RIJSS Volume 3, Issue 6 (June. 2014) ISSN:

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1 A Journal of Radix International Educational and Research Consortium RIJSS RADIX INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SOCIAL SCIENCE OCCUPATIONAL STRESS AND STRESS MANAGEMENT IN HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY SANDESH NAIK Assistant Professor D.M s College of Arts Science and Commerce Assagao, Bardez, Goa K.G.SANKARANARAYANAN Associate Professor Narayan Zantye College of Commerce Bicholim, Goa ABSTRACT Hospitality Industry is a major contributor of our growing economy in terms of employment, foreign exchange and Tourism. Hospitality means the pleasant and open-handed welcome and entertainment of guests or visitors. The service quality of hospitality sector is depending on the pleasant personality, friendly interaction and big-hearted welcome of guests from the employees all the time irrespective of whether they are satisfied at workplace or not. Hospitality Industry is famous for undefined long and flexible working hours which describe the working environment. The present study highlights the sources of stress in hospitality Industry and stress management programme and coping strategies being used by the individuals in general. Keywords: - Hospitality Industry, Stress management, Coping strategies. INTRODUCTION Stress is an important ingredient of human life, which is unavoidable and is being faced by individuals in their personal as well as social cum work life. It is two dimensional in nature which gives you negative or positive results. The negative or positive results from stress depend on number of factors like personality of individual, management programme, etc. But actually expressing the term stress is very difficult. When 1 P a g e

2 individual describes stress, he or she uses the term like nervousness, panic, pressure, inconvenience, etc. The factors or situation which is stressful for one person may have little or no effect on another person because as it is said individuals differ in personality and behaviour. The perception or thinking about stress is highly personal. The researchers from different geographical areas are having their own views and ideas about the term stress. According to Selye (1956), Any external event or internal drive which threatens to upset the organism s equilibrium is stress. He has defined stress as the non-specific response of the body to any demand made upon it. Lazarus (1980) sees stress as a result of a transaction between person and environment. At present hospitality Industry is considered as high-speed Industry, full of stressful work life because of working for long hours including day-night shift, limited interaction with colleagues, dealing with different types of customer behaviour and change in workload as per the season. Stress management is an important issue among front line and back-end employees in hospitality sector. The presence of high level of stress affects negatively the service quality as well as personal family life of employees. It affects the physical and mental health of employees. On the other side, it can affect the organisation in the form of low performance, absenteeism and turnover of employees. Therefore coping style and stress management programme is very important to improve service quality, physical and mental health as well as to decrease organisational expenditure. OCCUPATIONAL STRESS Occupational stress is a term used to define stress that is related to the workplace environment. Workrelated stress is the response people may have when presented with work demands and pressures that are not matched to their knowledge and abilities and which challenge their ability to cope. The occupational stress is highly related to labour absenteeism, turnover, low productivity, lack of support, disputes and accidents. Work or Job is a major part of individual life because he or she spends maximum time at workplace. Work brings either favourable or unfavourable situation depending on number of factors like relationship with superior or co-workers, amount of work, time of work, role clarity etc. If all these factors are not favourable, then it may lead to stress. 2 P a g e

3 HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY Sectors of Hospitality Industry Travel Services Hotels Entertainment Restaurants Takeaways LITERATURE REVIEW Many have conducted research in the area of stress management in various sectors. However, very few studies have been done in the field of hospitality sector. Karen, L. & Felicity, L. (2005) have drawn attention towards occupational stress amongst workers in hospitality industries - and to explore their perceptions of stress, their attitudes to managing stress. The study also made an analysis by investigating a range of employment factors such as heavy workloads, interpersonal relationships and organisational factors - which can contribute to occupational stress amongst workers. Findings from two case studies are reported that working in the hospitality industry can be stressful and that many workers are vulnerable in terms of their poor working conditions and low wages. Ajgaonkar, S. (2006) investigated stress management techniques adopted in hotels to manage organisational stress and the impact of stress on middle management s performance in five star hotels in the city of Mumbai, India. The researcher conducted 22 interviews across three hotels, in different departments. The study reveals that the main stressors in the organisation were the work environment, self-imposed stress by the employees and the clients. The researcher suggested a few recommendations to manage and reduce stress for managers at the workplace to perform at the peak of their capabilities. Gowri Shankar, u. & Keerthi, K. (2010) 3 P a g e

4 identified the level of stress, sources of stress at work and provide suitable suggestions to reduce it. The major findings are extra-organizational and group stress mostly affected the stress level. The management can reduce the stress among the employees through conducting various programs like vocational tours, cultural programs, sports, classes for yoga and meditations, meeting, and counseling. O Neilla, J.W. & Kelly, D. (2011) identified common work stressors, type and frequency among managerial and hourly workers employed as well as to investigate whether the various stressors were linked to employee health and work outcomes at 65 different hotels. The study reveals that the most common stressors were interpersonal tension at work and overloads. Hotel managers reported significantly more stressors than hourly employees. Singh, A. &Singh, R.C. (2012) measured general level and potential sources of workplace stress with variables such as age, gender, position, marital status, education categories, etc in hospitality sector. The study reveals that significant level of workplace stress is present in the employees across all the subcategories of age, gender, position, marital status and education categories. Irfana, B. (2012) investigated the causes of role stress in doctors working in government hospitals and to examine the levels of stress among male and female doctors. Organizational Role Stress instrument developed by Prof. Udai Pareek was employed to collect the data from the respondents. The studies conclude that male doctors are more stressed than female doctors in the hospital and work stressors differ according to the age group. Muthu, v. & Chandru, D. (2012) identified the various factors that cause stress to health workers in private hospitals at Tiruchirappalli. In this study it is found out that work load, depression, superiors, salary, shift timings and no properly defined career ladder are some of the factors that causes stress among the health workers in private hospitals. So, active stress management should be planned and implemented to reduce the level of stress in employees.patchanittha, S. (2013) identified types of work stress encounter by front line employees in five-star hotels and evaluated how work stress affects job performance. The study also identified coping style of employees. The results revealed that the major work stress reported in hotels was related to the job and the guest. Most of hotel staffs stated that work stress negatively influenced their job performance in both task and contextual ways, such as inability to perform the job well and being unmotivated to work. The study also identified that, there was no report of stress management programs in these hotels. Thus, it is suggested that hotel management should focus on work stress caused by work characteristics. Anbazhagan, A., Rajan, S. & Ravichandran (2013) identified various problems of occupational stress among hotel and restaurant professionals specifically the middle level employees working in Union Territory of Puducherry. The study shows that majority of the employees suffer from stress. Though fewer employees are suffering with low stress, they do not adopt proper coping strategies. So, the management should provide organization-wide stress avoidance and coping techniques that would help the employee to manage their stress. Singh, A. &Gogia, N. (2014) studied the effect of work stress on performance and productivity of hoteliers. The result shows that peer pressure, highly competitive environment and performance pressure effect employee motivation positively and hence enhances the overall performance and productivity. 4 P a g e

5 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The main objective of the study is to identify the reasons for occupational stress in Hospitality industry and to find out the coping strategies employed by the individuals and the stress management programs resorted to by the organisations in the above industry. METHODOLOGY Primary source is used for identifying causes of stress and stress management techniques used in hospitality industry. An unstructured questionnaire was used to collect the primary data for study purpose. Personal and telephonic interview methods were adopted to collect the data from select sectors of hospitality industry in the state of Goa. A sample of 50 employees from different level of hierarchy has been selected. Content Analysis has been used to analyse the data collected. DISCUSSION Sources of stress in the hospitality Industry 1) Working for a longer hours and no fixed time of duty leads to imbalance between work life and personal life. 2) Limited amount of rest mainly in case of front line employees. 3) Seasonal workload- workload varies according to seasons. 4) Working in night shift adversely affects physical and mental health. 5) No guarantee of job security especially in case of lower level employees. 6) Lack of support and co-ordination with superiors and subordinates. 7) Dealing with rude customer behaviour or action and their quality expectation from employees. 8) Always high expectation regarding performance from seniors especially from front line employees who are in direct contact with customers. 9) When employee is not satisfied with job duties at workplace. Stress Management Programme 1) Leisure activities at workplace. 2) Effective communication network with the employees to identify their difficulties. 3) Regular guidance and support to the employees. 4) Organising get-together like celebration of birthday of employees, cultural activities, sport activities, picnic etc such activities are creating good bonding among the employees. 5) Word of appreciation from seniors or awarding in the form of Best employee of the month. 6) Providing professional guidance by organising workshops on stress management. 7) Organising Yoga camp or health check up camp. 5 P a g e

6 8) Providing professional advice to young employees regarding career in hospitality which help them to get right direction and to certain extent it reduces their negative thinking which sometime leads to stress. 9) Proper allocation of working hours during peak season is required. This will contribute to the efficiency of employees and it will help to reduce stress. Wan Hussin 3D stress management model The model outlines a stress management strategy that can be explained in 3 stages. Stage I Unexpected stage is the survey part, which is the collection of information and identifying all the unexpected stress contributors. Stage 2 is the Stress projection stage whereby various stress tests are carried out to determine the exact level of stress. Stage 3 is the Expected stage whereby the mapping of the stress findings is formulated based on a thorough understanding of the physical, physiological and occupational consequences, stress management strategy and mastery techniques. (Wan Hussin, W. M. A. International Surveying Research Journal) Critical Incident Stress Management Critical incidents are highly stressful situation which puts the life of an individual in danger. When the causes of stress become aggressive, it affects physical and emotional side of an individual. The following are the examples of critical incidents such as employee suicide and industrial accident at work place leads to injury or death of an employee. The objective of critical incident stress management is to help individuals exposed to critical incidents. The main objective of CISM is to provide psychological first aid. There are different types of CISM interventions can be used for individuals, groups, etc. Debriefing is a positive interaction involving healthy group discussion about critical incidents. Such interaction is done between 1 to 3 days after the incidents. Defusing is shorter than debriefing. It is conducted immediately after the critical incident occurs. The main aim of defusing is to bring individuals in normal functioning. Coping Strategies Coping strategies refer to the individual efforts to manage stress or eliminate stressful personal or work life. The coping strategies depend upon the behaviour of an individual. Generally there are two coping strategies namely problem focused and emotion focused as suggested by Lazarus and Folkman (1984). Under problem focused coping strategy, an individual making an effort to manage stress by taking expert advice or solution to change stressful working conditions. In problem focused, an individual is identifying the root cause of the problem and identifying the solution with the help of others. Under emotion focused 6 P a g e

7 approach, an individual is ignoring the problem with a hope that future will be good for him and praying for mental strength. From the point of managing stress, problem focused approach is more effective than emotion focused approach. From organisation point of view, if individual employee is adopting problem focused approach to manage stress it will give positive result. Individual coping strategies depend on age, gender, socio-economic status, personality and behaviour of employees. According to an individual the following activities reduce stress level and release positive power. 1) Listening to bollywood, western, classical music depending on individual taste. 2) Spending time with family members, friend circle or love ones. 3) Attending social functions like wedding, birthday parties etc. 4) Playing favourite outdoor games like cricket, football, etc. 5) Joining gym or regular physical exercise. 6) Watching movie. 7) Shopping. 8) Eating healthy foods. 9) Taking advice from family members, friends or from colleague regarding how to tackle stressful situation. 10) Waiting for positive situation to come. 11) God prayer for mental strength. CONCLUSION Work stress can be caused due to various factors such as your relationship with others at workplace, duration of working time, high expectation from senior officials. But if stress condition prolonged for a longer period of time it can affect in negative way. It affects one s physical health, behaviour and performance level. The organisations are using different techniques to manage stress and to keep employee healthy as well as to improve their performance. At individual level, the employees are also making efforts to manage stress. The strategies to manage stress depend on coping behaviours i.e. problem focused or emotion-focused. The perception about stress is highly personal. The factors or situation which is stressful for one may not be stressful to others. Managing stress at workplace is important for employee as well as to the organisation. REFERENCES Ajgaonkar, Samit. "Techniques used to manage stress and its impact on middle management s performance in the hospitality industry in india." Anbazhagan, a., l. J. Soundar rajan, and a. Ravichandran. "work stress of hotel industry employees in puducherry." Asia pacific journal of marketing & management review, P a g e

8 Baba, Irfana. "Workplace stress among doctors in government hospitals : An empirical study." International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, D.Chandru, Dr.C.Muthu Velayutham. "An Empirical study on Job Stress and its impact on health workers in Private Hospitals at Tiruchirappalli, South India." Interdisciplinary journal of contemporary research in business, Gogia, ajeet kumar singh and Dr. Nidhi bhatia. "To study the effect of work stress on performance and productivity of hoteliers in hotels of delhi." Indian journal of applied research, Hussin, W. M. A. Wan. "Managing Stress at the Workplace Using the Wan Hussin 3D Stress Management Model." International Surveying Research Journal, 2012: John W. O Neill a, Kelly Davisb. "Work stress and well-being in the hotel industry." International Journal of Hospitality Management, 2011: K, Gowri shankar u and Keerthi. The impact of stress on low level employees of star hotels with special to chennai. July 28, Lamm, Karen Lo & Felicity. "Occupational Stress in the Hospitality Industry - An Employment Relations Perspective." Singh, Ajay pratap singh and r.c. "A study of workplace stress in hospitality sector." tecnia journal of management studies, 2012: Srikhum, Patchanittha. "The Study of employees stress on job performance in five star hotels in Bangkok." The Clute Institute International Academic Conferences May (accessed May 2014). (accessed May 2014). (accessed May Tuesday, 2014). May (accessed May 2014). Retrieved May, (accessed May 2014). (accessed May 2014) (accessed May 2014). (accessed May 2014). 8 P a g e