Introversion

Introverts and Extroverts in Hospitality Workforce

Introduction

Hotel industry often favors the gregarious and extroverted traits because the nature of the business is very people and service oriented. All successful hotels rely on building strong guest relationships by hiring the right people with the right personalities to ensure long term attractions. This often puts people who are more introverted or more neurotic at a disadvantage because the quiet nature of their personalities gets misconstrued as being cold or unfriendly. Human Resources from hotel industries need to understand that introverts can perform equally well in all roles of the hospitality industry and can even measure up to be a successful transformational leader. By valuing a balance of both temperaments from extroverts and introverts, hotel managements can ensure a successful hotel business in both employee retention and financial status.

Discussion

The hospitality sector is a growing industry. With jobs growing at an exponential rate, Strategic Human Resources Management will need to implement strategies at identifying high performing introverts for recruitment. Introverts possess strengths that make them high functioning team members, but before exploring these strengths further, it is important to understand introversion and extraversion and why one personality type is more valued in the society recently.

Introverts versus extroverts

So what are introversion and extraversion? The concept was first publicized by Carl Jung who introduced a personality theory which explains the two personalities in depth. In simple terms, introverts derive energy from being alone whereas extroverts re-energize from being around people. In his research, Jung describes introverts to share characteristics such as: reserved, contained, individual, and quiet (Wilde, 2011). Often these individuals are said to have little or no “charisma” and often spoke “without much variation in their vocal inflections or...