Mental Health in the Hospitality Industry

Working in hospitality can be extremely fun and rewarding, everybody working together to pull off the events surrounding the festivities and reaping the rewards. Followed by the always impressive and fun out of season Christmas parties – which really are the best. That being said, with all the joy of the Christmas season, comes a lot of pressure to perform and offer even more exceptional service for longer hours and more often. Making sure all of this happens can be a drain on your mental health and finding time to look after yourself can be difficult in and amongst everything else.

Research from The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) has found that mental health and wellbeing is under significant strain amongst hospitality employees. In the latest report, Service With(out) a Smile over four out of five (84%) of hospitality workers reported increased stress, which is believed to be a direct consequence of their job. With almost a quarter (24%) requiring medical or psychological help.

But is that number enough or are more and more people just attempting to try to cope or not dealing with the issues they face? Only around one in ten (10%) had received training to support health and wellbeing, or access to mentoring, health campions or mental health first aiders. However, there are options for you. There is no need to attempt to continue and struggle through. Your health comes first, and your mental health is included in that – more and more people are understanding the impact of not taking the time to address your mental health.

The report highlights several initiatives that have been introduced to address concerns around staff health and wellbeing. Hospitality Action set up an Employee Assistance Programme. Recommendations from the research to look after employee mental health and wellbeing included:

• Hospitality employers to put in place a package of support which protects the mental health and wellbeing of staff including sick leave, regular one-to-ones between managers and employees, health champions and mental health first aiders
• Improved enforcement of employment rights
• Further research into what hospitality can learn from best practice in workplace wellbeing within other sectors
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Hospitality Action is a great resource for people who are finding themselves struggling while working within the hospitality industry. With many different options for financial help and also offering resources for learning support to help yourself and your employees. As we all know happy employees make the experience.

As we mentioned in our Focus on Christmas brochure, this year we are supporting Hospitality Action instead of sending out traditional Christmas cards. We are donating £1000 to Hospitality Action to help them continue to offer support and services to help people dealing with difficulties, especially during the heightened stressful festive period. To donate click on the image of Simon Howarth presenting our £1000 cheque to Dawn from Hospitality Action.

The work Hospitality Action does is so important. Keeping the workers of the hospitality industry healthy is a priority for us all. Because of this, we are continuing our work to help Hospitality Action and in June 2020 the #TFSAngels are completing a 170-mile cross country bike ride from Morecambe to Bridlington.

Sign up to our Newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & LinkedIn to find out more about our fundraising and how you can get involved in the coming months.