Technology and Its Potential Impacts on Stress in Service Work

Technology is everywhere! The rapid and pervasive inclusion of technology in various work processes has positive and negative impacts on employees, managers, and organizations. Since hospitality is synonymous with service, it is important to understand how technology may impact service processes. In this article I discuss stress in service work, how technology may change the nature of service work processes, possible outcomes, and discuss some ways organizations can respond.

The American Psychological Association notes that stressful environments contribute to problems such as headaches, sleep disturbances, short temper, and difficulty concentrating. It can also cause depression, obesity, and heart disease. People who experience excessive stress adopt unhealthy escapes such as overeating, smoking tobacco, or abusing drugs and alcohol. Work is cited as a significant source of stress. Stress at work costs organizations money through insurance premiums and EAPs. Job stress costs organizations more than US $300 billion annually due to absenteeism, turnover, decreased productivity, and medical, legal, and insurance costs.

Service work is among the more stressful. Several causes of work stress have been identified. Service jobs, for example food service, are often characterized by long work hours, excessive workloads, low salaries, and unpredictable earnings from week to week. Lodging managers or lodging employees are likewise susceptible to experiencing stress because of the nature of their work: handling people issues - both guest and staff, managing the bottom line and productivity, and ensuring a high level of guest satisfaction. The jobs of service workers, particularly front-line customer facing workers, include a substantial proportion of emotional labor. Researchers describe emotional labor as converting an individual’s actual felt emotion (for example, anger or sadness) into one displayed based on organizational rules (for example, happiness and joy).

The psychological effort required to manage and convert one’s felt emotions into socially and organizationally acceptable emotions is stressful. Emotional labor can be very stressful since over a workday the employee is called on to engage in several micro-acts of emotional regulation and management. While the employee does get to engage in some positive emotional exchanges, for example with a regular guest, the sum of the interactions requiring regulation and management of negative felt emotions often overwhelms the positive.

In addition, lack of opportunities for career growth, routinized work that is less than challenging, lack of social support from managers or colleagues, inadequate or lack of control over job-related decisions, and conflicting or unclear performance expectations are all reasons for stress.

It is apparent from the above discussion that the nature of the job has a big role to play in the perception of stress by the job holder. Managers will argue that some aspects of the job that can induce stress are inherent to the job. Current conceptions of hospitality characterizing hospitality as a person-to-person business and commonly held by all engaged in the industry determines job descriptions, the provision of service, and the ‘shape’ of the organization.

As industry professionals we have a firm view of the ‘best’ hierarchy, authority structures, and overall organizational structure. Advances in technology and the way technology is incorporated in various aspects of typical hospitality operations are upending our collective understanding of the nature of service jobs and, consequently, organizational structures. This has implications for how work is carried out and for stress in hospitality work. What might these be? In what ways can the advance of technology and its inclusion in hospitality jobs and service processes impact perceptions and actual experience of stress in hospitality?

That technology has ‘encroached’ in many areas of hospitality operation is not in doubt. Both customer facing and back-office processes have adopted technologies of various kinds. I have separated the technologies into two broad categories: technologies that are visible to the customer and those that are invisible to the customer. Visible technologies change the dynamics of the hospitality organization at customer interfaces. For example, self-service kiosks at restaurants and airports have changed expectations of how a customer will obtain her burger or boarding pass. Worldwide self-service kiosk market is projected to double to about US $21.5 billion by 2027 from $12 billion in 2020. Asia has also adopted service robots widely. Statista reports that consumer service robotics dominates the market for service robotics and is projected to reach a market volume of US $6.9 billion in 2024.

Service processes are being digitalized and transformed at a rapid pace. The job descriptions of front-line employees are shifting as a result. The typical fast food restaurant service process is transformed, and frontline positions have changed. Technology adoptions mean fewer order-takers and cashiers are required. The job now entails delivery of a finished product to the consumer. As a result, there are fewer interpersonal interactions required with consumers. Such interactions are a primary source of variability in workflows of front-line work. The variance inherent in frontline service work demands that service workers observe and manage their emotions continuously. However, the proportion of emotional labor required in such jobs is significantly reduced due to the inclusion of technology. I noted earlier that the need to provide emotional labor as a component of service jobs is a big source of stress. The adoption of technology solutions and interfaces can help to reduce stress.

Kiosks and similar visible technologies also help to manage variability in the numbers of customers visiting an establishment. While the number of installed kiosks depends on capital availability, such installations can help manage staffing ratios. An important source of stress to the service employee such as unpredictable salary and work hours can be greatly reduced. Employees can be provided with more regular and predictable schedules.

Other sources of stress are jobs and tasks that are highly routinized, unchallenging, and tasks that provide the employee with little perceived control of their workday. Some positions in back-office operations can be characterized as routine and therefore a source of potential stress to the employee. The advance of artificial intelligence and similar invisible technologies has changed the nature of back-office work. AI supported back-office process automation is poised to become more widespread than it is currently.

These technologies have the potential to rapidly change back-office workflows, job descriptions, and as a result the nature of stress on employees. Similar to other service processes, tasks are likely to be reorganized into new and different jobs. Technology commentators and researchers note that while many jobs and tasks that humans currently engage in will be handled by technology, and that new jobs will take their place. Such new jobs are likely to demand skills and competencies that include critical and strategic thinking. This will no doubt make jobs more interesting and challenging and remove one source of stress in hospitality jobs.

On the other hand, it is possible that other forms of stress can occur due to the inclusion of technology in work processes. Technostress is defined as negative impact on attitudes, thoughts, behaviors, or body physiology that is caused either directly or indirectly by technology. Causes of technostress include constant connectivity with the organization, cognitive overload due to multiple streams of information that need processing, uncertainty due to changes in software or hardware potentially resulting in changes in work expectations, and insecurity due to fear of loss of job due to the inclusion of technology.

Managers can reduce much of this stress by knowledge sharing about an innovative technology, technical support to reduce any perceived complexity and uncertainty in operating recent technology and creating organizational mechanisms to encourage employees to engage with the technology. Upskilling or reskilling employees to ensure they are ready to engage with technology supported service processes can alleviate a potential source of stress, namely fear of unemployment.

As some have noted, technology is neutral, and its value must depend on its appropriate and benign application. Organizations must strive to balance investments in technology against those in their employees and ensure that employee stress levels are not heightened. Managers must seek to digitalize their organizations in a manner that does not abruptly disrupt existing organizational systems dependent on individual contributions. Organizations must rethink their service processes carefully accounting for the duration it will take to transform a process, the resulting reallocations of work tasks, plan future employee requirements, and gradually phase in technology.

At the same time, organizations must plan and execute their reskilling and retraining needs to ensure current employees are included in the redesigned and technology supported service processes. Careful planning and execution will reduce human resource related challenges including stress resulting from lack of job security or a lack of understanding of the new technology.

In conclusion, technology is changing the way we work. With increasing sophistication and having moved past the ‘learning curve’ technology solutions will be applied to large parts of hospitality organizations. I have argued elsewhere that hospitality organizations are likely to evolve into two large categories - one group of organizations will be intensely technology supported and driven, while a smaller group of organizations will continue to deliver high-touch services at a higher price point.

No matter which end of the spectrum an organization falls on, technology applications will be inescapable. Technology can be both a bane and a boon to manage stress. Managers must be aware of the ways in which technology can affect stress levels, both positively and negatively, and develop clear conceptions of the pace and intensity of technology adoption in their organizations.

Reprinted from the Hotel Business Review with permission from http://www.hotelexecutive.com/.