Constructing the hospitality superstar in restaurant dining rooms

Abstract

The need for competent hospitality workers is significant for the sustainable development of the restaurant industry. However, with the recurring challenges of recruiting and retaining a competent workforce, there is a need to understand how employers portray and communicate hospitality work in the recruitment process. Therefore, this study examines how employers construct the image of the hospitality worker, by analyzing what job advertisements signal and communicate to the applicants. Through thematic analysis of 100 job advertisements in Sweden, we found that the ideal hospitality worker is an individualized team player with occupational passion. This means that social capacities and commitment to hospitality and gastronomy, factors that are difficult to measure, are of relevance to gaining employment. Additionally, by asking for social capacities, the distance between work and leisure is diminished and the employee is constructed as a commodity for the purpose of improving service. In contrast to the common image that hospitality work is work that anyone could do, we conclude that the qualifications for becoming a hospitality worker in the restaurant industry are fairly complex.