Impact of customer incivility on restaurant employee stress spread and turnover: COVID-19 vaccination mandate.

In response to the unprecedented pandemic in recent history, COVID-19 vaccination mandates in the U.S. caused significant changes and disruption in hospitality operations and customer experiences. The primary goal of this study is to examine whether and how customer incivility induced by the COVID-19 vaccine mandate in the U.S. affects employees' behavioral outcomes (i.e., stress spread between employees and turnover intention) via psychological mechanisms (i.e., stress and negative emotion) and when the relationship is moderated by personal (employee prosocial motivation) and organizational (supervisor support) characteristics. Findings show that customer incivility increases employee turnover intention as well as interpersonal conflicts at work via increased stress and negative emotions. These relationships are weakened when prosocial motivation of employees and the level of supervisor support is high. Findings expand the occupational stress model by specifically incorporating the context of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate and further provide implications for restaurant managers and policy makers.

Losing talent due to COVID-19: The roles of anger and fear on industry turnover intentions

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the US hospitality industry workforce experienced significant job loss via furloughs and job eliminations. Over a year later, the American hospitality industry is now facing a labor shortage. However, there is a dearth of literature explaining why the hospitality industry's response due to a mega-event, like the pandemic, can motivate employees to leave the hospitality industry. Instead, theory and research have primarily focused on organizations as the focal point for understanding turnover, while neglecting the industry. Using the affect theory of social exchange, this paper examined how anger and fear related to job status changes (i.e., being furloughed or laid-off) due to the pandemic, influence intentions to leave the industry. Study 1 used a survey of management-level employees, whereas Study 2 used an experiment to test the proposed model. Both studies showed that employees who lost their job due to the pandemic felt more anger and fear than those still employed. However, mediation analyses revealed anger, but not fear, as the primary driver of industry turnover intentions. These results highlight a potentially problematic trend. Should skilled hospitality workers switch industries due to job loss amidst an industry-wide negative event, it may become difficult for hospitality businesses to find qualified employees once the industry recovers and rehiring begins.

Robots can’t take my job: antecedents and outcomes of Gen Z employees’ service robot risk awareness

Purpose>There has been a dramatic increase in the adoption of service robots in hotels, potentially replacing the human workforce. Drawing on Social Amplification of Risk Framework, this study aims to examine the moderating effect of transformational leadership on the indirect relationships between Gen Z employees’ tech-savviness and social skills on industry turnover intention via service robot risk awareness (SRRA).Design/methodology/approach>This study collected two-wave time-lagged multilevel data of 281 frontline Gen Z hotel employees from 54 departments in China. Participants were asked to rate their tech-savviness, social skills and SRRA in the first survey. They rated their supervisor’s transformational leadership and industry turnover intention one week later.Findings>Multilevel path analysis results showed SRRA mediates the negative indirect relationship of Gen Z employee’s tech-savviness and social skills on industry turnover intention. Transformational leadership weakened the positive effect of SRRA on industry turnover intention.Originality/value>This study contributes to the growing literature on service robots by investigating the antecedents and outcomes of employees’ SRRA. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is one of the first empirical studies investigating the role of leadership to mitigate the negative consequences of employee’s SRRA. Managers can use the results of this study to implement training programs and ensure that employees and service robots successfully coexist in the workplace.

Should I leave this industry? The role of stress and negative emotions in response to an industry negative work event

The effects of subjective stress and negative emotions on work have been theorized and widely researched, but the literature has mostly focused on organization-specific contexts. The purpose of the current paper was to understand the impact of subjective stress and negative emotions associated with COVID-19 on employee attitudes and behaviors toward the hospitality industry. In Study 1, qualitative interviews showed that the COVID-19 pandemic is (1) perceived as a negative event affecting the industry, rather than only affecting a particular job or company, and (2) distressful, provoking negative emotions. In Study 2, a quantitative study examined subjective stress and negative emotions associated with COVID-19, as well as industry turnover intentions and industry negative word-of-mouth as responses to the stress and negative emotions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The current research underscores the importance of studying work events that impact an industry and attitudes and behaviors toward the industry.