Managing Contingent Labour in the Hotel Industry by Developing Organisational Social Capital

Abstract

Contingent labour is the main-stay of large hotel workforces for a variety of reasons, but mainly for flexibility of labour costs. While much attention has focused on achieving organisational objectives via the use of contingent labour less attention has been given to those who manage this group, namely middle-managers. This research posed the question “How do middle-managers manage and cope with contingent labour and reports its findings which, in summary, are: (1) Large hotels, as part of standard quality control and extensive use of contingent labour” (un-intentionally) encourage middle-managers to use a rationalist modus operandi. (2) While objectives can be met by the extensive use of systems and rationalistic management, outcomes for all stakeholders can be enhanced by engaging a more humanistic managerial approach; one which encourages the development of organisational social capital. (3) Humanistic orientated managers find working in system based organisations very stressful as they believe that systems should support people, not the other way round, yet developing social capital takes time, is fluid and cannot be ‘fitted into’ systems, and (4) That this stress is often so great that humanistic middle-managers resign. It suggests that a common-sense approach to managing contingent labour via encouraging the development of organisational social capital is not common-practice.