Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, airline staff skilled unprecedented ranges of work-related stress and job uncertainty. Nevertheless, their coping methods and cultural variations of their responses to work-related stress stay understudied. In a well timed latest examine, Professor Seongseop (Sam) Kim of the Faculty of Resort and Tourism Administration (SHTM) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic College and co-authors explored the relationships between job stressors, psychological stress and coping methods amongst airline staff in Hong Kong and South Korea throughout the pandemic. Their work offers fruitful insights that might assist airways minimise staff’ psychological stress and supply assets to assist coping methods. Crucially, their outcomes additionally present that nationwide tradition needs to be thought-about when adopting such measures.
COVID-19 crippled enterprise operations in a large number of sectors, and air journey was amongst the toughest hit. Airways are not any stranger to financial or well being and security challenges, however the worldwide journey restrictions imposed in 2020 dealt the sector an unprecedented blow. With mass lay-offs, rescheduling and furloughs, airline staff confronted extreme job insecurity and ambiguity. “Consequently”, say the researchers, “it is smart to foretell that work-related situations attributable to the pandemic could enhance stress and nervousness amongst airline staff in a method that’s completely different from work-induced stress previous to the pandemic”.
Thus far, nonetheless, research have carried out little to elucidate the precise psychological and behavioural repercussions of industry-level occasions like COVID-19 for employees on this sector. “How airline staff understand work-related stress shouldn’t be absolutely understood”, say the authors. Moreover, scant consideration has been paid to their coping methods in response to such stress.
Context is one other vital issue. As staff’ reactions to work-related stress could differ between nations and cultures, the findings of Western research of job stress is probably not generalisable to different contexts, comparable to Asia. Though the pandemic affected airline staff worldwide, East Asian settings comparable to South Korea and Hong Kong could differ of their job stress predictors and outcomes relative to Western nations, and even relative to one another. “Airline staff from these two nationalities could expertise and handle work-related stress in another way”, say the authors.
With these concerns in thoughts, the researchers got down to present “a scientific understanding of coping methods in relation to work-related stress for airline staff throughout the tourism disaster”.
Typically, we expertise psychological stress after we really feel that an excessive amount of is being demanded of us. Widespread job stressors embrace extreme work calls for, position battle and job insecurity. In line with “conservation of assets” idea, stress poses a risk to our assets, and we reply by looking for to preserve our present assets and procure new ones. “Exemplifying this level”, say the researchers, “research have proven that service-oriented staff undertake acceptable coping methods to preserve their assets (e.g. well-being, shallowness) and alleviate stress”.
Accordingly, the authors observe, “coping kinds play an important position in understanding how staff adapt to anxious work occasions”. This raises the query of what airline staff can do to counteract useful resource loss throughout an industry-wide disaster like COVID-19. Nevertheless, we nonetheless know little about which coping methods airline staff use to take care of work-related stress. The researchers’ first step in tackling this query was to determine a theoretical mannequin linking job stressors to psychological stress and coping methods. “Within the mannequin”, the authors say, “a number of job stressors are anticipated to extend the psychological stress ranges of airline staff. Psychological stress, in flip, determines their coping methods”.
Numerous doable coping methods can be found to staff. Job-oriented coping makes an attempt to discover a resolution to the foundation reason behind stress, comparable to devising a plan to unravel the issue. Emotion-oriented coping goals to manage the emotional misery attributable to the stressor, comparable to by way of self-revelation or self-blame. Avoidance-oriented coping includes a deliberate try and disengage from the anxious state of affairs. If we really feel that we have now management over a anxious state of affairs and possess the assets to take care of it, we’re more likely to undertake task-oriented coping. “Emotion-oriented coping and avoidance-oriented coping are extra dominant when each management and coping assets are perceived to be low”, say the researchers.
Throughout COVID-19, airline staff had no management over the stressors they confronted, comparable to worldwide journey restrictions, the sluggish progress of virus containment and financial slowdown. Due to this fact, the authors hypothesised that airline staff experiencing job-related stress throughout the pandemic engaged primarily in emotion-oriented and avoidance-oriented coping. In addition they hypothesised that as nationwide tradition impacts individuals’s responses to emphasize, airline staff from completely different cultural settings skilled and managed work-related stress in another way throughout the pandemic.
To check their theoretical mannequin, the authors empirically examined the relationships between job stressors, job pressure and coping methods amongst airline staff in two Asian cultural contexts throughout the world tourism disaster attributable to COVID-19. A cross-sectional survey was accomplished on-line by 366 airline staff in South Korea and Hong Kong in summer season 2020.
Psychological stress was measured by the individuals’ self-reports of problem enjoyable, nervous arousal and being simply upset, irritable and impatient. The survey additionally measured the airline staff’ perceptions of job stressors comparable to “pressured labour insurance policies”, “concern about layoffs”, “pressured unpaid go away” and “lack of acceptable coaching and data concerning the prevention of virus transmission”. Coping methods had been assessed utilizing a battery of scales measuring task-oriented, emotion-oriented and avoidance-oriented coping.
Rigorous statistical evaluation of the questionnaire responses recognized three main work-related stressors related to the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the airline {industry}. First, psychological stress was associated to work schedules and calls for – reflecting the key operational adjustments that airways needed to impose throughout the pandemic. Firms can mitigate this supply of stress by way of well timed and clear communication with staff, say the researchers.
Second, job insecurity and monetary issues had been discovered to be a serious supply of stress. Though cost-saving measures are unavoidable throughout crises like COVID-19, airline corporations needs to be clear about their selections regarding lay-offs, wage cuts and compelled unpaid go away. “It will be important for the airline {industry} to emphasise its efforts to journey out the hardship along with its staff”, argue the researchers.
Third, stress was attributable to position battle. “Workers could undergo job pressure when performing a number of roles and duties aside from these usually anticipated”, observe the researchers. “Due to this fact, airline administration ought to think about the willingness of airline staff and supply alternate options as an alternative of implementing pressured insurance policies”.
For each the Hong Kong airline staff and the South Korean airline staff, psychological stress was linked to heightened emotion-oriented coping. Nevertheless, job stressors and coping methods differed between the 2 cultures. Hong Kong airline staff – whose perceived stressors associated to work schedules and calls for, job safety and monetary issues, and position battle – had been extra drawn to emotion- and avoidance-oriented coping methods. South Korean airline staff reported solely work schedules and calls for as contributing considerably to their psychological stress, and this elicited primarily emotion-oriented coping methods.
“This delivers an vital message to the worldwide airline {industry}”, say the authors. As staff from completely different nations/cultural settings could reply in another way to the identical work-related stressors, airline administration ought to implement culturally acceptable measures to manage staff’ work-related stress throughout industry-wide crises. Primarily based on this examine’s findings, for instance, airways in Hong Kong ought to promote each emotion-oriented and avoidance-oriented coping methods, while South Korean airways ought to deal with the previous.
The COVID-19 pandemic offers a singular setting for examination of job-related stress within the airline sector. Airways can study from this disaster and higher shield their invaluable human assets by speaking extra transparently with staff, mitigating sources of job-related stress, and equipping staff with culturally particular coping abilities. Emotion-oriented coping methods may very well be bolstered by organising workshops or using on-site psychological therapists, and avoidance-oriented methods may very well be fostered by subsidising leisure actions and internet hosting social gatherings.
Chua, Bee-Lia, Al-Ansi, Amr, Kim, Seongseop (Sam), Wong, Antony King Fung, and Han, Heesup (2022). Analyzing Airline Workers’ Work-Associated Stress and Coping Methods Throughout the International Tourism Disaster. Worldwide Journal of Up to date Hospitality Administration, Vol. 34, Situation 10, 3715-3742.
About PolyU’s Faculty of Resort and Tourism Administration
For over 40 years, the Faculty of Resort and Tourism Administration (SHTM) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic College has refined a particular imaginative and prescient of hospitality and tourism training and develop into a world-leading resort and tourism faculty. Ranked No. 1 on this planet within the “Hospitality and Tourism Administration” class in ShanghaiRanking’s International Rating of Educational Topics 2023 for the seventh consecutive 12 months; positioned No. 1 globally within the “Commerce, Administration, Tourism and Providers” class within the College Rating by Educational Efficiency in 2022/2023 for six years in a row; rated No. 1 on this planet within the “Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism” topic space by the CWUR Rankings by Topic 2017; and ranked No. 2 on this planet amongst college based mostly programmes within the “Hospitality and Leisure Administration” topic space within the QS World College Rankings by Topic 2023 for the seventh consecutive 12 months, the SHTM is an emblem of excellence within the area, exemplifying its motto of Main Hospitality and Tourism.
The Faculty is pushed by the necessity to serve its {industry} and educational communities by way of the development of training and dissemination of data. With a robust worldwide crew of 90 college members from 20 nations and areas around the globe, the SHTM affords programmes at ranges starting from undergraduate to doctoral levels. Via Resort ICON, the Faculty’s groundbreaking instructing and analysis resort and an important facet of its paradigm-shifting method to hospitality and tourism training, the SHTM is advancing instructing, studying and analysis, and provoking a brand new technology of passionate, pioneering professionals to take their positions as leaders within the hospitality and tourism {industry}.