Sources Of Meaningfulness In The Workplace According To Hospitality Employees In One Hospitality Organization
Refereed Paper
Dimitrov, Danielle
Purpose Statement
The purpose of this paperis to explore the way hospitality employees from different national cultures in a US-based hotel perceive their workplace to be a meaningful workplace, based on Dimitrov’s (2009) empirical study about the features of the humane organization.
Background Information and Significance to the Field of HRD
The US workforce is already threatened by the phenomenon of the “unhappy worker”, as Kaye and Jordan-Evans (2007) testified that more and more HRD professionals feel this discontented presence. This is supported with statistics from Gallup’s Management Journal’s Employee Engagement Index pointing out that 54% of US workers are not engaged and 17% are actively disengaged in their workplaces. Kaye and Jordan-Evans (2007) expressed themselves very articulately when stating the problem in today’s organizations: “Many unhappy workers leave the workplace and assuming they are talented contributors, their departure costs money—big money. But other unhappy workers quit and stay, leaving half their heads and hearts at home” (p. 3).
Thus, the issue of how more and more difficult it becomes for organizations to select, retain, motivate, and develop highly competent and qualified professionals, is very relevant to the field of HRD. As Gayle (1997) confirmed, simply using a monetary incentive approach is insufficient. In a quick historic review of the need for motivation and satisfaction of employees, one can see the progression from addressing material needs (monetary rewards) to focusing on more intrinsic motivators (respect, achievement, flexibility, work-life balance, and meaningful workplace) that represent a higher-level contemporary needs corresponding to Maslow’s (1970) self-actualization needs. The future belongs to companies like Patagonia (Casey, 2007), described in Fortune, whose management is not influenced by the market pressure for achieving greater profit, but maintains its soul by being a human-friendly and environmentally conscious organization. This line of thoughts, following the ideas of motivation and content theories (Alderfer, 1972; Herzberg, 1968; Herzberg et al., 1959; Maslow, 1970; McGregor, 1960; McClelland, 1953; Rogers, 1959, 1961; Vroom, 1964),directs the search for meaningfulness in life and in the workplace. It also follows that by finding what is meaningful and humane in the workplace, according to hospitality management employees, Dimitrov’s (2009) study made a concrete positive impact on the human resources development research and practices for motivation, engagement, and development of employees through various non-monetary venues. The field of hospitality was selected as the background for the study because of its historical lack of research in the area of meaning of work and its association with employee exploitation and lack of family friendliness (Brownell, 1998;Mulvaney, O’Neill, Cleveland, & Crouter , 2007).
The sources of meaningfulness in the workplace are also relevant to the field of HRD because the organization today is the main home of the working individual. This is measured, not only by the time one spends at work, but also by the enormous significance of work for the identity formation and maintenance of the contemporary person (Turner, 2005). Thus, it is logical for people to aspire toward making their new home a comfortable place where they can find support, meaning, peace, and personal fulfillment. The quest for a humane (Chalofsky, 2008; Chalofsky et al., 2003; Dimitrov, 2009) and meaningful workplace (Chalofsky, 2003) is a frequently discussed topic in the era of human resources development (Gayle, 1997; Turner, 2005), a field whose purpose “is to develop human capabilities in the workforce and society” (Cseh, 2006). Dimitrov’s (2009) case study began filling in the existing gap in the body of knowledge about the humane organization through understanding of what a meaningful workplace is in one hospitality organization.
Furthermore, there is an existing misalignment between employees’ expectations toward their organizations and the organizational reality imposed by the actual economic, technological, social, emotional, and spiritual environment. As a result, organizations need to act strategically to revisit existing organizational beliefs, policies, and practices regarding the climate in which employees from different national cultures work. From the results of Dimitrov’s (2009) case study, as well as the discussion in this paper, employees will gain information to be better equipped to understand and tolerate each other’s values, whereas practitioners will know what triggers and what inspires the work-related needs and the value system of America’s culturally-diverse workforce. By creating meaningful conditions for work, organizations, not only in the hospitality industry but in other fields as well, will decrease employee turnover, enhance employee work-life satisfaction, and obtain competitive market advantage though customer loyalty.
Conceptual Framework
As a basis of its conceptual framework, the study used the concepts mentioned below, their relevant literature, and the empirical studies associated with them (Dimitrov, 2009).
Meaning
In his book Flow, Csikszentmihalyi (1990) thought that a good reason for living is the happiness of human beings, or rather that happiness is a good measure for a life well lived and meaningfulness. This is what the author called creating of meaning—to bring order in the significance of things (the contents of the mind) and to have purpose. As a result, “unless a person takes charge of them, both work and free time, are likely to be disappointing” (p. 163). Dimitrov (2009) also used the concept of spirituality to describe a person’s sense of meaning: “Genuine spirituality, then, is the willingness to enter into a process of dialogue about meaning” (Vaill, 1996, p. 180).
Meaning of Work/Meaningful Work
Dimitrov’s (2009) studyconcurred with the definition of meaning at work or meaningful work that Chalofsky (2003) gave: “It is the way we express the meaning and purpose of our lives through the activities (work) that comprise most of our working hours” (p. 73). Furthermore, the model of “integrated wholeness” that Chalofsky (2003) introduced represents the meaning of work as an equation between the sense of self (what one brings to his workplace), the work itself (includes challenge, creativity, learning, continuous growth, purpose, autonomy, and empowerment), and the sense of balance (balance between work and self, balance between self and others). Thus, the conclusion of the author was that,
Meaning of work is not just about the meaning of the paid work we perform; it is about the way we live our lives. It is the alignment of purpose, values, and the relationships and activities we pursue in life.… It is about integrated wholeness. (p. 80)
Meaningful Workplace
The meaningful workplace was considered the ideal collection of characteristics that makes a working individual feel happy, content, and fulfilled. Chalofsky’s (2003) definition was adopted: “Meaning at work implies a relationship between the person and the organization or the workplace, in terms of commitment, loyalty, and dedication” (p. 73). Hence, for the purposes of the study (Dimitrov, 2009), a meaningful workplace was considered the organization or the place of work where one is enabled, encouraged, and supported to achieve the state of integrated wholeness (i.e., meaningful work).
Humane Workplace and Humane Organization
A humane organization is an employee-friendly organization that provides a meaningful workplace to its employees by cherishing the human in the center of its value system, policies, and programs (Dimitrov, 2009). Dimitrov’s (2009) study also refered to the concept of the humane organization (Chalofsky, 2008), as well as to Chalofsky et al.’s (2003) perspectives concerning the concept of the humane workplace: critical feminist theory, ethics, integrity and social responsibility, radical humanism, democracy, as well as organizational and humanistic leadership perspectives. As defined by Chalofsky (2008), a humane organization is a workplace living a value-based culture, caring about employees, caring about the organizational mission, and committed to work, play, and community involvement. In addition, a humane organization has a service-oriented culture and tailors to the specific individual needs of employees (treating employees as human beings with their own personal values, goals, and needs) like in the case of the studied hospitality organization (Dimitrov, 2009).
Meaning of Work (MOW) Project
The MOW International Research Team (1987) recognized meaning of working as the proper terminology, revealing “not so much the philosophical significance of work, but rather the psychological meaning – the significance, beliefs, definitions, and the value which individuals and groups attach to working as a major stream of human activity that occurs over much of their lives” (p. 13).
The MOW International Research (1987) created a heuristic model of the MOW concept based on the internal organizational, external environmental, as well as individual experiential aspects of the work-and-life context. The type of empirical study was a cross-sectional survey that measured the variables and patterns of working at the individual and national level in all participating countries (USA, Israel, Germany, Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Britain, Japan, and Belgium). Literature from all of these countries was reviewed to avoid ethnocentric biases and to ensure the genuine differences of the cross-cultural effect. The three levels of the model include: conditional variables (personal and family situation, present job and career history, and macro socioeconomic environment); central MOW variables (work centrality with its value and decision-orientation components, societal norms of obligation and entitlement about working, valued working outcomes, importance of work goals, and work-role identification); and consequences (subjective expectations and objective outcomes of working).
National Culture
In Dimitrov’s study from 2009, as well as in this paper, cultural diversity was viewed from the perspective of the demographic criterion—national cultural origin and upbringing that results in a distinctive value system and varied multicultural perspectives. The studywas informed by the evidence in the works of Hofstede (1980a, 1980b, 1997), Triandis (2000), and Trompennars and Hamptden-Turner (1998) that people from different national backgrounds interpret their surroundings differently, and thus might perceive their organization as possessing (or not) the necessary features of a humane organization. The study considered participants from American and other cultural backgrounds (Dimitrov, 2009) on account of the nature of the hospitality industry to serve people from various cultural backgrounds through other people (employees) from different national cultures. Cultures from the following nationalities were considered collectivistic: East Asia, Africa, South America, Northern Africa, and Southern Europe; whereas cultures from the United States, Western, and Central Europe were considered individualistic (Hofstede 1980a, 1980b)
The Context: Hospitality
This paper was based on Dimitrov’s(2009) study, which adopted Brownell (1998) and Mulvaney et al.’s (2007) description of the main characteristics of the workforce conditions in the hospitality industry.These descriptions, of the type of industry, supported the need to employ a review of the sources of meaningfulness atthe workplace in the hospitality sector. Hospitality is an industry of serving people away from their homes, which involves intense emotional labor available around the clock every day of the week. It is a 24/7 industry, as often described in the professional literature. Traditionally, this is a service line of work involving the following aspects: a culturally diverse workforce whose advancement aspirations in the business are a guarantee for work-life imbalance; face hours of work in front of the client that prevent concern with personal emotions; stress and uncertainty; the unfriendly management style often displayed in the industry with the purpose of increasing organizational profits at the expense of various human needs, the quality of worklife, and the employee morale (Brownell, 1998; Dermody & Holloway, 1998; Mulvaney et al., 2007; Presser, 2000; Stalcup & Pearson, 2001; Thompson, Beauvais, & Lyness, 1999). Hochschild’s (1983) discussion of emotional management in the service industries is used as a cornerstone in the sense that emotional labor is wrapping emotions in a gift form for social exchange (service for payment). The involvement of organizations in this process, through manuals and policies, converts individual emotions into organizational standards. The objective for the hospitality industry today is to prevent the damages from emotional labor and to bring out the employees’ true selves at work—encouraging people who are genuinely happy and display real feelings to the client. The model of work-family dynamics (Mulvaney et al., 2007) served asDimitrov’s (2009) and this paper’s guidelines of the hospitality industry’s context, processes and moderators, individual and company outcomes, and organizational responses in the search of sources of meaningfulness.
Methodology Summary
Dimitrov’s (2009) exploratory research employed a single embedded case study in order to pursue answers to the purpose mentioned earlier – finding the sources of meaningfulness at the workplace in the perceptions of hospitality employees. To achieve this purpose, the process of data gathering involved personal statements, interviews, complete observations, and document analysis (Merriam, 1998). The method of single embedded case study was deemed proper,as per Yin (2002), on account of the uniqueness of the chosen organization – a combination of culturally diverse workforce and a good reputation for its HRD practices.
The organizational context of this research was a hospitality organization with a various representation of national cultures and a good reputation for its human resources management practices. The targeted population consisted of management, supervisory, and professional line-level employees from a full-service brand-name hotel in a major metropolitan area on the East Coast of the United States. From a total of 350 associates in the chosen hotel, of which 40 were management, supervisory, and professional line-level employees, a purposeful convenience sampling was conducted on the basis of the following criteria: a minimum of six months employment at the full-service hotel selected as a location of the study, fluency in the English language, and representation of different national backgrounds (Appendix A). The sample consisted of 17 participants. All participants were interviewed and 14 of them submitted written reflections regarding their understanding of what meaningful work is and how they have experienced it in their work lives. The studied hotel’s human resources policies, guidelines, associate satisfaction surveys, and future action plans of the HR department were reviewed as well.
The interviews in Dimitrov’s (2009) study were semi-structured and consisted of open-ended questions (Appendix B). Their length was between one and two hours. They were conducted in person by the researcher, recorded, and transcribed in detail. Data was coded using open and theoretical codes (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Dimitrov (2009) used content and constant comparative analysis in order to link the emerging themes (Krippendorff, 2004; Merriam, 1998). Trustworthiness was achieved through triangulation of data sources, member check, audit trail, and reflective memos as recommended by Creswell (2003), Merriam (1998), and Yin (2002).
Summary of Findings
In the search of perceptions of hospitality employees from different national cultures about the humane organization and the sources of meaningfulness, Dimitrov (2009) interviewed 17 hospitality employees from different management levels and administrative positions as well as from different cultural backgrounds. Five themes emerged from the aggregation of all data (Appendix C). This paper concentrates on one of these themes - Sources of Meaningfulness - on account of the indicated purpose to locate specific sources of meaningfulness in the workplace according to the participating hospitality employees with different cultural backgrounds. The theme consisted of four sub-themes thatrevealed the following sixfindings concerning the sources of meaningfulness in this hospitality workplace (Dimitrov, 2009):1) Humane Organizations (HO) treat people in a unique and personal way;2) HOs take care of all needs of the employee;3) There must be a balance between valuing the human being and achieving the organizational goals;4) Meaningfulness of the workplace comes from the level of enjoyment of work and from pride with the product; 5) Meaning comes from the friendliness of the social environment created at the workplace; and 6) Self-expression is important for the meaningfulness of the workplace.
Sources of Meaningfulness in the Workplace
The chosen theme – Sources of Meaningfulness consisted of the following sub-themes of data: 1) The first one was listing work itself and participants’ attitudes to work in the studied organization as a source of meaningfulness, as well as employees’ pride from the products and services of the hotel that contributed to the found meaning; 2) The second sub-theme revealed the meaningfulness of the workplace expressed in the social environment;3) The third sub-theme discussed the self and people’s spiritual experiences at work; 4) The forth discussion under the umbrella of the chosen theme revealed the features of the humane organization as seen by the participants in the study (Dimitrov, 2009).
Sub-theme 1: Meaning From Work Itself and Pride in the Product
This sub-theme of Theme Five disclosed information regarding meaning and significance coming from work itself as well as pride in belonging to the hotel and in being a part of the competitive product. All participants expressed agreement that the meaningful workplace is one where people love to perform their work activity and follow their life calling. All participants, regardless of cultural background, also expressed satisfaction and appreciation of the product they were working to create in this organization. They were proud and happy to belong to the best hotel in town.
Jocelyn Marie spoke for all participants in Dimitrov’s(2009) studyby expressing her attitude of happiness to help people and make a difference in their lives: “You can say it’s happiness, it’s satisfaction, feeling that I am making a difference. I know I take care of people in my own way. You can not duplicate that.” Similarly, just as Trixie advised, “you should like what you do because life is too short to be miserable at work”, Ralph viewed work and its responsibilities as synonymous to enjoyment. Veronique recommended a grateful attitude and mind-renewal for the meaning of the word work. She treated work not as an obligation, but a blessing of occupation:
If you use the terminology “work,” work is exaggerated. It sounds like something that has to be done. When you think of work as a gift you follow your gift throughout your carrier life and you don’t fight against what has been placed upon your heart or within you, on your mind as a talent, a God given talent. And you follow that natural thing within you and you will have a very meaningful life. If you don’t follow that talent, if you follow work just because someone indicated to you that this is something you should be doing or this is what you are going to be doing.