Globalisation is solving some of the world’s problems, but is having

a range of implications on industries and organisations.

Solutions Paper

Kaja Chytry

S5382636

Tutor: Paulette McCormack

Workshop: Thursday 1pm

1040 words
Introduction

For the past decades globalisation has been a leading social and business trend. It has different
implications for each area of business, depending on the industry’s specifics. It’s been proven to
enhance price reduction and it serves international chains. Covid-19 pandemic has only sped up
the process and strengthened the virtual globalisation of networks and relations. Global
governance is applied and due to the peak of globalisation companies need to ongoingly adjust
new policies to accommodate tertiary labour restrictions (Kandil et al., 2020), (Free &
Hecimovic, 2021), (Wieviorka, 2023), (Kreye, 2022).

With focus on the hospitality industry this paper will discuss its key issues resulting from
globalisation, such as technology development, decreased work-life balance, and employee
mistreatment. For each of those issues actions will be suggested. With the hospitality industry as
a massive employment sector, often the first job of an individual, it is crucial to consider the
direction that this industry is moving in and recognize main concerns for the future of work.

Response to essay topic

For many reasons globalisation has an incredibly positive influence on business with many
opportunities presented. It’s supportive towards expanding businesses, labour mobility and
international integration (Mader et al., 2019). However, with all those results there are also
drawbacks that need to be addressed.

Issue 1: Low wages - robot takeover.

With technology able to replace hospitality employees becoming increasingly more available, it
only makes sense for employers to keep hiring people as long as it costs less than acquiring and
maintaining robots that have the same abilities (Wood, 2021). The percentage of jobs that require
a degree or diploma will be increasing due to a drop in demand for blue-collar workers, causing
loss of job identity, status, and competence disintegration, including hospitality industry
(Meisinger, 2022). An analysis by Blöcher and Alt (2020) suggests that the majority of tasks of a
restaurant employee can be performed by AI (Artificial Intelligence) technologies. That means
the wages will decrease as technology becomes more affordable.
Issue 2: Focus on work-life balance.

Fast development of modernisation and globalisation increased putting work-life balance as

priority, which resulted in companies rewriting their policies to accommodate that (Chaudhuri et
al., 2020). Due to specifics of working in the hospitality industry (such as on-call hours, shift
work and obligations to work long hours) maintaining a work-life balance gets harder as the job
seniority increases (Sun et al., 2023). Looking at the future of work, this trend may cause even
bigger employee turnover within the industry, as newer employees have more autonomy.

Issue 3: Employee mistreatment

Customer service workers experience mistreatment and verbal (sometimes even physical) abuse.
Research says that behaviour has worsened since coronavirus including bullying, sexual
harassment, and general misbehaviour (Booyens et al., 2022). Customers, however, are only the
part of emotional abuse in hospitality industry. The foodservice sector is the one mostly affected
by harassment in the workplace, causing danger to the overall well-being of employees within
the industry. With tough work conditions (long hours, constant pressure, conflicting interests
between front and back of the house) foodservice industry is known as hostile work environment
(Smith et al., 2021). If no actions are taken, future workplace in the hospitality industry will
become insufferable leading to mental distress amongst employees.

Recommendations

Recommendation 1: Embrace and correctly incorporate new technologies in the workplace.

With constant development of artificial intelligence, it is crucial for both manager and employees
in the hospitality sector to acknowledge it. Ongoing changes call management to adjust their
leadership styles, and job requirements (Kong et al., 2021). The article further explores how
awareness about increasing AI abilities negatively affects employees’ work engagement,
contributes to burnout, and worsens their emotional state. Based on those findings, it is
recommended that understanding of industry changes and learning how to work with AI needs to
be part of hospitality work policies. Technology is meant to benefit organisations and employees,
but because of the job insecurity occurring alongside AI awareness it is feared rather than fully
exploited. The career patterns in hospitality will change - but with better understanding of
direction of these changes and correct evaluation of which jobs can and cannot be automated,
organisations will take full advantage of technology and employees will feel the importance of
their work and have access to satisfactory wages.

Recommendation 2: Increase job importance in employees’ perception.

Employees are essential for hospitality organisations - they affect consumer satisfaction, sales,
the perception of the company and advertising. Personal well-being of employees is related to
job satisfaction, company loyalty and work quality (Guzzo et al., 2022). Shift work is affecting
the personal life of employees when combined with work dissatisfaction (Hulsegge et al., 2020),
which is why it is suggested to increase employee awareness of importance of their work. That
awareness is assumed to positively impact their intention to stay and boost work performance
(Guzzo et al., 2022). The hospitality industry is a huge employment sector worldwide, which is
why the matter of job satisfaction is extremely important. It is strongly advised to take on
initiatives to increase employee work-related self-esteem and feeling of importance.

Recommendation 3: Improving and executing working laws.

Misbehaviour of customers towards service workers cannot be tolerated and relations between
From-of-House and Back-of-House need to be improved. Impacts of verbal abuse have been
proven to affect people later in life and are often associated with insecurity and loneliness (Salzer
& Karni-Vizer, 2020), which shows the significance of the problem. The effect like that on
people’s mental health calls for acknowledgement on the world-wide level. Detailing and
implementing of ani-abuse laws and regulations on national level worldwide may be necessary
and involvement of multinational organisations (such as EU) would be beneficent.

Summary

Globalisation is one of the grand challenges of business, thus cannot be fully ‘solved’, however
there is a number of actions that can be taken to reduce negative impact regarding the future of
work. This paper examined three key issues that globalisation brought to the hospitality industry:
employee mistreatment, risks of AI takeover and difficulty in maintaining work-life balance. As
to these issues it war recommended to embrace new technologies, increase employee awareness,
and reduce hostility in the workplace. The scale and complexity of the problem calls for further
actions and solutions.
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