Characterization of catering employees and the influence of his work on customer satisfaction Marques H.Á., Barbosa J., Carvalho M., Correia M., and Ferreira S. Uniself, S.A. Characterize the catering employees and verify if they have the perception that their work can influence customers ' satisfaction. Job satisfaction "is a variable of attitude that reflects how a person feels about work in general and various aspects”. The many factors that influence job satisfaction can be divided into two distinct groups 1 :  factors associated with individual, called personal causes such as age, gender, qualifications, professional qualifications, length of service, etc., and;  factors related to job environment, called organizational causes as salary, career prospects, working conditions, autonomy, schedule, training, job security, among others 2 . In catering sector, employees tend to devalue the work they performed and this attitude influences the degree of customer satisfaction. The perception of the client and the consumer on the service provided is essential to any company, because it can ensure customer loyalty. Introduction Conclusion It is important to highlight that 97.6% of respondents enjoy their work, 98.6% have good Aim Self-reported characterization of the job: 50,4% employees work in this sector for more than five years; 56,2% are satisfied with his job and 10% are very pleased; 85,7% consider society thinks that his work is very important. Influence of service on customer satisfaction: 97,1% of respondents believe that their work influences customer satisfaction; 80,9% of the sample said that his work influences directly or indirectly the customers health; The hygienic conditions of the workplace (89,5%) and personal hygiene (92,4%) are considered by employees as a major factor influencing the quality of the meal served to the customer. Material/ Methods Materials: Survey carried out in two parts and made up of 24 questions of direct answers. Methods: •The survey was applied at 210 contract catering workers of 31 establishments Results Bibliography 1 Spector PE. Job Satisfaction: Application, Assessment, Causes, and Consequences. London: SAGE Publications, 1997 2 Acobia P. Atitudes e satisfação no trabalho. In: Ferreira JM, Neves J, Caetano A, editores. Manual de Psicossociologia das Organizações. Lisboa: MCGraw-Hill; 2001. p. 281- 306. relationships with their colleagues and value their work. The majority of the respondents (85.7%) believe that society values their work and 92.9% say they have the necessary competences to perform the required functions. However, it’s believed that this values could increase with an investment in education. Only 32.9% believe in a career progression, perhaps due to their low remuneration. There are many reasons for a lack of motivation regarding this work. Most of the job offers in this area are temporary, the hours are very irregular and mostly workers are poorly paid, the burden of heavy work is due to take up heavy loads, to spend long periods of standing, high incidence of night work and end-of-week, which makes it difficult to reconcile work with the staff, causing high levels of stress. These factors lead to the conclusion that although employees enjoy what they do, they are not satisfied with their work conditions. The second part of the investigation analyses if the service delivery has impact on the customer satisfaction. First, 97.1% of the respondents believe that their work has impact on customer satisfaction. For this reason, when some inconvenient happens, the majority tried to improve the situation, some try to solve it and the others avoid repeating it. This means that the respondents have a correct attitude when dealing with an irregularity. The majority of respondents (98.6%) reports to the responsible person the client requests. 85.7% respondents believe that the waiting time for a meal influences the customer satisfaction, and 89.6% believe that the conditions of hygiene in the workplace can influence the quality of the meal served. In short, the aim of this work was completed, and denotes that the workers have a great concern about the work they do, as well as their behavior and attitudes because they know that influences customer satisfaction. Table 1: Characterization of the contract catering sector employees (n=210) Variable n (%) Gender Female [n(%)] 192 (91,4) Age (years) Mean 18 – 30 [n(%)] 31– 49 [n(%)] >49 [n(%)] 41 40 (19,0) 119 (56,7) 51 (24,3) Profissional category [n (%)] Contract catering unit manager Cook Food handler Meal distribution worker Others 15 (7,1) 34 (16,2) 118 (56,2) 11 (5,2) 12 (5,7) Qualifications (Education level) [n (%)] 1 st cycle of basic education (1 st to 4 th class) 2 nd -3 th cycle of basic education (5 th to 9 th class) Secondary education level (10 th to 12 th class) Higher Education Others 41 (19,5) 108 (51,4) 39 (18,6) 12 (5,7) 10 (4,8) •The survey was applied at 210 contract catering workers of 31 establishments from diverse sectors of activity such us educational, health, social welfare, prisoner and private companies, in the northern region of Portugal; •The questionnaire was previously apply in one establishment, to understand if there were any doubts relating to the survey; •The first part of the questionnaire had 15 questions used to characterize the catering sector employees and in the second part there were 9 questions used to analyze the impact caused by the employee service in customer satisfaction.