Customer Service on the Menu: Work Engagement of Waiters in Windhoek

Abstract

In order for restaurants to make a profit, apart from providing delicious and nutritious food, restaurants need to provide quality service to their customers. Work engagement is a positive work-related state that impacts on productivity, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. This study aims to investigate the relationship between job satisfaction, organisational commitment and work engagement. Another objective is to identify whether job satisfaction and/or organisational commitment are indeed predictors of work engagement amongst some waiters in Windhoek restaurants. Job satisfaction is regarded as the overall evaluation of employees regarding how pleasurable their jobs are. Organisational commitment is characterised by employees wanting to remain with the organisation. Participants were sourced from different restaurants in Windhoek (n=158). The participants comprised of 53 (33.5%) males and 105 (66.5%) females, mostly between the ages of 31 to 40 years (43.7%). Intrinsic job satisfaction (r = 0,56, p < 0,05), extrinsic job satisfaction (r = 0,29, p < 0,05) and organisational commitment (r = 0,45, p < 0,05) were positively related to work engagement. Intrinsic job satisfaction and organisational commitment were found to be significant predictors of work engagement. Having disengaged waiters could result in poor service delivery and customer dissatisfaction. Restaurants need to regularly assess job attitudes, provide role clarity and supervisory support, minimise work-related stress and provide regular training opportunities. This study will add to the existing knowledge of Industrial/Organisational Psychology and spark interest for future research and intervention on waiters in Namibia.