Annotated Bibliography on Work-Life Balance and Stress Management in Hospitality Industry

This annotated bibliography provides insights on work-life balance and stress management strategies in the hospitality industry. It covers studies on reducing stressors, maintaining effective work-life balance, and retaining employees. The studies suggest that effective work-life balance strategies, such as distributing workload, providing recreational facilities, and career development opportunities, can help reduce stress levels among employees. Additionally, matching employees' characteristics with their roles, providing adequate compensation, and employee empowerment can act as stress relievers and reduce employee turnover intention.

Annotated Bibliography
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Deery, M. & Jago, L., 2015. Revisiting talent management, work-life balance and retention
strategies. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 07(03), pp.453-
72
Deery and Jago had identifies stressors like work-life conflict, inter- personal tension, lack of
role clarity, job burnout, emotional exhaustion due to long hour of work along with substance
misuse as some of the most influential.
The authors have stated that maintenance of an effective work life balance (WBL) in the
hospitality industry, which focuses on distinctive employee environment could be a way to
reduce the stress level among the staff members. Moreover, better training and development
programs; apt pay level and providing decent career opportunities are some other strategies to
reduce workplace stress among the employees.
Effective WBL strategy, when associated with effective human resource policies of the
organisation, has the capability to maintain higher level of schedule flexibility. Beside this,
effective pay scale and the scope for career development help in retaining the employees along
with motivating them to perform better.
The findings of the study help in pointing towards the essentiality of distributing the workload
among the employees to reduce the stress of working long- hours on daily basis. Also, it is
necessary to opportunities for recreation from time to time to help the employees to reduce the
level of emotional burnout, thereby helping them to focus on their work better.
Meloury, J. & Signal, T., 2014. When the plate is full: Aggression among chefs.
International Journal of Hospitality Management, 41, pp.97–103
In the study, Meloury & Signal have stated that chefs face stressors like negative physical and
psychological demands, tight time constrains, high level of perfectionism, pressure to maintain
reputation, etc most at their working place, which cause much of their aggressive behaviour.
Providing the ways to balance the work as well as personal life is one of the ways, which could
be seen as a crucial factor to reduce the level of stress among the chefs, especially the females.
Also, the distribution of work as well as responsibilities among the line chefs, head and sous
chefs could reduce the feeling of fear and being intimidated.
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The findings of the study critically stated that the nature of the job of chefs is stressful not only
due to work- pressure, irregular timing, etc but also due to he stressed interrelationships, which
create emotional exhaustion. Hence, reducing the level of hostility, aggressive behaviours in
commercial kitchens, etc could be a ways to effectively help the chefs to work in a stress free
environment.
Excessive alcohol consumption to reduce the stress level should be managed by providing
effective training sessions. Since, the line chefs face the most brutal stress level, it is essential to
provide them with recreational facilities.
Yanga, J.-T., Wanb, C.-S. & Fu, Y.-J., 2012. Qualitative examination of employee turnover
and retention strategies in international tourist hotels in Taiwan. International Journal of
Hospitality Management, 31, pp.837– 848
The work place stressors that have been found out in this study include dissatisfaction with
salary, inappropriate management of staff members, inapt work process, etc along with issues
like work- related depression, anxiety, job insecurity and burnout.
The authors have stated that strategies like matching employees’ characteristics with the role
before assigning those along with taking a serious consideration regarding compensation
policies, meeting job expectations, providing career development opportunities, employee
empowerment, etc could be act as stress reliever to a large extent.
The study has successfully brought forth the effectiveness of the above stated factors in the sense
that perceived organisational support and individual commitment to an organization result
positively in an elimination of employee turnover intention.
It could be recommended that employees should be motivated intrinsically as well as
extrinsically so that they feel more motivated from inside to perform. Moreover, paying attention
to employees’ needs and preferences along with those of the guests could also foster a feeling of
belongingness among the employees of the hospitality sector.
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