The role of Aesthetic Labour in Hospitality

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

ASSESSMENT-2

ESSAY

Aesthetic Labour in hotel and Hospitality Management.

The shift from an industrial society to a service oriented society has brought with it many implications and thereby major changes in the workings of the various departments in an organisation like Marketing, Human Resources, Operations, etc., since the significant change is the shift from a product or manufacturing centred focus to service or a more human centred focus. And this increasingly has brought the realisation in organisations that their employees are increasingly a part of their service product especially in the Hospitality industry (Kotler et al, 2006). This evolution of the thought process has lead to the aesthetics of the labour in relation to the organisation (Nickson et al, 2003). Aesthetic labour can be defined as “a supply of embodied capacities and attributes possessed by the workers at the point of entry into employment. Employers then mobilise, develop and commodify these capacities and attributes through the processes of recruitment, selection and training, transforming them into competencies and skills which are aesthetically geared to producing a ‘style’ of service encounter” (Warhurst et al 2000, p. 1). It is clear from the definition that aesthetics of labour is the development and manipulation of embodied competencies of an employee by the employer to bring about product differentiation.

The labour of aesthetics is important in the materialization of the style of the aesthetics of the service organisation and particularly the ‘style’ of the service experience encountered by the customers. The increasing mobilization of aesthetic labour is particularly evident in the style labour market of design and image drive retail and hospitality organisations. This phenomenon is been around from the 1980s when the organisations sought market differentiate through designer interior and increasingly through the ‘making-up’ of their employees, as employers realised that they are an integral part of the service encounter (Nickson et al, 2003).

The two major constituents of aesthetic Labour which organisation use to differentiate their ‘human product’ from their competitors are innate skills and competencies and induced or external skills and competencies. Innate Skills and competencies are the embodies capacities and assets of the individual which constituents the personality and communication skills of a person or ‘soft’ skills of a person (Nickson et al, 2005), these skills are especially important in the airline industry for the selection of flight stewardesses along with physical aspects like weight, height, teeth, complexion and facial regularities, they are also supposed to project a warm and friendly disposition and an enthusiastic spirit (Hoschild 1983, cited in Spiess & Waring 2005). This selection of candidate on the basis of soft skills is a highly volatile debate as aesthetic labour can be misunderstood or purposefully sexualised because mostly female stewardesses are chosen who fit the appropriate physical requisites of the organisation and even the male flight attendants are selected for their appearances (Spiess & Waring, 2005). Organisations also use marketing strategies that sexualise labour through advertisement and catch phrase like ‘There's a new girl in town. She's twice the fun and half the price’. Air Asia Advertisement published in a Singaporean newspaper (Streats, 3 December, 2003 cited in Speiss & Waring, 2005), to attract their predominately male passengers. Another instance of sexualised aesthetic labour is the restaurant chain Hooters which employ voluptuous young women to project as they say their ‘Florida beach girl look’ as they believe that sex sell (Nickson et al, 2003). The other is the external or induced skills which are the uniforms and the training rendered to employees which constitute body language, manners and phraseology required to address their consumer, these are generally induced on the employees to standardise their service and also to differentiate themselves from their competition through their projected image, this also helps to tangibilise service product for the customers (Solomon, 1985).

Pre-Entry

a) Employer-Customer

b) Employer-Employee

recruitment, selection

3. External 2. Internal

Employee-customer 2. a) Employer-Employee

working practises ...

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Pre-Entry

a) Employer-Customer

b) Employer-Employee

recruitment, selection

3. External 2. Internal

Employee-customer 2. a) Employer-Employee

working practises 2. b) Employee-Employee

service encounters training

management practices

working practices

Figure 1 (Source: Nickson et al, 2000)

Aesthetic labour is practised in three main domains: at the pre-entry (i.e. at the recruitment and selection stage), at the internal domain (during training, the managerial and working practices emphasised), and lastly external (the working practices and the actual service encounter) (Nickson et al, 2000).

Pre-entry- Employer-Employee: Recruitment and Selection at this level aesthetic labour is most predominate as criteria for selecting the right kind of candidates and weeding out the inappropriate ones are exercised (Nickson et al, 2000). The selection criteria clearly stated in many advertisements for hospitality position which specify the aesthetic attributes required, for instance good personality with good communications skills is a regular feature in columns. This trend is predominate in the hospitality industry where aesthetic skills of a person is given precedence over technical skills, especially for front-line personnel, as many personnel manager feel technical training can be offered to them on-the-job but aesthetic skills can not be acquired only developed (Nickson et al, 2000; 2005). Because of these aesthetic skills prerequisites many potential employees are discouraged and self-select as they feel that they are not adequately skilled to apply for a job in a particular organisation (Nickson et al, 2005).

Internal- Employer-Employee, Employee-Employee: Training, managerial practises and working practises this entails the continuous development and moulding of the employees after their recruitment in to the organisations. Because employers have realised that apart from training in technical aspects of the organisation’s trade, an on going training in aesthetic skill improvement is required to fine tune the overall impression of the employee on the customer as employees are ‘walking billboards’ (Zeithaml & Bitner, 2003) for their organisation and need to project the image of the organisation effectively. From this reason many organisation have set training modules in personal grooming, personality development and body language with the help of external consultants (Nickson et al, 2005; Bryson & Wellington, 2001). Employer have come to the realisation that the uniform alone can not project the right image of the organisation if the grooming of the individual is below expectation, so therefore great emphasis is paid by employer on the outward appearance of the employees with proper grooming standards set by the organisations for both men and women to follow like minimal jewellery, make-up skills, hair cuts, regulations on acceptable body art, etc., some organisation have also set up grooming committee to monitor the grooming standards of the employees and incentives have been are set up to encourage this, like the best groomed employee of the month, etc (Nickson et al, 2000). Apart from the personality fine tuning staff also receive training in ‘how to approach the guest’ skills through development of body language and phraseology to used and to be able to judge the body language of the customer and adapt to the situation accordingly because self-presentation of the employee is all part of the service product (Nickson et al, 2003). These skills and training are increasingly being embraced by organisations outside the ‘style’ industry as well, for instance, by accounting firms like Ernst and Young, financial institutions like banks, and including automobile manufacturers like Audi that arrange for personality development training programs for their employees. Since effective self-presentation is increasingly becoming a requisite for career growth and development as they require their employees to project a desired image to their clients (Bryson & Wellington, 2001).

External- Employee-Customer: Working practises and Service Encounter in the external stage the role of aesthetics is important because all the training and development is required to influence the customer, some organisations require their employee to maintain good posture and body language even when they aren’t interacting with guests, being well groomed always, using appropriate words especially in up-scale organisations where their required to interact with customer who appreciate eloquent language to express themselves, are some of the practises required by organisations (Nickson et al, 2000). In the hospitality industry the working practises rely heavily on aesthetics of labour in the service encounter and so employees are intensively training in this aspect to project the image of the organisation at all time, such that organisations like Disney, for instant require their employees to maintain an ‘onstage’ attitude whenever they are in public as they are representatives of their organisation even if they are off-duty (Zeithaml & Bitner, 2003). Aesthetics of the labour is used in the hospitality industry extensively to tangibilise the service product especially in the airline industry where the flight attendants are used in commercials to project the service standards and influence their potential customers (Speiss & Waring, 2005). Further more organisations can only provide training and fine tuning of aesthetic skills because the eventual ‘Moment of truth’ is outside the control of the organisation. And finally the image of the organisation projected threw the service encounter between the employee and customer, because hospitality is the only industry where ‘the employee is the product’ and because of the unique feature of services where the service provider and service are inseperable (Kotler et al, 2003).

Emotional impact of Aesthetic labour this is a very important aspect to deal with in regard to labour because the employees are always required to ‘act’ in a particular way and this puts pressure on the employees and their personality as they require to be polite, courteous, empathetic and ‘models’ of the organisations image which draws heavily on an individual’s emotions as they always have to react consistently and calmly to customer’s actions. Employers need to consider this fact while recruiting and even existing employees require an outlet for their emotions and this can be done through regularly scheduled breaks, duty rotation and cross-training, stress workshops and training (Nickson et al, 2003; Zeithaml & Bitner, 2003). The other aspect is social exclusion as employer are increasingly becoming selective of the employees on the basis of their aesthetic skill rather then their social and technical skills which filters out many who do not fit into the organisations employee profile and this is increasingly seen as discriminatory by many and is leading to increases in unemployment. Another aspect of social exclusion is misunderstanding of the demand of the skills by employers in the style labour industries by training institutions which give weightage to technical and social skill over aesthetic skill development of potential employees, and this greatly impacts recruitment trends as technical skill can be acquired on the job in hospitality organisations, whereas social and aesthetical skills need to be developed and refined inorder to be selected and recruited by an organisation. And finally the last part of social exclusion is self-selection by potential employees who have previously been excluded, to try for certain jobs in the hospitality industry as they develop the impression that they are not suitable enough for the position, this is based on past experiences of being excluded or terminated on the basis of lack of certain aesthetic skills which enhances feelings discrimination (Nickson, 2003).

In conclusion, with the insatiable growth of the service industry, becoming the primary employment provider in the world scenario at the moment. Aesthetic labour is an irrefutable phenomenon to contend with and will increasingly be researched in the future because of its significant influences on recruitment trends in the future. But aesthetic labour has two arguments one that it has a positive influence on recruitment and invariably on all levels of the organisation, as it helps develops the personality of the employee through improving their manners, body language, and eventually leading to career development and advancement of the individual. For the manager incharge of the outlet or establishment of aesthetically well training staff have less supervision of staff, competent and empowered staff and finally growth in profits, which result in career recognition and advancement possibilities. And lastly, for the employer or the organisation in general, competitive advantage because of well training employees, standardised service product, customer satisfaction and retention and finally market progression through image development and growth in profits (Zeithaml & Bitner, 2003; Nickson et al, 2003), but on the flip-side of the argument aesthetic labour is sexually oriented, gendered and discriminatory. As it degrades and sexualises labour through provocative and bold catch phrases in advertisement and projection of female employees as sexual symbols inorder to entice male customer to experience their service product, for instance air-line stewardesses and waitresses in Hooters ( Speiss & Waring, 2005; Nickson et al, 2003). It is also considered discriminatory because it excludes candidate on the basis of ‘looking good’ and ‘sounding good’ and not the technical aspects of the candidate (Nickson et al, 2003). So for aesthetic labour to succeed a combination of skills (technical, social and aesthetic skills) needed to be developed in individuals by training institutes and be able to make informed decisions based on current market trends to determine job opportunities, so that they can succeed in the recruitment process.

List of References

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