The importance of job satisfaction and motivation can be hardly underestimated, especially in connection to work productivity. A company’s personnel will work much more efficiently in case successful strategies of stimulating are developed and implemented by its top managers. In the following report, successful and unsuccessful strategies of employees’ motivation will be discussed along with the two examples from the Australian hotel chains. Overall, the main findings of this report are in the significance of personal approach to every particular employee by hotels’ managers to identify his or her individual needs and satisfy them as this is the basic notion of effective motivation helping to raise the levels of job satisfaction and work productivity as a result.
The Connection between Job Satisfaction, Motivation, and Work Productivity in Hospitality Industry
An integral part of all the business processes in every field including the hospitality industry is the management of people. More than 50 % of management success in the hospitality industry depends on the human element and its productivity (Ivanovic & Blazevic 2009). It is no wonder because the main factor important for hotels’ customers is the way they are received including the level of hospitality and service. An average worker in a hotel is a root source of productivity and service quality gains. Thus, one of the main objectives of hotel managers is to create an atmosphere in which a sense of commitment, a spirit of cooperation, and employees’ satisfaction will become its essential parts (Brown, Metz, Cregan & Kulik 2009). To create such an atmosphere, there is a need for effective motivation at various fields and levels.
To explore the connection between job satisfaction, motivation, and work productivity in the hospitality industry, it is important to address and define the very notions of job satisfaction, motivation and productivity. According to Robbins (2001), job satisfaction is an employee’s attitude towards his or her job; it is also an employee’s sense of success and achievement. High level of job satisfaction is critically important for both high level of job performance and job commitment. If an employee has a high level of job satisfaction, he or she will develop job commitment that, in turn, results into higher levels of job productivity. Motivation can be defined as the process that controls organization behaviors and encourages an ongoing action helping an employee to have specific goals in one’s work (Robbins 2001). Individual’s persistence, intensity, and direction, when he or she is making an effort to achieve certain goals at work, depend on the level of motivation. To motivate an employee, a manager should know his or her unique personal needs as motivation is a process of assuring employees’ individual expectations and needs. Thus, the secret of effective motivation, to help an employee to have high levels of job satisfaction, is in constant analyzing by a manger of one’s employees personal needs and expectations to be aware of all changes and to be able to include sufficient changes into motivation plans if it appears necessary. Motivation aims to increase the personnel’s attention towards company targets and guide their behavior to attain corporate goals. In modern-day conditions of hospitality industry market, the improvement of achievements by a company depends on how effectively its management is able to actualize the level of performance through the use of varied motivation techniques helping improving job satisfaction among employees (Robbins 2001).
Numerous research studies indicate that the common reasons that cause problems in service sector businesses are tiring jobs, low salaries, poor physical working conditions, and the prejudice of not regarding the job as an essential work or a career with further prospectives (Ahmadi, F & Ahmadi, Y 2011; Tsai, Yen, Huang & Huang 2007). Quality leadership is one more variable that influences the levels of job satisfaction and job commitment among employees. A good leader is to be able to create a positive atmosphere in the collective body. Such positive atmosphere will add to good communication between all the participant of the business process, thus, establishing a firm ground for a successful cooperation among the hotel’s employees. A good leader should incorporate the abilities of a supervisor including providing oversight and direction, appreciation, feedback, recognition, and training for the employees; along with the ability to run the business process in itself, to solve problems, to have work under control, and to organize and to administrate the working process and working systems (Ivanovic & Blazevic 2009). Among the other essential factors which affect job satisfaction are job security, not working extra hours, having social assistance programs, showing appreciation by the hotel’s management, the possibility of participating in decision-making, having an opportunity to discuss corporate goals by employees, having an opportunity to improve and develop their professional skills and abilities by employees, and having satisfaction with their employers by the personnel (‘Hostec Academies’ 2009). In addition, it is important for the hotels’ staff to be informed about their responsibilities, authorities and duties as having particular information about their activity also helps employees have a high level of job satisfaction and job commitment which motivates them to have better performance. Besides, the level of job satisfaction is also connected with the level of service quality offered by a company (Ahmadi, F & Ahmadi, Y 2011). According to a number of latest research studies, the results of survey indicate that the personnel of five star hotels is much more satisfied with their job than the employees of companies offering the level of service of low than five stars which is explained by the customer attitude and social opinion that tends to disrespect the workers of cheap hotels as people of a lower class (Ahmadi, F & Ahmadi, Y 2011). Finally, one more factor important for job satisfaction should be especially emphasized. This is the opportunity to have regular vocations and days off for the personnel. It often happens that under the influence of force majeure situations in hotel business, employees are obliged to postpone their vocations or days off; however, hotel work is a hard work that often requires significant physical and moral efforts from the personnel. Thus, it is critically important to offer hotel employees enough opportunities for having sufficient rest from their work.
Another important point which should be remembered by the company’s management is the fact that motivation is a very personal phenomenon; what motivates one employee may be not so significant for the other one. Therefore, a manger working with the staff should remember to have an individual approach to each of the workers that one is responsible for. When a manager is making an assessment of factors that may motivate any particular employees, one is to remember about the twelve basic human needs that existed since the beginning of recorded human history. These twelve basic human needs include 1) good health, 2) economic well-being, 3) united family, 4) comfortable home and shelter, 5) good education and further learning, 6) employment and career, 7) spirituality, 8) good social relationships, 9) rewarding leisure time, 10) safe environment, 11) developed community, and 12) mobility and active way of life (Ivanovic & Blazevic 2009). If a manager analyzes these twelve basic human needs step by step, one will surely find ways to motivate any particular employee within the sphere of one’s influence.
The Example of a Successful Organization
To see how effective is motivation aiming to ensure high levels of job satisfaction for improving productivity in Australian hospitality industry, the example of Hyatt hotel chain can be addressed. In Hyatt hotels, the administration is well aware of motivating factors and efficient strategies of their implementation. First of all, as it is clear that the main reason why people seek for an employment is the salary, Hyatt management seeks to constantly improve the level of payment for its workers. In this area, the success achieved by the company is remarkable as Hyatt hotels employees receive 5 % higher salaries than the employees of any other hotels or hotel chains in Australia (‘Hostec Academies’ 2009).
Secondly, employees are offered good system of shifts in Hyatt hotels which offers many people including students, lone parents, family heads, etc. choose shifts convenient for them.
Besides, in the Hyatt chain, all employees receive a chance to improve their professionalism and acquire new skills and qualifications by means of attending regular qualification improvement courses and trainings. Thus, Hyatt employees may enjoy great educational facilities helping them feel real professionals in the field and prestigious social status along with respect in society that they have on this reason.
The other factor which appears to be highly motivating for Hyatt employees is the workplace culture developed by the chain leadership. Hyatt workplace culture is based on the ideas of equal and fair treatment of all the company’s workers, open and honest communication, due recognition of achievements and rewarding of the personnel, equal opportunities for all workers without gender or any other type of discrimination, open managing style, regular feedback form the managers, and clear goals setting out for each member of the team. The company celebrates diversity among its workers which is explained by its mangers’ understanding the importance of having people with different backgrounds, cultures, experiences, and interests which will help developing balanced and well-thought of hospitality and service traditions.
Finally, Hyatt management pays great attention to personal relations satisfaction within the company’s personnel. All the Hyatt hotels’ employees work in shifts where their personal feeling and desires concerning their partners are satisfied; thus, probable frictions among the employees are eliminated.
Such a wise approach by Australian Hyatt chain’s management to motivating its employees finds its reflection in the company’s performance (‘Hostec Academies’ 2009). The Hyatt chain often wins first places at numerous competitions in hotel service held in Australia. Among some of the rewards won by Hyatt hotels are Top 10 City Hotel in Travel + Leisure 2012 Awards, 2012 HotelClub Hotel Awards, and Best Achievement in Design 2012.
The Example of a Poor Organization
Australian Marriott Hotel chain is an example of a company that lost its good positions at Australian hospitality industry market because of poor motivating strategies during the 2000s. In general, the problem may be identified in the two main areas of employees’ financial motivating and the workplace culture currently existing in Australian Marriott hotels.
Fist of all, during a few years, a tendency to impose significant levels of fines on employees could be explored in Australian Marriott hotels (‘Hostec Academies’ 2009). Marriott employees were regularly fined by the company’s management on a variety of reasons most of which could be hardly qualified as just and fair. This created a negative climate within Marriott hotels as employees had low levels of job satisfaction. This, in turn, led to abandoning their working positions which may be considered a disaster in such sector as hospitality sector as the success of a hotelier is in stability and good traditions.
Secondly, within a period of a few last years, the workplace culture standards in Australian Marriott hotels were subjected to significant changes. The outcomes of such changes identify that they were not successful. The main reason of such a frustration is a failure by the company’s management to consider the importance of developing effective strategies helping avoiding discrimination and bias at the workplace. In particular, new policies of workplace culture did not regulate such potentially dangerous areas as gender relations and the relationships between employees who come from different cultures and nationalities.
In addition, a number of problems in Marriott hotel chain management can be identified in the area of regulating relationships between customers and employees. Many workers of Marriott chain complain that hotel managers have a tendency to oppress employees when conflict situations with customers occur; the situation is complicated by the fact that workers are oppressed even if no fault on their part is found. Such prejudice is seen as an offence by the company’s employees, and it becomes the reason why the chain loses its personnel. Thus, the chain’s success in the industry is becoming less evident because it loses its skilled and committed work-force to its competitors such as Hyatt and Hilton chains.
Conclusion
As a final point, it should be stated that motivation is an essential part of work for managers in hospitality industry. Without wisely developed and implemented motivation strategies, hotel mangers are not able to influence the levels of job satisfaction among the company’s employees. This, in turn may lead to poor levels of performance at work by hotel employees. Thus, there is an immediate connection between motivation, job satisfaction, and work productivity in hospitality industry. Motivation requires personal approach to every particular employee by the company’s manager with the purpose of identifying and satisfying his or her personal needs at their workplace. Among the most important factors that motivate employees in hotel business and affect the levels of their job satisfaction are fair wages, high level of job security, convenient shifts, having social assistance programs, appreciation by the hotel’s management, the possibility of participating in decision-making, having an opportunity to discuss corporate goals, having an opportunity to improve and develop one’s professional skills and abilities, and having positive climate among the coworkers that is not saddened on the reason of discrimination or bias.
References
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Robbins, S 2001, Organizational Behavior (9th ed.), Prentice Hall Inc., New Jersey.
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