Robert Gordon University

Business and Hotel Management School

BA Hotel and Hospitality Management Course

Module Coordinator: Ms. Anika Wolter

Submission date: 1st of October 2015

BS 3180 Hospitality Management in Practice

Word Count: 3031

Matriculation Number:

0
 Executive Summary

With the increasing number in luxury hotel in Switzerland, there is a rise in number of staff as
well. This leads to the introduction of empowerment techniques, especially in nations as
Switzerland, where the minimum wages are extremely high. In order to compensate this,
luxury hotels aim at providing services that are highly competitive with that of their
competition. However, motivation and empowerment of employees is necessary to ensure
that they remain keen in their work and contribute at a higher level through their output. This
research project is about Hotel Saint Gotthard, Zurich where the method of empowerment is
analysed through primary research methods and compared with the findings from journal
articles and academic literature.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1
1. Introduction -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pg. 3

2. Literature Review ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pg. 5

2.1 Empowerment through participation -------------------------------------------------- Pg. 6
2.2 Empowerment through Involvement -------------------------------------------------- Pg. 6
2.3 Empowerment through job rotation and job enrichment ------------------------- Pg. 7

3. Methodology -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pg. 8

3.1 Demographics ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pg. 8
3.2 Empowerment through involvement -------------------------------------------------- Pg. 8
3.3 Empowerment through involvement -------------------------------------------------- Pg. 9
3.4 Empowerment through job rotation and job enrichment ------------------------- Pg. 10

4. Conclusion ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pg. 12

5. References --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pg. 13

6. Appendix ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pg. 14

6.1 Survey ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pg. 14
6.2 Interview ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pg. 15

1. INTRODUCTION

2
 Human resource management is a complex task, especially when it comes to the
hospitality industry as it is very widely known, the ‘one size fits all’ is undoubtedly not
applicable to the diverse and vibrant workforce of any hospitality industry, particularly the
ones situated in Switzerland. A hefty team size could be intimidating as the top management
aims at aligning their goals with that of the company. This is where employee empowerment
and motivation styles come into play. Each individual reacts in different way to any action or
initiative taken up by them and in order to retain employees and maintain a lower employee
turnover rate, every manager or leader must abide by the most suitable empowerment and
motivation styles beneficial for the company (Tollington, T. and El-Tawy, N., 2010).
Motivating and empowering employees would enable them to take up initiative and see the
company through completion and goal achievement. It reduces the necessity of training and
educational sessions, which in turn reduces the expenditure of a corporation and increases
output and exceed guest satisfaction and/or satisfaction level. Empowerment of employees
could be done in a few renowned techniques such as empowering them through
participatory activities or through involvement in decision making process or even through
delegating higher responsibility in respective departments. The aim of this research project is
to understand the employee motivation and empowerment techniques applied in Saint
Gotthard Hotel, Zurich and how do they resemble the teachings and literature reviewed and
lectured in Retail Management course.
In order to fulfil this aim, the following objectives would have to be met:
 Understand and review the methods of employee empowerment and motivation
 Question the hotel staff in order to uncover their experience and opinion regarding
the employee empowerment and motivation techniques
 Compare and contrast the findings of primary sources of information from the hotel
with the literature review in order to conclude if similar hypothesis run parallel or
contradict each other

In order to gain concrete evidence regarding the practice of employee empowerment

and motivation techniques, the author will interview the hotel staff through a series of
questions listed and distributed in a questionnaire. This questionnaire will comprise of
several multiple choice queries that revolve around the scenario of how the management
team of St. Gotthard Zurich take-up initiatives in order to promote motivation and
empowerment internally. Furthermore, it also contains certain open ended questions
discussing these techniques and how the hotel could improve the mechanism of boosting
employee morale and enabling them to be more efficient and productive during their work.
The F&B staff as well as the front office and housekeeping staff of this hotel will be surveyed

3
to provide their input. Furthermore, the author is keen on acquiring the insights from a higher
management personnel, which will aid him in analysing the strategy and concept as well as
the technique of remotely empowering employees. The author will also present insights and
his perception of the hotel’s empowerment policy through first-hand experience, as his
designation was of a service personnel.

Hotel St. Gotthard, Zurich running as a family hotel since 1888 and founded by
Casper Manz declared this property a 4 star luxury hotel that houses over 138 recently
renovated residences. Situated right in the heart of the world famous Banhofstrasse of
Zurich, this property exudes untinting grandeur and displays the sophisticated touch to a
premium service that is a tradition of the local residents of Switzerland. The hotel itself also
serves as a landmark, mainly due to the fact that it has been running and well-maintained for
almost 130 years. With 3 restaurants, Lobster and Oyster – Hummerbar, Lobby Bistro and
the Piazzetta, hotel St. Gotthard also boasts off its Manzoni bar, which harbours over 20
different types of coffee, the Manzoni bar is widely known for its coffee tradition with a well
recommended coffee selection for each, breakfast, lunch and dinner time of the day. For
MICE, the hotel offers 4 different types of meeting and banqueting halls that can fit an
upwards of 70 guests. The hotel employs over 60 staff members with 18 of them being
particularly for the F&B department, which is headed by Julia Fermaino, the F&B manager of
the restaurants.

4
 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

The definition of empowerment is to have proactive and motivated employees that

take up initiative and have their goals aligned with that of the company (Green and
Macandrew, 2000). These employees do not need comprehensive briefing and are
completely aware of their duties and responsibilities. Empowering and motivating employees
has various advantages as discussed above and the application arises from them being
productive and cost efficient. In the revolution industry, employees were deemed as a less
important asset than the machinery and equipment of the factory. They were subjected to a
similar and routine-like work flow where one person would stamp and compress a piece of
iron and the other would follow to assemble it to as a smaller part of a car, to say. This has
changed over the years as globalization occurred. With globalization, major MNCs (Multi-
National Corporations) understood that the one size fits all strategy does not apply to all the
employees throughout the world (Holosko, Leslie and Cassano 2001). Hence, they paved
the way for employee empowerment and motivation, which is unique for every individual of
each nation. Nevertheless, factories and industries which work in a similar fashion as the
assembly line are still under the influence of these 17th century approach of formulating a
work force that commit to a single process of a larger technique that produces an
automobile, for instance (Holosko, Leslie and Cassano 2001). A company could also be hit
by the dreaded high employee turnover rate, which is intensively cost-inducing process that
can only be reduced through a suitable leadership style as well as an effective employee
empowerment and retention program. Hiring new staff would increase the costs for training
& education that is necessary and it would also create a void in that position which was
previously filled up by an employee with relatively higher skill set that adjusted to the goals
and aims of the company. Empowerment of employees could be performed in a few different
ways, such as through participation of each individual in a decision-making or critical
strategic drift formulation for the company, through their involvement or even through job
enrichment and job rotation (Chan, Ng and Casimir 2010). Each of these techniques of
empowerment display unique characteristics during application and have their set of
advantages and disadvantages.
With the respect to several prevalent theories of employee empowerment, there are a few
important ones that come into the limelight and are capable of showcasing themselves as
one of the most effective and widely known methods of empowering employees.

5
2.1 Empowerment through participation

Often it is seen that only the top management, occasionally the middle management,
are held accountable for any critical decision making process that is time framed and
impacts a company’s future strategies with high retaliation. In these circumstances, the
higher management is generally under a large amount of pressure and may amend
strategies that might be harmful or unwise. On the contrary, middle and lower management
employees are able to absorb the pressure as they are aware of the opportunity provided.
This is where empowerment through participation steps in (Adamson 2010). If employees
are allowed to be a part of important decision making processes, they feel the urge to
perform; which also boosts their morale. It is known that most of the younger recruits
possess creativity and innovative approach to any hurdle. In any critical meeting session,
involving some employees could be a benefactor for the enterprise. It also runs parallel to
the transformational leadership style, where the higher authority aim at aligning the goals of
an individual to that of the company. With the help of this technique, the staff members will
have a higher level of awareness regarding their company’s corporate philosophy and their
potential, which is vital to maximize productivity of every employee.

2.2 Empowerment through involvement

Empowerment through involvement, is the another well perceived tactic of

empowering and motivating staff that has a reduced tendency to perform at their 100%. For
every staff meeting and morning brief, if an employee is asked to attend and be involved in
the daily issues that are taking place in a company, it will initiate a thought process that will
provoke them to work harder and contribute towards the success of a company. This will
eventually increase the productivity of an employee and also bring forth their true potential.
Interaction with employees will make them realize that they are being catered to as well and
that their opinion matters. This alone is a fine example of involving employees in day to day
priority meetings and events, which will increase their enthusiasm and better their
understanding of a company’s vision and mission. Another advantage of this method would
be the reduction in expenses (Holyoak 2001). Through an empowered employee, one can
expect responsible actions and behaviour. This would also be visible and clearly evident
when hiring a recruit who is thirsty for knowledge and experience. Internal recruitment would
enable an empowered employee to recruit one of his close associate who is like-minded and
has the ability to execute beneficial strategies and means of deriving or improving business.

6
It enhances the cohesiveness of a team and motivates the work atmosphere, which is both
financially and from a managerial point of view profitable.

2.3 Empowerment through job enrichment and rotation

A certainly influential and yet another effective aspect for employee empowerment is
the whole concept of switching between job descriptions and deepening the responsibility
quota of an employee. Job enrichment and job rotation is this very method that has an
exquisite concoction that is often known to be dominant when empowering employees.
Job rotation is the practice of allowing an employee from a different department to switch
jobs and tasks with that of another department within a hotel or company. For instance, if a
bartender would work in service and vice-versa, this would encourage them to learn and
gain experience of a different department (Ritter, Venkatraman and Schlauch 2014). It will
shower them with new responsibilities that will be different and challenging; a characteristic
for boosting employee enthusiasm and motivating them for performing at a higher quality.
With the help of colleagues, sub-ordinates and associates, the bartender will have a higher
understanding of the service department in a restaurant and he will be able to work all round
if he continues learning in this fashion. This is highly beneficial for a company especially
when an employee shows up ill from the service department and the bartender has relatively
lesser workload.
Job enrichment, a very unique method of increasing a person’s responsibilities and
accountability is proven to be a sufficient method of boosting employee morale.
Nevertheless, this may also lead to a high turnover rate if not monitored well (Ritter,
Venkatraman and Schlauch 2014). Delegating excess amounts of duties and responsibilities
on an employee would undoubtedly increase work load and pressure, which may result in
the loss of a potential employee.

7
 3. METHODOLOGY

To gain some insights that are highly credible and contribute significantly to the
researcher’s topic of interest, he formulated a questionnaire and distributed it throughout the
front office, F&B and the engineering department of the hotel. The total number of
participants summed up to 25. The questionnaire asked the opinion of the employees
regarding their perception of empowerment and its value, is it being practiced in their
workplace and certain others of such sort. The researcher also interviews the F&B manager,
Julia Fermaino, who voluntarily aids in the successful completion of the author’s research
thesis. The questions here are generally open ended and directed at empowerment only.

3.1 Demographics of the survey

The table below demonstrates the demographics of the participants, who were the employees of St.
Gotthard Hotel, Zurich. A higher number of people surveyed were male than female, with most of
them being Europeans and over 50% being aged abover 32 years.
Age group Gender Nationality

Under 21 8% - 2 Male 60% - 15 African – 0

21 to 31 40% - 10 American - 20% - 5

32 to 41 32% - 8 Female 40% - 10 European - 60% - 15

Over 41 20% - 5 Asian - 8% - 2

Other - 12% - 3
Figure 3.1 Participants demographics

3.2 Empowerment through involvement

When questioned the participants regarding their know-how about employee

empowerment, 88% of them were aware of it and its impact. The figure below illustrates the
perception of empowerment through involvement method. In this graph, it can be clearly
seen that an approximate of 60% of the staff members portray that they are less likely to be
included in a decision making or significant staff conference, despite the fact that 32% of the

8
participants are always involved in such meetings. This contradicts the statements and
theory of Holyoak (2001), who confirmed that empowerment through involvement is the most
effective method of boosting motivation levels. Hotel Saint Gotthard does not practice this
very technique, which was an implication of the survey conducted by the researcher.

8 3.2 Empowerment through Involvement

7
7

6
Nuber of Participants

5
4 4 4
4 Male
3 Female
3

2
1 1 1
1

0
Never Seldom Often Always
Frequency of involvement

3.3 Empowerment through participation

Figure 3.3 displays the opinion of participants regarding methods of invoking

empowerment through participation, which could either be done through participating in
meetings, suggesting opinion through suggestion boxes or simply being asked for ideas and
recommendations. With a higher percentage of participants committing to a positive
response, over 80% of them concluded that there is a hint of this technique’s application in
hotel Saint Gotthard. Only 20% of the participants had either no ability to present their
opinion or they were not authorized to. This, along with a 60% of these volunteers claiming
that their work atmosphere is motivational, demonstrates that according to the Adamson
(2001), employee empowerment through participation is regarded as one of the most
effective and prominent methods of empowerment and motivation.

9
 7 3.3 Empowerment through participation
6
6

5 5
5
Number of participants

4
4
Male
3 Female
3

2
2

0 0
0
Yes No Verbally Not authorized
Ability to participate

3.4 Job rotation and job enrichment

With a staggering 70% of the volunteers denying the fact that Hotel Saint Gotthard, Zurich
practices employee empowerment through job rotation, the empowerment technique through
participation poses at a higher rating of being rather acceptable within this establishment.
Figure 3.4 below demonstrates the opinion of employees regarding their experience with job
enrichment opportunity. A significant amount of employees experienced job enrichment,
40%. However, this was insufficient when compared with the employees who either never
experienced job enrichment or instead proved to experience reduced responsibilities, which
was the remaining 60%. This could be either due to the reason that these employees had
relatively lower level of qualification or a boost in their responsibilities had negative adverse
impact.

10
 9 3.4 Increment in Job responsibilities
8
8

7
Number of participants

5
4 Male
4
Female
3
3
2 2 2 2 2
2

0
Yes No Slight increase Reduced responsibilities
Experiences

The researcher also interviewed the F&B Manager, Julia Fermaino with regards to employee
empowerment and its impacts. Julia claims that in Hotel Saint Gotthard, employee
empowerment is practiced at a superficial level. The higher management aims at aligning
the goals of the employees with that of the company. Once they have done this, they preach
empowerment through participation, which is mainly through ideas, opinions, feedback and
comments regarding any critical decision making or these could be conveyed through their
managers or personnel whom they directly report to. When these ideas are approved and
applied within the hotel, the Manager’s announce the name and give credit to them for their
input. Julia mentioned that this is a unique and peculiar method of empowerment, but goes
closely hand in hand with empowerment through participation method.

4.

11
 4. CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATION

In conclusion, this research report talks about the different methods of employee
empowerment. Employee empowerment is necessary to boost employee morale and keep
them enthusiastic regarding their work. An establishment will benefit from it through an
increased productivity from an empowered employee. There are 3 important methods of
empowering employees; empowerment through involvement, participation and job
enrichment and job rotation. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages. The
researcher compared the literature review found abundantly in several journal articles with
the practical findings through primary method of research in Hotel Saint Gotthard, Zurich.
This hotel comprises of over 75 employees with around 18 being solely in F&B department.
In order to understand the empowerment method applicable in Hotel Saint Gotthard, the
researcher conducted primary research through surveys which consisted of questions
relevant to the research topic. In addition, the researcher also conducted an interview with
the F&B manager of the hotel. The implications of the primary method of research were that
Hotel Saint Gotthard followed empowerment through participation technique. This
corresponded to the findings through secondary research which were journal articles from
credible sources of information. The aim of this research project, to understand the
employee motivation and empowerment techniques applied in Saint Gotthard Hotel, Zurich
and how do they resemble the teachings and literature reviewed and lectured in Retail
Management course, has been successfully met along with the objectives stated in the
earlier section.
The author suggests the following recommendations for 4 and 5 star hotel owners for
empowering their employees. As a one size fits all strategy cannot be applied to all the
employees of an establishment, one of the most effective and efficient method of boosting
employee morale would be through surveying them and asking questions that are specific to
their likes and dislikes regarding the work atmosphere, what are the elements that they
prefer being present when at work, how would they feel motivated and such other questions.
Other than surveying employees, another optimal method would be to conduct background
research regarding the ethics and culture of people of one particular region. This would be
time-consuming, regardless it may prove to be efficient.
There were certain limitations to this research project as the time span was very
short, due to which the researcher was not able to carry out extensive research.
Furthermore, the researcher only focused on one single property and was able to survey
only 25 employees with only one interview. The researcher would like to conduct further
research on this topic in the near future as it is enthusiastic for him to understand what
drives the staff of Hotel Saint Gotthard, Zurich to provide luxury and extravagant service.

12
 5. REFERENCES

ADAMSON, D., (2010). Community empowerment: Identifying the barriers to “purposeful”

citizen participation, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 30(3/4), pp.114 –
126

CHAN, T.C.K., NG, K.Y.N. and CASIMIR, G., (2010). The diminished effect of psychological
empowerment on the self‐empowered, Managing Service Quality: An International Journal,
Vol. 20(6), pp.531 - 543.

GREEN, N.D. and MACANDREW, J., (2000). Re‐empowering the empowered – the ultimate
challenge?, Personnel Review, 28(3), pp.258 – 278.

HOLOSKO, M.J., LESLIE, D.R. and CASSANO, D. R., (2001). How service users become
empowered in human service organizations: the empowerment model, International Journal
of Health Care Quality Assurance, 14(3), pp.126 – 133

HOLYOAK, L., (2001). Participation and Empowerment in Organizations: Modeling,

Effectiveness and Applications, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 22(3),
pp.139 – 142

RITTER, B.A., VENKATRAMAN, S., and SCHLAUCH, C., (2014). A multi-level exploration of
empowerment mediators, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 35(7), pp.649 –
667

TOLLINGTON, T. and EL-TAWY, N., (2010). Exploring the HRM/accounting interface on

human assets: The case for artefact-based asset recognition criteria. Journal for Human
Resource Costing & Accounting, vol. 14(1), pp. 123-156.

6. APENDIX

13
6.1 Survey

To understand and analyse the significance of employee empowerment and the

techniques applicable to St. Gotthard Hotel, Zurich.

Greetings fellow colleagues and associates. I, Elvis Burri, am a final year student in one of
the most well renowned universities, (Robert Gordon University) and am conducting a small
survey which is a part of my research thesis. My topic of interest is employee empowerment
and its practical approach in Hotel St. Gotthard, Zurich. Kindly take some of your precious
time to fill out the following questions in the survey.
Thank you in advance.
(Kindly tick the options)

Survey

Age: Under 21 21-31 32-41 Over 41

Gender: Male Female
Nationality: African American European Asian Other

1. Are you aware of employee empowerment and the techniques applicable to it?
a) Yes b) No

2. During morning brief, weekly meetings and other significant internal conferences are you
and your team members requested to participate?
a) Never b) Seldom c) Often d) Always

3. Does the atmosphere in which you work display enthusiastic motivation?

a) Yes b) No

4. Is there a suggestion box or a similar medium of conveying your opinion available on

premises?
a) Yes b) No c) Can be done verbally d) Not authorized

14
5. Does your team practice a rotation policy of switching between work departments bi-
monthly or monthly?
a) Yes b) No

6. Have you experienced an increment in the work responsibilities and job tasks over the
past few months?
a) Yes b) No c) Slight increase d) Reduced responsibilities

6.2 Interview

1. Do you invoke the practice of employee empowerment?

2. Does the management team emphasize on motivated and empowered employees?
3. What steps are taken up in order to ensure a motivated work force?

15