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Organizational Structure




For several summers in high school, I worked at a country club as both a hostess and briefly as a waitress. This was one of the best places to work in town for people of my age. The country club had great connections to U of I faculty/staff, it was a safe and classy environment, and the people were great. As it is a college town, many of my coworkers were U of I students or alumni. Many of those who had been working there for several years were either looking for jobs or applying for graduate schools and taking a gap year. Since there were so many students graduating and coming in and out, the job was flexible with hours but also had a high turnover with so many students. Those who were alumni typically had been working there for a few years since after they graduated and were essentially an older sibling to those of us who were new employees. They taught us how different it was to work at a country club where members expected us to know their names and had been paying so much money to be a part of an exclusive club for years on end. Above the servers and hostesses was a general manager for the country club who had the job of interacting with the country club members, organizing events for them at the club, and making sure on a daily basis that things were running smoothly during the daytime and at dinner time. Then there was the head chef and the board of directors was in charge of everything. Technically, the head chef was slightly below the manager, but that is not how it operated at the country club. The head chef had been working there for a very long time and was quite successful, so often he made his own choices and purchased things for the kitchen without consulting the manager. This didn’t happen as often when I first started working there because our manager had been there for a long time. Shortly after I joined the staff, she left shortly in pursuit of a new job that she had found through her connections with members at the club. Then during the course of my employment we went through several other managers. They were fired for various reasons, including blowing up at the board members or because of ‘budget changes’ that included firing them. Essentially, they ended up with a new structure of management where two of the veteran servers got promoted to be in charge of either the kitchen and dining aspect every night and the other was in charge of organizing events, but were still technically servers. Ultimately, these two servers stepped up even though they probably were not inclined to do so because they were trying to find jobs and leave the club since they had graduated a few years ago. But because of the sense of obligation to the members that had been instilled in them over the years, they stuck around. I believe the gift exchange model comes in play here. It is interesting because although these two servers were getting paid much less than a general manager would since they split the work but actually ended up doing work for each other. Though they may have reluctantly accepted the positions, the pay and level of respect that they had increased as well and lead to a more positive experience for them.

Comments

  1. Professor ArvanSeptember 16, 2017 at 1:03 PM

    In the future can you please have shorter paragraphs with line space in between?

    This read like a stream of consciousness piece. I rather you give it more structure to follow through on some issues.

    First, on the staffing itself, I associate country clubs mainly with golf, but then also tennis and swimming. These are all summer activities but might also extend to the spring and early fall, depending on the weather. This suggests asking - what is staffing like when the U of I is in regular session? Who works at the place then? Are there some year round employees who held subordinate positions and did they do the same jobs as the summer employees or not? That wasn't clear.

    Next on the bit about the members knowing the people who are serving them, I believe that most country clubs require the members to use the restaurant with some frequency - it is part of their membership fees. If you know how that works it would have been good to include it. Food-wise I wonder how the country clubs compare to the better restaurants in town. Fifteen or twenty years ago, I was better informed about this than I am now.

    Then, if you knew anybody who has worked at a restaurant in downtown Champaign or Urbana, you might have compared the work you did to what they do. Where are the differences and where are the similarities?

    Near the end of the piece you talked about turnover of managerial staff and that creating some issues, with interim staff performing the function. Turnover is an issue in every small organization. Sometimes it is hard to plan for, especially in the near term. You said the people who filled the slots did so out of a sense of obligation. The last bit about their pay I didn't understand - did they get paid more or not for the added responsibility?

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    Replies
    1. Robert Giffen Econ 490 fall 2017October 16, 2017 at 12:29 PM

      Hello Professor Arvan,

      Students typically work at the country club who are 1) coming back home for the summer and attend other colleges or 2) u of i students who work during summers and choose to continue working at the club during the school year. However, the job entails the same duties. The golf/tennis aspect is handled by a different aspect of the club (the pro shop employees). The only jobs held by non-students were typically the bartender who had been working there for a very long time and some of the kitchen employees who made food.

      I would say a major difference between country clubs and restaurants is the personal touch that comes with the club. At the club, many of the members have been there for years and pay lots of money for their membership. They expect servers to know their names, their orders and some even have specific tables we always save for them or requests to have xyz out before the arrive, etc. The demands are endless.

      In terms of the people who stepped up, they did get pay a bit more than they had already been making. However, I believe that this was not incentive enough to make them eager to step up to the position.

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