The last section is concerned with motivating insufficiently productive employees. Managers cannot directly motivate employees. Motivation comes from within each employee. Managers, however, can suggest a company culture that can produce productive employees. Company culture, the subject of “developing a productive company culture”, is an expression by top management of "how we want to do things around here". How to identify and implement an appropriate culture is covered.
While the culture is the way management wants things to be, employees may perceive the workplace differently. The organizational climate—or "how it feels to work here"—is made up of six elements: clarity, standards, commitment, responsibility, recognition, and teamwork. The chapter “Developing a productive organizational climate” provides a model of organizational climate and guidelines on how to determine what roadblocks, if any, exist to prevent employees from becoming motivated and productive.
When employees perceive inadequate clarity, standards, or commitment, a program of management by objectives is needed. The chapter “Improving productivity: management by objectives” examines this topic, which assumes that employees work toward objectives to which they are committed, and that such commitment comes from letting employees participate in the setting of the objectives.
The chapter “Improving productivity: job design” covers job design. When employees feel that they are being given insufficient responsibility, job redesign is desirable. Jobs may be enlarged or enriched. Job enlargement consists of adding more tasks; a dishwasher, for example, can begin busing tables four hours a day and washing dishes the other four hours instead of washing for the entire shift.
Job enrichment can be accomplished by adding some traditional management tasks to the employee's job. Typically, management plans the work, the employee does it, and management then determines if it has been done properly. Job enrichment seeks to make the employee responsible for some of the planning and/or control functions of the job. The assumption here is that in the long run, intrinsic rewards (the job itself) will motivate employees.
If recognition is seen as lacking, a strategy of positivereinforcementshould be implemented. This consists of giving employees positive support when they do something right. Encouraging positive behavior will result in more of the same in the future. The focus is on extrinsic rewards; thus the chapter, “Improving productivity: positive reinforcement” deals with the roles of money and career advancement, in addition to other non-financial rewards, as motivators.
The chapter “Improving productivity: the development of trust” considers the development of a trusting relationship between management and workers. When employees regard teamwork as a problem, management must take appropriate measures to establish a relationship of trust. Why and how this should be done are covered in this final chapter.
In summary, to ensure profitability in the future, the hospitality industry must improve its productivity. The responsibility for that task will fall heavily on the shoulders of management. Productivity can be increased by hiring people who have the potential to perform as desired. The layout and design of the physical facilities will determine to a great extent how much time employees can spend in productive activities—ones that increase output, minimize input, or both. Instituting techniques to simplify work can have the same effect. Once the employee knows how best to perform a particular task, improved scheduling can cut costs.
The major concern will be the motivation of the employee of the future. No amount of technical analysis and computer scheduling can overcome the key to the hospitality industry: the interaction between guest and employee. How can management ensure that guests are provided with the service they desire? Management must let the employees know what it stands for—the corporate culture. Differences between what management wants (culture) and what employees perceive (climate) can be resolved by letting employees know what is expected of them, redesigning jobs to cater to the increased expectations of employees, giving praise when it is justified, and creating an atmosphere of trust in which to work together. The result will be a more satisfied, more productive work force.
Implementation of the ideas and strategies contained in this book (see chart above) can enable management to meet the productivity challenge of the future.
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