Liu Bing is a professor and doctoral supervisor of the Department of Leadership and Organizational Management, the School of Management, Shandong University, who is also a High-end Talent of the Shandong Province Think Tank. His main research interests include service innovation, platform organization management, and flexible human resource management. He has published more than 40 papers in well-known journals at home and abroad, such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Tourism Management, International Journal of Hospitality Management, Nankai Business Review, China Soft Science, and Journal of Management Science. He has also presided over and participated in a number of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the National Social Science Fund of China (NSSFC).
The hospitality industry is a labour-intensive and service-focused industry, a characteristic that makes it more important than other industries to focus on employees’ well-being and mental health rather than just performance. Meanwhile, front-line employees in the industry are inclined to face more service challenges, such as customer complaints, service failures, etc., all of which can lead to their negative emotions or emotional labour. However, the hospitality industry always needs front-line employees to maintain a high enthusiasm to cope with these challenges. Therefore, how to stimulate employees’ positive emotional states is indispensable to the enhancement of service quality and performance. Employee caring practice offers a realistic chance to foster a positive emotional state among employees. The practice can not only satisfy employees’ interests but can continuously encourage them to reflect on issues and make suggestions to the organization in a reciprocal way, leading to a win-win situation ultimately. Recently, Professor Liu Bing’s team published the latest research result “To voice or not to voice? Employee caring practice, employee gratitude, and positive reciprocity norm in the hospitality industry” in the International Journal of Hospitality Management, an important international management journal. The paper elaborated on how the employee caring practice facilitates the employees’ voice behaviour by stimulating their positive emotional states, and offered some constructive advice on implementing the employee caring practice in the service industry to promote front-line employee advocacy.
The Effect of Employee Caring Practice on Employee Voice Behavior
The study proposed that the employee caring practice can benefit employee voice behaviour by arousing their gratitude towards the organization. According to the principles of reciprocity in social exchange theory, the practice highlights employees’ well-being, their work security and work-life balance, and alleviation of their job pressure, which can make employees feel that the organizations are concerned about them. Therefore, employees are likely to develop a persistent feeling of gratitude for these practices provided by organizations that are beneficial to them. Gratitude is a uniquely prosocial emotion that tends to find and reciprocate the contributions of others, and employees are more willing to reflect on service issues they find as well as advise the organization out of a consideration of reward. The viewpoint was also supported by the data from the large-scale research on 54 hotels and 876 front-line employees.
The empirical study has found that first of all, implementing the the employee caring practice promotes employee voice behaviour. According to the principles of reciprocity, when one party offers a benefit, the receiving party is obligated to respond accordingly. As a result, when employees feel that they are cared for, valued or treated favorably by the organization, they will develop a sense of responsibility that they are obliged to work for the benefit of the organization, and then they may reciprocate through advising.
Secondly, employees’ gratitude is an important intermediary mechanism and the reason why the employee caring practice can continuously advance employee voice behaviour. Long-term care, support and help from the organization can make employees feel gratitude. The feeling of gratitude acts as a moral motivator to encourage beneficiaries to repay the benefactor in ensuing interactions. Besides, to maintain a long-term reciprocal relationship, beneficiaries may even sacrifice their short-term interest. Hence, when employees feel gratitude and have noticed problems in the service, they will think it is time to give back to their organizations. Even if the voice behaviour can be risky at that moment, they are still willing to point out problems.
Thirdly, employees' positive reciprocity beliefs can enhance the facilitating effect of employee gratitude on their voice behaviour; however, not all grateful employees can voice actively in reality. The fact is that the more employees recognize the principle of reciprocity, after having feelings of gratitude, the stronger their sense of responsibility and obligation to repay organizations will develop, which contributes to their active voice.
Practical Implications for Business Management
The study had important practical implications for HR managers and business executives in the hospitality services industry. Firstly, according to research findings, we recommended that business managers actively carry out the employee caring practice. At present, most hotels place great emphasis on service performance and service quality, namely the implementation of performance-oriented human resource management practice. However, it means a lot of work pressure for front-line employees, and it’s also not conducive for service organizations to retain employees and deal with high staff turnover rates. If hotel managers could actively implement the employee caring practice while focusing on performance, unintended consequences may be produced that not only do employees stay with the organization, but they are more likely to reciprocate it.
Moreover, if business managers want to receive more suggestions from employees, they should provide a safe atmosphere and open channels for suggestions, along with cultivating and maintaining employees' gratitude. It is only when employees feel gratitude to the organization that they wouldn’t develop a bystander mentality while identifying problems. The study has clarified that the employee caring practice can inspire gratitude among employees. In short, only by making employees feel the vitality and care given by the organization can business managers stimulate and maintain employees' gratitude.
Finally, the research reminded us that the HR department should pay attention to the positive reciprocity belief of service employees. For example, positive reciprocity belief can be regarded as an assessment indicator in the recruitment and selection process. In the allocation of posts, arranging more individuals with a high sense of positive reciprocity in front-line roles makes it easier for organizations to get constructive feedback. In addition, the HR department can also develop some long-term training plans to gradually cultivate the positive reciprocity belief among employees, helping them to realize that the relationship between individuals and organizations is mutually beneficial and interdependent.
Link：https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2023.103571
