1. INTRODUCTION
Hospitality enterprises provide a wide range of products to their customers, either tangible or intangible. The quality of the tangible elements is important for satisfying customers’ needs (Nickson et al. 2005). However, service encounters are considered as one of the most distinctive characteristics of hospitality enterprises since they provide an important competitive advantage (Kandampully and Hu 2007;Patterson and Baron 2010). In service encounters, service perceptions and satisfaction of guests are mostly related to the nature and quality of customer-employee relationships (Di Mascio 2010;Papasolomou and Vrontis 2006). Accordingly, employees are evaluated as valuable team members representing the overall brand in such interactions since customer satisfaction is related to the positive impact of the service provided. In other words, employees can determine and differentiate customers’ service experiences.
Employees’ appearance and attire contribute to the quality and reliability of the service. Employees’ physical appearances act as a modifier in the service process. Accordingly, their attire and appearance are perceived as commercial phenomena by the enterprises. Female employees with certain physical properties, besides their technical skills, come front in the service industry (Çetin 2009). Female employment outnumbers male employment in the tourism industry. According to theUNWTO (2020), female employment in all economic sectors is at 39%. Women, on the other hand, have a 54 % employment rate in the tourism industry. This may be due to the fact that female employees in the tourism industry are given more benefits than in other businesses (WB 2017). Women labour, on the other hand, has an indispensable quality for the tourism sector, given that women's aesthetic traits are particularly important in tourism firms, particularly frontline departments. As the service sector expands, the target market's sustainability begins to rely heavily on customer satisfaction, allowing hospitality enterprises to survive in a highly competitive environment. (Schmenner 1986;Story et al. 2017;Teece 2018). Employers, from this perspective, favour female employment and seek to make a difference by instituting “aesthetic labour,” which entails modifying employees' appearance, attitudes, and behaviours.
Aesthetic labour is one of the endeavours used for increasing service quality. Relatedly, it has gained ground, especially in the hospitality industry. Employers have started to take employees’ attributes into account, starting from the selection and recruitment process (Warhurst and Nickson 2001;Magnini et al. 2013;Walters 2018). Via training programs, they try to create an image suitable for the brand. This process can be beneficial for enterprises. Yet, it can be dreadful for the employees, working at least eight hours a day, trying to be the one “who is looking good and sounding right” (Warhurst and Nickson 2001). However, there has been little research on the relationship between aesthetic labour and burnout (Tsaur and Tang 2013;Butler and Harris 2015;Tsaur and Hsieh 2020). These studies are primarily concerned with the burden of aesthetic labour, rather than the relationship between aesthetic labour and burnout. As a result, this paper aims to (1) examine the relationships between front-line employees’ aesthetic labour performance and their burnout levels; (2) find out the relationships between employees’ aesthetic labour performance subfactors and their burnout levels; and (3) compare their aesthetic labour performance in terms of various demographic and personal characteristics. Furthermore, this study aims to fill a gap in the literature by developing a scale to assess female frontline employees' aesthetic labour performance and providing large-scale survey data.
2. LITERATURE
2.1. Aesthetic Labour
As a concept, “Aesthetic labour” was first coined in the 2000s. According toWarhurst and Nickson (2001), aesthetic labour includes physical attributes, attitudes and behaviours of employees when applying for a job or a position. The purpose of changing and developing these skills by management in the recruitment, employment, and training processes is to create aesthetically pleasing and sounding right employees and differentiate from others in the market.Warhurst et al. (2000) state that managements evaluate candidates’ aesthetic labour performance during the recruitment and selection process. Then, they select epicurean individuals with style. However, having a desirable appearance is not the only criterion for being hired. Besides, possessing an appropriate voice and accent have great importance (Warhurst and Nickson 2007). Additionally, a frontline employee should be attractive, smile nicely, have nice teeth, care for their hair and have an ideal figure. All these physical efforts expected from employees is called “aesthetic labour”.
Aesthetic labour is associated with organizational expectations for employees' attractiveness, style, and interactional mannerisms (Lipton 2020). Besides, it is a process involving a physical appearance creation suitable for the work environment (Hofmann 2013). In the end, it would comprehend employee’s pose that covers a holistic massage being transmitted by and it is a spectrum of image, posture and dress (Quinn 2008). It has gained much importance for businesses with high customer-employee interactions (Walters 2018). Thus, aesthetic labours are highly demanded in the retail business, hospitality enterprises, airline industry, private hospitals, fashion industry and call centres (Entwistle and Wissinger 2006;Warhurst et al. 2000;Witz et al. 2003;Warhurst and Nickson 2007). According toWitz et al. (2003), aesthetic labour is a critical phenomenon for tourism enterprises. Since employees are considered as representing their company's image in the hospitality industry (Nickson et al. 2005). Furthermore, customers spending time in restaurants, hotels or cafes want to experience the aesthetic properties of these places as well. Tourism enterprises try their best to survive in a highly competitive environment by using aesthetically pleasing and sounding employees (Warhurst and Nickson 2007). Such that,Paules (1991) underlines that the main objective of tourism enterprises is to ensure that their customers enjoy the whole service offered. Customer enjoyment starts with what they see. In that sense, tourism enterprises expect their employees to have pleasing physical properties apart from strict clothing regulations.
2.2. Burnout
Modernity has led to the emergence of new life forms such as individuality and secularism. Besides, issues such as alienation, becoming meaningless and social disintegration have come to the fore (Taylor 2002). Caused by such issues, burnout as a syndrome has become popular in society.Freudenberger (1974) coined burnout, defining it as depletion of internal resources of an individual statement. Burnout is a syndrome, highly observed in specialties with high human interactions (Kaçmaz 2005). It threatens today’s business life as stressful working conditions can have a negative impact on the health and performance of employees.Jaramillo et al. (2011) observe that customer-centric occupations with high interpersonal communication and interaction can lead to higher levels of burnout.Cherniss (1980) also states that burnout is more common among service sector employees with high customer interaction.
Being one of the important components of the service industry, hospitality enterprises lean on customer-employee interaction and offer services to meet customers’ psychological satisfaction. Guest-employee interaction is a must for hospitality enterprises (Baek et al. 2020). Accordingly, the psychological well-being of employees working in the hospitality industry is a critical issue. Because of the demanding emotional management and expression required in the hospitality industry, employees force themselves to display good feelings and attitudes towards customers. This is explained by the concept of emotional labour. Emotional labour is found to be one of the most important reasons for job burnout in hospitality (Brotheridge and Grandey 2002). Although providing service in a joyful manner is a common job requirement in service enterprises, employees who experience emotional dissonance regularly deplete their limited resource reservoir and become emotionally exhausted, resulting in tangible and intangible costs for organizations (Karatepe and Aleshinloye 2009). As a concept derived from emotional labour, aesthetic labour puts an extra burden on employees working in the service sector. Aesthetic labour entails more than just looking good. Employees are expected to repress their feelings and project the appropriate mood, friendliness, cheerfulness, and mingle with guests, in addition to their physical appearance (Efthymiou 2018). In their study,Tsaur and Hsieh (2020) state that frontline employees have to perform aesthetic labour and this could cause a burden on them.Warhurst and Nickson (2007) claim that employees would be punished if they do not act according to the aesthetic norms and this may cause employees ‘dissatisfaction. Taking these studies into consideration, it can be stated that burnout and aesthetic labour can be related. However, this assumption needs further investigation and empirical support, which is the main aim of this research.
3. THEORETICAL DEVELOPMENT AND HYPOTHESES
There is a wealth of literature on finding out antecedents of hotel employees’ exhaustion or burnout (Kim et al. 2007;Karatepe and Uludag 2008;Lee and Ok 2012;Choi et al. 2019). Yet, few studies address that aesthetic labour can be related to hotel employees’ burnout (Tsaur and Tang 2013;Butler and Harris 2015). Aesthetic labour is especially related to the control of employees’ physical appearances so their work product is a part of their looks and behaviours (Williams and Connell 2010). Thus, becoming aesthetic labour can be evaluated as a prolonged process starting from selection and recruitment. Once an employee is accepted for a frontline position, she needs to control her body proposition (e.g. following a strict diet), try her best to fulfil the necessities of aesthetic labour. Frontline is the transaction point. Frontline employees are the faces of the brand. So, a special mixture of hard and soft skills is required for the frontline work. “Looking good and sounding right” is not an option, it becomes a necessity. Employees with the right attitude and appearance with a nice tone of voice are prominent. Service managers also try to create a matching look among employees by mobilizing, developing and commodifying their capacities and attributes. In short, transforming them into aesthetic labour (Pounders et al. 2015). According toNickson et al. (2003), aesthetic labour with high aesthetic skills would attract high payer customers as “modern man is obsessed with beauty” (Hamermesh 2011). That would be a reason for implementing aesthetic labour in hotel enterprises. Yet, from the employees’ point of view, becoming or maintaining aesthetic labour can be exhausting. This is also supported by other studies.Entwistle and Wissinger (2006) underline that employees spend extra money and time in order to maintain their appearances at the workplace. In their study,Tsaur and Tang (2013) reveal that employees have aesthetic labour concerns and tend to feel burnout due to excessive effort for aesthetic labour. Furthermore,Tsaur and Hsieh (2020) state that hospitality employees have to perform aesthetic labour that may cause a burden. Based on the discussion, the hypotheses are constructed as:
H1:There is a significant relationship between the aesthetic labour performance of female frontline employees and their burnout level.
H1a:There are significant relationships between the sub-factors of aesthetic labour performance and their burnout level.
Differences can be observed in employees’ aesthetic labour performance. These differences can result from individuals’ capacities, abilities, perceptions and socio-demographic characteristics. Physical appearance plays a major role, especially in interpersonal relations, and has been heavily investigated after the outbreak of the “beautiful is good” phenomenon (Poran 2002). Beautiful women are perceived as possessing positive traits such as courtesy, intellect, and assertiveness that lead them to being perceived as more successful in their private and work lives (Dion et al. 1972;Landy and Sigall 1974;Umberson and Hughes 1987;Hassenzahl 2004). Accordingly, positive- negative body perception and body dissatisfaction have become common among women (Delene and Bragowicz 1990; Brennan et al. 2010).Tiggemann and McGill (2004) state that among western women, body dissatisfaction, eating habit disorders and body image disturbance are experienced and it could be explained by referring to sociocultural theory. Thus, employees’ perceptions of their own looks and their evaluations on how aesthetic they find themselves should be investigated. Besides, in some studies, it is implied that older women would not experience a greater level of body dissatisfaction due to generational differences or changes in health and body related to the post-menopausal period (Chrisler and Ghiz 1993). In line with the study,Esnaola et al. (2010) report that there are differences among females in body dissatisfaction. Female adolescents care more about their body proportions, and females over the age of 55 are not affected by media or models and do not feel dissatisfied with their bodies. With a different perspective,Loland (2000) finds out that active women between 30-44 years old are more satisfied with their physical appearance than the other age groups. Educational status acts as an important variable since it is one of the elements dominating social status (Mirowsky and Ross 2003), especially when it is combined with physical attractiveness (Webster and Driskell 1983;Frevert and Walker 2014). However, there is no adequate finding on differences between female attractiveness perceptions and their educational status and educational backgrounds. Also, no study is found focusing on aesthetic labour performance of frontline employees and their educational status and their formal education backgrounds. Lastly, monthly average income or wages of employees have a critical influence on their social lives and organizational outcomes such as turnover, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment (Kara et al. 2012;Yeh 2013;Stamolampros et al. 2019). Yet, a relatively small number of studies have focused on the relationship between aesthetic labour and its effect on employees’ incomes (Jacob and Guéguen 2014;Xu et al. 2020) directly or indirectly. Hence, it would be an expensive journey to look good and sound right. Based on the following discussion, the proposed hypothesis is:
H2: There are significant differences in aesthetic labour performance of female frontline employees in terms of their demographic and personal characteristics.
4. METHODOLOGY
4.1. Research Design
Quantitative research methods were used in this study. To test the proposed hypotheses, both correlational research design and causal-comparative design were used. First, in order to determine the relationships between aesthetic labour and burnout, correlational design was adopted as it is used to determine the relationship between two or more variables (Saunders et al. 2007). Secondly, causal-comparative design was adopted to compare the aesthetic labour performance of frontline employees in terms of their demographic and personal characteristics. Causal-comparative design aims at determining the causes and consequences of differences between groups of people without any intervention on the circumstances and participants. (Schenker and Rumrill 2004).
4.2. Sample and Data Collection Procedure
The population of the study is formed by female frontline employees working at five-star hotels in Kemer-Antalya, Turkey. As there were no accurate statistics on the number of female employees and it was difficult to conduct research covering complete inventory; convenience sampling method was conducted. Convenience sampling method is used because it is affordable, easy to conduct and it makes it easier to obtain the data (McMillan and Schumacher 2010). As a first step, the researchers met with hotel managers to gain access to the hotels and obtain permission to conduct the research. Eleven hotel managers agreed to participate in the study. Because summer is the busiest season for hotels in Kemer, some hotel managers declined to participate in the study, claiming that their employees were too busy. Accordingly, 257 female frontline employees formed the sample in the study. Participants were working at the front office, animation, food-beverages, public relations, customer relations and management departments. Within the scope of this study, 340 questionnaires were distributed and 290 of them were collected from the hotels. 33 out of 290 questionnaires with missing and incorrect data were excluded from the study. In total, 257 complete questionnaires were coded in SPSS 18 and used for data analysis. The demographic profile of the participants is shown inTable 1.
InTable 1, it can be observed that 147 (57.2%) of the participants were single and 106 (41.2%) of them were married. 88 (34.2%) of them were aged between 18-25 years old and 73 (28.4%) of them were between 26-30. Taking their educational status into consideration, 111 (43.2%) participants had high school degree. Besides, 152 (59.1%) participants did not have a tourism education background. Total 105 (40.9%) of the participants have been working in food and beverage department. Looking at their experience, 78 of them (30.4%) had experience between 1-3 years and 78 (30.4%) of them had 4-6 years of experience. 129 (50.2%) of them had between 1.000-1500 monthly average income. Lastly, 100 (38.9%) participants perceived them as moderately aesthetic people. 77 (30%) of them also considered themselves as extremely aesthetic people.
4.3. Data Collection Tools
A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. The first section of the questionnaire consisted of closed-ended questions about the participants’ demographic and personal characteristics. The second and third parts consisted Aesthetic Labour Performance scale and Burnout Inventory. Aesthetic Labour and Burnout scales were rated along five-point Likert type from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. Aesthetic Labour Performance scale was developed by the researchers. Taking a deep look into the scale development process; firstly a pool of items was created with the help of studies (Warhurst et al. 2000;Witz et al. 2003;Knights and Thanem 2005;Spiess and Waring 2005;Entwistle and Wissinger 2006;Warhurst and Nickson 2007;Quinn 2008;Nickson and Korczynski 2009;Huzell and Larsson 2012;Karlsson 2012;Hall and Van den Broek 2012;Szabo 2012;Daspher 2013;Keh et al. 2013;Tsaur and Tang 2013;Harvey et al. 2014;Butler and Harris 2015;Tsaur et al. 2015) in the literature. In order to create the final version, researchers consulted tourism experts and academicians to get their opinions. An item pool with 52 items in five point Likert type was created. In order to confirm validity and reliability of the scale, a pre-test was conducted. Aesthetic Labour Performance scale, designed as 52 items, was applied in six different five-star hotels in Antalya. In the pre-test, 150 questionnaires were distributed and 130 of them were collected. As 12 questionnaires returned blank or partially completed, they were excluded from the research procedure. In total, 118 questionnaires were used for reliability analysis in the pre-test. As a sample size, 118 was found as adequate for pre-test. According toIsaac and Michael (1995) small sample size between 10-30 in pre-test gives opportunity to collect data, calculate and test the hypotheses easily. Also,Bradburn et al. (2004) recommend conducting a pre-test with 10-12 individuals. Our sample size is also adequate for explanatory factor analysis (EFA). During the development of the scale used in this study, determining the factor structure that constitutes the measurement tool and revealing the relationships between these factors were determined as the main purpose. Since the main purpose of EFA is to discover the number of common factors influencing a collection of measurements (variables) and the strength of the association between each factor and each observed measure (Rajaretnam 2015), only EFA was used.
Arithmetic mean and standard deviation values of all items were analysed and 1 item in the scale was excluded as it had extreme values. To test reliability, Cronbach’s Alpha was used and its’ reliability coefficient was calculated as 0.946. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Sample Adequacy and Bartlett Sphericity tests were conducted and KMO: 0.800; p<0.05 was identified. Accordingly, Varimax rotational exploratory factor analysis was applied and it was observed that items were gathered under 12 factors. It was determined that total explained variance was 77.48% and some items with low factors loads were determined and separately excluded from the scale. The final version of the factors is presented inTable 2.
It can be observed inTable 2 that the scale had the final form with 37 items and 6 factors after applying multiple rotations. To measure participants’ burnout levels, “Maslach Burnout Inventory” developed byMaslach and Jackson (1981) was used. Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) language adaptation, validity and reliability analysis were conducted byÇam (1992). MBI consists of 3 factors (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and diminished personal accomplishment) and 22 items. Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficient of burnout scale was identified as (α) 0.888.
4.4. Data Analysis
According to Kolmogorov-Smirnov test results, it was observed that the general Aesthetic Labour Performance scale had a normal distribution (p<.05). However, factors (GIAL, TOAL, TAL, RCP, WOHAL, EPAL) of the scale did not show normal distribution (p>.05). It was also observed that general burnout scale (p>.05) showed normal distribution. Accordingly, both parametric tests and non-parametric tests were used in order to analyze the data in the study. First, as both scales had normal distribution, to test H1, Pearson Correlation analysis was conducted. Secondly, it was aimed to find out relationships between subfactors of Aesthetic Labour Performance and burnout levels of participants in H1a. Thus, Spearman Correlation analysis was performed as the subfactors of Aesthetic Labour Performance scale did not show normal distribution. Lastly, female frontline employees’ aesthetic labour performance was compared in terms of their demographic and personal characteristics. Independent sample t-test and ANOVA Tukey test were performed in order to reveal the differences.
5. FINDINGS
Descriptive statistics on participants’ aesthetic labour performance are presented inTable 3.
It can be inferred fromTable 3 that, “aesthetic labour performance during guest interaction” (M=4.41, SD=.709) had the highest average and “aesthetic labour performance expected by managers during work hours” (M=3.56, SD=1.015) had the lowest. When general average of aesthetic labour performance is considered, it may be stated that employees’ aesthetic labour performance is high (M=3.93, SD=.660).
Pearson correlation analysis result for H1 is given inTable 4.
| Aesthetic Labour | Burnout | ||
| Aesthetic Labour | Correlation Coefficient | 1 | -.048 |
| Sig. | .444 | ||
| N | 257 | 257 | |
According toTable 4, there was no significant relationship between aesthetic labour performance of participants and their burnout levels (r=.-.048; p>.05). Thus, H1 is rejected.
Spearman correlation analysis results for H1a is given inTable 5.
| Sub-Factors of Aesthetic Labour Performance Scale | Burnout |
| GIAL | -.156* |
| TOAL | -.009 |
| TAL | .052 |
| RCP | -.044 |
| WOHAL | .101 |
| EPAL | .026 |
Based on Spearman correlation analysis results, there was a significant, weak and negative relationship between participants’ aesthetic labour performance spent during guest interaction and their burnout levels (r=-.156; p<.05). No other relationship was determined between other subfactors and burnout levels (p>.05).
To find out the differences in aesthetic labour performance of participants in terms of their marital status and tourism education background, Independent Sample t-Test was conducted. The results are shown inTable 6.
| n | M | F | p | ||
| Marital Status | Single | 147 | 4.0068 | 2.136 | .083 |
| Married | 106 | 3.8616 | |||
| Tourism Education Background | Yes | 100 | 4.0391 | 2.433 | .046 |
| No | 152 | 3.8692 |
Table 6 into consideration, it was determined that there was no significant difference in participants’ aesthetic labour performance in terms of their marital status (p>.05). However, it was determined that there was a statistically significant difference in aesthetic labour performance of employees in terms of their tourism education backgrounds (p<.05). Results showed that participants with tourism education backgrounds spent higher aesthetic labour performance than others. In order to test perceptions of participants, ages, education levels, incomes, departments and experience, ANOVA Tukey test was conducted. Results are given inTable 7.
According toTable 7, it is clear that there was a significant difference in participants’ aesthetic labour performance in terms of their aesthetic perceptions (p<.05). This result shows that participants evaluating themselves as “I am extremely aesthetic person” exhibit the highest aesthetic labour performance among other groups. Also, it was determined that there was no significant difference between participants’ aesthetic labour performance in terms of their ages (p>.05). Taking participants’ educational status into consideration, it was determined that there was a statistically significant difference between employees’ aesthetic labour performance in terms of their educational levels (p<.05). Results show that participants’ having associate degrees displayed the highest level of aesthetic labour performance among others. There were also significant differences in aesthetic labour performance of participants in terms of their monthly income (p<.05). However, when the average was considered, it was determined that most aesthetic labour performance spent by employees had 3501-4000 monthly average income. Besides, a statistically significant difference in aesthetic labour performance of participants in terms of their departments (p<.05) was revealed. It was observed that there was significant difference between animation-entertainment department and food-beverages and other departments. This result shows that employees working at animation-entertainment department exhibited the highest level of aesthetic labour performance. This result can be related to the nature of the departments. The animation/ entertainment department is responsible for leisure activities, evening shows and miniclubs at hotels. As they highly interact with the guests, their aesthetic labour performance may be higher than the other employees. Lastly, there was no statistically significant difference in participants’ aesthetic labour performance in terms of their experience. Participants exhibited similar aesthetic labour performance.
6. DISCUSSION, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
In this study, hotel employees’ aesthetic labour performance and their burnout level were examined. Additionally, relationships between aesthetic labour and burnout were revealed and the differences in their aesthetic labour in terms of their demographic and personal characteristics were determined. According to the obtained results, there was no significant relationship between participants’ aesthetic labour performance and their burnout level. This is not congruent with the studies in the literature.Tsaur and Tang (2013) find that becoming and maintaining aesthetic labour is evaluated as an additional workload by the employees. In a recent study conducted byTsaur and Hsieh (2020), it is stated that hospitality employees feel exhausted as they have to display aesthetics when providing service. The feeling of burden sourced by organizational aesthetic requirements leads employees to pay psychological costs. Our findings are best explained using different logic. First, employees may be aware of the necessary aesthetic requirements. Organizational requirements on aesthetics such as pleasant look, tone of voice or stylish clothing can be evaluated as an advantage by the managers to improve corporate image. According toWu et al. (2020), there are different aesthetic requirements for hotel employees. The researchers argue that static appearance encompassing dressing style and bodily properties of employees. While dressing style covers uniforms and grooming; attractiveness, weight, ethnicity, and body odour are enclosed in bodily properties. Some enterprises even restrict using excessive hairstyles, nails, tattoos, piercings, jewellery and makeup (Efthymiou 2018). Hotels are aware of the fact that developing and maintaining a strong corporate brand in the market is crucial. With the advent of favourable appeals embedded in brands, customers embody services and develop trust (Brodie et al. 2009). Accordingly, hotel enterprises mainly depend on frontline employees to transform brand promises into brand realities (Xiong and King 2015). As a result, employers emphasize soft skills such as aesthetic and self-presentation, as well as emotional labour skills (Crick and Spencer 2011). However, in our study, the participants’ acceptance or awareness of their job qualifications made it easier to fulfill the necessities of their jobs without feeling burden. Furthermore, as the study was conducted in five-star hotels, hotel enterprises might have considered participants’ aesthetic effort (Warhurst et al. 2000;Nickson et al. 2005), especially during interviews and recruitment processes. Employing “looking good and sounding right” employees during the recruitment process might have prevented employees from experiencing burden on maintaining their aesthetic performance and have not led them to suffer burnout.
Secondly, there was a significant, weak and negative relationship between participants’ aesthetic labour performance during guest interaction and their burnout levels. This is an interesting result. In their study,Tsaur and Tang (2013) find that guests’ criticism or complaints on their aesthetics could cause burden on employees. However, in another study,Graham (2015) investigated chefs’ aesthetic labour performance while working in an open kitchen. In the study, it was underlined that although chefs evaluated guest interaction as a stress factor at first, it turned into a positive contribution at the end of the open kitchen shows. Based on the fact that the majority of participants in the study are young and might be employed, taking certain physical attributes into consideration at selection and recruitment process, it can be interpreted as participants are confident about their appearances during guest interactions.
Taking participants’ time off aesthetics maintaining efforts, and burnout levels into account, no significant relationship was determined. This result is not congruent with the studies in the literature.Tsaur and Tang (2013) express that time-off maintenance efforts cause additional financial costs and time for employees. In another study,Entwistle and Wissinger (2006) point out that employees spend extra time and money to keep their appearances. Our findings can be explained by the ages and attitudes of the participants. Participants may not have to worry about gaining weight, reducing weight, or protecting their body proportions because they are young enough to do it. Alternatively, as a result of social media and social media influencers, women of all ages have become more interested in going to the gym, shopping, counting calories, and grooming. As a result, these efforts may make them feel good about themselves and their membership in social media communities.
In the study, the relationship between participants’ aesthetic labour performance during training and burnout levels was examined. No significant relationship was determined between these variables. This could be due to a lack of motivation or poorly structured training. Some hotel enterprises think that training can cause extra money and loss of time. Accordingly, these enterprises specially design their human resource departments to train their employees with co-worker orientations (Shani et al. 2014). Besides, this can be explained with organized training. Training on desired communication with guests, effective communication techniques, maintaining appearance, personal hygiene and care, grooming, tone of voice, accent, and clothing (Nickson et al. 2003) may not lead participants to suffer aesthetic labour burden. From another perspective, aesthetic labour efforts during training may be evaluated as beneficial for their future career by the participants (Graham 2015).
It was also discovered that there was no relationship between participants' burnout levels and their aesthetic labour performance during the recruitment process. This could be due to the widespread belief that aesthetic abilities are a must-have for occupations, particularly in frontline departments. As aesthetic skills and attributes are considered important factors in the recruitment process (Hancock and Tyler 2007;Martin and Grove 2002;Nickson et al. 2003;Warhurst and Nickson 2007;Warhurst et al. 2000), participants might consider these skills as something they should possess, rather than a burden. Furthermore, the relationship between participants’ aesthetic labour performance expected by the managers during working hours and their burnout levels were also examined. According to the obtained data, there was no significant relationship between these variables. Studies in literature have opposite findings. Employees were given an additional workload as a result of the aesthetic criteria (Tsaur and Tang 2013), which could lead to burnout (Cordes and Dougherty 1993;Maslach and Jackson 1981). Obtained results in our study might be related to managers’ low expectations. Managers might not have concerns about employees’ aesthetic performance and therefore, they might not have high expectations from employees. From a different point of view, this result might be related to managers’ different leadership styles. It is known that leadership styles can cause positive and negative organizational outcomes (Wong and Lee 2012;Elbaz and Haddoud 2017).
According to the results, there was no difference in aesthetic labour performance of the participants in terms of their ages. This result shows that women in all age groups exhibit similar aesthetic labour performance. It can be observed in the literature that women beauty perceptions and the importance of beauty can decrease in older age groups (Esnaola et al. 2010;Tiggemann 1992;Tiggemann 2004). However, the majority of participants were between 18-30 years old in our study. Accordingly, it can be an expected result. Taking the relationship between the marital status of participants and aesthetic labour performance into account, it was determined that participants’ aesthetic labour performance didn’t differentiate in terms of their marital status. Differences between participants’ aesthetic labour performance and education status were also investigated. Looking at the results in detail, it is observed that there was a significant difference in aesthetic labour performance of participants in terms of their educational status. The result shows that participants with undergraduate degrees spend the highest aesthetic labour performance and participants with elementary school degrees spend the lowest among all groups. It can be stated that participants’ aware that appearance is important in the tourism sector (Nickson et al. 2003;Warhurst et al. 2000;Warhurst and Nickson, 2007). A statistically significant difference in aesthetic labour performance of participants in terms of their tourism educational backgrounds was also determined. Participants with tourism education background exhibit higher aesthetic labour performance than the others. It is believed that employees with a tourism education background know the importance of aesthetic properties in the tourism sector. Thus, these employees spend more on aesthetic performance. Furthermore, aesthetic labour studies on tourism also show the importance of aesthetic labour in tourism (Tsaur and Tang 2013;Tsaur and Hsieh, 2020). Accordingly, the importance of appearance might be pointed out in the courses.
In this study, differences in participants’ aesthetic labour performance in terms of their departments were revealed. In detail, there was a significant difference in aesthetic labour performance of participants in the animation-entertainment department, food-beverages and other departments. The result shows that participants working at the animation department spend the most aesthetic labour performance. These results might be due to the intense communication between customers and employees of animation department. Based on the data, it was found that the lowest aesthetic labour performance was exhibited by the show kitchen and wellness club employees that were coded under the “other” category. Show kitchen and wellness club employees heavily rely on employees’ technical skills. Aesthetic labour performance of participants and their experience at the departments were compared. Statistically significant difference was not determined between these variables. When participants’ aesthetic labour performance was compared in terms of their monthly income, a significant difference was identified. Considering the results, there was no significant difference in income levels. However, taking averages into account, it was determined that 3501-4000₺ monthly income group exhibit more performance. It is believed that employees with less than 1000₺ income per month spend on their basic needs. Since participants with higher monthly income can afford cosmetics and cosmetic procedures after meeting their basic needs, they might have spent more aesthetic labour performance. Lastly, participants’ aesthetic labour performance has been compared in terms of their perceptions about themselves. The result shows that employees who stated “I am extremely aesthetic person” spent the highest aesthetic labour performance.
According to the obtained results, some theoretical and practical implications are provided. It is critical to conduct research on aesthetic labour in order to reveal all of the concept's dimensions and relationships. In the literature, there is limited quantitative research on the aesthetic labour performance of female employees. Yet, this study is an attempt to fulfil the gap by providing empirical data. Hence, researchers have developed a scale to measure the aesthetic labour performance of female employees in this study. Furthermore, aesthetic labour performance of employees is compared in terms of demographic and personal characteristics. This can also contribute to the literature by providing data for future research to make a comparison.
In the study, it was determined that the aesthetic labour performance of employees increased during customer-employee interaction and their burnout levels decreased. Employees suffering from burnout may be assigned to other departments with high customer interaction based on their expertise. According to the findings of the study, employees with a tourism education background perform better in terms of aesthetic labour performance. Because hotel managers understand the importance of aesthetics in tourism businesses, it may be advantageous for them to pay attention to applicants' educational backgrounds. In this study, it is determined that employees suffer from burnout at a moderate level. Certain precautions are recommended for hotel management to decrease burnout levels. Managers can assign tasks to employees without forcing their capacity to prevent employee burnout. Besides, they can use the award system more effectively, increase employee performance and prevent employee burnout.
According to our results, limitations and possible future research are addressed. First, only the relationship between aesthetic labour and burnout is examined in this study. Future studies can focus on the relationship between aesthetic labour and different individual variables such as self-confidence, self-efficacy or self-image. Besides, work empowerment is a critical issue that future research can be framed within investigating the relations between aesthetic labour, burnout and work empowerment. Second, our study findings are limited to 257 female frontline employees working at five-star hotels. Researchers can adapt and use the scale for revealing female employees’ aesthetic labour performance at different workplaces in future studies. Third, our sample is formed by only Turkish employees. Researchers can conduct a similar study with the participation of different nationalities. Lastly, only quantitative research methods were adopted in the study. Future studies can be designed adopting qualitative or mixed methods to get deeper information.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study was carried out as part of a master thesis entitled "Relationships Between Aesthetic Labor and Burnout: A Study on Five- Star Hotels’ Women Staff” (Thesis ID number: 469806) and supported by Süleyman Demirel University Scientific Research Project with ID no: 4408-YL1-15. Also, a part of the study was presented as a conference paper at Innovation and Global Issues 3 as an extended abstract in 2018.