In line with recent concerns regarding mental health difficulties among individuals working in the Hospitality Industry, CPL Online recently developed and carried out research into this area to gain insight and data on how prevalent this is.
The main aim of the research was to identify, from the perspective of people working in the industry, the key causes of stress, anxiety and frustration that might lead to mental health problems. The responses were grouped using thematic analysis.
The questionnaire was completed by 200 participants working within hospitality, in a variety of areas. 45% of participants were office-based; the remainder were outlet based with an even split between manager and team roles.
What’s Causing the Stress, Anxiety and Frustration?
The major groups that were identified from the responses as causing stress, anxiety and frustration were:
The groupings which had the highest number of responses were Workload, Leadership and Work-life Balance
73% of participants identified workload as a key cause and this was explained by high expectations, heavy workload set deadlines and being understaffed.
54% of responses identified poor management and culture; communication failure and feeling undervalued as key causes of stress, anxiety and frustration. Leaders in any role are perhaps more able to positively affect good mental health among colleagues and to identify and signpost areas of concern. It is worrying, therefore, that leadership is identified as one of the problem areas in potentially causing difficulties, although this could be tempered by the possibility that ‘management’ may perhaps sometimes carry an unfair brunt of the blame.
Also significant is the fact that whilst 77% of respondents would know where to advise a colleague to go for help (in the event of suffering poor mental health); 41% of these would advise talking to a manager.
Long and late hours and insufficient time off causing problems affecting work-life balance was a key concern for 41% of respondents.
Noticeably, these areas significantly outweigh the concerns by respondents on salary and financial worries which was only noted by 11% of participants.
Mental Health awareness has increased significantly across society in the last couple of years and many organisations in the Hospitality Industry have embraced training managers in both outlet, office and area roles. CPL Training provides Mental Health England face-to-face programmes across many locations in the UK over 2 and 3 days but this takes time and commitment to achieve and is not an option for all operators.
CPL Online is currently developing a Mental Health Support Champion Course that will enable learners to gain a greater understanding of the symptoms of mental health; have the ability to be non-judgmental in order to support colleagues and, most importantly, enable them to signpost colleagues in the right direction to get help.
Good mental health supports positive self-esteem which it is suggested is required by individuals to deliver high levels of hospitality. This positively impacts the guest experience and is a beneficial consequence of this approach.
We see this new course as being fundamental for all hospitality outlets to encourage at least one or two individuals at each site to have this awareness. Support Champions can be essential to existing Mental Health First Aid plans, providing an increased level of support to people working in the Hospitality Industry.
Early detection and treatment, like with many illnesses, will aid recovery and with as many as 1 in 4 people that work in hospitality suffering with their mental health, this would seem to be a positive and readily available step.
Effective staff rostering, shift planning and leadership, along with hosting one to one meetings are also areas where online training can help develop managers to better engage and support their teams.
For more information on the Mental Health Support Champion Course or any other areas of online training and engagement you may be interested in, please contact us to see how we can help.
Email: info@cplonline.co.uk
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