The importance of wellbeing and mental health in hospitality

As an employer in an industry that typically sees high employee churn it’s important to recognise the impact of workplace stress and anxiety on your teams. Working in hospitality can mean working different shifts, working at weekends and at night, potentially dealing with high-stress customer conflicts and long-days on your feet in a fast-paced, intense work environment – all of this can lead to a high-stress environment for employees. 

To ensure happy healthy teams that are more productive and providing a better customer experience – you need to know how to handle mental health topics in the workplace. This isn’t an area to shy away from, according to research from RSPH, over four out of five (84%) hospitality workers reported increased stress which was believed to be a direct consequence of their job. As a result, almost half (45%) of respondents said they would not recommend working in hospitality. 

In this article, we’re going to outline some of the areas that might be causing stress for your teams and importantly how you can support your employees. We’ll look at some of the ways we’ve helped our hospitality clients to manage employee wellbeing with help from our sector and product specialists here at Access Hospitality.  

Challenges for employers in supporting employee wellbeing in hospitality 

So, what exactly is causing hospitality employees stress? It’s important to understand the daily challenges facing your employees and how it could impact their mental health. Here we outline some of the most commonly reported causes of stress in hospitality:  

High-stress work environment

Working in hospitality can become very stressful. Understaffed shifts can lead to delays for customers, giving rise to customer complaints and conflicts. When order intake isn’t managed this can lead to backlog in the kitchen, causing stress for kitchen staff and leading to more unhappy customers. For restaurants, specific times of the day can be very intense while covering the busy lunch or dinner service and for late-night venues, team members may have to deal with drunk or disorderly customers which can also be stressful.  

Working hours

Working in hospitality can mean working long and unsociable hours, including evenings, weekends, and holidays, which can negatively impact an employee's work-life balance, making it hard for them to connect with family and friends outside work, and leading to burnout and reduced productivity. Hospitality workers often have little control over their work schedules, making it challenging to balance work and personal life. This lack of work-life balance can lead to stress, depression, and other mental health issues. 

Lack of job security

Hospitality work can be insecure, with short-term or zero hour contracts, seasonal work and a high rate of employee turnover. This uncertainty can lead to anxiety and stress, especially for those who rely on their job to support themselves and their families. 

Practical solutions for supporting employee wellbeing in hospitality 

Prioritising mental health and wellbeing as a company value

Prioritising the mental health and wellbeing of employees by making it a core value of your company culture is an important first step. This includes developing policies and practices that support mental health and wellbeing, such as encouraging employees to take breaks, offering mental health days, and promoting work-life balance. Businesses can also appoint wellbeing champions who can be trained to identify stress and offer support.  

The Employee Wellbeing Calendar from Access CPL Learning, highlights the key dates in 2024 for hospitality businesses to be aware of. Download calendar >

Regular check-ins with employees

Operators can improve employee wellbeing by regularly checking in with their team members to monitor their mental health and address any issues. Good employers will ensure that regular one-on-one time between team members and managers is scheduled in on a regular basis so anyone who is struggling or problems can be identified early on. 

Offering flexible working hours

Looking at ways to offer more flexibility in working hours to help employees manage their work-life balance can help. This might include offering part-time work, job-sharing or shift-swapping policies that help employees understand how they can manage their work time. Making holiday request procedures clear and also ensuring that unsociable shifts and holidays are fairly managed.  

Providing training for managers to identify and manage stress and burnout

Training can support managers to help them identify and manage stress and burnout in their teams. This includes providing digital and in person training on communication skills, conflict resolution, leadership skills and stress management techniques.  

Creating a positive work culture

Employers can create a positive work culture that supports employee wellbeing by promoting teamwork, recognition and positive feedback. This includes creating opportunities for employees to socialise, celebrate successes and receive feedback. Team days can be great for morale as well as offer some much needed downtime, you can send a powerful message to your teams that you value their mental health by shutting shop for the day and getting your team together for a day of team building. 

Exit interviews and surveys

It’s important to understand what drives employee churn in any business, so ensuring that an exit interview is always conducted can help you identify recurring points and gather information about what is causing employees to leave the business. For example, are team members frequently leaving to join similar or competitor businesses? This can be an indicator of dissatisfaction among team members. Operators can also learn a lot through regular surveys of the teams to find out how happy they are in their roles and identify potential areas that are causing stress.  

Providing access to mental health resources and services

Employers can provide access to mental health resources and services, such as mental health and wellbeing courses and resources that not only help employees to manage their own mental health but understand and support colleagues. Employers can also support their staff in accessing mental health services and enabling staff to have regular time that they can use for attending support service appointments.   

Next steps

In this article we have explored employee wellbeing and mental health and how employers can support their teams. Working in hospitality can become very stressful, which can lead to burnout and a negative impact on mental health. 

To support employee wellbeing, employers can prioritise mental health and wellbeing as a company value, regularly check in with employees, offer flexible working hours, provide training for managers to identify and manage stress and burnout, create a positive work culture and conduct exit interviews and surveys. Understanding the daily challenges facing employees can also help employers create a supportive work environment. 

Our sector specialists can help you in supporting your teams’ mental wellbeing through education for both managers and team members. Get in touch to discuss your requirements.

Or download our Employee Wellbeing Calendar from Access CPL Learning which highlights the key dates in 2024 for hospitality businesses to be aware of.