A friendly smile and warm attitude are the features of a happy restaurant server.
But this smile may be deceiving according to one study which found about half of restaurant employees express low satisfaction with their jobs.
Murat Hancer and Thomas George conducted the research study within Ohio State’s College of Human Ecology. The study found half of employees showed low satisfaction levels, a quarter showed average levels and the remaining quarter showed high satisfaction with their jobs.
“This particular study came out of Murat’s dissertation,” said George, associate professor of hospitality management. “He was the principle investigator, and I advised him with the study.”
George said he was surprised by the low satisfaction levels.
“I expected to have more employees who were at least in the middle range of satisfaction,” he said. “But considering the heavy turnover in the industry, there are a lot of individuals working part-time and do not see the benefits. All they see is a paycheck at the end of the week, and this could be a contributor to why they have low satisfaction.”
Research was conducted by using the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire. George said. The MSQ is a proprietary instrument and a researcher must pay and have permission to use it. It is well-recognized and used for restaurant employee research.
“We contacted the restaurants and Murat traveled to the chain headquarters and talked to them,” George said on how surveys were distributed. “We never give out who the individual restaurants are.”
Caution must be taken when talking about job satisfaction, George said.
“In this study, approximately 50 percent of individuals fell in the percentile grouping that said low satisfaction,” he said. “This doesn’t mean 50 percent of the employees are miserable or dissatisfied with their jobs, it simply means they expressed a lower level of satisfaction than others.”
Twenty factors were examined in this study. Factors included aspects such as: pay, job security, management, advancement and communication, George said.
“There are many facets that should be examined and not just the global question, ‘Are you satisfied with your job?’ Not a lot of information comes out of this one question,” he said. “These facets will determine if an employee is happy or not.”
To determine who was considered in the low, average or high satisfaction level, the mean scores from the 20 different facets were added to get a raw score. The originators of the instrument divided everything into low, medium and high percentiles, and if the raw score fell into a certain percentile, it was classified as low, medium or high, George said.
George said many of the individuals surveyed were dissatisfied with their opportunity for advancement.
“Restaurants could let their employees see that there are some chances to move up within the hierarchy. Recognition is another way of improving job satisfaction. Verbal recognition can be very helpful,” he said.
Colleen Sefcik, a hostess at Buckeye Hall of Fame Cafe, said she is among those who are dissatisfied with their job.
“I don’t like it,” said Sefcik, a sophomore in family sciences. “The scenery never changes, and the customers can be really rude, especially when it’s really busy.
“The managers try to help, but not much can be done,” she said. “I think if everyone had work experience in a restaurant then they would understand.”
One area in which she would like to see improved upon next is the scheduling aspect of the job.
“Scheduling seems to make people mad here. There needs to be a rotation on who is closing and who gets to leave for the night,” she said.
Sefcik said it is nice to have the additional money, but it is difficult to come to work after a full day of classes.
Meghan Williamson, a waitress at Johnny Rockets, said she likes her job, but it gets very stressful at times.
“I like it here, and it’s good money,” said Williamson, a sophomore in animal science. “My complaint is with the manager because he doesn’t know what he is doing.”
The situation would be better if the manager had more experience as a server then he would understand the stress, Williamson said.
Managers need to develop good relationships with their employees in order to increase job satisfaction, George said.
“Managers really need to take initiative because a lot of the customers take the servers for granted and management has to compensate for that,” he said. “The whole goal is to make employees and the customers happy.”
Hancer was unavailable for comment because he is out of the country.
