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For the Victims: Bullying in the Hospitality Industry

For the Victims: Bullying in the Hospitality Industry
Author: Lauri Palomaki
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Abstract

This discussion paper aims to map the impacts and the nature of bullying in the hospitality industry by conducting literature review of the existing academic material on the subject. Also, suggestions for the approaches for removing bullying from the workplaces in the industry are given.


Keywords

Hospitality Industry, violence, harassment, Human Resource Management


Bullying in the everyday life of people is a difficult one. It is not always easy to map the extent of it, due to the occasional, and somewhat understandable, unwillingness of the victims to come forward and tell the public of their experiences. Still, school environments have been taking more and more drastic measures to weed out any possible deviant behaviour and to offer safe and normal educational environments for the young people. However, the bullying in work is a more elusive issue, as it can be argued that it holds more gravity in impacts for the companies and the industries that it resides in. The potential negative consequences for the victims correlate closely with the impacts to the organisations when brought to limelight, which is why the problem is sometimes left to the side-lines or swept under the rug. In order to shed more light on the topic, this conference paper aims to discuss the nature and the impacts of bullying in the travel industry.

One of the most extensive researches on the topic was conducted by Hoel and Einarsen (2003), who were able to list the different target groups, potential perpetrators and the effects of bullying in hotels and other parts of the industry. As is the case in other environments, the most common targets for bullying in the hospitality industry were those that somehow differed from the masses. These include female, part time and young workers, the transient labour market and the ethnic minorities.

Other writers listed reasons for or sources for bullying being the victims being of sexual minorities and/or lacking in self-esteem or social skills (Hatem, 2011). The issues of self-esteem and social skills were shared by the bullies, who were usually male and possibly in managerial positions, at least on the cases when the victims were female. Customers were found out to be potential bullies in some cases. The common sources for bullying did not stay in the personal/psychological level alone, but were found to stem from organisational conflicts and problems. In some cases bullying was misunderstood as necessary personal conflict in the work environment and was thus ignored.
The impacts of bullying ranged from being not only in individual scope but affecting the industry as a whole (Hoel and Einarsen, 2003). The victims of the bullying were often experiencing emotional fatigue, lowered work morale and efficiency, post-traumatic stress disorder and general anxiety. This, when combined with the dents in reputation and possible law-suits, have led to many companies in the industry to suffer considerable losses. For example, in the UK the hospitality industry on a national level was revealed to suffer annual losses of estimated £2 billion.

To tackle these significant effects bullying can have to the travel industry, a re-evaluation and redesign of the current approaches for interventions and management should be done. With the recommendations from the earlier academic articles and the conclusions drawn from the literature review, this paper suggests that there are 4 different levels or stages that should be taken to account when designing the new tactics for countering bullying.

In the first level, training, the workforce in the industry would be directed to training programs that would inform them of the personal rights every employee has along with the consequences and punishments that any behaviour categorised as bullying would bring forth. This would hopefully be the first step in encouraging the workers to withhold from conducting any deviant behaviour.

The second stage, Informing, deals with encouraging the potential victims of bullying to be more forthcoming with their experiences and securing their safety and work experience, should they decide to bring their complaints to the public eye or the higher-ups (Hoel and Einarsen, 2003.

The third stage, punishment, is quite self-explanatory. More drastic correctional procedures are needed as an incentive and as an encouragement to stop bullying. These could include immediate firing of the perpetrators or lowering of wages.

The fourth level, Supervision, deals with evaluating and monitoring the work space in more detail. This could be implemented by creating by creating new positions that would manage and evaluate the managers themselves (Fevre et.al, 2012) or even by expanding the Human Resource Management sector in the companies.

In conclusion, the issue of bullying in the hospitality industry is a complex one and it deserves considerably more attention than it has received. Therefore this paper will hopefully act not only as a short research on the subject but also as an encouragement for the victims, researchers and those with the power and resources to make a difference, that more can be, should be and will be done.


References

Fevre, R, Lewis, D, Robinson, A, & Jones, T, 2012, 'Insight Into Ill-treatment In The Workplace: Patterns, Causes And Solutions', Contemporary Readings In Law & Social Justice, 4, 2, pp. 245-277

Hatem, Ö 2011, 'THE ROLE OF MOBBING IN GENERATING HUMAN ERRORS IN MARITIME INDUSTRY', Analele Universitatii Maritime Constanta, 12, 15, pp. 85-88

Hoel, H. and Einarsen S. (2003) Violence at Work in Hotels, Catering and Tourism. International Labour Organisation