Tourism industry employee work stress - a present and future crisis

Abstract

Workstress is a pernicious yet little understood problem in many industries, including tourism. It is, moreover, evidencing no signs of abatement, with researchers such as Schabracq, Winnubst and Cooper (2003) suggesting that a number of clearly identifiable trends within organizational life are likely to exacerbate the extent of this problem in the future. This paper presents an examination of stress as a phenomenon of workplace functioning and suggests a model of organizational wellbeing within which stress might be understood. It is suggested that workstress has the ability to cause personal crises, organizational morbidity and mortality, and even financial crisis at a community level should a climate of workstress come to typify a local industry. The paper presents findings from a series of tourism studies that have, either directly or indirectly, sought to gauge employee reactions to elements of tourism industry worklife that were undesirable, unpleasant or even debilitating. The second section of the paper then offers an organizational justice framework wherein stress within the tourism industry may be addressed. Three major industry employment issues are considered: the treatment of disabled workers, workplace malfeasance and its detection, and employee dismissal procedures; each issue is explored within an organizational justice perspective, examining how proactive organizational change may assist tourism employees to avoid or minimize stress and industry organizations to avert a crisis in the form of an entrenched organizational culture of stress.