Examining the Morale Issues among Hotel Personnel
Dr. AbdulAziz Alshahwan
Abstract: Today's business world is looking for all angles to
shape and to promote the quality of their products and services.
Personnel development is a major theme all organizations take into
consideration in the modern era.
This study reports on the
importance of high personnel morale to the quality of work they
do. This qualitative study involved interviews of four personnel in
a small hotel. Data were analyzed using the constant comparative
method. Based on the theoretical discussion and the conclusion of
this study, there was strong evidence of the relationship between
high morale of personnel and the quality of their work.
The
conclusion of this study supports the theoretical discussion that
there is a correlation between high personnel morale and work
quality.
Introduction
People's morale is one of the hardest things to measure and
evaluate in human behavior. Webster's Dictionary defines morale
as the "mental condition with respect to courage, discipline,
confidence, enthusiasm, willingness to endure hardship, etc. within
a group, in relation to a group, or within an individual." Morale is
also defined "as a state of individual psychological well-being
based on such factors as a sense of purpose and confidence in the
future" (Hacker, 1997). Morale has been looked at as the attitude
and response to any given work conditions that influence the
behavior of the individuals (Kanter, 1977), and high morale is seen
when an individual shows determination to do the best under any
given circumstance (Baynes, 1967).
In the work place, is morale strongly connected to the
productivity of individuals? Some of today's business leaders warn
of the high cost of low morale among employees (Hacker, 1997).
Therefore, businesses and big corporations are reaching out to their
employees through training and seminars to ensure high morale
among them. Others argue that good morale doesn't always lead to
positive motivation and positive motivation doesn't always lead to
high productivity (Connolly & Connolly, 1991).
The focus of this study was to find out if there is a correlation
between personnel morale and the qualities of employee
productivity. The study was conducted in an eastern Washington
1
hotel.
Themes of empowerment, self-efficacy, communication,
and trust were used to discover the influence of high personnel
morale on the quality of their work. Theoretical works such as the
cognitive theory and self-efficacy theory were utilized to help
determine if there is such a relationship.
After careful review of the data collected through observation
and employee interviews, the researcher chose to focus on
personnel morale by using coding methods (Strauss & Corbin,
1990). It was concluded that it would be worthwhile to investigate
and analyze the issue of personnel morale to see its influence on
employee work quality.
Research Methodology and Design
A qualitative study was chosen to answer the question of how
morale can influence personnel attitude at the work place because
morale can't be measured, identified, or calculated in numbers or
by any other means of measurement.
This study was carried out in a hotel lobby where data was
collected through observation and interviews of hotel personnel.
Four interviews were conducted with the general manager, two
front desk staff members, and a maintenance staff person.
addition, four observation sessions were carried out.
In
The
interviews were tape-recorded and notes were taken during the
observation sessions. Upon selection of the site, the researcher
2
first introduced himself to the general manager of the organization.
After a verbal agreement was made, the researcher brought
consent forms to be signed by the Manager and all personnel that
were interviewed.
The determination of personnel to be interviewed was based
on their degree of interaction with the hotel guests. Four sessions
of observations spanning one hour to one hour and a half were
conducted.
The four personnel interviews ranged from thirty
minutes to a hour and a half for each session. The staffs were
asked questions about their personal experiences working at the
hotel as well as their views on how to improve work quality. They
were also asked about their work and their impressions about the
hotel industry and the hotel location. The observation sessions
were mostly based on observing the site, the hotel personnel
movement, and employee interaction with each other and with the
hotel guests. The interviews were recorded, then transcribed and
coded to focus the study on the issue of personnel morale.
Constant comparative method was used as a base model to help
formulate and shape the study focus (Bogdan & Biklen, 1998). It
began with collecting data and looking for recurring themes or
issues, then conducting interviews that asked questions focusing on
the inquiries of the study.
3
Limitation of Design
Since the time of the study was limited, it was not possible to
conduct more than four interviews or observations. Therefore, the
data collection for this study was limited in both time and scope.
The availability of the hotel staff was another limitation. Since the
employees gave most of their time to their work, they were only
available for interviews in their free time. The hotel were research
was conducted had twenty-one employees, with rotation shifts and
different scheduling.
There were only four staff members
interviewed: the general manager, two desk clerks (one on day
shift and the other on evening shift), and a maintenance person
who worked both day and evening shifts. Therefore, the sample
design might be seen as limited. Further, the study was limited in
its scope because it didn't look at other important issues such as the
gender, age, and work experience of each individual. A major
study limitation was that the employees interviewed, including the
general manager, were relatively new to the profession.
4
Data Collection
Observation notes did not produce the type of data the
researcher desired; therefore, most of the data used in this study
was taken from employee interviews. Four observation sessions
were recorded that described the site, the hotel lobby, and the
activities in the lobby, including interactions among employees as
well as between employees and hotel guests. Interviews were taperecorded, then transcribed and coded.
Both observations and
interviews lasted for one hour to an hour and a half. Interview
questions focused on the following:
* Work communications among the employees
* Each employee's experiences in relation to the work as a
whole, including the weaknesses and strengths they had observed
since they started working
* Staff interaction with the guests, staff impressions about the
hotel business in general, as well as what the employees thought
about the hotel location and its importance
Ethical issues were made clear to all participants by
introducing a written informed consent to explain to the subjects
what the researcher intended to do in the study. All participants
were assured of confidentiality of any information obtained. They
were given an explanation before the interview about the nature of
the study and what it intended to accomplish.
5
The Researcher as Instrument
When the researcher was conducting the interviews he
worked as an instrument, especially when asking follow-up
questions or choosing what question to ask first and organizing the
questions in a different order from one interview to another. This
was based on the direction of the interview, which in its totality
served the purpose of the study.
Descriptive Narrative
The hotel lobby where the study was conducted was a typical
hotel. Since it was summer season, the lobby was quite active with
guests checking in and some checking out. The lobby was larger
than most hotels and had a service counter with coffee and hot
water thermoses. The lobby had a large-sized television set and a
few tables and chairs as well as a large sofa. At 10:00 AM on a
warm June day there were two desk clerks rushing to help hotel
guests checking in and out.
All the hotel employees that were interviewed were relatively
new to the profession. The general manager (G) appeared to be in
his mid thirties. He has a degree in engineering and for the last six
years had worked on designing a power plant. He had very little
previous customer service experience and had been working at the
hotel for a year. One of the desk clerks interviewed (N) was also
relatively new to the job, having worked at the hotel for only six
6
months. He was in his third year in college, and he made it clear
that he viewed this as just a temporary job. The other desk clerk
(E) was a school teacher in her twenties who had only been
working at the hotel for three months; she was working there only
for the summer.
The last staff person (J) interviewed was a
nineteen or twenty year old working in maintenance and as a bell
boy. He had been worked in the hotel for two months, but he
indicated this was only a summer job because he was a mechanic
and plans to go to engineering school to be an airplane engineer.
In this section of this report the recurring themes will be
presented based on the coding that was done on the interviews. A
number of themes determined by the researcher to be connected to
personnel morale were found to be important in advancing the
quality of employee work. These themes are empowerment, selfefficacy, communication, and trust.
Empowerment is the
cornerstone for the general manager's approach to improve the
quality of hotel personnel. As G pointed out:
Since I am relatively new to this, I take a much different
philosophy than my predecessor. He likes to train people to
do a job and put the blinders on them and do that one job
very well.
My philosophy is everybody should know
everybody's job and you empower people, and in that way it
empowers you to take off and now have peace of mind. You
know that the hotel is going to be run the way you want it to
7
be run because the people you trusted with your property are
doing a good job.
The
general
manager
adapted
his
own
system
of
communication among staff by asking each one to write a note for
his fellow workers to update each other on work-related matters.
His style of management was to focus not only on the individual
staff
efficiency
but
also
on
across-the-board
efficiency.
Furthermore, he argued that empowerment has a positive influence
on personnel morale and hence the quality of work they do:
My new thing is we've been training people for a week, and
then on a monthly basis we hold staff training where I take
everybody together and we talk about efficiency—not like
individual's efficiency, but like across the board these are the
mistakes I have seen. These, how we can avoid these? How
can we fix these things?
And I notice morale going up
because people were impressed to do things they weren't
normally empowered to do—more job satisfaction, better
guest satisfaction.
He gives an example of self-efficiency when he painted the
swimming pool by himself to control costs to the hotel owner:
8
Usually I found a cheaper way to do that. For example, I
sand blasted the entire pool myself and I painted the pool
myself with this cost to paint. Am I qualified to do this job?
Yes. Is that a job most other hotels would've farmed out?
Yeah. I mean, big mess, big pain kind of. You know, it took
me more time because there is only one of me, so downtime
for the pool was greater. You know, it took longer to get it
back up. Guest satisfaction went down a little bit.
One of the staff talked about the line of communication
among staff and the needs for improvement in order to boost staff
moral.
He recommended face-to-face interactions among staff
instead of communication through notes to each other. However,
another staff member thought it was a good idea to have such a
system of writing notes to each other as a form of communication.
When asked communication among coworkers and how staff view
it, N stated:
I think it's just a lack of communication between each other
sometimes. Like if you got a problem with someone, they
just leave you a note or something instead of talking to you in
your face. Instead of leaving nasty little note for someone, I
think our whole employee morale will be a lot better if you
9
just went and talked to him instead of just assuming it was
them or leaving a little nasty note.
E- Gave his opinion about how important the line of
communication is:
It is getting better. It was very informal before. It is getting
better; there is more of it. It is still informal. We just write a
note on a piece of paper, tape it to the desk, but it is getting
better because there is more communication, you know.
If there is a problem that happened at night and they leave us
a note so in the morning so we can fix it, it's better than if the
problem happened, no note, we don't know about it, guest is
mad, that kind of thing.
In regard to staff attitude, they believe that working with a
positive attitude always brings out the best in people and that
taking the extra effort to be more friendly with the guests is always
the way to succeed in the hotel business. It was suggested that
guests be called by their first name, that their concerns and needs
be attended to, and that they have a pleasant stay in the hotel be so
they'll come back again. The staff agreed that many people are
there for only a short stay, perhaps for a visit to the veterinarian
hospital or for some function related to the university. Therefore,
10
making the guests feel at home in the hotel while they are visiting
will ensure that they return to the hotel on their next visit.
Analytic Framework
Individual morale in the work place is strongly connected to
self-efficacy and self-esteem. Many studies find out that there is a
correlation between self-efficacy and personnel success, not only
on the individual level but also on the organizational level as well
(Kilmann & Kilmann, 1994).
Therefore, in their development
planning organizations are taking into consideration the issues of
self-efficacy and self-esteem.
Many organizations find that
orientation is a morale booster, especially for new employees.
Research has determined that individuals with negative perceptions
of an organization will lead new personnel to look for another job
(Hacker, 1997).
Cognitive theory defined self-efficacy as the point where
behavior, personnel factors, and environmental events interact to
influence each other (Wood & Bandura, 1989).
Self-efficacy
developed from five sources of information: mastery, experiences,
vicarious experience, social persuasion, and physiological and
emotional arousal (Bandura, 1977).
Experience is the most
important base to have for employees to have a strong self-efficacy
because it gives them the chance to enhance their ability to perform
a specific task (Kilmann & Kilmann, 1994). On the organizational
11
level, Kilmann and Kilmann argue that individuals are the ultimate
driving forces:
Organizational change is ultimately driven by individual
change. People are the key to success. Satisfied employees
keep satisfied customers.
As technology becomes the
common ground for all players, it is people that make the
final differences between success and failure in the
marketplace. . . . Corporate change
Should focus on how employees think about themselves in
relation to their jobs, their organization, and their fellow
employees; how they define their roles in the organization;
and how they define success.
Morale is a reflection of all our judgments and actions on
both the organizational and individual levels as well as the society
as a whole. All organizations are striving to produce the best
quality product they can to serve their clients best and gain more
clients. The question that can be asked here is what is the source of
good morale? It can be argued that human nature can reach closer
to its destiny when success and goals are reached and achieved.
Self-efficacy is one way to reach personal success and goals
(Kilmann & Kilmann, 1994). Cognitive theory (Wood & Bandura,
1989) puts more emphasis on personal experiences for an
12
employee to have a strong self-efficacy to succeed and believes
that productivity of individuals is strongly tied to success. But
does personnel morale have positive effects on productivity?
Connolly and Connolly (1991) argue this is not necessary the case:
Employees who are highly achievement-oriented feel success
in reaching the business objective.
To them, this is
satisfying, and hence, linked to morale. . . . The bottom line is
this:
Satisfied employees are not always effective and
effective employees are not always satisfied. Morale is thus
not a sure road to improved productivity. While positive
morale makes management easier, it is not directly linked to
effective performance.
This study, as we shall see, enforces the argument that successful
employees are satisfied, have high morale, and hence produce
quality work.
Interpretive Analysis
In observing the hotel personnel, a researcher can only
speculate about the many issues that might be confronting the two
clerks as they try to do the best job possible.
Will having a
positive morale influence those personnel quality of work they do?
From the theoretical discussion above we found out that there is a
relation between self-efficacy and individual success (Kilmann &
13
Kilmann, 1994). Cognitive theory put more emphasis on personal
experiences for an employee to have a strong self-efficacy and
believes that productivity of the individual is strongly tied to
success (Wood & Bandura, 1989).
By examining the common themes (empowerment, selfefficacy, communication, and trust) coded from the interviews in
this study, we shall see the importance of high morale of hotel
personnel to the quality of work they do. The general manager, G,
discusses the empowerment issue:
My philosophy is everybody should know everybody's job
and you empower people, and in that way it empowers you to
take off and now have peace of mind. You know that the
hotel is going to be run the way you want it to be run because
the people you trusted with your property are doing a good
job.
In other words, he is saying that empowering his staff not
only brings positive attitudes from personnel but also will bring up
their quality of work. In this next segment he made it clear that
empowerment does influence personnel and hence led to high
morale and better work quality:
. . . but like across the board these are the mistakes I have
seen. These, how we can avoid these? How can we fix these
things? And I notice morale going up because people were
14
impressed to do things they weren't normally empowered to
do—more job satisfaction, better guest satisfaction.
Self-efficacy was the second theme the general manager
discusses. He showed how it influenced his behavior—not only
his morale, but also the quality of work he did.
Usually I found a cheaper way to do that. For example, I
sand blasted the entire pool myself and I painted the pool
myself with this cost to paint. Am I qualified to do this job?
Yes. Is that a job most other hotels would've farmed out?
Yeah. I mean, big mess, big pain kind of. You know, it took
me more time because there is only one of me, so downtime
for the pool was greater. You know, it took longer to get it
back up. Guest satisfaction went down a little bit.
He felt good about painting the pool by himself in spite of it not
being a one-person job, but he did it to control the cost and to
promote self-efficacy. When he was telling the story of doing that
job, it can be noticed that he felt upbeat working on the pool by
himself, as if his morale went up. Therefore, it can be argued that
self-efficacy led to higher morale and hence improved the quality
of work he did.
The third theme was the communication and trust issues
between employees.
With the desk clerk (N) the line of
15
communication and trust issues among employee was significant in
influencing the morale level. He stated:
I think it's just a lack of communication between each other
sometimes. Like if you got a problem with someone, they
just leave you a note or something instead of talking to you in
your face. Instead of leaving nasty little note for someone, I
think our whole employee morale will be a lot better if you
just went and talked to him instead of just assuming it was
them or leaving a little nasty note.
Another staff member (E) also agreed with the first desk
clerk, as she pointed out in her statement how important improving
the line of communication was not only to personnel morale, but
also to the quality of their work:
It is getting better. It was very informal before. It is getting
better; there is more of it. It is still informal. We just write a
note on a piece of paper, tape it to the desk, but it is getting
better because there is more communication, you know.
If there is a problem that happened at night and they leave us
a note so in the morning so we can fix it, it's better than if the
problem happened, no note, we don't know about it, guest is
mad, that kind of thing.
16
She believed that when there was clear communication among the
employees the work from one shift to another was much improved
and the quality of work improved as well.
Therefore, this study determined that there was a relationship
between employee morale and the issues of empowerment, selfefficacy, communication, and trust.
A common argument was
found as a result of analyzing these themes which enforced the
assumption of this study that high morale did influence the quality
of work among personnel.
Grounded Theory
Morale is a reflection of an individual's attitude, and in this
study personnel morale was found to be critical to their work.
Furthermore, it was determined that morale influences the quality
of an employee's work. In cognitive theory (Wood & Bandura,
1989) self-efficacy is strongly tied to success and individual
success is strongly tied to productivity and employee work quality.
Therefore, satisfied employees keep satisfied customers (Kilmann
& Kilmann, 1994). Another study found that improving work
conditions led to a positive influence on personnel morale
(Johnsrud, Heck, & Rosser, 2000). Therefore, employees with
high morale will produce high quality work, findings which this
study projects to be true. When the issues of empowerment, selfefficacy, communication, and trust were discussed in detail with
17
the hotel personnel, each issue was found to reflect on the study
question whether or not morale influences the quality of work.
When the lines of communication and trust were improved among
the employees of the hotel, morale went up and hence the quality
of work did too. The same was true with self-efficacy. It did result
in higher morale and improvement of the quality of work done by
the manager. Empowerment was also found to positively influence
all the personnel morale, which reflected on their work quality as
well.
18
References
 Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory
of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84: 191-215.
 Baynes, J. (1967). Morale: A study of men and courage.
New York: Prager.
 Bogdan, R. C., & Biklen, S. K. (1998). Qualitative research
for education: An introduction to theory and methods. Allyn
and Bacon.
 Connolly, G. K., & Connolly, M. P. (1991). Competing for
employees: Proven Marketing strategies for hiring and
keeping exceptional people. Lexington Books.
 Eisenberg, N., Reykowski, J., & Staub, E. (1989). Social and
moral value: Individual and societal perspectives. Hillsdale,
NJ.
 Haker, A. C. (1997). The high cost of low morale. CRC
Press.
 Johnsrud, L. K., Heck, R. H., & Rosser, V. J. (2000). The
Journal of Higher Education (Jan/Feb).
 Kanter, R. M. (1977). Men and women of the corporation.
New York: Basic Books.
19
 Kilmann, R. H., Kilmann, I., & Associates. (1994).
Managing ego energy: The transformation of personnel
meaning into organizational success. San Francisco: JosseyBass Publishers.
 Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990).
Basics of qualitative
research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques.
Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
 Wood, R., & Bandura, A.. (1989). Social cognitive theory of
organizational management. Academy of Management
Review, 14: 360-384.
20
Appendix A
Copies of Informed Consent letters
Dear ___________________
You have been asked to provide information to me as a part
of my class project. The information will be gathered through
interviews and/or observations of your staff and guests in the
Quality Inn hotel. This project is part of graduate training in the
use of observations and interview methods.
Your right to
confidentiality will be honored. Neither you nor the hotel in which
you work will ever be identified or associated in any way with the
information provided. The information will only be used as a
vehicle for training, and only my instructor will have access to the
results. Therefore, participating in this project poses no risk to you
other than taking your time, for which I am grateful, Your
participation is entirely voluntary, and you may withdraw at any
time.
(Signed)____________________
21
Appendix B
Research Schedule
June 20, 2000
9:00 AM to 10:30 AM
First observation was conducted of the hotel lobby, the site, and
the hotel personnel.
June 22, 2000
10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
First interview was conducted with the general manager.
June 28, 2000
7:30 PM to 8:30PM
An interview was conducted with the first desk clerk and a set of
questions was asked about his work and his interaction with his
coworkers and hotel guests.
June 29, 2000
8:00 PM to 9:00 PM
An observation of the site, hotel guests, and personnel was
conducted.
22
June 30, 2000
2:30 PM to 3:30 PM
Conducted
interview
with
staff
member,
focusing
on
communication line between staff.
June 30, 2000
8:30 PM to 9:30PM
Observed guests and movement in the lobby.
July 5, 2000
2:30 PM to 3:30 PM
Observed the hotel lobby personnel and interaction with guests.
July 5, 2000
8:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Interviewed staff member and discussed his interaction with other
staff and guests.
23
Appendix C
Interview Guide
Interview 1: General Manager (G)
Q. What is the primary function, G, for this hotel in your view as
a general manager?
Q: How many people work here in this hotel under your
supervision? And how many rooms in this hotel?
Q. When is it busy or not? What is the season usually?
Q: You said 21 employees that work with you.
relationship between the employees?
How is the
Do they have like
special training or orientations or requirements?
Q: What about experience and training? Do you require degrees?
Q: Basically, G, the culture of the hotel—how you describe it.
How do you see it?
Q: Based on your experiences, what is the thing needs to be
improved or fixed or something that can be build on or
developed?
Q: And the lineup between the coworkers. You said mostly trust
and morale is the basic argument there?
Q: What about the location of the hotel?
Q: What is your take on the industry itself?
Q: You said you have a lot of turnover of personnel. Do most of
them—or what do you think is the percentage of them that
continue in this line of business?
24
Interview 2: Front Disk Clerk (N)
Q: What do you think is your primary function? What do you do
exactly?
Q: What do you think are your objectives as you work?
Q: Those are the two important keys? What is your relation with
other workers?
Q: How about guest wise? What do you think are the issues?
Q: Do you think that is something you will build on as a career or
just a temporary thing you do?
Q: What are the key issues you think that face you when you work
that could be bad or good? What you can touch on?
Q: What about the people's morale you work with—their
individuality, the guests, what kind of crowd?
Q: If you want to improve this place based on your experience,
what would you change?
Q: Is there any weakness you notice? Any weakness in the
employees or anything?
Q: What is the most complaint you get from the customers,
probably like from your guests?
Q: What about your coworkers? What is the most thing they
complain about, both positive and negative?
Q: Is trust an issue between the employees, you think?
Q: Aside of the money issues, then the trust, the morale, the
accepting of other person, the communication?
Q: Where do you see the hotel industry going?
Q: Do you think the location here is important for this hotel?
25
Interview 3: Front Disk Clerk (E)
Q: What do you think of hotel business in general? What is your
view? Is it something improving? Is it something productive?
Do you think it is something you will get into?
Q: What do you observe most about your guests here? Positive
attitude or negative attitude?
Q: What do you think of people's morale working here?
Q: What about your relation with your friends at work? What do
you call it? Is it positive?
Q: Verbally or just leave a note?
Q: What do you think about the location of the hotel?
26
Interview 4: Maintenance Staff Person (J)
Q: How long have you been working here?
Q: What can be improved in the hotel?
Q: How do you describe the morale between you and other
workers working here? Is it good or needs to be improved or
is it a working process? What about the management?
Q: What can be improved based on your experiences? Does it get
hectic?
Q: Do you think that kind of pressure affects people?
Q: Is the line of communication between you and other workers
good?
Q: Do you think the hotel profession is good?
Q: How long have you been working here and what do you think
of this place?
Q: What do you think of the hotel profession? Do you think it is
good? Is it something you want to do?
Q: What do you think about the relationship between customers
and you working guys? Is there something you notice? Is
there negative or positive you want to talk about from your
experience?
Q: How is your relation with the people working here?
Q: What do you think about the location of the hotel?
Q: What do you think of the management and if there is anything
need to be improving? And how is the line of communication
between you and the management and other personnel?
27