Psychological Injuries And Employee Retention In Hospitality Sector During Covid-19 Essay.

Symptoms and Reasons for Burnout

The case study deals with the psychological injuries caused to the employees of the hospitality sector and emotional stress due to Covid-19 pandemic restrictions and lockdown imposed in Australia. Social distancing norms and measures are changing drastically putting employees under immense pressure to deal with the work environment and also causing mental stress and psychological illness in the mind of the employees. The report will analyse the symptoms and reasons for this burnout and will also provide the strategical approach of strategies and tactics aimed by organisations in mentoring and motivating the employees to recover from mental stress.

Symptoms and Reasons

The main symptoms of burnout are not following social distancing norms and Jenny Fairey is currently working in a winery as a full-time food and beverage attendant position. Dealing with a lot of customers is a day-to-day task but due to covid-19 the winery has not taken any safety precautions for the employees and the employee has to work every day making her exhausted. The main symptoms of psychological stress are the perception of safety, threat, and risk of being contagion, and if get contagion then the employee has to quarantine. The main reason behind this is the daily work pressure of handling customers in this current situation with no safety precaution and if get contagion due to virus then no medical benefit will be provided and salary will also get deducted resulting in mental stress of coping up with livelihood and meeting up basic needs.( Hamouche 2020, p. 2). These reasons put the employee into a stage where mental illness and psychological stress started to occur resulting in poor health.( Osabiya 2015, pp. 68).

Organizational Strategies

In hospitality sector, employee retention is a serious challenge, and that also in this pandemic situation where employees are afraid of their health but still employees in hospitality sector are busy attending customers in order to provide products to the organisation and also for the welfare of people. Shifts are long and tiring and low pay and meeting customers regularly with different expectations is putting down the confidence of the employees. Servant leadership is very much required in the hospitality sector as servant leaders always feel that employees are the core value of the organisation and in order to retain them proper benefits and work culture should be provided to the employees.( Odor 2018).

Some strategies that can be impactful in motivating employees and reducing stress with proper training are:

1. Safety measures of employees should always be the top-most priority by keeping all forms of social distancing and more employees should be recruited in order to lower down the workload of the employee. Employees should be provided with all basic compensation and benefits and health regarding precautions to stay safe while working. Employees should be told to engage with the customers on a digital basis if the physical attachment is not possible to help in bringing relaxation in the mind of the employee.( Galanti et al. 2021, p. e426).
2. Employees working for longer shift time should be constantly motivated for the work and should be praised for the duties they are fulfilling. Motivation can be provided through giving incentives and bonuses. Constantly motivating and praising employees for their work will help employees to reduce the mental stress and the psychological trauma of losing the job in the pandemic era.( Davahli et al. 2020, p. 7366).
3. Covid-19 has put the whole world in isolation where people are having fear of going out and having a normal conversation with their favourite person. Employees working in this situation sometimes become tired of loneliness and feel exhausted due to lack of communication. Hospitality sector leaders should communicate with employees personally and should ask them to share their thoughts and should allow them to make some space for the healing of mind so that a fresh mind will think more and will provide more productivity than a mind with mental stress and trauma.( Gandolfi & Stone 2018, pp. 265).
4. Proper training and development should be provided to deal with customers in covid situations for example following all safety measures, regular health check-up, caring and nurturing of employees if got contagious and providing compensation to employees in sickness help in boosting the confidence and mental strength of the employees. Employees should pursue faith on their leader as their faith for the job increases helping in retention of employees at a higher level. Not only employees are getting reviews even the organisation also receive reviews from employees for following proper work culture and suitable environment and the job security the company is providing to the employees.( Eva et al. 2019, pp. 120).
5. The Maslow hierarchy of needs in motivation state all the needs an employee requires for staying motivated. Psychological needs are very much required for employees and the company should provide with all biological requirements to the employees as these requirements are very much important and if not met then all other requirements will become secondary. The safety needs should be provided to employees stating the financial security and social stability, and organization should provide safety against accidents and injury.( Aliyyah et al. 2021, pp. 8).

Figure: servant leadership ( source: Lmc, 2022).

The leader in the above case study should inherit the characteristics of servant leadership which will help the firm and the employees to increase productivity and will also help in increasing employee engagement and motivation of the employees. Servant leadership style will help in procuring collaboration of leader with employees in providing solutions, keeping employees mental health in mind and caring for the need and requirements of the employees. Servant leaders are open-minded and have patience and compassion while fulfilling the task and are also constant in motivating employees for getting more engagement rather than pressurizing them. The leader should have knowledge of social and emotional intelligence, a trait to learn or teach the co-workers in the winery to manage the diverse group of employees, and should show empathy to the employees providing them all the resources. Positive communication and attitude towards employees will help in gaining trust of employees and will help in the elimination of mental stress from employees.

The three examples of successful change leadership in the tourism and hospitality sector are:

1. Marriot international founder Bill Marriot has always emphasized the culture of service. Bill Marriott has always given importance to customers as well as employees serving the customers. His true motive towards spirit to serve has provided the multinational organisation gain new heights in the hospitality sector. Marriot also provides proper training to their employees by assigning each mentor for every new employee so that the development of employee efficiency can be improved.( Putra, Cho & Liu 2017, pp. 235).
2. CEO Howard Schultz of Starbucks has always been known for providing extraordinary service to their employees and providing a lot of benefits starting from growth and opportunities and free academic support so that their employees can gain further knowledge. Starbucks has also announced that they will provide their employees in getting free college tuition.( Goh et al. 2020, pp. 28).
3. Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen CEO Cheryl Bachelder decided to embrace servant leadership and put the employees' needs first. According to Cheryl employees and management should collaborate and work in order to achieve success rather than pressurizing them. The company should treat the employees as equal and not as an inconvenience. For the past eight years, the company is growing at a fast rate with adopting the change in leadership style.( Bateman & Snell 2019, pp. 13).

References

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Ejsmont, K., 2021. The Impact of Industry 4.0 on Employees—Insights from Australia. Sustainability, 13(6), p.3095.

Eva, N., Robin, M., Sendjaya, S., van Dierendonck, D. & Liden, R.C., 2019. Servant leadership: A systematic review and call for future research. The leadership quarterly, 30(1), pp.111-132.

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Hamouche, S., 2020. COVID-19 and employees’ mental health: stressors, moderators and agenda for organizational actions. Emerald Open Research, 2.

Lmc, 2022. Servant Leadership Mindset - League of Minnesota Cities. [online] League of Minnesota Cities. Available at: <https://www.lmc.org/servant-leadership/> [Accessed 18 January 2022].

Niemiec, C.P. & Spence, G.B., 2016. Optimal motivation at work. The Wiley Blackwell handbook of the psychology of positivity and strengths?based approaches at work, pp.82-98.

Odor, H.O., 2018. Organisational culture and dynamics. Global Journal of Management and Business Research.

Osabiya, B.J., 2015. The effect of employees motivation on organizational performance. Journal of public administration and policy research, 7(4), pp.62-75.

Putra, E.D., Cho, S. & Liu, J., 2017. Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation on work engagement in the hospitality industry: Test of motivation crowding theory. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 17(2), pp.228-241.