Employee well-being is crucial for the hotel industry since work stress can reduce job satisfaction and negatively affect customer satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Therefore, it is essential to raise awareness about work satisfaction, promote preventative actions, and engage employees in their jobs, well-being, and motivation.
Indicators of pleasure and life satisfaction, such as well-being, serve as tools in daily life and are influenced by various external factors, such as social, economic, and environmental (World Health Organization 2021). It is worth saying that today the proportion of workers who express the need for a corporate culture that safeguards employees’ well-being has increased (Guntzel et al. 2020).
Many businesses promote a strong service culture where customer satisfaction comes before employee success, which can lead to poor well-being. The term for this issue is emotional labour. Being emotionally stable makes it simpler for employees to be productive at work. (Day & Carroll 2004.)
One of the most prevalent and costly issues in the workplace today is stress which is closely combined with well-being. For example, over 50 % of the workdays missed due to illness in 2017–2018 were accompanied by stress, depressive symptoms, or anxiety. (Pfeffer 2019.)
Well-being in the Russian hospitality sector
![[Alt-teksti: Stress criteria in the figure. F ex low wages and long working hours.]](https://blogit.lab.fi/labfocus/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2022/12/833_2022_Russian-hotel-employees_1-1-1024x442.png)
According to tashina’s thesis, low earnings were the most frequent stressor for all hotel employees in Russia (Figure 1). This is most likely a result of Russia’s low median and average salaries.
Emotional labour and smiling at work proved to cause less stress among respondents, especially for back-office staff. Employees in the guest services department, who had direct contact with visitors, were aware of this stressful aspect.
The survey helped in forming recommendations. The most expressed needs are improved communication with management and the ability to address challenging circumstances. Even if “the customer is always right” is a company policy, employees still need to know that management is on their side and is aware of the issue. The results showed that more than 50 % of respondents believe that open communication among employees helps to foster a healthy work environment. Companies must recognise their staff as human beings with feelings and thoughts and create a supportive workplace culture to prevent adverse effects on their well-being.
In future studies, a proper comparison to other countries would be interesting. For instance, the challenges in Russia and Finland are quite the same, but further research is recommended to ensure this.
Authors
Anastasiia Iashina graduated from LAB University of Applied Sciences in 2022.
Johanna Heinonen is a Senior Lecturer and RDI specialist at LAB University of Applied Sciences.
References
Day, A. & Carroll, S. 2004. Using an ability-based measure of emotional intelligence to predict individual performance, group performance, and group citizenship behaviours. Personality and Individual Differences, Vol. 36 (6), 1443-1458.Cited 22 Sep 2022. Available at DOI: 10.1016/S0191-8869(03)00240-X. https://scholar.google.fi/scholar?q=10.1016/S0191-8869(03)00240-X&hl=fi&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart
Guntzel, J.S., TerraLuna Collabourative & Murphy Johnson, N.F. 2020. Well-being inspires well-doing. How changemakers’ inner well-being influences their work. Cited 14 Sep 2022. Available at https://well-being-project.org/the-well-being-project-research-findings/
Iashina, A. 2022. Employee well-being in the hotel industry : in the case of the hotel market in St. Petersburg, Russia. Cited 14Sep 2022. Available at https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022102821678
Pfeffer, J. 2019. The Hidden Costs of Stressed-Out Workers. The Wall et al. Street Journal. Cited 22 Sep 2022. Available at https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hidden-costs-of-stressed-out-workers-11551367913
Rodrigo_SalomonHC. 2021. Salomon Cañas, R. Rezeptionisten, anruf, hotel. Pixabay. Cited 8 Dec 2022. Available at https://pixabay.com/de/photos/rezeptionisten-anruf-hotel-5975962/
World Health Organization. 2021. Promoting well-being. Cited 14 Sep 2022. Available at https://www.who.int/activities/promoting-well-being
