In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, airline workers 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 current research, Professor Seongseop (Sam) Kim of the College of Lodge 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 workers in Hong Kong and South Korea throughout the pandemic. Their work gives fruitful insights that would assist airways minimise workers’ psychological stress and supply assets to assist coping methods. Crucially, their outcomes additionally present that nationwide tradition must be thought-about when adopting such measures.
COVID-19 crippled enterprise operations in a mess 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 workers confronted extreme job insecurity and ambiguity. “Consequently”, say the researchers, “it is smart to foretell that work-related situations brought on by the pandemic might improve stress and nervousness amongst airline workers in a method that’s totally different from work-induced stress previous to the pandemic”.
Thus far, nonetheless, research have carried out little to elucidate the particular psychological and behavioural repercussions of industry-level occasions like COVID-19 for employees on this sector. “How airline workers 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 workers’ reactions to work-related stress might differ between international locations and cultures, the findings of Western research of job stress might not be generalisable to different contexts, akin to Asia. Though the pandemic affected airline workers worldwide, East Asian settings akin to South Korea and Hong Kong might differ of their job stress predictors and outcomes relative to Western international locations, and even relative to one another. “Airline workers from these two nationalities might 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 workers throughout the tourism disaster”.
Usually, 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, function battle and job insecurity. In line with “conservation of assets” concept, stress poses a risk to our assets, and we reply by searching for to preserve our present assets and acquire new ones. “Exemplifying this level”, say the researchers, “research have proven that service-oriented workers 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 function in understanding how workers adapt to traumatic work occasions”. This raises the query of what airline workers 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 workers use to take care of work-related stress. The researchers’ first step in tackling this query was to ascertain 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 workers. Psychological stress, in flip, determines their coping methods”.
Numerous doable coping methods can be found to workers. Process-oriented coping makes an attempt to discover a answer to the basis reason for stress, akin to devising a plan to resolve the issue. Emotion-oriented coping goals to control the emotional misery brought on by the stressor, akin to by way of self-revelation or self-blame. Avoidance-oriented coping includes a deliberate try and disengage from the traumatic scenario. If we really feel that we now have management over a traumatic scenario and possess the assets to take care of it, we’re prone 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 workers had no management over the stressors they confronted, akin to worldwide journey restrictions, the sluggish progress of virus containment and financial slowdown. Subsequently, the authors hypothesised that airline workers 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 workers from totally 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 workers in two Asian cultural contexts throughout the international tourism disaster brought on by COVID-19. A cross-sectional survey was accomplished on-line by 366 airline workers in South Korea and Hong Kong in summer time 2020.
Psychological stress was measured by the members’ self-reports of problem enjoyable, nervous arousal and being simply upset, irritable and impatient. The survey additionally measured the airline workers’ perceptions of job stressors akin to “compelled labour insurance policies”, “concern about layoffs”, “compelled unpaid go away” and “lack of acceptable coaching and information 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 impression of the COVID-19 pandemic on the airline {industry}. First, psychological stress was associated to work schedules and calls for – reflecting the key operational modifications that airways needed to impose throughout the pandemic. Firms can mitigate this supply of stress by way of well timed and clear communication with workers, say the researchers.
Second, job insecurity and monetary considerations had been discovered to be a significant supply of stress. Though cost-saving measures are unavoidable throughout crises like COVID-19, airline firms must be clear about their choices regarding lay-offs, wage cuts and compelled unpaid go away. “It can be crucial for the airline {industry} to emphasise its efforts to journey out the hardship along with its workers”, argue the researchers.
Third, stress was brought on by function battle. “Staff might endure job pressure when performing a number of roles and duties aside from these usually anticipated”, observe the researchers. “Subsequently, airline administration ought to take into account the willingness of airline workers and supply options as an alternative of implementing compelled insurance policies”.
For each the Hong Kong airline workers and the South Korean airline workers, psychological stress was linked to heightened emotion-oriented coping. Nevertheless, job stressors and coping methods differed between the 2 cultures. Hong Kong airline workers – whose perceived stressors associated to work schedules and calls for, job safety and monetary considerations, and function battle – had been extra drawn to emotion- and avoidance-oriented coping methods. South Korean airline workers 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 workers from totally different international locations/cultural settings might reply in another way to the identical work-related stressors, airline administration ought to implement culturally acceptable measures to control workers’ work-related stress throughout industry-wide crises. Primarily based on this research’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 give attention to the previous.
The COVID-19 pandemic gives a singular setting for examination of job-related stress within the airline sector. Airways can be taught from this disaster and higher shield their invaluable human assets by speaking extra transparently with workers, mitigating sources of job-related stress, and equipping workers with culturally particular coping expertise. Emotion-oriented coping methods could possibly be strengthened by organising workshops or using on-site psychological therapists, and avoidance-oriented methods could possibly 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 Staff’ Work-Associated Stress and Coping Methods In the course of the International Tourism Disaster. Worldwide Journal of Up to date Hospitality Administration, Vol. 34, Situation 10, 3715-3742.
About PolyU’s College of Lodge and Tourism Administration
For over 40 years, the College of Lodge 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 lodge and tourism college. Ranked No. 1 on this planet within the “Hospitality and Tourism Administration” class in ShanghaiRanking’s International Rating of Tutorial 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 Tutorial 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 primarily based 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 a logo of excellence within the area, exemplifying its motto of Main Hospitality and Tourism.
The College is pushed by the necessity to serve its {industry} and tutorial communities by way of the development of training and dissemination of information. With a robust worldwide staff of 90 college members from 20 international locations and areas world wide, the SHTM affords programmes at ranges starting from undergraduate to doctoral levels. Via Lodge ICON, the College’s groundbreaking educating and analysis lodge and an important facet of its paradigm-shifting strategy to hospitality and tourism training, the SHTM is advancing educating, studying and analysis, and provoking a brand new era of passionate, pioneering professionals to take their positions as leaders within the hospitality and tourism {industry}.
