Abstract:
The concept of employee engagement has become a significant concern in the corporate world as a
highly engaged workforce helps to increase innovation, productivity, and overall performance. For
employees to be engaged in their job tasks and enhance their performance, they should know what an
organization expects from them. Rules, regulations, guidelines, or standards are the directive bodies
that guide employees to meet organizational goals and objectives. The employee obedience concept
explains employee‟s loyalty towards the organization. The hotel industry, as a service sector, requires
a high degree of interaction of employees and it is essential in obeying hotel policies and procedures
to enhance the customer experience. This study seeks to identify the impact of employee engagement
techniques and their importance to ensure employee obedience to hotel policies. A quantitative study
was conducted involving 110 employees who work in boutique hotels in Kandy District, Sri Lanka
applying a convenient sampling technique. A structured questionnaire was used for collecting data,
which was analyzed through descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression analytical methods.
As results revealed, employee engagement techniques illustrated a mixed type of impact on employee
obedience on hotel policies and procedures. Further, reward and recognition, training and career
development, and compensation show combined impact while employee relationship management
and work environment display the individual impact on employee obedience on hotel policies and
procedures. Compensation shows a negative impact on employee obedience to hotel policies and
procedures. Further, results highlight the unavailability of properly established or universal employee
engagement methods techniques. The study recommends that employee engagement strategies should
be based on organizational culture, objectives, and goals, and the capacity of the organization to
ensure employee obedience on hotel policies and procedures. This study suggests regulating and
maintaining employee engagement techniques under the supervision of management. Besides, an
organization needs to be concerned about the work environment and managing employee relations
rather than typical employee engagement practices to ensure employee obedience to hotel policies
and procedures. However, this study suggests identifying the relationship between employee
engagement, organizational performance, and commitment in the service sector in future research, as
it is important to validate the findings of this study.
Keywords: Employee engagement; Employee engagement techniques; Employee obedience; Hotel
Policies and Procedures
