Ett yrkesliv inom hotell och restaurang : En kvalitativ studie om arbetet, kulturen och gemenskapen

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study is to understand and describe the meaning of employees’ work experiences of professional socialization in hotel and restaurants, and further describe the professional life that is created within the industry. Previous research shows that the industry consists mainly of young workers while those over 50 are few, which indicates that both young and old workers leave the industry. The gender distribution for the whole industry is even, but a closer look shows that kitchens are male dominated while the service-oriented professions are female-dominated. This contributes to the industry facing several challenges such as high staff turnover and sexual harassments. Based on this, there is a reason to further explore their professional life. Professional life is used as an umbrella term for the theoretical concepts: career, professional socialization, professional culture, professional identity, age, and gender. The results are based on 13 interviews with reception, serving and kitchen staff between the ages of 20-45. The result shows that the professional culture includes a harsh, and sexist jargon. Through the professional socialization, the employees must adapt and accept the culture by proving their willingness to a long-term career, participate in the jargon and create mutual relationships built on trust and respect. Employees are aware of the difficulty of ageing in the industry and therefore they start planning early in their careers for how to reduce the active work as they get older. Gender and age mainly affect women who need to adapt and accept the sexist jargon that can lead to discrimination. One of the conclusions are that an important part of professional socialization is to differentiate oneself from employees who see their work as a transitional profession and accept the tough professional culture. This, together with the impact that age and gender have, is significant for their professional identity and willingness to create a long-term professional life.