The moderating effect of hotel shift work on the relationship between employee work engagement and job satisfaction

Abstract Front office hotel employees engage in shift work to serve guests 24-hours a day. There has been a paucity of research on shift work systems in the lodging industry and its effects on engagement and satisfaction. Using moderated multiple regression analysis, the results of this study demonstrated that shift work systems did have a moderating effect on the relationship between engagement and satisfaction for hotel front office workers. Front desk employees exhibit higher engagement and satisfaction when working their preferred schedule. Employees working varying shifts significantly differed from employees working consistent shifts, thus implying operational managers need to discuss the employee scheduling preferences in the interview process and to reconsider scheduling practices for swing shift workers. This is the first study which demonstrates that shift work can foster hotel employees’ job satisfaction; and that the shift a hotel front desk agent works is a mechanism between work engagement and job satisfaction.