The investigation upon this topic came up when the researcher noticed a considerable lack of motivation amongst service staff, during his placement experience at La Gorce country club. For this reason the researcher decided to explore this argument and find out the strategies used by the club management to enhance motivation and the factors influencing workers' discontent.
This literature aims to examine the strategies that the hospitality industry has been implementing during the past, including the motivational models developed to analyse what motivates people at work. Consequently other topics such as employee turnover and career commitment will be discussed as well.
Literature Review
During the 20th century, the topic of employee motivation has been discussed; in order to help hospitality firms, new ways to improve employee performance (Grant, 1993) and company's productivity (Mullins, 2001) have been developed. The employee shape has always been mistreated in the hospitality industry compared to others, even though it is 'the world's fastest growing industry' (Boella & Goss-Turner, 2005: 4).
A considerable amount of problems are to be faced by the hospitality industry, as regards to employee motivation, such as inadequate pay, low job security, limited training and development opportunities, turnover, young age and low level of school education (Bonn & Forbringer, 1992; Wong et al., 1999; Karatepe & Uludag; 2007; Chiang & Jang, 2008; Chiang et al., 2008; Kandasami & Ancheri, 2009; Niu, 2010). Employee motivation is a branch of human resources, which maximises job-productivity, when employees feel fully involved within a company (Grant, 1993; Torrington et al., 2008). The factors that have the major influence are spirituality, meaning, purpose and commitment (Chalofsky & Krishna, 2009). A more psychological definition is given by Bratton et al. (2010: 192) who quote it 'as a cognitive decision-making process that influences the effort, persistence and direction of voluntary goal-directed behaviour'. Appreciation is displayed by employees who are involved and consulted by the management (Boella & Goss-Turner, 2005; Torrington et al., 2008). However a weakness that commonly occurs amongst employees is the assumption that managers' knowledge is always broader than theirs, whereas it is actually more likely for managers to make better decisions when they consult their staff (Torrington et al., 2008).
Managers nowadays expect their employees to be committed to their job position, regardless the salary, in order to achieve service quality; indeed, it is a matter of fact that the hospitality industry has got reputation for low pay (Boella & Goss-Turner, 2005; Karatepe & Uludag, 2007). In addition, the fact that several workers come from the secondary labour market (for instance, part-time employees) does not allow the industry to fully motivate them (Boella & Goss-Turner, 2005).
In early '80s, a study conducted by Reichel & Pizam (1984), has revealed the weaknesses that affect hospitality employees versus other industries. To briefly summarise their results, hospitality workers, compared to other professions, mainly believe that they are underpaid, they acknowledge themselves as a lower social class and lastly that they work in poor health conditions. In disagreement, Øgaard et al. (2008) report that previous studies have shown the motivation and willingness of hospitality industry employees seeking for constant learning. Indeed, Cheng-Hua et al. (2009) and Yang et al. (2012) discuss that factors such as career development, mentoring, management support, training, organisational learning, rewarding etc…, not only would enhance motivation and relationship within the company, but they would also lead to performance achievement. Yang et al. (2012) report similarities that can be recognised with the hygiene and motivational factors theory by Herzberg, old but yet efficient (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010), and Vroom's expectancy theory, currently implemented (Chiang et al., 2008), despite its weaknesses and limitations (Mullins, 2001, 2007; Latham & Ernst, 2006).
Other motivational models that managers use to identify human needs are Maslow's and McClelland's, both presenting limitations (Wong et al., 1999; Maslow, 2000; Mullins, 2007; Bratton et al., 2010; Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010). Maslow's hierarchy of needs firstly is not applicable in work situation and secondly it cannot establish both which need is the predominant and the behaviour of the subject (Mullins, 2007; Bratton et al., 2010; Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010). On the other hand, McClelland failed in claiming achievement, power and affiliation as solely motivational factors, without including money (Weaver, 1988; Wong et al., 1999). Theory M (Money) states that money is, as an extrinsic motivational factor (Ross & Boles, 1994; Wong et al., 1999: Bratton et al., 2010), the only need that employees aim at, as stated by Weaver (1988): 'hourly workers are not motivated by programs designed to increase their enthusiasm and loyalty - they are motivated by being paid what they are worth' (p. 40). Motivating through money entails to reward above-average workers with money bonuses, in order to accomplish fulfilled and committed employees, thus avoiding employee turnover (Weaver, 1988; Wong et al., 1999; Mullins, 2007; Cheng-Hua et al., 2009) and achieve performance (Bratton et al., 2010). Other extrinsic factors that may enhance employee satisfaction are receiving tips and the recognition as employee-of-the-month (Wong et al., 1999).
As an intrinsic motivational factor (Wong et al., 1999; Bratton et al., 2010), the hospitality industry has been implementing empowerment since the 1980s, in order to re-organise company's structure, enhance performance and increase individual workers' responsibilities (Goss-Turner, 2001). Øgaard et al. (2008) state that many hospitality workers are pushed by intrinsic motivation.
Although more than one researcher believes that the definition of empowerment is currently unclear (Lashley, 1996; Greasley et al., 2005; Pelit et al., 2011), it can be identified as the delegation of power to the staff, thus they can make decisions to solve problems, in order to satisfy the customer (Lashley, 1996; Johnson & Redmond, 1998; Holbeche, 2002; Beardwell et al., 2004; Greasley et al., 2005; Avey et al. 2008). More briefly Greasley et al. (2005) describe it as the power given from a senior manager to a subordinate. According to Lashley (1996), the purpose of empowerment is the 'need for the individual to feel in control […], have a sense of personal power together with the freedom to use that power […], and the sense of personal efficiency and self-determination' (p. 340). This is what Douglas McGregor had identified with his Theory X and Theory Y model, whereby managers must be aware of employees' needs, since managers and employees have a different perception of the company organisation (Øgaard et al., 2008), therefore have them more involved, participative and powerful within the company to complete tasks (Johnson & Redmond, 1998; McGregor, 2006; Morgan, 2006; Bratton et al., 2010). As a consequence, many ways of empowering employees have been identified (Table 2) (Lashley, 1996; Beardwell et al., 2004).
Table 2, Types of Empowerment.
Adapted from Lashley (1996) and Beardwell et al. (2004)
Managers' perception of empowerment, called behavioural empowerment (Pelit et al., 2011), is usually doubtful, because they assume that some employee's decision might have a bad impact on the company itself, and this happens because they don't know their employees (Holbeche, 2002), whereas other managers find hard to delegate such a power, as they feel they may appear renouncers (Greasley et al., 2005), otherwise they just do not want to give away any power (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010). Trust is the key for empowerment (Johnson & Redmond, 1998; Pelit et al., 2011). On the other hand psychological empowerment (Pelit et al., 2011), is recognised as the employees' perception of power, which is reflected in four different elements such as meaningfulness, competence, self-determination and impact; 'the higher an individual "scores" in each of these elements, the greater the sense of empowerment' (Greasley et al., 2005: 356). Those that present psychological skills such as being optimistic, capability in solving problems, good impact in the organisation etc…, deserve to be empowered (Avey et al., 2008).
It is therefore necessary to empower, especially service staff, because it leads to considerable improvements such as enhancing service quality, job satisfaction and reduction of labour turnover (Lashley, 1996; Mullins, 2001; Torrington et al., 2008; Cheng-Hua et al., 2009; Pelit et al., 2011). However, a full explanation of the meaning and purpose of the job, such as company strategies is the only way to accomplish goals (Ross & Boles, 1994; Chalofsky & Krishna, 2009), as well as supervisor's support, without overwhelming and stressing the employee (Ross & Boles, 1994).
As a consequence, managers should then acknowledge their subordinates with feedback (Mullins, 2001; Kansadamy & Ancheri, 2009; Pelit et al., 2011). It is well documented that the so called cognitive approach (Bratton et al., 2010), enables employees to learn from being more critical about themselves when they receive either good or bad feedback (Mullins, 2001, 2007; Bratton et al., 2010; Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010). In support, a case study by Kansadamy & Ancheri (2009) reported the unhappiness of some workers, as their superiors lacked in acknowledging the execution of their tasks.
As previously mentioned, employee turnover is another reason why employees might be unmotivated, defined as 'an employee engaged in a certain position in a company who leaves that position after a certain period' (Yang et al., 2012: 839). The hospitality industry is recognised for its high labour turnover rate, due to the engagement of short-term staff, some of which usually has not had any experience in the industry (Boella & Goss-Turner, 2005; Øgaard et al., 2008; Cheng-Hua et al., 2009; Niu, 2010; Yang et al., 2012). Reinforcement is given Tracey & Hinkin (2008), who report a 120% turnover rate in the hospitality sector, and Yang et al. (2012), who even say that it fluctuates between 60-300%. Nevertheless, some claim that labour turnover is not easily predictable, even if formulas to roughly control and forecast it have been developed in the past (Tyson, 2006; Yang et al., 2012).
Two types of investigation may help managers find out why employees leave: exit interviews and internal analysis. According to Bonn & Forbringer (1992), the former accounts to interview people before leaving or after they have left a company to figure out the reasons, whereas the latter means to start the investigation within the company through personnel records, attitude surveys, etc. Consequently, several authors (Bonn & Forbringer, 1992; Tracey & Hinkin, 2008; Kansadamy & Ancheri, 2009; Niu, 2010; Yang et al., 2012) have identified a considerable number of causes of employee turnover, amongst which wages, hours/shift, working conditions, job security, lack of opportunities, relationships with supervisors and inefficient recruitment can be found, which in turn lead to job dismissal. On the other hand, hospitality managers assume that most of employees are only motivated by extrinsic factors, such as money and rewarding (Øgaard et al., 2008). All these reasons that affect employee satisfaction with a company can be encompassed within quality of work life (QWF), which is the relationship between the employee and the workplace (Kansadamy & Ancheri, 2009).
Tracey & Hinkin (2008) and Yang et al. (2012) argue that when turnover occurs, costs increase in two phases. One a level, staff morale may fall apart (either someone's dismissal or inappropriate hiring), thus undermining the service quality; hence revenue and profitability would decrease, whereas, on another level, recruiting and training new staff would raise company' costs. Øgaard et al. (2008) and Yang et al. (2012) suggest companies to hold and wager on those employees who look forward long-term careers, avoiding research for new staff. This is recognised as career commitment, which occurs when an employee considers him/herself as part of the company and is hence willing to pursue that career (Øgaard et al., 2008; Chalofsky & Krishna, 2009; Niu, 2010). By committing to such job, the employee's objective becomes the improvement and development of job skills (Niu, 2010). A combination of empowerment and commitment would enable the employee to feel fully involved, reliable and responsible within a company, so that these motivations will develop a pledged worker, who will always put effort in pursuing service quality and company's goals, and will ultimately achieve job satisfaction (Lashley, 2001).
In conclusion, a considerable amount of information has been gathered regarding employee motivation in attempt to answer the following questions:
What are the strategies employed to motivate service staff at La Gorce country club?
What are the employees' perceptions of being motivated? what are the influential factors?
As a consequence of unmotivated employees, what is the employee turnover rate at La Gorce country club? How is it managed?
Methodology and methods
This section will argue what philosophy and methods have been regarded to conduct a proper research, the collection of primary data, along with the discussions regarding limitations and ethics that the researcher encountered and faced during the process.
It is still unclear what the real definition of research is, but its purpose can be acknowledged as investigating through appropriate methods in order to increase own knowledge (Collis & Hussey, 2009). However, Saunders et al. (2009: 5) define it as 'something that people undertake in order to find out thing in a systematic way, thereby increasing their knowledge'. As for students, Collis & Hussey (2009) point out that doing research allows them to explore a range of their interest. Research purposes are several, as shown in Table 3.1.
Table 3.1, Research Objectives.
(Adapted from Collis & Hussey, 2009)
Research methods can be split into two philosophical branches: positivism and phenomenology. Positivist research is based on 'the application of the methods of the natural sciences to the study of social reality and beyond' (Bryman & Bell, 2011: 15). Thus the approach implemented by the researcher is deductive, therefore he/she starts off the main principles to then reach and explain particular phenomenon (Cooper & Schindler, 2008; Collis & Hussey, 2009). In contrast, phenomenology (or interpretivism) believes that 'social reality is not objective but highly subjective because it is shaped by our perceptions' (Collis & Hussey, 2009: 57) and its approach is inductive, hence the research starts off the observation of particular phenomenon to explain a general outcome. At this point, Collis & Hussey (2009) identify quantitative research as part of positivism, whereas qualitative research as a process of interpretivism.
The researcher opted for both qualitative and quantitative methods, also acknowledged with the term of triangulation, which implies the use of different methods to achieve better results (Collis & Hussey, 2009; Saunders et al., 2009). Qualitative research is defined as that research whose collected data are all non-numerical (Strauss & Corbin, 1998; Saunders et al. 2009). However, a more explanative definition was given by Maanen (1979), who defined qualitative research as an 'array of interpretive techniques which seek to describe, decode, translate, and otherwise come to terms with the meaning, not the frequency, of certain more or less naturally occurring phenomena in the social world' (cited in Cooper and Schindler, 2008: 162). On the other hand, quantitative research is a collection of numerical and quantitative data (Cooper & Schindler, 2008; Saunders et al. 2009).
Research investigating employee motivation has been carried out in the past within restaurant and hotel industry, but in this case the researcher has focused it within a country club, whose industry has been lately increasing a lot (Fjelstul & Tesone, 2008).
The research was carried out as follows:
A semi-structured interview was conducted to the Food & Beverage Manager of La Gorce Country Club;
A self-completion survey was dispensed amongst service staff.
Oppenheim (1992) and Cooper & Schindler (2008) state that the aim of an interview is to help the researcher gather as much information and details as possible from the interviewee. Three main ways of carrying out interviews can be identified (Cooper & Schidler, 2008), as shown in Table 3.2. According to several authors (Cooper & Schindler, 2008; Saunders et al., 2009; Bryman & Bell, 2011) a semi-structured interview comprises specific questions, but some can be omitted, while new questions might be asked to complete the research. In order to make the interviewee be at ease, Cooper & Schindler (2008) suggest the interviewer to start off general questions and then proceed with more specific ones.
Table 3.2, Types of Interviews.
Adapted from Cooper & Schindler (2008) and Bryman & Bell (2011)
The interview with Cindy Teyssedou (F&B manager) was scheduled on the 3rd of April 2012 at 4.00 pm, and took place in the her office, which was chosen by the interviewee herself; it is in fact highlighted by Bryman & Bell (2011) that the choice of a quiet and private place can help the interviewer be at ease. She did not mind being audio-recorded, which by the way allows the researcher to re-listen the interview and collect much more data through the transcript (Silverman, 2007), but it also takes a long time to be transcribed (Bryman & Bell, 2011). Several weeks before the interview, a face-to-face discussion about the objective of the study was conducted with the F&B manager, in order to get permission to carry out such research (Oppenheim, 1992; Bryman & Bell, 2011). The list of questions asked can be seen in Appendix C; by being mostly open-ended, this allowed the manager to convey her personal opinion (Oppenheim, 1992). Personal comments by the researcher were avoided in order to not bias the interviewee (Saunders et al., 2009). The interview lasted 36 minutes.
A survey is defined as 'a measurement process used to collect information during a highly structured interview' and through the collection of this data, it is possible to establish 'similarities and differences' of a previously chosen sample (Cooper & Schindler, 2008: 215). The researcher believed that collecting further data from the service staff was reasonable to compare this to the F&B manager opinion. As shown in Appendix D, a self-administered questionnaire was distributed both by email and by hand to the respondents (Saunders et al., 2009).
The researcher chose to do so since part of the service staff members, either part-time or full-time, were usually scheduled only for a few hours a week, therefore harder to meet at work; on the other hand, having most of the staff being originally Hispanic, he assumed they might have needed help with the survey. Perhaps a translation of the questionnaire into Spanish could have been implemented (Saunders et al. 2009). Ultimately the rest of the staff received the survey on their email address by attachment. However Bryman & Bell (2011) recommend caution with such a procedure because respondents may refuse to open it, regarding it as a virus. A full introduction and explanation of the survey was included for both the distribution methods (Bryman & Bell, 2011).
Cooper & Schindler (2008) argue that a pilot study can help the researcher to test the efficiency of the survey and its structure; however this can be skipped whenever the researcher has to conduct the research in short-time period. For this reason, a pilot study on the survey was ultimately not carried out.
More than one author (Rea & Parker, 2005; Floyd & Fowler, 2009; Saunders et al., 2009; Bryman & Bell, 2011) agrees that the method of sampling, used by the researcher, falls into the non-probability sampling category, which is defined as a 'selection of sampling techniques in which the chance or probability of each case being selected is not known' (Saunders et al., 2009: 596). In this case the researcher opted for a convenience sampling (Bryman & Bell, 2011), also known as purposive sampling (de Vaus, 2002; Saunders et al., 2009), recommended when difficulties to identify the population are encountered; therefore such a method is not representative (de Vaus, 2002; Bryman & Bell, 2011). The most appropriated for this research occurred to be homogeneous sampling, which refers to a 'particular sub-group in which all the sample members are similar' (Saunders et al., 2009: 240). Another reason for choosing this method was because of the high expectancy of responses (Bryman & Bell, 2011); despite this, from a total of 31 receivers (the whole waiting-staff team) only 20 replied (64%).
According to de Vaus (2002: 94), 'it is crucial to think ahead and anticipate what information will be needed to endure that relevant questions are asked'. As shown in Appendix E and Appendix F, an analysis of the interview and the survey question has been carried out. A further explanation of Question 6 of the survey should be given, since this shows different motivational factors, which in turn have been encompassed into different branches (Table 3.3). Such groups aim to express a better understanding of the purpose of the question.
Table 3.3, Survey: Question 6 Branches
Limitations
According to Saunders et al. (2009), researchers must be careful when treating limitations of their research: some totally avoid it, and ultimately fall into an unethical category, whereas others highlight every detailed issue that occurred, thereby the research becomes unreliable.
A limitation occurred with Question 3 of the F&B manager interview, which was misinterpreted (Cooper & Schindler, 2008). The researcher attempted to find out what implementations had been introduced by the manager for the service staff, in order to better motivate them, but she interpreted it as what implementations had been introduced in the F&B service itself by her. Such an element could have been very supportive in the findings, in order to critically compare it with the literature review.
Some limitations occurred with the survey as well:
Question 5 was accidentally skipped by two respondents;
One of the respondents chose only one answer for Question 6, even though this requested three each.
An explanation for the second episode could refer again to a misinterpretation of the question; however it must be said that the other 19 respondents answered as requested.
Difficulties were also encountered during the interview transcription. Due to the fact that English was not the researcher first language, a few words from the recording have remained not understood.
In conclusion, the limited timeframe did not help the researcher in planning and conducting the research properly.
Ethics
Ethics refer to that behaviour and morality that the researcher must take into account when he/she wants to gain access when doing research (Saunders et al., 2009) and this procedure was followed in the research process. As mentioned before, permission to investigate such an objective and consequently interview the F&B manager and distributing a questionnaire amongst the staff was asked.
Another very important aspect was the assurance of anonymity to the questionnaire respondents to give them protection (Collis & Hussey, 2009; Bryman & Bell, 2011); this was communicated orally, included in the questionnaire description and in the email.
In conclusion, although problems in the transcription have been mentioned in the previous section, however the researcher assures that the transcript matches the exact wording recorded (Maylor & Blackmon, 2005).
Findings
In the previous section, the researcher illustrated how the research was conducted. This section will report the data that has been gathered during the research, which will be analysed and compared to the literature review.
Starting off consultation, this is very appreciated by Cindy Teyssedou, F&B manager at La Gorce Contry Club (LGCC). She encourages her staff to approach her to report something wrong or that should be changed. This has much in common with Boella & Goss-Turner (2005) and Torrington et al. (2008). The survey provides evidence that 65% of the respondents have reported ideas to the management and that 77% of them got it approved. Nevertheless, 60% of La Gorce waiting-staff, believe that managers are not willing to listen to someone's ideas or suggestions.
When asked how to motivate employees, Mrs Teyssedou states that a training is implemented to make people feel comfortable with the job, assuming that this happens within 4-6 weeks (even though her answers is mainly referred to interns), which is also confirmed by the 80% of survey respondents. This is in accordance with Cheng-Hua (2009) and Yang et al. (2012), who recommend it to achieve performance.
After the training, the F&B manager argues that La Gorce country club motivates its staff through making them feel part of a team hence they must show initiative and should be able to make their own decisions (Ross & Boles, 1994; Øgaard et al., 2008; Cheng-Hua, 2009; Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010; Yang et al., 2012). On the other hand, managers and supervisors recognise them by giving feedback (Mullins, 2001; Kansadamy & Ancheri, 2009; Pelit et al., 2011) [either good or bad] to further motivate them (Mullins, 2001, 2007; Bratton et al., 2010; Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010). This was also supported by the survey results, which show that La Gorce service staff (Figure 1) seeks for cooperation (26%) and support (21%). Money, besides bonuses, is not regarded as a motivational factor in this country club, according to Mrs Teyssedou. Pay was ranked as the third motivational factor (17%), even though some believe it is the only matter amongst service staff (Weaver, 1988; Wong et al., 1999).
The real challenge for Mrs Teyssedou is to motivate young employees (Niu, 2010), which represent 40% of La Gorce waiting-staff, who usually are not sure whether this is the career they want to undertake or not. She further adds that motivating young staff takes time.
A different approach may occur when training part-time staff, acknowledged as a hard-to-be-motivated workforce (Boella & Goss-Turner, 2005). Contrarily, Cindy replies that the part-time staff, hired at La Gorce (30% of the waiting staff), has been the same for the last four years, therefore they already know how to work in the club.
Figure 1, Question 6 Results.
The fact that La Gorce does not tip its staff and assumes that it does not bother them is actually in contrast with a considerable number of respondents (60%), who proclaim that it would increase their motivation (Wong et al., 1999). However, Cindy argues that a few years before the payment method was different, as it was minimum wage plus gratuity, then switched into hourly payment with no gratuity. As quoted by her:
'when you are in a gratuity situation and minimum wage, you have to depend on customers coming through the door, and […] they are still making more money on an hourly basis, than if they were waiting on tips, because, as you see, we are not that busy. Yes, there are the busy days when we have Easter or a […] dinner etc…, but if you are working here on a general lunch every day, you are lucky if you clear 30 bucks, 40 bucks, for lunch, because you barely have anybody'.
As a consequence, Cindy says that staff members always feel that they are not paid what they are worth (Weaver, 1988), as supported by 50% of the questionnaire respondents, whilst the other 50% thinks that their pay is reasonable.
However, what the F&B manager really expects from its staff is motivation without support, as she stated when asked about the Theory X and Theory Y by Douglas McGregor (McGregor, 2006). She claims:
'I have been involved in both, but I think that Y is more what I personally like to see, I personally like to give people information and then my expectation is that they take on the responsibility and fulfilling the job, whenever the job is'.
For this reason Cindy exclaims that staff is empowered to make a decision whenever a mistake needs to be fixed and then report it to the managers, unlike other managers described by several authors (Holbeche, 2002; Greasley et al., 2005; Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010). This means that La Gorce trusts its employees (Johnson & Redmond, 1998; Pelit et al., 2011). It must be however reported that, according to the survey, only 40% of the staff recognise to be empowered, against 45%, whereas 15% is not even aware whether they are or not.
It had been said that one of the consequences of unmotivated staff is turnover (Yang et al., 2012). According to the F&B manager, La Gorce does not have a high turnover rate; anyway she acknowledged that an advantage could be the fact that the company is 'continuously re-energising the department somehow when you have changes, because new people bring new ideas'. As stated by Tracey & Hinkin (2008) and Yang et al. (2012), Cindy says that a disadvantage is the cost of training new people.
When asked how she recognises someone that might be committed to this career, the F&B manager argues:
'I think it starts when I assess the staff. I take all over them and I see what kind of motivation do they have. Are they someone that automatically after being with the company for a short period of time do they take on work that have not been asked, do they tackle something that needs to be done without having to be told. Are they someone that approaches you about an idea. You may get feedback from membership say 'hey, that person is really great, don't lose him'. The overall attitude of the person, whether they are happy to be at work'.
In support the survey shows that 50% of part-time or ex part-time staff of La Gorce has been asked to be hired to full-time, demonstrating that such employees have shown commitment to this job (Øgaard et al., 2008; Chalofsky & Krishna, 2009; Niu, 2010).
Recommendations and conclusion
The purpose of this objective was to investigate the strategies that LGCC use to retain motivated employees. As emerged both from the literature review and the data analysis, several strategies and models to achieve and retain employee motivation have been discussed, and some are also matched by La Gorce country club.
Hospitality employers would like to see workers pushed more by intrinsic motivators than money, therefore empowerment is a good way to give employees more responsibility when they complete their tasks and it also reduces turnover. Moreover consultation between managers and employees may help to make better decisions regarding company strategies and goals.
In contrast, a crucial point that has emerged is pay. Given that the hospitality industry is acknowledged for a low pay rate and that a big portion of La Gorce waiting-staff agrees with it, on the other hand the F&B manager has thoroughly explained why tipping is not part of the salary anymore. It could be recommended then the implementation of employee-of-the-month reward or bonuses.
In conclusion, given that the country club industry, which has been evolving quickly in the last few years, is different from a hotel or restaurant, further research in this industry may be useful to reveal new approaches and methods in the accomplishment of motivated workers.
Objective Two
"An investigation of the influence of menu design and its effects on members' purchasing decisions at Burning Tree Country Club: a management perspective".
The choice of investigating menu design was picked up due to the fact that country clubs serve the same people every day, therefore a high rotation on items on the menu, and that they are owned by the members themselves who are very demanding and often complained about the food items and the prices displayed on the menu.
The following literature review attempts to analyse the factors which are necessary to develop a menu and make it sell, such as layout, item branding, item terminology and wording, item rotation, menu engineering, external attributes (for instance, food and service quality) and the influence of waiting-staff cues.
Literature Review
The historical period when the concept of menu was introduced occurred only at the end of the 19thcentury; indeed, Parisian restaurateurs started to launch the carte, which was a large poster-sized placard, located at the restaurant front door, in order to attract customers attention. These huge posters were drawn by very popular French artists, such as Renoir and Gauguin, who used to sketch caricatures of Parisian women illustrating the menu items (Scanlon, 1999).
A menu is a restaurant marketing strategy (Kivela, 1997), better defined as the single most important marketing tool of a food service operation (Atkinson & Jones, 1994; Kotas & Jayawardena, 1994; Hedden, 1997; Scanlon, 1999; Cousins et al., 2002; Kincaid & Corsun, 2003; Gregoire & Spears, 2007; Davis et al., 2008), which generates revenue and also provides the perception of value and satisfaction that influences the customer to return to that restaurant in the future (Kincaid & Corsun, 2003; Davis et al., 2008). It is further emphasised by Welcher (in Hedden, 1997) that patrons usually spend three minutes average to explore a menu, and the amount of information that is captured can only rely on its presentation and readability.
However, the power of the menu layout remains highly underestimated by many restaurateurs (Kincaid & Corsun, 2003). It is a matter of fact that customers scan the menu, not read it (Feltenstein; in Arnoult, 1998) and for this reason certain menu items have more chances to be sold by focusing on customer's gaze motion while they are analysing the menu (Gregoire & Spears, 2007; Yang, 2012); the reaction to strategically located items or the observation of a well-laid out section of the menu can affect customer purchase decision (Scanlon, 1999; Yang, 2012).
The primacy and regency theory states that the reader focuses mostly on the first and the last items he/she stares at in a category or on a page (Kincaid & Corsun, 2003; Gregoire & Spears, 2007; Yang, 2012). According to Kincaid & Corsun (2003), consultants believe that items strategically located on the menu can increase profit. Focusing on a two-panel menu, consultants claim that by starting from the sweet spot - first focal point where the reader gazes at -, which is located in the middle of the second page (Walker & Lundberg, 2000; Kincaid & Corsun, 2003), they move along anticlockwise forming five focal points (Kincaid & Corsun, 2003). [FIGURE #] Instead other consultants say that the sweet spot is on right hand page, but just above the middle; then, the reader moves along as shown in Figure 2.1, and during the scanning he/she focuses on two extra focal points (6 & 7), ultimately forming seven focal points (Figure 2.2) (Bowen & Morris, 1995; Scanlon, 1999; Yang, 2012).
Figure 2.1, Eye movement across two-panel menu.
Figure 2.2 Eye movement across two-panel menu (2).
(adapted from Kincaid & Corsun, 2003)
(adapted from Bowen & Morris, 1995; Scanlon, 1999; Yang, 2012)
However, it has not yet been proven that changing strategically items positions leads to an increase in sales (Bowen & Morris, 1995; Kincaid & Corsun, 2003; Yang, 2012). Contrarily, consultants such Miller, Doerfler and Kharasch strongly support the gaze motion theory; as such, Kharasch reports a personal case study of a microbrewery, where the average check per person increased by 23% within the first week, by moving high profit items onto above the middle of the right hand page (Panitz, 2000). Nonetheless, Polonsky (in Arnoult, 1998) argues that there is no right or wrong, since one idea can work for a certain [type of] restaurant and not for another.
Further considerations which must be taken into account are what customers expect from a menu such as the variety of items and those external attributes that make it an efficient tool (quality of food, for instance), in order to have a patronage return in the future (Lewis, 1981, in Kivela, 1997; Dube et al., 1994; Kivela, 1997; Soriano, 2002; Ryu et al., 2012). Scanlon (1999) and Soriano (2002) argue that restaurateurs should ask the customers themselves what they seek for, therefore the use of a market survey is a good way to develop or revise a menu. This is reinforced by Kotler et al (2010: 14), who state that 'customer expectations are based on past buying experiences, the opinions of friends, and the market information'.
Lewis (1981) introduced menu variety, along with other attributes such as food quality, price, atmosphere and convenience factor, as something expected by the customer when dining out (cited in Kivela, 1997). A different approach was suggested by Dube et al. (1994), who collected menu variety along with food tastiness and consistent food, making them elements of Food Quality; furthermore they added Service Quality (waiting-time, attentive server, helpful server) and Atmosphere.
A few years later, Kivela (1997) gathered some of the previously mentioned attributes and added new ones, ending up with 14 elements: location, type of food, ambience, competent waiting staff, quality of food, cost of food, comfort level, menu item variety, cleanliness, speed of service, prestige, friendliness of waiting staff, new experience, and prompt handling of complaint.
More lately, Soriano (2002) recycled Dube et al.'s (1994) model, by gathering more attributes, thus developing four main variables (Quality of food, Quality of service, Cost/value of the meal and Place). As well as Dube et al. (1994), menu variety was encompassed within quality of food. Ultimately, Ryu et al. (2012) expanded Soriano's attributes and main variables, but still by regarding menu variety as a food quality element.
All these researchers (Lewis, 1981, in Kivela, 1997; Dube et al. 1994; Kivela, 1997; Soriano, 2002; Ryu et al., 2012) agree with the fact that food quality is and will continue to be the most demanded attribute which mostly influences customer's purchase decision. As regards menu variety, two points of views have been achieved: it can be part of food quality (Dube et al., 1994; Soriano, 2002; Ryu et al. 2012), or an attribute in itself, as well as the other elements, but additionally they say that customers' point of view may vary depending on the type of restaurant and the occasion (Lewis, 1981, in Kivela, 1997; Kivela, 1997).
According to Kotas & Jayawardena (1994: 178), the purpose of the menu is not only giving information but also motivating the customer, by which 'pre-judges the quality of the meal'. In agreement Scanlon (1999) believes that when customers read through a menu, they expect that quality to be shown as well as it is described on it. It is not a coincidence that some customers prefer having a look at the restaurant outdoor menu, before choosing where to dine (Pedraja & Yague, 2001).
Even though the use of foreign language is regarded to be a very powerful marketing tool (Scanlon,1999), Hartwell & Edwards (2009), argue that by focusing on menu descriptors, 'consumers are increasingly anxious to know where products have come from and how they are produced' (p. 906) and furthermore that menu descriptors lead to food desirability enhancement; indeed the use of words like fresh, local, artisan, house-made, seasonal, natural and organic, can really create that idea of curiosity, which attracts customers. As such, the wording on the menu must be as readable as possible, a clear description of each dish should be located under the name and in smaller characters, and the use of fancy words is unneeded (Kotas & Jayawardena, 1994; Davis et al., 2008); 'altogether the menu must be harmonious, attractive and appetising' (Kotas & Jayawardena, 1994:180). In reverse, Cherkasky (in Arnoult, 1998) states that imagination is the cue that directs to food; in accordance Miller and Kharasch recommend to not overusing descriptions, which should be introductive to the item, but not describe it by every single ingredient (Panitz, 2000). Additionally, Wansink et al. (2001; in Edwards & Meiselman, 2005) claim that changing the name of a dish and a well-explained composition can increase sales by 27%.
Having said that, Hartwell & Edwards (2009) and Hyun & Han (2012) also take into account a branding concept to show how it influences customers' decision. A branded product gains value, expresses quality and achieves customers' preferences; therefore it gives reassurance through brand equity and credibility, which create association and expectations about the menu items (Hartwell & Edwards, 2009). People are more attentive about food away-from-home prepared, which is regarded less healthy than prepared at home (Josiam & Foster, 2009) and they constantly look for healthy and dietary meals and which way they are cooked (Fitzpatrick et al., 1997; Lillicrap & Cousins, 2010),
Welcher (in Hedden, 1997) adds that restaurateurs must keep track of which items are sold and unsold, carry out a thorough market segment analysis, particularly with focus groups, very helpful to understand what customers want and like, and afterwards build up a new menu. Walker & Lundberg (2000) suggest that before adding a new item on the menu, its popularity and appreciation should be tested by firstly selling it as a special dish. Indeed, Cousins et al. (2002: 65) stress that 'it is the customer, not the foodservice operator, who selects their menu, hence the analysis of dish popularity is necessary and those dishes that are not popular should not stay on the menu'. However, Hyun & Han (2012) argue that changing a dish with a new one is not always appreciated by patronage, which may not be that curious to try it, but instead they would rather reroute onto an old, but known dish. For this reason Elan (2012), discusses that the importance of adding or deleting an item on a menu is restaurateurs nemesis, as they find hard to delete those old items which they reckon to be somebody's favourite.
A very important element that helps a menu sell is the server (Lansing, in Panitz, 2000; Edwards & Meisleman, 2005; Lillicrap & Cousins, 2010). The menu is a tool that heads the consumer for the right way, but the server is the one helps him/her make them final decision (Lansing, in Panitz, 2000; Dittmer & Keefe III, 2003). However, Edwards & Meiselman (2005) point out that the hospitality industry has been lacking of quality of service in the past years, because companies no longer think of it as a profitable element.
The NRA (2000) stresses that a restaurant should always have experienced and well-trained service staffs to have the customer spend an excellent dine out and then have it come back in the future; a waiter should be capable of selling the product on the menu through its friendliness and courtesy. Despite it might not be as productive as expected, restaurateurs should invest in excellent waiting-staff, because customers definitely need someone to guide and advise them through the menu (Edwards & Meiselman, 2005).
Another very important aspect of menu design that restaurant managers should take into account is menu engineering, to monitor menu items popularity (Pavesic, 1983, 1985; Atkinson & Jones, 1994; LeBruto et al. 1997; Morrison, 1997; Kwong, 2005; Taylor et al. 2009; Raab et al., 2010). Menu engineering is a way to increase menu profit through the study of cost, margin and volume of items sold (Pavesic, 1983, 1985; Morrison 1997). Atkinson & Jones (1994) prefer naming it menu analysis and they define it as 'the systematic evaluation of a menu's cost and/or sales data for the purpose of identifying opportunities for improved performance' (p. 39).
The first models were developed by Miller (1980), Kavasana & Smith (1982) and Pavesic (1985) (cited in Kwong, 2005). These models are basically three different matrices, where each of them was influenced by different variables such as items popularity, 'number of items sold' (Kotas & Jayawardena, 1994: 252), food cost percentage, contribution margin, 'the difference between the revenue and the variable costs' (Morrison, 1997: 290), and weighted contribution margin, which instead 'incorporates the influence of sales mix on the total contribution margin' (Pavesic, 1983: 131), as shown in Figure 2.3 (Pavesic, 1983, 1985; Morrison, 1997; Kwong, 2005; Taylor et al., 2009).
Figure 2.3, Three Matrices Models.
(adapted from Kwong, 2005)
Researchers have different points of views about these matrixes; Bayou & Bennett (1992) highlight that this three-matrix fight is just a never-ending battle. Others say that they can be applicable only in particular situations, but also that more variables should be taken into account (Kwong, 2005). Hayes & Huffman (1985; in Morrison, 1997) suggest to focus on individual contribution profit of each items: the analysis is carried out through monitoring the volume of sales and consumer' quality perception, avoiding the use of a matrix. Atkinson & Jones (1994) have come to the conclusion that some methods are simple to be implemented, but not leading to conclusive results, because of the lack of some variables, whereas others are too complex and sophisticated, that would imply managers to spend very long time on them with the risk of making errors.
A revision of Kavasana and Smith's model was carried out by LeBruto et al. (1997), who added labour cost as a new variable, creating a three-dimensional matrix, more analysis-accurate and better chances to succeeding financial objectives. However a very big step was done by Taylor et al. (2009), who developed a non-parametric model, using the data development analysis (DEA), based on several variables that influence the final profit (Table 4).
Table 4, Taylor et al.'s (2009) model variables.
Adapted from Taylor et al. (2009)
In this way it can be argued that the comparison of qualitative and quantitative variables is helpful to better analyse the efficiency of each menu item (Taylor et al., 2009). However, it must be said that this model has been developed mainly for chain restaurants (Taylor et al., 2009; Reynolds & Taylor, 2011; Chou & Fang, 2012).
In contrast, Raab et al. (2010) identified another way to do menu analysis, through the use of activity-based-costing (ABC), by which restaurant managers can trace overhead costs (for instance salary and wages) to individual products; these overhead costs are usually taken into account at finished product. Such costs are recognised in the activities, which refer to all those tasks carried out by both the front and the back of the house (for instance cleaning, communication, cooking, setup). Raab et al. (2010) claim emphatically that this method is more accurate in setting prices of menu items. However, Reynolds & Taylor (2011: 584) report a weakness that Raab & Mayer (2007) had noticed of their model a few years before: 'this approach is difficult to apply because items must be reassessed as costs change and data collection can be laborious'.
To conclude, there is a lack in Menu Engineering in the hospitality industry, with many companies still underestimating its importance (Raab et al., 2010). However, Chou & Fang (2012) emphasise that the debate regarding menu engineering and its performance is currently on-going.
This literature has highlighted useful information regarding menu design which will be further discussed to answer the following questions:
What schemes does Burning Tree country club use to design the layout of their menus?
What are the factors that most influence members' meal experience?
How does Burning Tree country club build up and structure its menus in terms of items terminology, description and branding?
What is the influence of waiting-staff on members' choice?
What system is implemented by Burning Tree Country Club to monitor sales, in terms of menu engineering?
Methodology and methods
The purpose of this objective was to critically evaluate what are those factors that affect Burning Tree Country Club members purchase decision, in terms of menu design. As well as for the previous research, a semi-structured interview was conducted to gain primary data; therefore an explanation of the methodology implemented can be referred to the first of objective (p. 17). Questions are listed in Appendix G. The only difference versus the previous research is Question 4, which has been structured with close-ended answers. The researcher also assumed that several chefs do not know the topic of menu engineering much in depth, thus Question 6 was branched into four simple questions. This was to avoid a misunderstanding of the investigated topic (Ghauri & Grønhaug, 2005).
Permission to interview Executive Chef Jacques Larsen was discussed in advance. The interview was carried out to examine his methods and concepts that he takes into account when constructing a menu. The interviewee did not request anonymity.
The interview was scheduled on the 14th of August 2012 at 2:30 pm and took place in his office, located in the kitchen itself. As well as for the first objective interview, the interviewee did not mind being audio-recorded; the interview lasted 15 minutes. In reference to what said in the previous methodology section by de Vaus (2002), an analysis of the interview questions is available in Appendix H.
A survey was additionally developed to collect quantitative data from members of the club, but access was denied.
The same ethical and moral approach of the first objective was used to carry out the research (p. 24).
Limitations
Some limitations occurred in conducting the research.
The fact that the interview took place in the chef's office penalized the audio-recording, because of the noise coming from the kitchen. By combining it with chef's French accent, this led to a difficult interview transcription, along with the incomprehension of some words.
As previously mentioned, access to distribute a questionnaire amongst club members questionnaire was denied. The researcher asked far in advance for permission in accessing the members email addresses, through the support of the F&B manager, as someone within the organisation (Bryman & Bell, 2011), to get to the club General Manager (GM), who firstly approved doubtless. When the survey was ready to be launched, the GM was approached again and shown the questions for his final approval, but once he read through it, he started assuming that the members would never fill it out and consequently access was denied, perhaps due to his sensitivity about the investigated objective (Saunders et al., 2009). Since this episode happened 10 days before the researcher left the club, there was no time left to develop a plan B in order to gather more information.
The help of such a questionnaire could have allowed the researcher to compare two different points of views (management vs. members), and perhaps the club could have used the results as a benefit for future improvements (Saunders et al., 2009).
As mentioned in the first objective limitations section, the researcher claims that the lack of time available to conduct the research particularly undermined at the accuracy of the results.
Findings
Having shown the procedure by which data has been collected, such a data will be presented in this section, compared with the previous literature, in order to display recommendations and final conclusions. The interview carried out with Mr Jacques Larsen, Executive Chef at Burning Tree Country Club (BTCC), will be compared to the current literature, in order to identify any commonality or discordance.
Unlike the eye movement across the menu displayed by a number of authors (Bowen & Morris, 1995; Scanlon, 1999; Kincaid & Corsun, 2003; Yang, 2012), Mr Larsen he argues that items are placed according to their healthiness: starting of vegan or vegetarian items, the menu shifts to seafood and leaves poultries and red meats as last. The chef stresses that this way increases sales of vegetarian and seafood items, which 'otherwise would be isolated'. It is likely that this procedure may work for this type of restaurant and not for another (Polonsky, in Arnoult, 1998).
As regards to the influence of external attributes (i.e. food quality, service quality, etc…), Mr Larsen ranked food tastiness, consistent food and menu variety as those attributes which are most sought by customers (Table 5); since they are all part of Food Quality according to Dube et al. (1994), it is therefore a matter of fact that Mr Larsen agrees with them and the other researchers (Lewis, 1981, in Kivela, 1997; Kivela, 1997; Soriano, 2002; Ryu et al., 2012) when acknowledging Food Quality as the most important element a whole meal.
Table 5, Executive Chef's answer to Question 4.
In terms of menu wording and description, Mr Larsen argued that he likes to use foreign words to describe some dishes on the menu and he also keeps the description very brief, so that the members are able to clearly understand the item composition (Kotas & Jayawardena, 1994; Scanlon, 1999; Panitz, 2000; Davis et al., 2008; Hartwell & Edwards, 2009). However, it must be mentioned that the Executive Chef does not mention anything about item branding.
According to Mr Larsen, BTCC menu used to be changed firstly on a daily basis, but then, due to the members' requests, he started to change it on a monthly basis, which is in accordance with Cousins et al. (2002). Additionally, Chef Jacques says that items rotation is based on the local ingredients availability, since he regards himself as a fresh and seasonal ingredients user.
The influence of the server in guiding through the menu, according to Chef Jacques, is a necessity in fine dining restaurants, where customers want to be guided and suggested, in order to enjoy a remarkable experience (NRA, 2000; Panitz, 2000; Dittmer, 2003; Edwards & Meisleman, 2005). However, this is different in a country club, Mr Larsen says, because when members come to dine, they already know what they want and even if the server tries to recommend another dish, it very unlikely that such a member will change his/her mind.
Unlike the approaches suggested by many researchers (Pavesic, 1983, 1985; Atkinson & Jones, 1994; LeBruto et al. 1997; Morrison, 1997; Kwong, 2005; Taylor et al. 2009; Raab et al., 2010), Mr Larsen's menu engineering method was somewhat different. The elements that he takes into account when setting items' prices are those items that are sold more often; then, he argues that those with high cost of production are profitable depending on the volume of sales, whereas those with low cost of production will become profitable in the long-term. However he reports the number of dishes sold is not monitored in a country club, because the management does not want to bother the members. The Executive Chef's approach is somehow similar to the three matrices identified by Kwang (2005), which are however unmatched in terms of item monitoring. As a consequence, when it comes to change the items on the menu, Chef Jacques stresses that there is no use of data collection, but he solely focuses on what the members want and seasonal ingredients. This is why the club distributes feedback cards in the cheque books, a better way to identify members' needs and wants.
Conclusions and Recommendations
The aim of this objective was to discover and identify those topics which characterise menu design, in terms of influencing members purchase decision at Burning Tree Country Club. Some of the theories presented in the literature review are used by Executive Chef too.
From the analysis of the primary data it emerged that menu design might not be as simple as expected, because of the amount of details that must be taken into account.
The literature has revealed that attentiveness should be regarded to items description, rotation and branding, thereby the product gains value; it is in fact true that the more a menu is clear and explanative, the more customers are attracted to certain dishes in certain restaurant. Quality of food and quality of service must be accounted in whole meal experience, whereas a deeper exploration in the importance of menu variety should be done.
As regards to the menu layout, the literature has revealed that the gaze motion theory has been tested, but with contradictory results, therefore a further investigation should be carried out. However, it has also been said that the strategy implemented by a restaurant when items on the menu may vary according to the type of restaurant. In terms of service quality, the hospitality industry needs well-trained staff to be more efficient in selling the product. As such, the server is a guide and certainty for the customer and helps him/her make the final decision.
In conclusion, menu engineering is a good way to monitor which items are sold or remain unsold and whether their price is suitable or should be changed; unfortunately but its implementation lacks in many hospitality companies. Due to complexity of Taylor et al.'s (2009) model and its applicability mainly for chain restaurants, the use of old matrices can be recommended in order to have a strategy to monitoring menu sales and future planning to achieve overcoming performance in menu design.
