Employees Perceptions of Hotel Employment in Indonesia

Sienny Thio

and Foedjiawati

Hotel Management Program, Faculty of Economics, Petra Christian University,

Siwalankerto 121-131, Surabaya, Indonesia

Tourism Management Program, Faculty of Economics, Petra Christian University,

Siwalankerto 121-131, Surabaya, Indonesia

Keywords: Hotel Employees, Hotel Employment, Indonesia, Perceptions.

Abstract: This paper investigates in what extend hotel employees in Indonesia confirm negative perceptions stated by

previous studies concerning hotel employment. The quantitative data were obtained by distributing

questionnaires to a total of 375 employees working in four- and five-star hotels in Surabaya and Bali. The

result revealed that Indonesian employees did not support the proposition that hotel work has a poor image.

Being uneducated, unproductive, and unmotivated were the least accepted images pertaining to the hotel

characteristics. Independent samples T-test and One-way ANOVA test indicated that employees with

different socio-demographic backgrounds of marital status, age, religions, educational levels, and job

positions had significant differences in their perceptions towards hotel employment. By acknowledging

employees’ perceptions on hotel characteristics, it is expected that hospitality leaders will be able to create a

better positive image of the industry in order to attract and recruit better talented employees.

1 INTRODUCTION

Each industry has its own employment

characteristics. The tourism and hospitality sectors

are known to have some common characteristics of

high labor-intensity and turnover, higher levels of

part-time or temporary employment, poor

remuneration, unskilled/semi-skilled, low status of

jobs, and female-dominated (Kusluvan, 2003).

Moreover, Kusluvan et al., (2010) have stated that

hospitality jobs are perceived as low prestige due to

the unfavorable working conditions such as un-fixed

working hours and shift-rotation arrangements.

Similarly, Meier (1991) describes a range of

unappealing characteristics of the hospitality

industry that deter work in the industry such as odd

hours, low pay, no breaks, public contact, and long

hours. Other negative perceptions include low

wages, long-working hours, poor work-life balance,

servile job (Jayawardena et al., 2013), limited

opportunities of career advancement (Davidson et

al., 2010), sexual discrimination, narrow job

functions (Choi et al., 2000), and low-entry barriers

(Baum et al, 2016). These various attributes have

driven negative images for those who are working in

this industry and have been automatically transported

to its employees as “uneducated, unmotivated,

unskilled and unproductive” (Pizam, 1982, p.5).

Although working in the hotel industry is seen as

low skilled, Szivas et al., (2003) pointed out that

many hotel employees possess a high level of

education. However, the various negative attributes

of hospitality have led to a decline in the number of

applicants and an increase in workforce demand by

industry, resulting in high turnover (Kusluvan et al.,

2010; Meier, 1991; Solnet and Hood, 2008). As a

result, the industry is facing difficulties in recruiting

and retaining qualified and competent employees

(Kusluvan, 2003).

Working in the hospitality industry is also

considered to be flexible since employees are able to

look for similar jobs in another sector (Solnet and

Hood, 2008) and master their work skills and

knowledge without any formal training education

(Riley, 1996). Hence, the work is generally viewed

as unimportant which is associated with slavish jobs

such as serving, sweeping, cleaning and washing

(Guerrier, 1999). However, Solnet and Hood (2008)

state that working in hospitality can offer a kind of

prestige that is associated with pride.

Although many hospitality operators have put an

effort into making their companies preferred places

to work, the negative impression of the industry

continues to be an issue for young people looking for

Thio, S. and Foedjiawati, .

Employees Perceptions of Hotel Employment in Indonesia.

DOI: 10.5220/0008487700320037

In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Entrepreneurship and Business Management (ICEBM Untar 2018), pages 32-37

ISBN: 978-989-758-363-6

work in the industry (Enz, 2001). Numerous studies

have been conducted to describe the characteristics

and image of the hotel industry in general. However,

none of them was conducted in the context of

Indonesia’s hotel industry. As encouraged by Hayes

and Ninemeier (2009) human resource managers

need to understand their employees may have both

different impressions towards their work and

different concerns due to their age and other aspects.

By acknowledging employees’ perceptions on

working at hotel industry in Indonesia, it is expected

that hotel leaders will be able to create a positive

perception of the industry in order to attract and

recruit more talented and qualified employees to the

industry. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the

prevalent perceptions of hotel employee work in

Indonesia’s hotel industry and also to examine

whether different employees with different socio-

demographic background such as age, gender, and

education will have different perception about

working in the hotel industry.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Employment in the Hospitality

Industry

The growth in tourism has led to the creation of jobs

and makes tourism attractive, especially in

developing countries (Popescu et al., 2013). It has

been argued that compared with other industries, the

hospitality sector offers more employment for a

similar investment (Kusluvan, 2003). However, the

seasonal nature of the hospitality industry also

significantly impacts hospitality employment,

leading to a seasonal labor, underemployment and

unemployment (Jolliffe and Farnsworth, 2003).

Because of such seasonality, most sub-sectors of

tourism and hospitality employ part-time and

temporary staff to meet workforce demands,

particularly during peak periods. Consequently,

hospitality businesses including HR managers

require extra effort and resources to recruit, select,

train and retain qualified employees. This is

particularly true in the case of filling entry-level and

front-line management positions (Jayawardena et al.,

2013) if they are to manage and utilize their staff

effectively.

Human resource practice is often regarded

negatively in hospitality organizations since many

manage their people in a conventional and

exploitative way (Lucas, 1996). The function is

sometimes regarded as an administrative-only role

(Tracey and Nathan, 2002). The negative image of

the industry such as low wages, poor job security,

employee dissatisfaction, long-working hours,

seasonality, lower birth rate, ageing workforce, and

difficulty in predicting the demand for the workforce

(Davidson and Wang, 2011; Wang, 2009) have

contributed to many labor issues and scarcities in the

hotel industry. Concerns related to employment may

come from hotel management, such as a reduction in

number of employees per room (Pizam, 1999), labor

shortages (Enz, 2009), rising of labor costs

(Davidson et al., 2011), higher wages offer from

other industries, better working hours, good career

opportunities, and recruiting difficulties (Davidson

and Wang, 2011). The concerns of employees,

however, are low wages, poor working conditions

(Davidson et al., 2011), and staff layoffs (Enz,

2009).

2.2 Hospitality Employment in

Indonesia

The abundant human resources, with a population of

over 250 million people, of whom about 50 percent

are in the younger age group (under 30) (Indonesia-

Investment, 2016) have been great resource for

Indonesia. Unfortunately, the large numbers have

created numerous labor issues such as low education

levels, unskilled workers and poorly remunerated

occupations. According to the survey conducted by

the UNWTO for Indonesia (ILO, 2009), the main

factor in reducing the competitiveness of Indonesian

tourism is the shortage of a skilled workforce as a

result of poor wages, unfavorable working

environments, and low barriers to join the industry.

In addition, the OECD (2014) highlighted that the

major challenge for emerging countries including

Indonesia is improving job quality and productivity.

Education and skills are deemed to be essential to

increase employment outcomes and improve labor

market coverage.

Low wages compared to other sectors is deemed

to be one of the causes of the qualified labor shortage

in the Indonesian tourism industry including the

hotel sector (ILO, 2009). Hotel establishments only

offer the basic monthly salary for their employees

which usually follow the regional minimum wages.

In a common practice, regional minimum wages are

determined by provincial government which range

from IDR 1.100.000 to IDR 3.100.000 or USD 83 to

232 as per February, 2016 (National Wages and

Productivity Commission, 2016). Nevertheless,

employee allowances for Indonesia’s hotels consist

Employees Perceptions of Hotel Employment in Indonesia

of three main elements, which are basic salary,

service charge, and tips (Swan, 2015). The basic

salary of each company differs depending on the

positions and management policies. The service

charge in a hotel also depends on management

policy, which is mostly higher than the basic salary.

Employees who are working in hotels with higher

occupancy rates will receive higher service charge.

In practice, Indonesian hotel services are inclusive of

21% tax of which 10% is deemed as government tax

and the other 11% is a service charge. Lastly, tips in

a service industry are a common practice and it is

expected in Indonesia’s hotels. Employees who deal

directly with guests such as bellmen, concierge, and

guest relation officers have more opportunities to

earn tips from guests.

3 METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research Instrument and Data

Collection

This paper utilized the characteristics of employment

which refer to employee perceptions of the hotel

industry. Twenty five items are drawn from previous

studies and literature reviews (Davidson et al., 2010;

ILO, 2009; Jayawardena et al., 2013; Kusluvan,

2003; Kusluvan et al., 2010; Lucas, 1996; Meier,

1991). A five-point Likert scale was employed for

each item ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5

(strongly agree). Employees were asked to indicate

their perceptions of each attribute related to the

characteristics of working in a hotel.

Bali and Java Island were selected for this study

due to their popularity and dynamic growth of the

hotel business in Indonesia. Hotel employees who

are working in four- and five-star hotels in Surabaya

and Bali were employed. Chadwick et al., (1984)

suggest that the ideal sample size for social research

should be at least 200 respondents. A total of 375

samples were collected over a three-month period in

September to December 2016. After eliminating

incomplete responses and sorting the data set for

errors, 316 questionnaires were retained and used for

further data analysis.

3.2 Data Analysis

Non-probability sampling using convenience method

was adopted in this study. Mean and standard

deviations associated with each employment

characteristics were utilized to identify employee’s

perceptions towards working in the Indonesian hotel

industry. Independent samples T-test and One-way

ANOVA were employed to examine whether there

are significant differences of those employee

perceptions in association with socio-demographic

backgrounds, such as age, gender, religion, marital

status, education, and job position,

It is important to evaluate the reliability of all

scales used. The Cronbach’s Alpha value of

employee’s perceptions was 0.902, suggesting very

satisfactory level of the scale reliability with this

sample. However, there were three items (e.g. Hotels

always require many staff, staff at hotels regularly

quit to go elsewhere, and young workers dominate

the hotel work force) out of 25-items that had the

value of the item-total correlation below 0.30,

indicating that the correlation between each item was

not satisfactory. Thus, those three items were deleted

from the questionnaires. As all the items in the

questionnaire were in negative statements, the

authors reversed the five-point Likert scale from 1

(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) became 1

(strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree), meaning

that the higher the mean score, the higher the

disagreement of the respondents over negative items.

4 FINDINGS

4.1 Profile of Respondents

Table 1: Profile of the respondents (n=316).

Variable Frequency %

Gender

Male

Female

176

140

55.7

44.3

Age (years)

< 22

22-36

37-51

215

6.6

68.0

25.3

Educational level

High school

Diploma

Undergraduate

128

117

22.5

40.5

37.0

Marital status

Married

Not married

161

155

50.9

49.1

Religion

Muslim

Christian

Hindu

Buddha

Missing

158

50.0

22.5

25.9

1.3

0.3

Job Position

Staff

Supervisor

Junior Manager

Senior Manager

Others

Missing

150

47.5

25.0

11.7

10.8

3.8

1.3

ICEBM Untar 2018 - International Conference on Entrepreneurship and Business Management (ICEBM) Untar

The demographic profile of the respondents is

presented in Table 1.

Over 55% of respondents were male. The

dominant age group was 22-36 years old (68.2%)

which was classified as Millennials, and followed by

Gen X’s group with the age range of 37-51 years old

(25.4%). The majority of the respondents were

married (53.4%) with the educational level of

Diploma (40.5%) and undergraduate degree (36%).

Most of the respondents were Muslims (48.3%),

followed by Hindus (26.3%) and Christian/Catholic

(24%) with the majority had the position as staff in

the workplace (47.5%). The sample of the

respondents came from employees working in the 4-

star hotels (55.9%) and 5-star hotels (44.1%) located

in Surabaya (58.9%) and Bali (41.1%).

4.2 Employee Perceptions of Hotel

Employment

Table 2 ranks the mean and standard deviation for

each attribute that contributes to the overall

perception of hotel employees about working in a

hotel. The findings showed that the mean of overall

perception was 3.77 which revealed the respondents’

disagreement about the negative image of hotel

employment. Respondents did not agree with most of

the statements that mentioned working in a hotel is

deemed to be uneducated, unproductive and

unmotivated. This is evident from seeing the average

mean of above 4.0. They also countered that having

a job in a hotel does not need sufficient formal

education and skills as it can be seen from the

respondents’ profile that about 77% of employees

were holding diploma and bachelor degrees. In

addition, Indonesia’s hotel employees did not agree

that working in a hotel will create the image of low

social status and low prestige. Working in the hotel

industry particularly in Bali is considered to be

preferable as they have many opportunities to meet

people from all around the world.

It can be seen from Table 2 that Bali’s employees

(Mean=3.85) had a higher average mean than its

counterpart in Surabaya (Mean=3.73). This means

employees in Bali showed a higher level of

disagreement about poor images of working in a

hotel than employees in Surabaya. In other words,

Bali’s employees have more positive perception

about a job in the hotel industry. It is unsurprising

because working in the hotel industry is more

desirable for Balinese people due to the nature of

Bali Island as the most popular destination in

Indonesia for domestic and international travelers.

Having a career in a hotel is considered to be

more preferable. Interestingly, all the mean scores of

each attribute was higher for Bali respondents except

for an attribute related to inadequate salary,

suggesting that employees in Bali perceived that

remuneration received was not satisfactory enough

compared with Surabaya’s hotel employees. This

might be due to the intense competition of hotels in

Bali that results in the employees’ expectation to

gain a better allowance.

Table 2: Respondents’ Perceptions.

Perceptions Mean SD

Hotels employ many part-time/temporary

staff

2.84 0.95

Working hours in a hotel are not fixed 3.02 1.09

Staff at hotels need to work for long hou

3.10 1.05

Job tasks or activities in a hotel are narrow 3.26 0.97

Working in a hotel does not provide work-

life balance

3.41 0.97

Hotel is managed in a conventional way 3.55 0.91

It takes short time to master job knowledge

in a hotel

3.65 0.89

It takes short time to master job skills in a

hotel

3.67 0.90

Salary offered by hotel is low/inadequate 3.72 0.88

Staff at hotels have limited opportunities of

career advancement

3.74 0.97

It is relatively easy to get a job in a hotel 3.78 0.76

Hotel is managed in an exploitative way 3.76 0.83

Hotel treats female and male staff differently 3.78 0.94

More hotel workers are predominantly

female

3.82 0.75

Working in a hotel is vulnerable to sexual

harassment

3.94 0.92

Working in a hotel is viewed by other as

unimportant

insignificant

3.97 0.84

Working in a hotel does not need adequate

formal education

4.10 0.85

Working in a hotel will create the image of

low social status/low prestige

4.20 0.73

Working in a hotel does not need any skills

or less skills needed

4.29 0.69

Staff at hotels are most likely unmotivated 4.46 0.65

Staff at hotels are most likely unproductive 4.50 0.59

Staff at hotels are considered to be

uneducated

4.53 0.57

Overall perception 3.77 0.41

4.3 Comparative Employee Perceptions

As appeared in Table 3, the findings revealed that

there were significant differences between married

and unmarried respondents (p<0.01) as well as

Surabaya and Bali respondents (p<0.05) in regards to

their perception about working in the hotel industry.

Married employees were more likely to have a

positive image about the employment in a hotel

compared with the unmarried employees. Employees

working in Bali’s hotels were found to have more

Employees Perceptions of Hotel Employment in Indonesia

favorable perceptions, about working in the hotel

industry compared with Surabaya’s employees. It is

understandable because Bali as the most popular

travel destination in Indonesia has offered great

opportunities for those who want to pursue their

career in a hotel.

The findings also showed that there was no

significant difference between male and female in

regards to their perceptions on working in the hotel

industry even though the mean score of male

employees was slightly higher than female ones. In

addition, employees working in four- and five-star

hotels were not significantly different in their

perceptions about hotel employment. This might be

due to the fact that four- and five-star hotels are

considered to be the upscale hotels which generally

provide similar benefits and working conditions.

Table 3: Independent-sample T-test Results.

Demographic t-value Sig.

Gende

1.263 0.208

Marital Status 4.588 0.000**

Hotel type 0.433 0.666

Hotel location 2.406 0.017*

* represents significant level 0.05

**represents significant levels <0.01

In order to assess whether there were significant

differences amongst demographic groups in regards

to their hotel employment image, one-way ANOVA

were performed. The findings of this analysis are

presented in Table 4. It can be seen that different

cohorts of age, religion, education, and job position

were found to be significantly different (p<0.01) in

their perception about working in a hotel. No

significant difference was found amongst the mean

scores of different income levels.

Table 4: One-way ANOVA Results.

Demographic F-value Sig.

Age 8.663 0.000**

Religions 7.377 0.000**

Educations 4.840 0.009**

Job Positions 5.919 0.000**

**represents significant levels <0.01

5 DISCUSSION AND

CONCLUSIONS

The results of this study revealed that Indonesian

employees did not support the poor images of hotel

employment as they were conveyed by the previous

studies which appeal an unfavorable images of hotel

employment, such as low prestige and social status

(Kusluvan et al, 2010), unmotivated, unproductive,

uneducated, and unskilled (Pizam, 1982), limited

career advancement (Davidson et al., 2010) and

narrow job function (Choi, et al., 2000). The positive

perceptions of the hotel industry that have been

shown in this study may reflect the higher status of

respondents who are working in upscale four- and

five-star hotels. It is more attractive for employees

due to its international image and additional benefits

offered such as career development opportunities and

a higher salary.

In addition, the image of poor remuneration for

hotel employees (Kusluvan, 2003) was not accepted

by respondents, given that hotel employers in

Indonesia tend to provide an adequate allowance for

their workforce. As mentioned by Swan (2015),

Indonesia’s hotels generally provide their employees

with an adequate basic salary, once service charges

and tips are considered. Employees who are working

in higher occupancy hotels with upper scale service

standards are most likely to receive a higher monthly

take-home pay due to additional service charges and

tips given by guests. Compared to other industries,

employee salaries and benefits are relatively higher,

noting that higher occupancies impact directly on the

monthly take-home pay.

The image of hotel employees as uneducated,

unproductive and unmotivated was the least accepted

image pertaining to the hotel characteristics. Current

Indonesian hotel employment practices consider the

importance of education levels when applying for

better jobs and positions. Candidates who only

possess high school qualifications will most likely

occupy lower level positions such as housekeeping

attendant or gardener. Both formal and informal

educations are considered to be important in the

hotel industry as it requires a workforce that is

equipped to improve abilities and capabilities in

supporting the company’s bottom line.

The limitation of the research is that the findings

draw exclusively on respondents from 4- and 5-star

hotels in Surabaya and Bali. Their views may

diverge somewhat from employees in other types of

hotel and locations across Indonesia. It is suggested

that future researchers to investigate other categories

of property such as 3-star and budget hotels or hotels

in other geographical areas across Indonesia. Such an

extension would allow for greater generalizability of

employee perceptions towards Indonesian hotel

employment.

ICEBM Untar 2018 - International Conference on Entrepreneurship and Business Management (ICEBM) Untar

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to thank the Directorate General of

Higher Education (DIKTI), Ministry of Education

and Culture, the Republic of Indonesia, for their

financial support.

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Employees Perceptions of Hotel Employment in Indonesia