Job Esteem Assessment of Front Office Employees of the Hospitality Industry

Abstract

Job-esteem is defined, as the level of respect and dignity an individual believes is associated with his/her job. A possible phenomenon hindering the success of the hospitality industry as it is the negative perception many service employees have of their jobs (Ghiselli,La Lopa,& Bai,2001). Many front line service employees often feel their work is insulting, demeaning and humiliating as they cater to the needs and sometimes demanding wants of customers. Hospitality industry employees are especially vulnerable to these feelings due to the nature of the services provided. Experts believed that this perception could cause poor service delivery, dislike for the guest, negative job attitude and high tumover rates. If employees do not take pride in their jobs or find dignity in what they do, they are more likely to leave the industry. Perhaps a greater concern occurs when employees with negative attitudes towards their jobs do not leave the industry but stay and provide the service. In this study the job esteem of the front office employees of the A- class hotels of Jammu region has been found through a structured instrument containing components of job esteem which is job specific esteem (i.e. Hospitality esteem, in this study), self esteem, Job satisfaction, job related anomie and work ethic. Job esteem is a dynamic phenomenon, which is interrelated to employee performance and the study makes suggestion, for the improvement of the performance of employees through interventions focused on the improvements related to the components of job esteem.