Hotel Employees and Emotional Labour - Hilton Hotel - Case Study Example

HOTEL EMPLOYEES AND EMOTIONAL LABOUR By Professor Class University City Date of submission TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 Executive Summary 3 Introduction 4 1.Literature Review 4 1.1 Emotional Labour 4 1.2 Emotion Labour in the Context of Hospitality 5 2.Discussions 6 2.1 Initial Impression 6 2.2 Experience at Hilton Hotel 8 3.0Conclusion 9 3.1 Recommendations 10 4.0 References 11 4.2 Appendix 12 Executive Summary The main aim of the report was to establish the existing relationship between emotional labour and the experience of the customers in the hotel industry. The concept of emotional labour often requires employees to portray organizational requirements and desired emotions by the customers while executing their duties. However, there are no guidelines compelling the customers in act in the required manner. To ascertain ways in which emotional labour influence the customer-employee relationship, the research collected data from Hilton Hotel. Although the employees from the hotel portrayed the required features of an effective and positive emotional labour, the report offered some recommendations to ensure that the organization and employees continue performing adequately. Introduction With the rising number of investors in the hotel and hospitality industries, there is need to ensure efficient satisfaction of the customers. In such industries, the numbers of clients received depend on the experience and customer-employee relationship exhibited by the employees (Efthymiou & University of Leicester, 2010, 241). It is from such background that the research considered emotional labour exhibited by the employees at Hilton Hotel. Initial expressions by the workers determine the expectation and perception of the clients before asking for their food. Since the research sought to ascertain whether initial impression that people have on the hotel represents the reality of the experience acquired, much consideration would be given to nature of the industry and its core business. Moreover, the report would provide analysis, discussions, and recommendations to improve emotional labor performance of the workers. Emotional labour can influence the experience of the customers. As a result, the report would also explore the relationship between these two dependent variables. 1. Literature Review 1.1 Emotional Labour Over the recent decades, most industries have undergone restructuring especially in the western countries. As a result, there have been increasing face-to-face and voice-to-voice interactions especially in the hotel and hospitality industry where the emotions portrayed by the workers define business-customer relationship. According to sociologists, emotional labour entails the manner in which the workers should manage their feelings as defined by organizations rules and guidelines. Within the industry, workers deal with different types of customers from polite to rude. However, the type of emotional labour portrayed must reflect the requirement of the organization irrespective of the nature of the client (Shani, Uriely, Reichiel, & Ginsburg, 2013, 152). Moreover, employees must be in a position to regulate their emotions to appear professional in their duties. Initially, emotional labour was not an important factor while looking for jobs in hotels and hospitality firms. Currently, it one of the most important requirement since it is the major indicator of how the workers could handle diversity at work. To ensure that organizations hire the right workers, some institutions offer training to identify employees suffering from emotional dissonance on ways of dealing with such problems. Workers need to appear friendly and cheerful while interacting with the clients. As a result, there would be improvement in the quality of services offered and encouragement of repeat business (Newnham & University of Leicester, 2010, 193). In the event that workers experiences negative challenges within the working environment, they should learn to portray surface acting. Surface acting involves controlling one's emotions embracing the required emotions by the organization. When workers are not able to control their emotions, then dissonance usually occur. As a result, it becomes an obstacle to the performance of the employees, which could affect the performance of the organization negatively. 1.2 Emotion Labour in the Context of Hospitality Emotion labour requires workers a wide range of emotions aimed at positively influence the customers. Hospitality, as an industry that customer-worker relationship is important, emotion labour needs to uphold all the required organizational ethics. These emotions include optimism, empathy, anger, frustrations, empathy, urgency, and friendliness. It is important that to note that employees portray these emotions irrespective of how the customers treat them. In industries such as hospitality, it is important to implement some display rules to control the behaviours of the employees. Display rules often dictate the emotions expressed by the employees with the intention of facilitating the attainment of the organizational goals (Lee & Ok, 2013, 25). For example, considering a case of a hotel that seeks to increase its number of customers, part of offering the services might involve creation and maintenance of positive emotions towards the customers. To meet such target, the hotel management would have to expect the workers to display friendly and cheerful emotions while interacting with the customers. Such positive emotions would spread to other customers through contagion process thus increasing the operational performance of the organization. Hospitality businesses and customers some set of expectations regarding the emotions worth displaying during services encounter (Watson, Maxwell & D'Annunzio-Green, 2002, 178). A slight negative attitude and interaction with the worker might lead to decline in the number of customers seeking organizational services. Therefore, emotional behavior holds an important place in determining the general performance of the business and customer-business interaction. 2. Discussions 2.1 Initial Impression Hilton Hotels and Resorts is an international chain of hotels and resorts operating under the flagship brand known as Hilton Worldwide. The company places much of its marketing practices on business travels and leisure travels within the major city centers, convention centers, near airports, and several vocational resorts around the world. Besides, the hotel offers conducive environments for conducting meeting and routine fitness for the potential customers. For the convenience and comfort of the children and parents, the hotel offers children’s menu, high chairs, and automated teller machines (ATM). The initial impressions about the hotel were positive due to the rapport that the servants created with the potential customers. In addition, only hotels that offer quality services secure serene areas located in the city centers and closer to the airports. With almost all the services and products required for human survival located within all the premises occupied by the hotels, it is normal to have a positive impression as it reduces the much time required to move from one place to another seeking different services. Popularity also matters while considering the best hotel to dine and have fun. Besides, several reports indicate better performance of the hotel, efficient services, and good customer relations. The hotel boasts of its market position within the hospitality industry created by perfectly prepared food and secure environment. More importantly, most of the hotel’s chains are situated in areas with ample security and accessible from different means of transport. With such level of accessibility, the hotel receives many customers making services very difficult for those with little time. The hotel has efficient and reliable online booking system to reduce congestions especially for those seeking over-the-counter services. Although, to ascertain such impressions, I decided to go for the over-the-counter services. As my first time to visit the hotel, I had to explore all the impressions I have always had about Hilton and its services and the best method to establish such was through queuing. Moreover, most people associated the services offered at the hotel with higher costs. Such hypothesis crossed my mind at one point considering the fact that most of the people who were visiting the hotel had stronger financial background. I never relented on my quest to establish whether the costs of serviced offered by the hotel were more expensive compared to other hotels in the country. From the online reviews, most people commented positively on the quality of services offered by the hotel especially establishing good customer relations. In addition, most reviews also applauded the efforts of Hilton hotel in trying to integrate people from different diversified backgrounds irrespective of the race, color, and native country. 2.2 Experience at Hilton Hotel Business entities do not just attract customers through offering services but integrating better methods of ensuring that these services meet the needs of the customers. Employees are the most important assets of the organization who determine the performance of the organization. During my experience at the hotel, I noticed that the workers effectively exhibited the concept of emotional labour through the manner they welcomed the customers. The joyous and friendly welcome actually made the customers feel with most employees. Emotional labour plays an important role in marketing the offered by any business entity. These underlying activities could be the major factor contributing to the increasing number of customers seeking services from the hotel. Irrespective of the initial emotions of the workers, during work hours, they have the responsibility of suppressing their negative emotions and display the positive ones to create better rapport with the clients (Sommerville, 2007, 139). Hospitality and hotel jobs require employees with the ability to hide their negative emotions. On arrival at the Hilton hotel, I noticed that the employees exhibited emotional labour through the manner in which they welcomed the customers. They were jovial and friendly while assisting the customers locate their seats and understand the menu. In addition, most customers could not find their way to the washrooms, which were a bit isolated areas. To uphold integrity and ethical standards, the hotel has ladies and gentlemen with delegated roles of guiding the clients to locate their respective washrooms. Emotional labour requires the workers to remain and friendly irrespective of the behaviours exhibited by the customers (Tsai, 2009, 130). It is normal that under certain irritating conditions the workers get pissed off. However, the manner in which these workers handle the situation defines their level of profession and ability to work within hotel and hospitality industry. From my level of understanding about the nature of services involved in hotels, I could tell how much the workers were straining to fulfil the specific needs of the customers. However, they maintained professionalism through exhibiting emotional labour. Customers differ in nature with some being polite while others are authoritative, demanding, and disruptive in nature (Tang, 2015, 125) It is not possible that each customer has his or her server. Although the workers did their duties as required, some customers were still complaining about the quality of services offered. Every human makes mistakes including the workers. There was an incident when a customer requested a medium soft drink. However, the employee confused and brought larger ones but the reactions that followed left most people startled. The worker was unhappy with the abuses from the customer but portrayed surface acting as a type of emotional labour. Moreover, the employee remained calm and apologized to the customer for confusion. In the event that the customers found their orders not ready, the hotel has a large waiting lounge with most entertainment materials. Upon serving the table, the employees informed the clients of which some of them had intolerable behavior to people with no qualification of emotional labour. 3.0 Conclusion Emotional labour is of great importance to organizations offering services to customers on face-to-face basis like the hotels. Within the context of communal and occupational norms, interaction with the customers requires well-mannered employees with the ability to control their emotions. However, there are no guidelines compelling the customers to return the compassion and courteousness exhibited by the employees. Within the hotel industry, emotional display rules majorly focus on training the employees with respect to the feelings of the customers, methods of making them comfortable, feel much welcomed. The demand for the workers to fulfil these rules is currently on the rise reflecting the benefits associated with portraying positive emotional behavior. The ability of the employees to maintain proper and effective contact with the customer determines the level of customers’ satisfaction. Most customers form their impressions based on the quality of behaviours exhibited by the employees. Therefore, irrespective of the circumstances faced by employees since a slight display of negative emotional labour might lead to loss of customers. 3.1 Recommendations To continue offering services that meet the specific needs of the customers, it is important that Hilton hotel embrace activities that would assist in creating a better rapport between the customer and the employee. Customers experience several challenges especially while dealing with rude customers; therefore, it is important that the organization recognize their efforts to motivate them through gifts. It is important to note that not all those seeking employment within the hotel have the ability to control their emotional labour for the benefit of the company (Millim, 2013, 174). As a result, Hilton should use selection technique that only ensures that the hotel chooses people with the required interpersonal skill and personality from the huge pool of labour. Besides, it is important to conduct selection in an open and fair manner to prevent locking out of the qualified and potential employees. However, the behaviours exhibited by the customers are also changing for which the hotel has to adjust to. Therefore, the hotel should consider offering training to the staff on the best methods to improve their emotional labour. Without these skills, it might be easier for the employees to survive in the hotel while executing their duties. In addition, the employees should be able to resolve conflicts created by the customers through application of effective communication methods. More importantly, organizational culture can influence methods used by the employees to execute their responsibilities (Iszatt-White, 2013, 372). Hence, the hotel should align its culture with the specific needs of the customers. Besides, such alignment would also ensure that the employees free interact with the management and air their grievances. The hotel has very few employees reflecting the magnitude of stress they experience on daily basis whenever they report to work. Nevertheless, it is crucial that the management offers them time to allow them to adjust to the needs of the customers. 4.0 References Efthymiou, L., & University of Leicester. 2010. Workplace control and resistance from below: An ethnographic study in a Cypriot luxury hotel. University of Leicester. Iszatt-White, M. 2013. Leadership as emotional labour: Management and the "managed heart". Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Lee, J., & Ok, C. 2013. 'Examination of Factors Affecting Hotel Employees Service Orientation: An Emotional Labor Perspective'. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 20(10), 1-32. Millim, & A.-M. 2013. The Victorian diary-authorship and emotional labour. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Newnham, M. P., & University of Leicester. 2010. Comparing the experience of emotional labour between hotel workers in the Philippines and Australia, and implications for human resource development. University of Leicester. Shani, A., Uriely, N., Reichiel, A., & Ginsburg, L. 2013. 'Emotional labor in the hospitality industry: The influence of contextual factors'. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 37(1), 150-158. Sommerville, K. L. 2007. Hospitality employee management and supervision: Concepts and practical applications. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley. Tang, A. 2015. Love's Labours Redressed - Reframing Emotional Labour. Saarbrücken: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing. Tsai, C. 2009. The important effect of employee's emotion management ability on his/her service behaviour in the international tourist hotel. Service Industries Journal, 15(7), 122-138. Watson, S., Maxwell, G. A., & D'Annunzio-Green, N. 2002. Human resource management: International perspectives in hospitality and tourism. London: Continuum. 4.2 Appendix (Please add pictures here) Read More