Through the COVID-19 pandemic, airline staff skilled unprecedented ranges of work-related stress and job uncertainty. Nonetheless, their coping methods and cultural variations of their responses to work-related stress stay understudied. In a well timed current 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 in the course of the pandemic. Their work offers fruitful insights that would assist airways minimise staff’ psychological stress and supply sources 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 staff confronted extreme job insecurity and ambiguity. “Consequently”, say the researchers, “it is smart to foretell that work-related circumstances attributable to the pandemic could improve stress and anxiousness amongst airline staff in a means that’s completely different from work-induced stress previous to the pandemic”.
Thus far, nonetheless, research have completed little to elucidate the precise psychological and behavioural repercussions of industry-level occasions like COVID-19 for staff on this sector. “How airline staff understand work-related stress isn’t totally 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 otherwise”, say the authors.
With these issues in thoughts, the researchers got down to present “a scientific understanding of coping methods in relation to work-related stress for airline staff in the course of the tourism disaster”.
Usually, we expertise psychological stress after we really feel that an excessive amount of is being demanded of us. Frequent job stressors embrace extreme work calls for, position battle and job insecurity. In accordance with “conservation of sources” concept, stress poses a menace to our sources, and we reply by looking for to preserve our present sources and acquire new ones. “Exemplifying this level”, say the researchers, “research have proven that service-oriented staff undertake acceptable coping methods to preserve their sources (e.g. well-being, vanity) and alleviate stress”.
Accordingly, the authors observe, “coping kinds play an important position in understanding how staff adapt to tense 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. Nonetheless, 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 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 staff. Psychological stress, in flip, determines their coping methods”.
Varied doable coping methods can be found to staff. Activity-oriented coping makes an attempt to discover a answer to the foundation reason for stress, comparable to devising a plan to resolve 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 to disengage from the tense state of affairs. If we really feel that we’ve management over a tense state of affairs and possess the sources 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 sources 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 in the course of the pandemic engaged primarily in emotion-oriented and avoidance-oriented coping. In addition they hypothesised that as nationwide tradition impacts folks’s responses to emphasize, airline staff from completely different cultural settings skilled and managed work-related stress otherwise in the course of 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 in the course of the international 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 time 2020.
Psychological stress was measured by the members’ self-reports of problem stress-free, nervous arousal and being simply upset, irritable and impatient. The survey additionally measured the airline staff’ perceptions of job stressors comparable to “compelled labour insurance policies”, “concern about layoffs”, “compelled unpaid depart” and “lack of acceptable coaching and information concerning the prevention of virus transmission”. Coping methods have 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 foremost operational adjustments that airways needed to impose in the course of the pandemic. Corporations can mitigate this supply of stress by way of well timed and clear communication with staff, say the researchers.
Second, job insecurity and monetary considerations have been discovered to be a serious supply of stress. Though cost-saving measures are unavoidable throughout crises like COVID-19, airline firms must be clear about their selections regarding lay-offs, wage cuts and compelled unpaid depart. “It’s important for the airline {industry} to emphasise its efforts to trip out the hardship along with its staff”, argue the researchers.
Third, stress was attributable to position battle. “Staff could undergo job pressure when performing a number of roles and tasks aside from these usually anticipated”, observe the researchers. “Due to this fact, airline administration ought to take into account the willingness of airline staff and supply alternate options as an alternative of implementing compelled insurance policies”.
For each the Hong Kong airline staff and the South Korean airline staff, psychological stress was linked to heightened emotion-oriented coping. Nonetheless, 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 considerations, and position battle – have 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 otherwise to the identical work-related stressors, airline administration ought to implement culturally acceptable measures to manage staff’ work-related stress throughout industry-wide crises. Based mostly 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 concentrate on the previous.
The COVID-19 pandemic offers a novel setting for examination of job-related stress within the airline sector. Airways can study from this disaster and higher defend their invaluable human sources by speaking extra transparently with staff, mitigating sources of job-related stress, and equipping staff with culturally particular coping expertise. Emotion-oriented coping methods might be strengthened by organising workshops or using on-site psychological therapists, and avoidance-oriented methods might 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). Inspecting Airline Staff’ Work-Associated Stress and Coping Methods Through the International Tourism Disaster. Worldwide Journal of Modern Hospitality Administration, Vol. 34, Concern 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 schooling and change 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 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 Faculty is pushed by the necessity to serve its {industry} and tutorial communities by way of the development of schooling and dissemination of information. With a robust worldwide group of 90 college members from 20 nations and areas all over the world, the SHTM provides programmes at ranges starting from undergraduate to doctoral levels. Via Resort ICON, the Faculty’s groundbreaking educating and analysis resort and an important side of its paradigm-shifting method to hospitality and tourism schooling, the SHTM is advancing educating, studying and analysis, and galvanizing a brand new era of passionate, pioneering professionals to take their positions as leaders within the hospitality and tourism {industry}.
