The hotel industry and tourism have faced challenging days since March 2020, when the WHO officially announced the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has presented challenges and highlighted the sector’s resilience and adaptability. Today, we can say that we have learned some lessons, but the situation remains changing and increasingly demands the development of technical skills (“hard skills”) and especially soft skills (“soft skills”) that allow addressing the impact on the emotional health and productivity of staff in the hotel sector.
After living with its consequences for a little over a year and a half, it is a significant problem for most of us because it has generated an emotional footprint affecting our mental and emotional health, affecting all levels of our lives: personal, family, and work. The presence of COVID-19 can be particularly stressful for people who are part of organizations, especially for those who lead them, due to the great responsibility involved in their roles. In addition, constant feelings such as fear and anxiety due to the risk of contagion, concern for their health and that of their loved ones, changes in sleep or eating patterns, difficulties sleeping or concentrating, worsening of certain morbidities, mental health, and increased tobacco and/or alcohol and other substance use, have short, medium, and long-term consequences.
If this mix of emotions is compounded by uncertainty about the possibility of losing jobs and experiencing imbalance in family finances, it becomes a high-impact stressor. According to Doctor Ricardo Díaz Castillo from the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico, in his research related to depression due to COVID-19, he establishes that “this has resulted in 300 million people worldwide diagnosed with depression, representing that 5 out of every 100 people are in depressive states”. Thus, the work stress generated by uncertainty can lead to the paralysis of daily operations, personal and work productivity declines, and therefore material and financial losses in companies in the sector.
On the other hand, workplace measures such as telecommuting can impact the dynamics of daily routines if not managed properly. Excessive workload, exposure of intimate space, and few active breaks, attending to children in their school activities and household chores, can be stress triggers due to the need to address all these demands. While telecommuting is not applicable to all service processes in the hotel sector, it is important in any case to do so in a balanced manner, making it a priority to have human, agile, efficient, and adaptable organizations.
HR areas play a fundamental role in ensuring well-being by creating the necessary conditions for individuals to acquire, strengthen, and maintain emotional competencies such as resilience, adaptability, failure tolerance, creativity, innovation, emotional intelligence, relationship capacity, among others, through the use of tools and theories of positive psychology, emotional ecology, mindfulness, and coaching, which allow them to better manage emotions in crisis and uncertainty contexts.
In this sense, it is the responsibility of the public and private sectors, tourism guild representatives, and communities to coordinate, join efforts, and manage support to prevent closures due to lack of productivity, guaranteeing staff their jobs and well-being through the design and implementation of programs that address protection needs, self-care, physical and mental health, rest, and recreation.
