Employee Satisfaction And Performance In Kitchen Environment

Research Questions

Discuss the employee satisfaction and performance in kitchen environment?

It can be said that Hotel industry is a type of service industry that depends a lot on the way ‘people’ would provide the services. An integral part of hotel industry is the kitchen industry. The kitchen would be responsible to manage all the food related ask. It is important that all the people working in the kitchen should be motivated and encouraged to help end customers (Demerouti, 2013). For hotel management, it is important to identify the ley drivers of employee satisfaction for employees. The chefs and workers would be able to work best only when they high level of job satisfaction that in turn depends on motivation level of employees. There are various factors that influence the employee satisfaction and performance in kitchen environment. These would include the direct factors like salary and rewards and this would include the indirect factors like infrastructure etc. The objective of this research is to discuss the factors responsible for employee satisfaction and performance in kitchen environment. The people working in the kitchen environment of any hotel would include people from various backgrounds. It would include the employees such as wait staff, the people with professional skills such as chefs, and managers who would be responsible to manage the operations of kitchen (Nelson, 2013). Hotel industry is the part of hospitality industry that is a multi-dollar billion industry in Australian subcontinent.

The objective of this research is to determine the employee satisfaction and performance drivers for employees working in kitchen environment. The specific research questions of this research project can be discussed as:

• To determine the employee satisfaction and performance of employees working in kitchen environment in hotel industry. It would include the employee with professional skills such as chefs and it would include the general role like wait staff.
• To determine the factors that can help managers to increase the productivity of employees working in kitchen environment in hotel industry. It would include the people or employee with niche skills such as chefs and it would include the general role like wait staff.

The aim of this research is to analyze the roles and responsibilities of employees in kitchen environment and then propose the factors that can keep these employees motivated. The research aim is to determine the productivity drivers that can increase the productivity and motivation of employees working in kitchen environment, these employees would be chefs and wait staff.

According to Heuvel & Bakker (2013), the key drivers of employee motivation for low-level employees like wait staff. It can be said that money is the main motivation for employees who have limited income. The wait staff people would typically have limited income. They can be motivated only when they are provided incentives to work extra. It is important that in an organizational setting people should be provided bonuses and incentives so that they remain motivated. It is also important that managers should be able to develop a system where motivation of the employees could be directly linked to the productivity of employees. The managers in an organizational setting should be able to develop a culture where employees can remain motivated.

According to Messersmith & Guthrie (2010), all the motivational theories have their roots in Maslow hierarchy of need theory. Maslow need hierarchy theory suggests that people who have different need levels and they should be motivated reach one level above. This theory reflects that motivational needs of people exists in different levels. The employees in an organizational setting could be motivated by addressing the needs in higher sections. It is important that employees should be given the value proposition of upper level needs. The people who works as the wait staff would usually be in the lower levels of Maslow need hierarchy. It is important that management should focus to address the lower level needs of these employees. The level needs such as basic need, food safety need and shelter needs could be satisfied with money only. Therefore, it can be said that money is at the core of employees who can be categorized as per the lower level hierarchy of Maslow.  

Research Aim

According to Jeppesen & Lakhani (2010) the motivational factors for employees who work in particular areas and that have professional skills. The motivational level of chefs would be different from other employees because they possess a specific skill set. Chefs are always in high demand in the industry and these people are always well paid off. Therefore, money is not the only motivation for these people. Hotel industry is a very diverse industry. The high-class hotels, 5 star hotels must provide excellent working conditions to these employees with professional skills. It is important that organizations should realize that employees are their biggest assets. The motivation level of employees could be directly linked to the productivity of employees.

According to Beeferman & Byrne (2013), one of the important ways to improve the motivational level is to provide freedom and independent to employees. It is important that employees should be able to think out of the box to develop innovation solutions. It is also important that the motivational level of employees should also be mapped with the innovation at work place. A highly motivate employees would be able to focus on innovation. In a way, it ca be said that innovation is the byproduct of motivation. In an organizational setting employees would be from diverse background. It is important that managers should be able to realize the motivation level of different employees. The motivation level of employees should also be mapped with the existing roles and responsibilities in the organization.

According to Frankland & Mitchell (2013), one of the differentiating factors for organizations in service-based industry like hotel industry is the role of employees. The employees would have a customer facing roles in service based industry. Therefore it is important that the motivation level of employees should remain high. In hotel industry, it is the wait-staff that would face customers. Therefore the high motivation level of employees could directly lead to high customer satisfaction. It is important that organizations should be able to link motivation to external benefits of organization as a whole. The motivation level of employees could not be directly controlled by organizations but managers can handle the motivation level of employees in an indirect manner.

According to D’Zurilla & Nezu, (2010), one of the important reward structure that could be used to increase the motivation level of employees is the performance based reward system. With performance based reward system, employees are motivated to perform high so that can be promoted in the organization. With performance based reward system the employees would work hard because their performance would depend on the value of their output. The reward system should be used not only by large corporations but also by small and mid-size organizations. It is important that organizations should be able to effective and efficient reward systems that can take all the employees together. The reward system in an organization should also be based on the expectations of all the stakeholders. The motivation levels of employees could be improved by taking direct feedback from employees. It is also important that organizations should realize that the motivation is directly linked to job satisfaction. Employees can have high employee satisfaction when they are motivated and committed towards their work.

Literature Review

This research work would be completed as a combination of both primary and secondary research. 50% of the research would be performed in primary manner and 50% of research would be done in secondary manner. The primary and secondary research for this research work can be highlighted as:

Primary research: it would means asking questions directly from the people who are working in the kitchen environment of hotels. To complete the primary research a questionnaire would be developed that would be sent as email to employees working in kitchen environment. There would be three questionnaire developed for three level of employees. These three questionnaire can be discussed as:

The first set of questions would be for managers and leaders. It would include hotel managers and owners of restaurant.

The second set of questions would be for chefs and kitchen managers.

The third set of questions would be for wait staff.

The goal of the primary research would be to collect data and information from the employees. The questions for this research would be mainly close ended in nature. It can be said that people would find it easy to answer the close ended questions as compared to open ended questions. The senior management would be asked certain open ended questions. The open-ended questions would be asked through focus group interviews. There would be in-depth interviews with managers, kitchen supervisor and chefs where the factors of motivation would be discussed.

Once the data is collected, the next part of the primary research would be to perform data analysis.  As part to analyze the data different statistical tools would be used to analyze the data. The data analysis would also include the use of SPPS and Microsoft excel. It is important that the data collected from research should be filtered down. The estimation would be done for the missing values to complete the data. The data could also be biased, therefore the biasness would also be removed and the missing values would have to be put. The primary research would include both quantitative and qualitative research. The qualitative research would include Focus group study. As a part of focus group, interviews would be conducted and group discussions would be arranged among different stakeholders. The qualitative study would also provide a large information of data and collection that could be used by researchers.

Secondary research: The secondary research for this research work would means the literature review. The secondary research would be done on Internet and online library. As a part of secondary research, peer reviewed journals would be referred. The secondary research would help researchers to validate the results from primary research (Gursoy, 2009). It is important that only reliable sources should be referred to as part of secondary research. The secondary research would be mainly qualitative in nature. The secondary research would not be concerned with the data and information. In fact, this research would be used to validate or nullify the initial hypothesis or the null hypothesis. The secondary research for this research work would focus to determine the main factors that influence employee satisfaction and performance. The secondary research would also focus to determine the key drivers of employee satisfaction and performance. The factor analysis would also be done to describe variability among observed and correlated variables.

Conclusion

The above research work would be done to determine the employee satisfaction and performance factors for employees working in kitchen environment. The participants who would take part in this research would include the employees who work in hotel industry. The survey would be conducted over the email. A small survey of only 10 questions would be developed for wait-staff. A detailed survey of 20 questions would be developed for chefs and managers. The questions in the survey of wait-staff would be all close ended in questions whereas 20% of the questions for survey of higher management would be open ended in nature. A sample size of 200 people would be considered. The close-ended questions would be asked with a Likert scale with five levels. A statement would be given and respondents would be asked to select one of the five levels. The five levels would be:

Leve1 1: Strongly disagree

Level 2: Disagree

Level 3: Neither disagree nor agree

Level 4: Agree

Level 5: Strongly agree

The literature review would be an integral part of the secondary research of this project. It is expected that researcher would follow the ethical guidelines to ensure that research can be conducted through ethical means only. The data and information collected form respondents should not be used for any other purposes. In addition, the personal data of employees should be kept confidential.

Phase	Expected Time
Introduction and Background	2 weeks
Aim, research question and research objectives	1 week
Literature review	4 weeks
Primary research and Data collection	3 weeks
Secondary research	3 weeks
Data Analysis	2 weeks
Reports and Presentation	1 week
Total	16 weeks or 4 months

References

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