The high turnover rate of the industry is well known and analysed in many research still there nothing changes yet, on this blog we’ll analyse a series of psychosocial reasons for the high turnover rate.
This article, for example, will provide evidence that the hospitality industry is an environment that creates and supports negative coping mechanisms like drugs and alcohol consumption that in time lead to decreased job satisfaction and turnover.
Studies are stating that chefs recorded the highest levels of burnout from all the occupational groups interviewed.
Such a high level of burnout favours the development of coping mechanisms of which the most common within the Hospitality industry are high sugar and fats foods consumption and alcohol and drug abuse.
The main reason for such negative coping mechanisms is fatigue, high emotional exhaustion, but also a low sense of personal achievement.
On top of that alcohol and drug abuse use is correlated with high levels of aggression within professional kitchens (Meloury and Signal, 2014) which can be the beginning of a downward spiral that contributes to the high turnover rate.
Their study describes kitchen hostility as a mixture of verbal and physical abuse, having various physical and psychological impacts on employees like stress, interpersonal tensions, and also re-enforcing mechanisms like alcoholism, and heavy smoking.
Such behaviour is attributed to the job pressure, heat, noisy environment, and the drive to maintain high standards of excellence.
One of the most negative aspects is that aggressivity in professional kitchens has become a widely accepted behaviour (Alexander et al., 2012) which can cause different issues culminating in employees leaving their job .
Midgley (2005, p. 53) recognizes the bullying problem in the industry and its outcomes.
When bullying is used, the results can be disastrous even for psychologically tough individuals. Studies suggested that the military style of management in professional kitchens and the fact that the industry is driven by poor-health individuals may be the consequences of high levels of drug abuse and alcoholism.
Drinking became a coping mechanism so profoundly anchored within the Hospitality Industry (Midgley 2005).
As proof that supports that statement serves the following study which shows that alcohol and drug abuse and its bi-product, aggressivity is the main factor that creates deviant leadership practices in the industry which combined with other causes mentioned in this blog can lead to such a high turnover rate (Pidd et al. 2014)
More than that the worrying aspect of all, is that such elements, as the negative coping mechanisms are transmitted generation after generation, which can to some extent offer an explanation why in the last 15-20 years the retention rate was, and still is low, but this subject will be approached later.
Supporting that statement, studies illustrate that young chefs are enormously affected by workplace norms regarding alcohol and drug use which perpetuates the coping mechanisms over and over.
Another factor that contributes to such a perpetuation is the socialization process which is how the coping mechanisms are transmitted to the new generations of chefs as a norm and behaviour of acceptance regarding alcohol and drug consumption.
Nowadays the use of alcohol in the kitchen during service is not allowed anymore, nevertheless, there is still present the culture of a shared drink after a shift to socialize and unwind which trainee chefs are so exposed to.
This aspect is explained as a transaction, between the individual and the environment, with coping, characterizing the reward that attenuates the struggles of an individual dealing with the demands of an environment evaluated as exceeding their own resources.
Such an aspect is a characteristic of the Hospitality industry due to the long hours and work overload, while the vulnerability is characteristic of the young chefs that currently assimilating information which is making them even more susceptible to the acceptance and perpetuation of such a coping style.
Their reaction is common in challenging, threatening, or harmful environments as the Hospitality Industry maybe sometimes (Holt et al ., 2007).
Such a mechanism can cause long-term consequences for mental and physical health, and most chefs are aware of it, including the potential transmissibility of the culture.
In an interview for the study of Meloury a chef states that after a Saturday night service, there is needed to calm down, otherwise, it is very difficult to sleep, due to the fast-paced service, at the end of it most of the chefs are so hyperactive that makes them feel mentally and physically drained.
Due to such an environment, drinking alcohol after a shift is seen as a way to recover from occupational stress and that is what the new generations of chefs will perceive.
That is because there is a tendency of using alcohol as a self-medication method, to relieve stress resulting from long and difficult shifts and to restore balance. Another particularity of the drinking practices is that it creates a bonding mechanism offering a sense of togetherness.
This may be the starting point of a deviant behaviour that can cause and sustain other actions and interactions that can lead to the turnover rate, and underline to some extent the incapacity of the industry to adequately respond to it.