Role of Employee Motivation in the Hospitality Industry Performance - Hilton Worldwide - Case Study Example

EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY CASE OF THE HILTON WORLDWIDE Name Course Tutor Institution State Date EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY CASE OF THE HILTON WORLDWIDE INTRODUCTION The most important asset an organisation has is the people. Individuals found within an organisation determine how well the firm performs and whether it meets its set goals. Their motivation, moral, and happiness will determine their acceptance of the company and thus their involvement in ensuring productivity. The critical role of people becomes more apparent in the service industry where employees have a daily interaction with people. Their interaction determines whether customers will return or seek other opportunities. Employee motivation provides a way to assess the centrality of the role played by employees in ensuring service excellence and thus successful operations. The purpose of this paper is therefore to examine the role of employee motivation in the hospitalityindustry performance using the case of Hilton Worldwide. Hilton Worldwide is one of the largest organisations in the hospitality industry with a network of more than 4700 hotels, resorts, and properties with a presence in 104 countries, and about a century of experience in the industry (Hilton Worldwide 2016). The company began in 1919 in Texans, and has since then grown into a formidable organisation internationally become a destination for many tourists in various countries as well as a place for conference and other gatherings. The company vision is to “fill the earth with the light and warmth of hospitality – by delivering exceptional experiences – every hotel, every guest, every time” and the mission is to “be the most hospitable company in the world – by creating heartfelt experiences for guests, meaningful opportunities for team members, high value for owners, and a positive impact in our communities”. To achieve this vision and mission, Hilton Worldwide is dedicated to hospitality, integrity, leadership, teamwork, ownership, now (HILTON) as the core values of the organisation. Within this network of hotels and resorts is a dedicated team, which the Hilton website recognise as the heart of Hilton. The company employs hospitality professionals around the world and offers an opportunity for examining corporate behaviour in promoting and sustaining employee motivation as part of their human resource activities. EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION Motivation represents a force that compels a person to choose a particular job, stay at that job, and try hard to achieve its requirements. The term motivation comes from the Latin term moreve, meaning to move, and is used in contemporary management to compel employees to move in a direction and manner that suits organisational goals as evident in three common characteristics, namely what energizes human behaviour, what directs of channels the behaviour, and ways to sustain the behaviour (Mok, Sparks, &Kadampully2009). As supported by Janes and Wisnom (2010), motivation is an intrinsic force that explains what an employee wants to work for, therefore, if organisations understand what they employees hold as important they can facilitate a working environment that encourages them. Notably, each employee is an individual and thus may have differing goals. This makes it important to bring in the right person for the job at hand, which will ensure self-motivation, enthusiasm for the job, and productivity. The outcome of the organisation translates from presenting employees with an environment that reflects their desires.Nohria, Groysberg, and Lee (2008) note that motivating employees begins with recognising that for them to do their best, then they must have an environment that meets their basic emotional drives to acquire, bond, comprehend, and defend. LITERATURE REVIEW Various researchers have established the significance of employee motivation, and then extended the study to specific industries such as tourism, and hospitality. Employee Motivation Theory In their study, Nohria et al. (2008) developed a model of promoting workplace motivation in which they suggested ways in which managers can promote good performance. The model was developed using survey results from Fortune 500 and other companies. The researchers foundthat managers need to utilise reward systems a promotional tool in which they show the value of good performance, second building an organisational culture that drives collaboration and openness. Further, managers have a task of facilitating fair, trustworthy, and transparent allocation of resources, and equipping their employees with real-world skills that promotes their productivity. The suggested framework includes using a holistic approach to employee motivation that adopts reward systems, collaborative organizational culture, equitable resource allocation, and meaningful job design. These suggest a four-pronged approach to employee motivation. The four-pronged model developed by Nohria and colleagues reflect the two-factor theory of employee motivation by Frederick Herzberg, that identifies intrinsic and extrinsic motivators to work. The theory suggests that there certain factor at the workplace that lead to job satisfaction and others that lead to dissatisfaction (Lundberg, Gudmundson&Andersson 2009). Those promoting satisfaction are intrinsic in which they tend to inspire motivation such as having a challenging work environment, recognition, potential for growth and relationships, which represent an emotional attachment and satisfaction with the workplace. The extrinsic factors represent the expected outcomes and thus do not cause a motivation to work, but will cause dissatisfaction in they miss such as salary and benefits. A study on the two-factor theory of work motivation showed that within the hospitality and tourism sector, employees are less concerned with the extrinsic factors. The study used a sample of seasonal workers in tourism destinations, and found that they had different intrinsic factors driving their performance (Lundberg et al. 2009). Therefore, management should put more emphasis upon understanding the intrinsic factors compared to the extrinsic factors, especially as the later has already been established with the organisational system. For example, seasonal workers showed greater concern with meeting new people compared to the level of anxiety associated with wage level. The differences in intrinsic and extrinsic factors differed also among the resident workers. Nonetheless, extrinsic factors have to some extent emerged as important in promoting employee motivation. For instance, Janes and Wisnom (2010) through an analysis of literature found that external motivators are useful in those cases the employees chose their own incentives such as in cash, a customised trip, or a celebrity encounter. Notably, money, advancements, and job security may not work for everyone, as some employees may value praise and recognition compared to other elements. Therefore, a combination of extrinsic and intrinsic values has a significant part in ensuring that employees obtain that which they consider as important, while the company also achieves its set goals. The implication is that by offering employees opportunities to achieve their personal goals, then the organisation will have a more dedicated and motivated workforce. Employers may create the holistic work place through rewarding employee accomplishment, setting high standards, and clear objectives, providing adequate training, and providing rewards that employee’s value. Underlying employee motivation is personal believe and confidence in ones capabilities, in which the employee need to believe that they can perform the task assigned. Additionally, they must trust that they will obtain proper reward based on the work completed, and know that the outcomes for good performance will be satisfying (Janes&Wisnom 2010). The employees will need to feel that they have a balance between work load and receiving recognition or a reward based on what the employee considers important. Tools of Employee Motivation in Hospitality Industry Literature shows that organizations have used various tools toward employee motivation that fall within monetary and non-monetary conditions (Wasike&Ndivo 2015). The authors note that non-monetary strategies especially employee empowerment is the most common tool used to motivate employees, in which employers give the employees responsibility and decision-making authority to perform certain tasks. Empowerment signifies capacity building to enable the employee to contribute creatively and innovatively to meeting the objectives of the company. Part of capacity building is utilising mentoring and coaching as a development oriented strategy in which junior colleagues work with senior management to promote advising, role modelling, sharing contacts, and provision of general support. Another approach has been job flexibility enabling the employees to design their work conditions, which helps build morale. Organisations also utilise job enrichment as a tool that allows vertical expansion of jobs in which the management increases the level of worker controls in the planning, execution, and evaluation of the work. A notable element about the non-monetary factors is that they focus more on the intrinsic motivators in the workplace, in which the focus is to help the employee build their level of competence and thus create job satisfaction. The approaches further increase employee sense of job security, stability, and certainty which are emotional elements that promote intrinsic satisfaction. Evidence thus suggests utilising intrinsic motivators as central factors in promoting employee motivation in the tourism sector. Kingir and Mesci (2010) recognise that employee satisfaction within the service sector is a multifaceted outcome that signifies quality of service and leads to employee motivation. The idea moves beyond classical management approaches to recognise that each employee has something to contribute to the organisation and thus building a culture that motivates them. The identified approaches to empowering employees show how management approaches have evolved based on recognising the importance of employees. Furthermore, employee empowerment remains mutually beneficial to the company and the employee. Empowerment means supporting the employee toward fostering specific behaviour consistent with self-reinforcement and thus self drive (Wang, Tsai & Tsai 2014). This becomes evident in employee participation in goal setting, decision-making, solving problems, and in designing and executing organisational change. Empowered employees taken on responsibility, have a sense of company ownership, and feel satisfaction with their accomplishments. Adoption of The monetary approach to employee motivation brings in the element of how organisations can stimulate employees toward higher performance, commitment, and satisfaction. These incentives include pay for performance or merit payment, and bonus programs or profit sharing. However, as Wasike and Ndivo (2015) note overreliance on monetary incentives may come across as mercenary, and they contribute to weak relationships between performance and other elements of the organisation. Therefore, management needs to critically assess all available processes to determine the most appropriate types of incentives especially considering that employees have differences in their needs and objectives. The role of management is to critically assess the intrinsic and extrinsic factors to determine employee needs, and in turn possible avenues for motivation. Identifiable within the literature review is that employee motivation remains as a fundamental factor in the hospitality industry as it marks the employee’s willingness to perform given tasks to a certain requirement. Part of this fulfilment depends with how well organisations are able to meet the needs and desires of their employees, as such fulfilment pushes them toward performing at the best standard of the company. People become dedicated to organisations that meet their needs, monetary and non-monetary, intrinsic and extrinsic. Inability to meet these needs promotes employee turnover. The hospitality industry especially has a high employee turnover estimated to cost companies cumulatively about $140 billion annually. The reason for high turnover is employees treating the industry as a stop-gap, in which they work prior to moving on to better opportunities in other industries or organisations. A study by Dyke (2010) created ten variables that explain employee outcomes in the industry based on the CANE (Commitment And Necessary Effort) model. The CANE factors include self-efficacy, agency, emotion, mood, importance, interest, utility, choice, persistence, and effort. Therefore, employees will react to the industry based on how well they achieve this attributes. For example, self-efficacy relates to how a person may meet their desired goals, while agency signifies how the organisation helps support the tasks leading to goal achievement. Emotion shows positive and negative emotions that affect performance including the ways a person chooses the task and stays of task, which relates to the intrinsic aspect of motivation. Negative emotions include avoidance behaviours such as procrastination, inattentiveness, and job abandonment. Mood important relates to how an employee relates to the task such as their commitment to it and whether they identify with the task, which flows to interest in the task and pleasure derived from it. Utility aligns to completing a task based on what they will be obtaining from it, while choice signifies their agreement with the task or action. Persistence denotes agreement and willingness to persist until one succeeds and their actual involvement signifies the effort placed in the activity. Dyke (2010) concludes that the CANE variables have an impact on employee turnover, for instance employees with greater task value are less likely to quit, but persist, similar to those that feel supported by the organisation. Additionally, employees that feel better about their jobs persist as well as those employees that feel they have the support of their superiors in disentangling the complexity of their work. Further, when employees perceive their work as unfair, they are likely to have a negative relationship with it. The literature review shows the importance of establishing ways through which to promote employee motivation as this influences outcomes within the organisation. The subsequent analysis of the case of Hilton shows the implications of employee motivation on an operational hotel. EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION AT HILTON WORLDWIDE Hilton Worldwide has a human resources department tasked with ensuring that the company has the right mix of people including the team and suppliers that can achieve the set vision of filling the earth with warmth. Employee motivation in the organisation can be assessed by looking at whether employees feel their job is important to the company, belief in being valued and appreciated, employee passion for their work, and changes within a certain period. The organisation operates within an industry with the highest labour turnover and thus the need to establish ways to ensure employee retention (Boella and Goss-Turner 2011). One way that Hilton is achieving employee motivation and retention is through promoting recognition. Stated in the company leaflet on Five Keys to Recognition is that “recognition is a key to creating an engaged team – and an engaged team helps organizational success”. The company has been able to achieve this by giving employees frequent positive feedback or praise, ensuring timely recognition, in which recognition follows the event closely, and ensuring that employees are aware of the reasons for praise. Rather than ambiguously thanking a person for going beyond the call of duty, Hilton model focuses on specificity in which a person is told in detail the reason for recognition. The praise also reflects a personal message to the employee, and if it involves a reward it must be one that has value to the person. Recognition within the company also happens as part of a larger goal or business objective, and ties in to the Hilton Values and Pillars. The company has been sustaining retention through innovation in its human resources management through training and development, establishment of terms and conditions favourable to employees, and reward systems. Regarding training and development, Hilton offers equal chances to all for training and development based on a non-discriminatory approach, and under which it ensures all employees receive required training (Boella and Goss-Turner 2011). Employees also have access to all benefits, facilities and services, which receives regular evaluation to ensure there is no unlawful or indirect discrimination. Hilton offers its employees on the job training which is seen as a way to encourage employee accomplishment within the workplace, and promote improvement of skills and work effectiveness. The training and development model has a double advantage in which the training is for the purpose of meeting organizational needs, while the development is for realisation of personal ability. The benefit of using on the job training at Hilton is that it is cost effective, and promotes immediate feedback. Training and development use at Hilton Worldwide shows effective use of human resource approaches to employee motivation that creates a model of empowerment for the individual. This means that employees have the capability to make decisions about various processes, and sustain problem solving capabilities. Hilton Worldwide human resources management further has established specialised knowledge in activities such as employment relations, benefits, compensation, collective bargaining agreements, recruiting and tracking, training, employment law, and statistical analysis (Hilton Management Services 2016). Through the human resources management services, Hilton has a leadership support system in which leaders work with others to create better opportunities for the company. Another notable aspect about Hilton is having a model that seeks to recruit and work with the right people that can abide by the organizations established code of conduct. The company has an elaborate code that clearly identifies each area of operations for the employees and shows the company expectations (Hilton Worldwide 2014). It provides directions on how the team members should behave based on fairness and courtesy. The goal is to integrate the HILTON values into the team, ensuring that their dedication is to the organisation. For example, the employees are required to sustain successful working relationships and goodwill in all business relations, conform to law, and maintain loyalty. The code establishes that Hilton will provide the employees with a safe and fir working environment and in turn they should be accountable, and respectful including overseeing the care of the Hilton property as well as care of other members. Notably, the employees have an opportunity to continue and conduct individual affairs but not in competition with Hilton, and not at the detriment of the company. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION Hilton Worldwide stands out in three areas that promote employee motivation, namely recognition and appreciation of outstanding members, learning and development, and provision of feedback. These represent key areas identified in the literature review based on the four-pronged model and the two factor theory. The four –pronged model promoted the need for establishing a reward system in which people were appreciated for their performance (Nohria et al. 2008). Hilton Worldwide has established an effective reward and recognition system in which employees receive immediate feedback on their performance. Additionally, the company reflects the two-factor theory of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factors by promoting activities that respond to the needs of the individual (Lunberg et al. 2009) such as through recognition and training, while at the same time meeting the needs of the organisation. The company further accommodates the CANE attributes specifically by encouraging effort, creating a peaceful and healthy working environment, ensuring employees have the capacity to perform, and encouraging a positive attitude in relation to the work. Therefore, Hilton has been able to achieve expectations of employee motivation by creating conditions that intrinsically and extrinsically promote employee performance. However, an element suggested in literature lacking in Hilton is the job flexibility enabling the employees to design their work conditions. It is not clear from the literature whether the company provides employees with the liberty of choice, and if so the extent to which such liberty emerges. Therefore, future study of Hilton Worldwide employee motivation may consider the possibility of flexibility and the implication on the company. In conclusion, employee motivation has been shown in this discussion as highly significant in achieving the objectives of the firm in relation to the industry. The hospitality industry as noted has a high turnover and thus a need to clearly establish ways to promote employee motivation. The case of Hilton shows that employee motivation works to promote the execution of personal and organisational goals, finding a connection between the team and the firm. Therefore, the model is adaptable to organisation, which can be guided by the three unidentified frameworks namely, Nohria et al. (2008) four pronged model, the two-factor theory and CANE, which provided variables that signify achievement of employee motivation. REFERENCES Boella, M & Goss-Turner, S 2011.Human Resource Management in the Hospitality Industry.Routledge, Abingdon. Dyke, M 2010.Motivation in the Hospitality Industry.Incentive Research Foundation. Hilton Management Service 2016.All right people. Accessed on December 2, 2016 from http://www.managementservices.hilton.com/en/what-we-manage-for-your-business/human-resources.html Hilton Worldwide 2014.Code of Conduct: Our Global Policy for Working at Hilton Worldwide. Accessed on Dec. 2 from https://www.unglobalcompact.org/system/attachments/cop_2014/96921/original/Hilton_Code_of_Conduct.pdf?1405629750 Hilton Worldwide 2016.About Us.Accessed December 1, 2016 from http://hiltonworldwide.com/about/ Janes, P &Wisnom, M 2010. ‘Changes in Tourism Industry Quality of Work Life Practices’, Journal of Tourism Insights, vol. 1, iss.1, Article 13, pp. 107-113. Kingir, S &Mesci, M 2010. ‘Factors that Affect Hotel Employees Motivation the Case of Bodrum’, Serbian Journal of Management, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 59-76. Lundberg, C, Gudmundson, A &Andersson, TD 2009. ‘Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory of Work Motivation Tested Empirically on Seasonal Workers in Hospitality and Tourism’, Tourism Management, vol. 30, iss. 6, pp. 890-899. Mok, C, Sparks, B &Kadampully, J 2009.Service Quality Management in Hospitality, Tourism, and Leisure. The Haworth Hospitality Press, Binghamton, NY. 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