Employee Mental Health: a priority for a good environment!
Working in hospitality often means long hours and unsociable shifts. Due to the nature of the role, it can be stressful and pressured, yet there is a tendency among workers to keep any mental health issues to themselves and face these pressures alone.
After a hectic month of December, it may be a good time to reflect on some of the challenges in our industry as I am particularly focused on the mental health of the people working around us.
The last few months have seen unprecedented stress placed on our team due to a lack of staffing in the industry.
This is the result of several factors:
- Back-of-house staff often work in an environment with no natural light or good fresh air supply.
- Less available professionals employee in the industry after the double whammy of Covid and Brexit.
- Millennials and generation Z aiming at better life/work balance and not embracing the idea of having a job that involves unsocial hours.
- More young people going for the casual work approach, allowing them the flexibility to study or follow a passion as a first priority.
- An increased activity resulting in more guest’s conflicts such as dealing with intoxicated guests.
All these factors associated with the increased demand and traffic of the festive season has pushed our full-time employee into a massive amount of stress.
As an employer and business, it is very challenging to strike the right balance between maximising the revenue and not overworking the employees, which could result in staff leaving and adding even more pressure to the remaining staff.
