprehensive analysis and present findings. Findings and discussion Existing data shows that empowerment also recognized as job enrichment emerged in late 1980s. During this time, there was swift shift towards innovative, flexible and quick reacting organizations thus malleable specializations and simple production became necessary resulting to post-Fordism epoch (Jain & Jain, 2005). Due to effect of intensive completion levels observed in the hospitality industry recently, most firms within this sector use new techniques in order to realize the demands and needs presented by the customers, attain customer satisfaction and be in a position to develop repurchase purpose through clients’ retention approaches. Having the quality of service given in forefront unswervingly receives first priority. Findings reveal that having continuity in the quality of services that has been offered within the industry may be grasped through boundary spanning role employees (Wilkinson, 1998). The notion of inseparability together with heterogeneity of some services makes the service provider and customers of that particular service to confront one another. Beneficial impacts of empowerment reveal that several problems resulting in provision of service are in a position to be eradicated through boundary spanning role staffs since they happen to be highly informed and skilled with the backing of several education programs, are capable of taking responsibility, have the power of making decision, and they are fully dedicated to the availed establishments (Spreitzer, 1995). Additionally, being in a position to solve different problems ascending from client complaints, comprehend customer satisfaction and develop an intention to repurchase due to the feedback given does greatly depend on the development of the needed qualifications of boundary spanning role employees. Findings according to studies that were carried by Levit (1981) and Bowen (1990) revealed that customer performance contact employees was crucial in shaping the success or failure of the service exchange available and goes ahead to establish that personal employee conduct and their attitude played a vital role in impacting awareness level by the client of the quality service being given. Additional scrutiny of literature on the same showed that the importance of service quality as well as customer satisfaction level is still a robustly debated affair. Maybe this emanates from the concept that the two construct remain core to the concept of service marketing and to the most success of any enterprise because both of them hold the key to attaining high levels of client retention, loyalty, and improved firm performance in the industry of hospitality. However, there is likelihood of limited literature in as far as the impact of empowerment management initiatives has on quality of service levels and client satisfaction from the customer view. Outcomes from a research undertaken by Lashley (2001) revealed that the emotional notion of employee empowerment played a great role in satisfying the customer. Lashley’s theoretical argument was that positive feeling which the empowered employee holds aids in generating required positive feelings to them, before the employees get into emotional dissonance. Empowered employees might commercialize these positive moods and reflect in their job while giving services to customers thus giving them satisfaction. Employees in the frontline boundary spanner task if empowered would be able to manage the required emotions if given the opportunity for the purpose of facilitating and sensing personal power and the crucial role they hold in service transactions. These endowed frontline boundary spanners are in a position to generate moods that reveal commitment to the encounter of such service in the hospitality industry. Findings also revealed that a sequence of initiatives such as job enrichment, workgroups that are autonomous, suggestion scheme, shared ownership, communication program, and joint consultation by employees may positively influence frontline boundary spanners performance. The core argument being suggested here is that firms should depend on the motivation and ability of the employees who are the main service suppliers in the hospitality trade in order to have required high quality service. The firm should plan and develop effective strategy and sort out any conflict that may emerge in boundary spanner role. First of all, it is essential for an organization in the hospitality industry to choose employees that are fit for working in the frontline and take the role of boundary spanner. This should be undertaken during the process of recruitment. Another measure is to train the employees taking the role of frontline boundary spanner so as to be certain that they recognize what is required of them. The organization should put in place relevant support in order to show binder to the process thus ensure high ability of existing service managers, collect customer views, review, avail service culture for the firm and make sure suitable facilities are available to support the role. The most tactical decision is held as empowering frontline employees in their boundary spanner duty (Morris & Feldman, 1997). Several research studies have shown that empowering employees is a strategy that could bring numerous positive influences to the frontline boundary spanner duties and aids them work better and in a more reasonable way. It was found that availing employee empowerment may positively influence the level of employee productivity and job performance as well as decreasing ambiguity of role and thus avoid any conflict given that frontline employees get it challenging to carry out their boundary spanner role. It was also found that through empowering frontline boundary spanners in their duty as well has a negative impact on employee performance. The reviewed literature reveals that misuse of power is eminent regardless of empowerment being in a position to reduce complexities that accompany boundary spanner’s role (Huffadine, 2000). Given that empowering frontline boundary spanner inspires independent decision making and offers such employees with the needed authority to effect such verdicts, likelihoods of ruining interpersonal relations are true thus raising hostility in environmental work and thus damaging the workforce and the firm as a whole. There is also the danger of confidentiality in case the employee in the frontline who receives subtle information from the firm is not in a position to manage it thus freely exchanging the information with individuals within and outside the firm and leaking confidential info to competitors (Ferguson, 2007). Additionally, there is risk of increased arrogance due to feeling empowered hence making it hard to deal with such workers as a result of insubordination. Conclusion Much as there is no collective consensus on empowerment influence, there are both positive and negative aspects of it as established in the findings and analysis. Recent researches have revealed that empowerment is actually reliant upon several culturally held values and principals. This research has therefor established that the effects of empowerment on frontline boundary spanners’ role are mixed up. Managers in hospitality industry should be aware of the differential impact that empowerment avails to frontline boundary spanners’ role and are supposed to contain the negative outcomes at the same time. It is suggested that for hospitality industry to benefit and maximize the merits of frontline boundary spanners’ role empowerment thus attain needed performance; they should cease from relying on universal and standardized approaches to empower but are supposed to rely on strategic and contingent approaches. In this view, it is necessary for the firm to align empowerment programs to values that are held by the employees together with their mental orientations. In regard to this research, the underlying notion in empowerment, boundary spanning approaches and roles have been examined. Bibliography Lashley, C. (2001), Empowerment: HR Strategies for Service Excellence, Butterworth Heinemann Levitt, T. (1981), Marketing Intangible Products and Product Intangibles, Harvard Business Review, [online] Available at [http://jakehuber.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/opportunity-reading-2.pdf] (Last accessed on 26.10.2013) Morris, A. J. & Feldman, D. C. (1997), Managing Emotions in the Workplace, Journal of Managerial Issues, 9 (3), 257-74. (1991). Spa management. Montréal, Publicom. HUFFADINE, M. (2000). Resort design: planning, architecture, and interiors. New York, McGraw Hill. FERGUSON PUBLISHING. (2007). Careers in focus. New York, NY, Ferguson. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10315276. PLUNKETT, J. W. (2006). Plunketts entertainment & media almanac 2006: the only comprehensive guide to the entertainment & media industry. Houston, TX, Plunkett Research. STERN, S. B. (2006). Sterns guide to the greatest resorts of the world. Boca Raton, Fla, Sterns Travel Guides. Spreitzer, G. (1995). Psychological empowerment in the workplace: dimensions, measurement, and validation. Academy of Management Journal 38, 1442-1465 Wilkinson, A. (1998). Empowerment: Theory and Practice. Personnel Review. [online] Available at [http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/258093. pdf?&acceptTC=true&jpdConfirm=true] (Last accessed on 02.10.2013) Read More