I want to thank everyone who participated in the Fall 2007 Park City Stress Awareness and Management Presentation from the restaurant and hospitality industry. You demonstrate a healthy desire to take care of yourself, your workplace, and your marketplace, which ultimately leaves a great impression of our destination town on the rest of the world, meaning more money in everybodys pockets, and a better guarantee that they'll come back in the future for more!
During the season, don't forget to check into the blog for tips that can situationally and cyclically keep you fresh, maintain your stress tolerance, preserve and increase stress headroom. I'll suspend research links so that all of you who are busy can just get your job done, and we'll re-start links to research after the season ends, when there's more time for extra-curricular learning!
As we come up to the big upsurge in visitors to town for the Christmas holidays, everybody's amped up and ready to go, and the whole idea of stress in the workplace is probably just a myth right now. Banter, setting up and coaching rigorous standards are rituals of the workplace that get us in the efficient mode for doing our job, and even throw a little high energy our way to kick off our getting amped up.
If you happen to be one of those employees or managers working in a stale workplace, where your experience as the season is coming on is expectation of frustration and being hit by situations you already are fed up with, let me share with you a great trick I shared in this season's presentation. We tend to be reactive and defensive, and this is a proactive re-programming trick. I'll want to offer more details on this practice than I have time for this week, so come back next week to get more particulars.
Use the time from when you get out of your car, walking to work, riding the bus, or any moment to 5 minutes when you have some alone time on the way into work, for this practice. If you can't find 5 minutes of alone time in your day, take a long bathroom break sometime during the day, and practice this visualizing routine. It really works!
We tend to use our fight or flight mode to amp us up, and because we tend to be creatures of habit that fall into using the fight or flight mode to profile our environment, like many type A personalities, to locate obstacles and remove them in order to attain our goal: happiness, satisfaction, flow, non-resistance etc. When things get stale, we can get stuck in this mode, and use whatever free brain time we have to anticipate unpleasant experiences that may be on the way.
Because of the way the brain is wired, this style of profiling the world around us brings up associative memories so we can use that information to keep us on our toes. This automated program of the brain, however, has unintended consequences. When things get stale in the workplace, we can be profiling for the same undesirable circumstances day after day, hour after hour, and it can really drag us down. The memories coming up that we assume are the anticipated future may not really be like what is happening. This kind of mistake is common with fight or flight perceptions for many of us, and changes depending on the intensity of the discomfort arising from an anticipated experience.
So, you're getting out of your car, and walking into work. You can actually take 5-20 minutes a day for 3 weeks and rehearse this at home, over coffee, before you go to bed, whenever it's convenient. Start the practice by visualizing yourself, from the car door to the workplace door, the way you are when you are not profiling for stressors, for obstacles and roadblocks and problems for the day. How did you walk through the door when you were thinking about starting a new job, or the days after you first made good money, or after you first made good connections or had a really successful day?
You know best. Sometimes it's really difficult to break the negative emotion/negative association pattern. Don't try changing it all at once. Recall the last time you had a monumental problem and got through it sucessfully. The feelings were probably similar. It could be a bad day, a day where everything went wrong, a day when surprises and new obstacles kept presenting themselves. I guarantee you have one in your history, one where you may not have enjoyed what was going on at the time. If you stop to look back at it, when the day was done you got your job done, the work was satisfactory or adequate if not exceptional, and you let it go and moved on to the next moment in your life. We'll talk more about this later. Have a great day!
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Work Stress and Service Quality
In an article titled "Interpersonal Stress Reactions and Service Quality Responses Among Hospitality Industry Employees", by Glenn F. Ross, 1995 (not currently available free online), Ross offers a grounded perspective on work stress and job performance in the hospitality industry.
"Work stress may well lead to a diminution of service quality". Ross refers to the kind of work that requires employees to conceil or repress authentic emotional responses as "emotional labor". While the research, which surveyed 274 hospitality industry employees of the tourist city of Cairns in Australia, addressed communication as a problem solving response in a stressful employee-manager conflict situation, Ross points to many other aspects both of stress and service quality that show a correlation.
To boil the question of work stress and emotional labor down into a clearer view, the higher the work stress, the lower the headroom for absorbing the emotions of customers, clients and management. If management is resolving issues in a way that adds stress to employees, whether by constant job uncertainty, criticism of a role that is not clearly defined, or simply venting managerial stress on employees, the emotional labor has less headroom to absorb and respond positively and most beneficially--most in tune with the customer's emotional state--to the customer.
Interestingly, Ross found that "better communication on the part of hospitality industry management...[is] the preferred problem solving response" to employee-management conflict. Even more interesting, "Female hospitality employees" have favored "better communication on the part of management". The research discussion goes on to say; "female employees have generally displayed more effective problem solving skills in their reactions to work stress".
The point here I think is not to go out and hire women over men, or to let go of whatever disciplinary or guidance behaviors are needed for management. The point is, we can learn from what women are showing us in terms of stress management in interpersonal conflict, and no amount of effective problem solving skills is going to create a stress tolerance or headroom level that is infinite. If we are looking as a team, communicating as a team, and supporting a lowered stress atmosphere--for ourselves, our co-workers, and our marketplace--the potential for quality is maximized.
What do you think?
"Work stress may well lead to a diminution of service quality". Ross refers to the kind of work that requires employees to conceil or repress authentic emotional responses as "emotional labor". While the research, which surveyed 274 hospitality industry employees of the tourist city of Cairns in Australia, addressed communication as a problem solving response in a stressful employee-manager conflict situation, Ross points to many other aspects both of stress and service quality that show a correlation.
To boil the question of work stress and emotional labor down into a clearer view, the higher the work stress, the lower the headroom for absorbing the emotions of customers, clients and management. If management is resolving issues in a way that adds stress to employees, whether by constant job uncertainty, criticism of a role that is not clearly defined, or simply venting managerial stress on employees, the emotional labor has less headroom to absorb and respond positively and most beneficially--most in tune with the customer's emotional state--to the customer.
Interestingly, Ross found that "better communication on the part of hospitality industry management...[is] the preferred problem solving response" to employee-management conflict. Even more interesting, "Female hospitality employees" have favored "better communication on the part of management". The research discussion goes on to say; "female employees have generally displayed more effective problem solving skills in their reactions to work stress".
The point here I think is not to go out and hire women over men, or to let go of whatever disciplinary or guidance behaviors are needed for management. The point is, we can learn from what women are showing us in terms of stress management in interpersonal conflict, and no amount of effective problem solving skills is going to create a stress tolerance or headroom level that is infinite. If we are looking as a team, communicating as a team, and supporting a lowered stress atmosphere--for ourselves, our co-workers, and our marketplace--the potential for quality is maximized.
What do you think?
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Hubris and Ego
Webster's online defines "hubris" as exaggerated pride or self confidence. The word is usually associated with attitudes and behavior that begins with arrogance and defensiveness, and ends in some kind of failure or crisis. For example, I've heard a number of managers say to me, "I'll never use the blog" or "I don't need anyone to tell me how to manage stress in the workplace", and I assure you, I'm not here to tell anyone how to do anything. In my presentations, I encourage others to share their perceptions of stress, and what they do that already works, because firedrills work.
But back to the hubristic manager. I don't really get it. You have a free resource that links you to research in applied psychology and hospitality research, from such schools as Cornell and the University of Utah's own Marriott school, where people have been studying stress in the workplace with a conservative scientific view, and the hubristic manager's attitude is: "I don't need anyone to tell me how to do my job".
When would you say the learning stops for such a manager? Better yet, at what point in time is learning no longer necessary in a people profession? When I started Diamondpoint Coaching and began offering presentations to the R&H industry, I focused on 2 important aspects. One, nobody ever offered me information on stress perceptions and situational--let alone cyclical--stress management. Two, stress awareness and management are and have been, in my 26 years in the service industry, at least as important if not more important than quality of product or quality of service.
You can have great product and service, but if you don't react to a stressful customer well, or if you react impulsively to your own loss of stress headroom in a high pressure, high volume environment, you still lose the game. My R&H presentations are cheap and cost effective, and the blog is free. What more could you want?
My intention was to create an information resource and a service to the community in which I have worked most, and learned most. The resources on the blog are the kind you could only access or find out about with a University passkey.
If I were an owner, let alone a manager, the first attitude I'd want to weed out and encourage differently would be the 'I already know all I need to know to manage' attitude. I can tell you from firsthand experience: crises of all kinds can be avoided or their impact softened by weeding out the 'I don't need to learn anything more to do my job'.
Managers who take advantage of free and top notch resources like this blog are apt to create better word of mouth for your marketplace, and a much more attractive work environment, which means higher performance, less stress, and longer tenure for your employees, especially the good ones.
What do you think?
But back to the hubristic manager. I don't really get it. You have a free resource that links you to research in applied psychology and hospitality research, from such schools as Cornell and the University of Utah's own Marriott school, where people have been studying stress in the workplace with a conservative scientific view, and the hubristic manager's attitude is: "I don't need anyone to tell me how to do my job".
When would you say the learning stops for such a manager? Better yet, at what point in time is learning no longer necessary in a people profession? When I started Diamondpoint Coaching and began offering presentations to the R&H industry, I focused on 2 important aspects. One, nobody ever offered me information on stress perceptions and situational--let alone cyclical--stress management. Two, stress awareness and management are and have been, in my 26 years in the service industry, at least as important if not more important than quality of product or quality of service.
You can have great product and service, but if you don't react to a stressful customer well, or if you react impulsively to your own loss of stress headroom in a high pressure, high volume environment, you still lose the game. My R&H presentations are cheap and cost effective, and the blog is free. What more could you want?
My intention was to create an information resource and a service to the community in which I have worked most, and learned most. The resources on the blog are the kind you could only access or find out about with a University passkey.
If I were an owner, let alone a manager, the first attitude I'd want to weed out and encourage differently would be the 'I already know all I need to know to manage' attitude. I can tell you from firsthand experience: crises of all kinds can be avoided or their impact softened by weeding out the 'I don't need to learn anything more to do my job'.
Managers who take advantage of free and top notch resources like this blog are apt to create better word of mouth for your marketplace, and a much more attractive work environment, which means higher performance, less stress, and longer tenure for your employees, especially the good ones.
What do you think?
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Consumer Complaint Behavior and Stress
Jones, McLeary and Lepisto, in "Consumer Complaint Behavior Manifestations for Table Service Restaurants..." ,
originally published in the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research (V.26 #2 May 2002), identified baby boomers with children as the predominant demographic concerned in word of mouth (wom) complaint. They state:
"The results show these individuals to be under greater psychological stress than those in the other two groups (not likely to complain, complain to anyone), as well as less price conscious and less susceptible to interpersonal influence...(p.105)"
While one peer reviewed research study may be less preferential to 3 or 4, my experiences in consumer complaint behavior and stress seem to be reinforced by Jones et al. I would add that from my experience, I theorize that stress management may be the additional product or experience that many customers and clients are seeking through complaint. In other words, I think complaint may not be based at times on quality of product, or quality of service, but on the attempt to manage stress through a marketplace interaction.
If I have stress over my workday, kids, a holiday spent with a destination town full of other people competing for the same events and services as me, I might be more likely to act out on the server, bellperson, guest services agent, manager, restaurant, hotel or resort, reguardless of whether the product or service is up to quality or not, because I need to vent, and the products and services out there are not going to satisfy that need. Complaint will allow me to vent on something symbolic.
I believe the third unstated role of every service industry worker, after offering quality of product and service, is to offer a trained, informed response to stress voiced through complaint. Jones et al suggests this is also significant to customer loyalty.
If you have research to the contrary, or research that backs this up, please post a reference to that research. Meanwhile, what have been your experiences, and what is your perception of the stress-complaint link?
originally published in the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research (V.26 #2 May 2002), identified baby boomers with children as the predominant demographic concerned in word of mouth (wom) complaint. They state:
"The results show these individuals to be under greater psychological stress than those in the other two groups (not likely to complain, complain to anyone), as well as less price conscious and less susceptible to interpersonal influence...(p.105)"
While one peer reviewed research study may be less preferential to 3 or 4, my experiences in consumer complaint behavior and stress seem to be reinforced by Jones et al. I would add that from my experience, I theorize that stress management may be the additional product or experience that many customers and clients are seeking through complaint. In other words, I think complaint may not be based at times on quality of product, or quality of service, but on the attempt to manage stress through a marketplace interaction.
If I have stress over my workday, kids, a holiday spent with a destination town full of other people competing for the same events and services as me, I might be more likely to act out on the server, bellperson, guest services agent, manager, restaurant, hotel or resort, reguardless of whether the product or service is up to quality or not, because I need to vent, and the products and services out there are not going to satisfy that need. Complaint will allow me to vent on something symbolic.
I believe the third unstated role of every service industry worker, after offering quality of product and service, is to offer a trained, informed response to stress voiced through complaint. Jones et al suggests this is also significant to customer loyalty.
If you have research to the contrary, or research that backs this up, please post a reference to that research. Meanwhile, what have been your experiences, and what is your perception of the stress-complaint link?
Monday, October 29, 2007
Traditional Views of Workplace Stress
Four traditional views of stress come to mind that are used to get a good day’s work from us. See what you think. I’ve noticed the moral view, the ego based view, the natural personality view, and the monkey always on our back so get back to work view.
The moral view works like this: we shame each other for not being able to handle stress, or we pride ourselves in handling stress, because it’s all in a day’s work. If you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen. It’s the workplace, stupid. No pain, no gain.
Pros: most people will fall in line, to avoid negative labels and keep their job.
Cons: shaming is repressive; it works in the short run, going postal in the long run.
The ego based view of stress creates heroes and cowards. If you handle stress well, you’re great, if you don’t suck it up, you suck. Are you a hero, or a wimp?
Pros: Heroes are great. We can all be heroes once in a while. They take on more than their share of responsibility and you can always depend on them.
Cons: Heroism gets workers into raging doubles, back to back weeks, and managers come to expect 24/7 heroism, which is a recipe for burnout of your best talent.
The natural personality always handles stress well. Hire the right person, and all your worries are over, one less slot to fill, one less headache to worry about.
Pros: Hire every stress tolerant personality you can. They create a great workplace environment, they do their jobs well with few problems, and they endure hardship well.
Cons: They’re usually in high demand, and short supply.
The monkey on your back view says: get over it.
Pros: We learn from athletics to ignore pain, it’s an ever present aspect of life. Those of us who get good at ignoring stress can usually commit to anything.
Cons: Ignoring the problem increases likelihood of a problem later on, a recipe for injury. Repress the validity of stress, and reactivity and defensiveness to flourish. If I have to live with it, you’re going to have to live with it as well.
What perspectives operate most often, especially by key and exemplary employees, in your workplace?
The moral view works like this: we shame each other for not being able to handle stress, or we pride ourselves in handling stress, because it’s all in a day’s work. If you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen. It’s the workplace, stupid. No pain, no gain.
Pros: most people will fall in line, to avoid negative labels and keep their job.
Cons: shaming is repressive; it works in the short run, going postal in the long run.
The ego based view of stress creates heroes and cowards. If you handle stress well, you’re great, if you don’t suck it up, you suck. Are you a hero, or a wimp?
Pros: Heroes are great. We can all be heroes once in a while. They take on more than their share of responsibility and you can always depend on them.
Cons: Heroism gets workers into raging doubles, back to back weeks, and managers come to expect 24/7 heroism, which is a recipe for burnout of your best talent.
The natural personality always handles stress well. Hire the right person, and all your worries are over, one less slot to fill, one less headache to worry about.
Pros: Hire every stress tolerant personality you can. They create a great workplace environment, they do their jobs well with few problems, and they endure hardship well.
Cons: They’re usually in high demand, and short supply.
The monkey on your back view says: get over it.
Pros: We learn from athletics to ignore pain, it’s an ever present aspect of life. Those of us who get good at ignoring stress can usually commit to anything.
Cons: Ignoring the problem increases likelihood of a problem later on, a recipe for injury. Repress the validity of stress, and reactivity and defensiveness to flourish. If I have to live with it, you’re going to have to live with it as well.
What perspectives operate most often, especially by key and exemplary employees, in your workplace?
Monday, October 22, 2007
What are the Statistics Telling Us?
A recently published survey by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported a whopping 14% of women, 5% of men, and overall 10% of restaurant and foodservice industry employees surveyed had experienced a major depressive episode in the last year.
(http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/2k7/depression/occupation.pdf)
A survey from fall 2006 done by Diamondpoint Coaching through a research intensive at Salt Lake Community College showed 75% of managers in restaurants polled worked in a high stress industry, 75% said they experienced moderate to high stress, and 50% said stress was a problem in the workplace (detailed review of the survey available in the fall/winter e-news Stress Awareness News).
A study titled "Work Stress, Substance Use and Depression Among Young Adult Workers", from the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology (2005, v.10, #2, p. 83-96),
suggested that while correlations between work stress and depression were easily confounded, the links were worth exploring and the generally beneficial findings were directly applicable to the restaurant and hospitality industry.
What is your experience?
(http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/2k7/depression/occupation.pdf)
A survey from fall 2006 done by Diamondpoint Coaching through a research intensive at Salt Lake Community College showed 75% of managers in restaurants polled worked in a high stress industry, 75% said they experienced moderate to high stress, and 50% said stress was a problem in the workplace (detailed review of the survey available in the fall/winter e-news Stress Awareness News).
A study titled "Work Stress, Substance Use and Depression Among Young Adult Workers", from the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology (2005, v.10, #2, p. 83-96),
suggested that while correlations between work stress and depression were easily confounded, the links were worth exploring and the generally beneficial findings were directly applicable to the restaurant and hospitality industry.
What is your experience?
Monday, October 15, 2007
Would You Leave the Cooking to Someone Who Was Naturally Good?
The restaurant and hospitality industry typically trains employees in service and production, but what about stress awareness and management? Business practice has hinged on 'natural' stress tolerance and stress resistant personalities, but how many of your employees and co-workers really know what stress is from a training perspective, has taken a stress management class that describes the different perceptions people have of stress, or the functional and dysfunctional ways that people cope? How many hours of stress management and awareness learning have you or your managers logged?
In my 26 years in the service industry, including a self owned business, no one offered me any information or training in how stress operates in the workplace, or how stressful customers and clients behave. We tend to treat stress management in the independent business community morally. If you don't manage stress well, you lose your job, you get reprimanded, etc. Getting stress management out of an employee in a high volume, high pressure situation like the restaurant and hospitality rush by repression and threat is asking for failure. Of the 9 restaurant and hospitality organizations I worked for from 1996-2006 as cook, delivery driver, server and manager, only one did not have a major catastrophe that could have been avoided with seasonal learning of stress behaviors and effective situational stress management.
What do you think?
In my 26 years in the service industry, including a self owned business, no one offered me any information or training in how stress operates in the workplace, or how stressful customers and clients behave. We tend to treat stress management in the independent business community morally. If you don't manage stress well, you lose your job, you get reprimanded, etc. Getting stress management out of an employee in a high volume, high pressure situation like the restaurant and hospitality rush by repression and threat is asking for failure. Of the 9 restaurant and hospitality organizations I worked for from 1996-2006 as cook, delivery driver, server and manager, only one did not have a major catastrophe that could have been avoided with seasonal learning of stress behaviors and effective situational stress management.
What do you think?
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