The relationship between employee psychological empowerment, overall job satisfaction and employee loyalty of front office receptionists in Kuala Lumpur 5 star hotels / Mohd Onn Rashdi Abd Patah.

The hotel industry has the responsibility and role of increasing guest satisfaction with its services and products. This can be carried out through efficient service by frontline employees, particularly the Front Office receptionists. Developing efficient workforce may depend on their satisfaction level towards the job given by the management and sense of belonging or loyalty to the organization. There are many ways and means of developing employees' satisfaction and loyalty level to their work and organization. Empowering employees is one of the approaches to a better organizational effort in harmonizing and producing positive employee outcome. This study was conducted to examine the relationships between psychological empowerment (through dimensions of meaningfulness, competence and influence), overall job satisfaction and employee loyalty of Front Office receptionists in Kuala Lumpur 5-star hotels. A total of 210 questionnaires distributed to Front Office receptionists at 21 hotels rated as 5 star hotels in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The response rate was 43 percent which represent a total of 91 questionnaires that was returned, usable and coded. Results showed that the three dimensions of psychological empowerment; meaningfulness, competence and influence have significant impacts on overall job satisfaction. However, none of the psychological empowerment dimensions had significant impact on employee loyalty. Findings also suggested that overall job satisfaction influenced employee loyalty level towards their organization. Employee psychological empowerment and loyalty scores did not have any significance differences based on their demographic information and work profiles. Significance differences were only found on employees' overall job satisfaction scores based on their demographic information and work profiles especially in terms of age and hotel tenure. Hotel managers might consider solution in their effort to increase employee's overall job satisfaction and loyalty for example by enhancing participation by the departmental decision making, encourage creativity and further nurture work-related skills.