Managing Productivity in

Service Organisation and

motivating Employees
WEEK 7

Reference:
Ford, R.C. & Sturman, M.C. 2020. Managing Hospitality Organizations: Achieving Excellence in the Guest Experience, 2nd Edition, SAGE Publications,
Inc. (Chapter 5)
 Learning Objectives
O How hospitality organizations motivate their
employees to provide outstanding guest service.
O How organizations reinforce and reward guest-
centered employees.
O How outstanding hospitality organizations fulfill
employee needs.
O How playing roles can improve guest service.
O How modern hospitality organizations enhance
guest service by empowering employees.
O How leadership and authority work in organizations
and why employees accept authority.
 Motivating Employees
O What motivates people
O Social needs - to satisfy our needs for friendship and
belonging
O Achievement needs – a job that allow us to show my
talents
O Recognition needs – management appreciate our skill
O Economic needs – money to pay bills, feed family and
survive

O Definition of motivation
O To instill a desire within a person that encourages the
person to act
 Motivating Employees
O Manager’s roles
O Discover what employees want
O Define contributions organization needs
O Communicate how employees can earn
rewards
O Be fair and trustworthy
 Four Levels of Needs
1. Survival
➢ Money
2. Social
➢ Belonging
➢ Formal versus informal work groups
➢ Opportunities to share
3. Recognition
➢ Employees desire for praise and attention from peers/colleagues
and superiors
4. Achievement
➢ Employees feel a legitimate sense of importance, have pride in
jobs
 The rewards people want
Financial Rewards
O Merit raise O Recognition program
O Annual performance O Group incentive plan
bonus O Compensation through
O Spot bonus ownership
O Individual tips
O Pooled tips
 The rewards people want
Recognizing a Job Well Done
O Formal and informal programs
O Reinforcement of cultural values
O Example:
O Fairmont Hotels & Resorts
O Cash versus symbolic rewards
O Non-cash rewards or gifts, i.e.
plaques/certificates, merchandise with
company’s logo, gift certificates, jewelry, office
accessories, household items, recreational items
and electronic goods
 The rewards people want
Making the Job Fun
O Customer expectations
O Fun is infectious
O Minimize negatives
O Help employees deal with negative
aspects of job
 The rewards people want
Empowering the Employee
O Empowerment
O Empowerment is the assignment of decision-
making responsibility to an individual
O It requires sharing of information and
organisational knowledge that enable
empowered employees to understand and
contribute to organisational performance,
giving them the authority to make decisions
that influence the organisational outcomes
and rewarding them based on organisation’s
performance
 The rewards people want
Empowering the Employee
O Empowerment
O Growth and development
O Make the job more fun for employees
O Achieving company’s mission
 Five Keys to Effective
Empowerment Implementation
1. Training
➢ Requires an investment in employees training
➢ Employees must learn to understand their
responsibility thoroughly
➢ Employees must learn how to make sound
decisions within their areas
2. Willingness
➢ Requires employees to not only be ready and able
to make decisions about their jobs but also be
willing to do so

(continued)
 Five Keys to Effective
Empowerment Implementation
3. Measurement
➢ Employees must have goals/standards against which
the result of their decisions can be measured.
4. Incentives
➢ Rewards need to be attached to successful
performance
➢ Rewards help reinforce the goals of the programme and
make it clear to employees that using their
empowerment appropriately is worthwhile
5. Managerial buy-in
➢ Management must be willing to accept empowered
employees, let them make their own decisions and not
interface
Other Aspects of Empowerment

Limitations
Empowerment maybe less appropriate if:
O The basic business strategy emphasizes low-cost,
high-volume operations
O The tie to most customers is short term
O Technology used is simple and routine
O The business environment is highly predictable
O Employees have low growth needs, low social needs,
and weak interpersonal skills
Other Aspects of Empowerment
Potentials
Empowerment maybe highly successful and
rewarding if:
O Service is customised or personalised
O customer relationships are long term
O Technology used is complex
O The environment is unpredictable
O Employees have high growth needs, social needs, and
strong interpersonal skills
O Will lead to most guest-contact decisions benefiting the
organisation
Other Aspects of Empowerment
O Degrees of empowerment
O Employees need to be capable of making appropriate
decisions
O A manager may choose to provide higher degrees of
empowerment foe some individuals and teams doing
certain tasks than for others
O Even within a given employee’s job or a given group’s
tasks responsibilities, different decision areas can be
empowered to different degrees
O Unintended consequences of empowerment
O Empowerment can lead to problems if empowered
employees make decisions that are disadvantageous to
other employees or to the organisation as a whole
Motivating the employee to perform
Rewarding Employee Performance

O Power of positive reinforcement

O Rewarding desired behaviours
O All rewards need to be scrutinised to determine
exactly what is being incentived
O Example at buffet
O Greeting guests well
O No compliments
O Failing to refill butter
O Scolded
‘What is rewarded tends to be what gets done’

Motivating the employee to perform

 Linking Performance and
Future Rewards
O Expectancy theory maintains that organisation
needs to relate rewards directly to performance
O Can you achieve the performance level?
O Does achieving the performance level get rewarded?
O Do you value the reward?
If employees believe and expect :
O That they can achieve a certain performance level by putting in a
certain level of efforts
O That achieving this performance level will lead to promised
;rewards
O If employees value these rewards sufficiently, they will be
motivated to put in the effort necessary to get the rewards

Motivating the employee to perform

 Linking Performance and
Future Rewards
O Self-efficacy, trust, and value
O Based on expectancy theory, managers must take
essential steps in order to motivate employees to
performance effectively
O Managers must give their employees confidence that their
skills, training, and capabilities are adequate for doing what
is necessary to receive rewards if they put in the effort
O Managers must ensure that employees believe that if they
exert effort and perform their jobs well, management will
deliver the rewards as promised
O Managers must provide the array of rewards that
employees believe are important and worthwhile to
satisfying their needs

Motivating the employee to perform

 Employee Roles in the
Organization
O Role theory
O Is a way to explain how organisation, group, or
work team influences the behaviour of its
members
O Role senders
O Role receivers
O Disney
O Cast Member role
O Role conflicts
O The continual process of playing different roles is full
of potential and real conflicts for guest-service
employees

Motivating the employee to perform

 Employee Roles in the
Organization
O Role clarification
O People like to know what is expected of them
O Organisaition should provide effective training
programme to clearly define the role to their
employees and thereby minimise the conflicts they
face
O Emotional labor and role playing
O Frontline employees who interact with guests have to
be good at performing what is in termed emotional
labour

Motivating the employee to perform

 Setting Goals
O Goal setting O Management by
O SMART criteria objectives (MBOs)
O Is a process of having
O Specific each employee set
O Measureable specific and
O Attainable measurable goals and
then using the
O Results-oriented achievement of those
O Time-bound goals as a key driver
for the employee’s
performance

Motivating the employee to perform

 Managerial Authority
O Authority-acceptance theory
O Preconditions for accepting
direction
1. Understanding
2. Consistency with organization
3. Consistency with employee
4. Physically and mentally able

Providing The Right Direction

 Securing Compliance with
Directives
1. Issue directives that comply with four
preconditions
2. Clear communication through every
relationship
3. Job-related tasks
4. Members enforcing compliance

Providing The Right Direction

 Managing Fairly
O Equity theory O Justice in workplace

O Inputs and O Distributive

outputs O Procedural
O Comparison O Interpersonal
O Informational

Providing The Right Direction

 Regarding Leaders
O Managers and leaders
O Leading with integrity
O Behavioral integrity
O Leaders and changing environment

Providing The Right Direction

 Connection Between
Satisfaction and Performance
O Do satisfied employees perform well?
O Are high performers satisfied?
O Are customers of satisfied high
performers also satisfied?

Motivation, Employee Satisfaction, and

Guest Satisfaction