Hospitality is a high-stress industry.

Hospitality is a high-stress industry.

In the last decade, studies have shown that service jobs are generally more stressful

than manufacturing jobs. The stress in hospitality, which is part of the service

industry, is created by two main factors:

1. The high degree of guest interaction

2. The high rate of crises that occurs in the industry

Lack of stress recovery time leads to burnout.

Healthy stress management works a lot like a pendulum: When something

produces stress for you, you need to make time to “swing back” into a more

relaxed period to recover from the stress.

If you don’t have time to recover from stress, burnout occurs. The word

“burnout” may conjure up a mental picture of someone who can barely sit up or

keep his eyes open. On the contrary, burned-out managers often look and act

more alert than anyone else. They may say things like:

• “This place would fall apart without me.”

• “If I weren’t here, I’d be at home worrying about not being here.”

• “I can’t afford to take a vacation (a sick day, personal time).”

Sources of job stress include:

• Guests

• Employees

• Other managers and departments within the property

• Vendors and suppliers

• Your boss

1. Suggest ways to correct stressful policies and procedures.

The following guidelines can help you address stressful policies and procedures
that affect you and your staff.

1. Find out why the policy or procedure exists. Policies and procedures evolve

over time to help operations run smoothly and correct problems that have

occurred in the past. When you know why a policy or procedure exists, you

sometimes realize it’s necessary.

2. Decide how or why it should be changed. If you understand why a policy or

procedure exists and still think it needs to be changed, study the problem

from the property or corporation’s perspective. In other words, how could

the policy or procedure be changed to help the property’s bottom line by

saving money, improving productivity, morale, etc.?

3. Put your suggestion in writing. When you have gathered the information you

think will support the change, put it in writing – on one page – and submit it

to your boss. If you are as factual and as positive as possible, your

suggestions will more likely be taken seriously.

4. Confront stress-causing people.

Some people don’t believe in stress. They believe “stress” is an excuse for not

working hard enough. People like these, unfortunately, become a source of stress

for others.

Many managers find confronting stress-causing people unpleasant or difficult.

If this is true for you, remember that allowing the situation to continue is equally

unpleasant or difficult. Think about how you could handle difficult people you

work with by doing the case study exercise on the next page.

5. Develop a personal stress “safety valve.”

A stress “safety valve” is anything in your life outside of work that helps you get

away from your job mentally as well as physically. Stress experts say that a safety

valve can be a relatively simple thing, like listening to music or petting the cat.

The important thing is that you make time for yourself on a regular basis.

Manage Their Stress

some of your own behavior that causes unnecessary stress for them.

Be aware of signs of stress or burnout among your staff:

• Poor decision-making

• Frequent mistakes

• A tendency to arrive much earlier or leave much later than necessary

• Coming in on days off or taking work home to complete

Talk to employees who seem to be stressed. If stress is caused by a personal

problem, be sympathetic and encourage outside counseling. If the stress is

caused by a work-related problem, share information from this handbook that

may be helpful.

If your staff is under frequent stress from guest encounters, occasionally

conduct role plays taken from actual situations. Practice in handling stressful

guest encounters helps employees think quickly, handle problems more

gracefully, and keep their cool.

Provide opportunities for your staff to gain confidence about their job

performance through training, professional development, and coaching

sessions. Not only will you have a more productive staff, but a less

stressed staff.