Analysis Of 'Front Of The House' By Rachel Sherman

“Front of the house” work, as described by Rachel Sherman in Class Acts, refers to the workers who interact directly with guests at the hotel. These workers include concierge, front desk workers, valet, and door attendants. Sherman notes that these “interactive” workers have high client contact and low product tangibility, meaning they provide face to face, nonphysical services. In other words, they provide mainly emotional rather than physical labor. Additionally, front of the house workers have more discretion and less routinization and monitoring than other employees in the hotel. This means that workers have more autonomy in their jobs. Interactions with guests cannot be routinized, as every guest is different; it is also harder for managers …show more content…
The division of labor between front of the house jobs, such as the ones listed above, was much more distinct at the Luxury Garden compared to the Royal Court. At the Luxury Garden, each worker had a specific role and job to perform that did not overlap with other workers jobs. At the Royal Court workers often juggled multiple roles at once, blurring the divisions between different jobs. Management at the Luxury Garden was also much more supportive of staff and employment was more hierarchically and efficiently organized than that of the Royal Court. Often times at the Royal Court, managers were no more knowledgeable about hotel policy than front of the house staff, promoting a form of lateral flexibility. You could say that front of the house workers at the Royal Court had more responsibilities than their counterparts at the Luxury Garden because of this lack of distinction between front of the house …show more content…
These workers provide emotional labor for guests and help them to better enjoy their stay at the hotel. Although front of the house workers were organized differently at the two hotels, they still served the same purpose and performed many of the same services; their main goal being to provide quality service for guests. These workers often use games of money or skill in order to symbolically see themselves as equal to or even better than guests. Games serve to normalize the inequality experienced between employees and guests, as well as to establish consent among employees to subordinate themselves to and serve the