Critical Analysis of Job Satisfaction Among Female Employees

Hotel Industry is a major segment of hospitality Industry in India contributing to huge scale of foreign exchange earnings as well as employment. The market size of hotel industry in India (including unorganized market) is estimated at $22 Billion in 2019 and was estimated to grow at 8.6% till 2025. Employees are the real assets and sole ambassadors of any hotel organization. In this regard, females have the natural attributes of hospitality. However, the industry still continues to be male dominated and unfortunately most of the Indian hotels do not observe proactive HR policies for effective participation, growth and retention of female employees. Woman in hospitality industry experience added confronts due to specific characters, complexity and tight job schedules of the industry. Hence, it is important for managements to consider and acknowledge their job satisfaction needs. This book is based on a study that is the first of its kind attempting to measure the level of job satisfaction of women employees in hotel industry with special reference of star category hotels. This book attempts:

1. To analyze the socio economic backgrounds, to identify the problems & challenges faced by female employees, to study the HR Policies, and to analyze the job satisfaction level of the female employees in hotel industry at vertical and horizontal lines.

In the study, two pre structured questionnaires were developed: (1) HR Departments of various categories of hotels to conduct a descriptive analysis of the HR Policies towards female employees. 2. For the prime respondents i.e. female employees working at different levels of positions at various category hotels to study their job satisfaction

On the basis of convenient sampling the sample size of 86 was derived to study the HR policies adopted towards female employees. Questionnaire with 43 items were distributed to 100 hotels of various categories. Conchran Formula was used to determine the sample size for unknown population. The results of the study revealed that maximum numbers of females in the hotel industry are at lower age group and a steep decline is seen on moving upwards in the age groups. Female employees in the industry are mostly observed to prefer front office department as their first choice followed by housekeeping department. Further, largest number of female employees are found at entry level and least are observed at managerial level. Mostly female employees are found unmarried without having much family obligations. The results show that the most prominent and universal challenges faced by females in hotel industry are "Glass ceiling effect" long and irregular working hours, gender discrimination, and cultural discouragement with stereotype attitude. Less salary structure and slow career growth is also observed as major challenge in the industry. Furthermore, the results concluded that Working Conditions, Compensation and Incentives, Work Life Balance, Management Policies and Organizational Belongingness have a significant positive effect on Overall Satisfaction of female employees in the hotel industry. However, Safety and Security does not show correlation with the overall satisfaction of female employees in the study. The overall findings interpret that there is no significant difference between job satisfaction levels among the female employee in operational departments of hotel. However, a significant difference between the job satisfaction of female employees at higher, middle & lower levels of hotel is found. The present study will be highly beneficial from industry point of view for focusing on their women workforce needs at all level. The outputs of the study will help the organizations to formulate women friendly policies and work culture.