Prioritizing Hospitality Workers' Mental Health This Holiday Season And Beyond
The majority of hospitality workers believe there is a stigma around mental health across the industry. But self-care and therapy isn’t enough to solve the issue when 51% of hospitality workers say their job is stress-inducing most or all of the time.
“In the restaurant industry there’s a big macho sort of persona that whatever restaurant you’re working in you have to adapt to that. You have to look happy because if you don’t, then that affects the people around you [...] so even when your life is in shambles, nobody can know that,” said Charles Ford, general manager at S.K.Y. Chicago, in the Wall Street Journal.
There is also an industry-wide gap in leadership knowledge on how to best support the well-being of these workers. All of these factors come to a head during the holiday season. Mind Share Partners and CHOW teamed up on this article to bring awareness to the ongoing mental health challenges in the food/beverage/hospitality industry, and what employers can do to help.
Challenges that hospitality workers are facing
The food/beverage/hospitality industry has a long standing history of disincentivizing self- care, glamorizing a “hustle and grind” culture, and allowing unorthodox schedules and operational hours.
“I know every job has its ups and downs, but working in a hotel is like playing a game of Jenga, except instead of blocks, the pieces are your sanity,” shared Nathan Chen, a former hotel worker, on Medium.
Always taking care of others as a core part of your job role, with little time to take care of yourself, is a recipe for burnout. So it’s no surprise that the industry experiences disproportionate rates of mental health struggles.
New research from this year points to work-life balance, high expectations or workload, and long hours as the top factors that are negatively impacting hospitality workers’ well-being. For example, in the restaurant industry 74% of chefs report they are sleep deprived to the point of exhaustion, and more than half feel pushed to the breaking point. There is also a lack of job security industry-wide, which can lead to or exacerbate existing mental health challenges.
Results from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health also paint a concerning picture, reporting that employees of restaurants and hotels—the two largest branches of the hospitality industry—have the highest rates of substance abuse in the American workforce. There is also a lack of regulatory bodies across independently owned establishments, making it difficult for workers in the industry to ask for help. Roughly 6 in 10 hospitality professionals report they are too afraid to tell their employer that they’re struggling with mental health challenges.
Most hotels and restaurants are facing industry-wide staffing shortages, as workers seek more sustainable working environments, and a greater work-life balance.
