Organisations have a vested interest in supporting employees’ mental health, and this is particularly true of hotels, given their inherently high-stress, high-stakes nature.

Professor Antony Wong, Professor Sam Kim and Dr Yuchen Xu of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) offer a multidimensional account of how work stressors affect hotel employees’ well-being, empowering managers to implement proactive coping strategies for employees facing mental health challenges.

Employees do their best work when they feel psychologically healthy and supported by their organisations. Unsurprisingly, therefore, poor employee well-being worsens organisational performance, increases healthcare costs, and reduces engagement, safety and sustainability across all sectors. “These issues are magnified by the high-touch nature of hotel services”, the researchers note, “which demand intense emotional labour and the delivery of exceptional guest experiences”.

As well as interacting frequently with customers, hotel employees face challenges such as irregular working hours, precarious employment conditions and poor leadership, which can further damage their mental health. With the need to address mental health in hospitality becoming yet more urgent post-COVID-19, researchers have begun to examine how work-related stressors affect various mental health outcomes among hotel workers.

Regrettably, however, significant research gaps remain. For example, studies have generally treated mental health as a monolithic construct rather than examining its distinct sub-domains, and few have isolated the mental health effects of hotel-specific stressors, such as job insecurity and teamwork requirements.

To equip hotel managers to tackle specific mental health issues among employees, the researchers sought to dissect the subdomains of hotel employees’ mental health and pinpoint its antecedents and outcomes. They aimed to analyse how hotel-specific work stressors affect different facets of mental health; explore how these facets affect coping behaviours; and compare the experiences of junior versus senior, front-of-house (FOH) versus back-of-house (BOH) employees.

The first step was to identify components of mental health that are particularly relevant to hotel work. Depression, which is caused by industry-specific stressors like long, irregular hours, was the first. The second was nervousness. “Staff may experience panic attacks, trembling, sweating, gastrointestinal issues and other nervousness symptoms when confronted by stressful situations”, say the researchers. Loss of peace of mind, “triggered by hectic, chaotic work environments and constant guest demands”, was the third focal component.

Next, the authors drew on the transactional theory of stress and coping (TTSC) to develop hypotheses. “Employees who feel immense personal responsibility and accountability for their work outcomes tend to experience higher stress and anxiety”, they propose. Meanwhile, “the cognitive demands and skills needed for complex roles can become mentally draining over time”, eliciting stress responses.

The same, the authors theorised, is true of hotel-specific work stressors. “Role ambiguity stemming from unclear expectations and role overload stemming from extreme demands have been linked to heightened mental strain, emotional exhaustion, and reduced job satisfaction and performance among hotel staff”, they suggest.

How do employees deal with these multifaceted stressors? According to the TTSC, when individuals’ mental health is compromised, they may perceive stressors as exceeding their coping capacity, leading them to adopt emotion- or avoidance-focused strategies. Accordingly, the researchers hypothesised that poorer mental health increases employees’ use of emotion- and avoidance-focused coping but reduces their self-solving-focused coping.

Their final hypotheses concerned organisational roles. “FOH employees, such as receptionists, concierges and waitstaff, frequently engage in direct guest contact”, the authors point out. Therefore, they face different stressors from those encountered by BOH staff, which revolve around workload and technical demands. The authors theorised that for FOH (versus BOH) employees, work stressors are more closely tied to mental health challenges, making them more likely to adopt emotional or avoidance-focused coping.

Junior and senior hotel employees also differ in their stress profiles. For example, less experienced staff such as bellhops face less controllable work environments and receive less support at work, making them more vulnerable to the impact of work stressors on mental health and more likely to use emotion- or avoidance-focused coping.

To test their hypotheses, the authors first developed a questionnaire on the stressors perceived by hotel employees and their coping responses. They distributed the questionnaire online to 756 employees in different departments at 45 deluxe, four-star and five-star Chinese hotels.

Statistical analysis of the data yielded suggestive, if sometimes surprising, findings. “This research revealed an intriguing counterintuitive result”, the researchers report. “Traditional work-related stressors such as job responsibility and job complexity were associated with unexpectedly low levels of depression, nervousness, and loss of peace of mind”.

Although unexpected, this finding may reflect a key principle of the TTSC: how people perceive stressors shapes their emotional and physical responses. When job demands like responsibility and complexity are seen as challenges rather than as burdens, employees may feel more in control and gain a greater sense of achievement, thus enhancing their personal growth and well-being.

These dynamics may be strengthened by the study’s cultural context, China: “a society where collective well-being and harmony are paramount”. Here, job responsibility and complexity may be perceived as routes to contributing to organisational success, in line with the deeply ingrained societal values of dedication and hard work.

Another unexpected finding was that teamwork, often considered a potential source of conflict, was correlated with better mental health among hotel employees. The other stressors examined, however, had devastating consequences for employees’ well-being. The most influential was poor leadership, followed by job insecurity and the pressure to respond to electronic messages – all characteristics endemic to the hotel sector.

Depression, nervousness and loss of peace of mind all increased employees’ tendency to rely on emotion-focused coping rather than proactive problem-solving. Depression further increased the use of avoidance-focused coping, which may itself negatively affect mental health.

Among junior employees, increased job responsibility alleviated depression, nervousness and loss of peace of mind, although all three facets were worsened by job complexity. In contrast, senior employees were susceptible to mental health problems due to role ambiguity and role overload.

Differences in organisational roles also affected employees’ responses to stressors. BOH employees reported greater stress due to expanding job roles and constant digital connectivity, which increased their emotional labour. Despite their heavier workloads, FOH employees reported better mental health, as they enjoyed higher tips, more social interaction and a stronger sense of accomplishment.

“The practical implications are far-reaching”, say the authors. Above all, hospitality managers should develop targeted interventions that acknowledge the nuanced impact of different types of stressors on employee mental health. “For smaller hotel chains or independent hotels”, the researchers add, “partnering with local mental health organisations or leveraging online resources can provide cost-effective solutions for implementing employee well-being initiatives”.

In addition, training for supervisors and managers should emphasise the impact of their behaviour on employees’ mental health, promoting supportive and fair leadership practices. “Organisations should critically re-evaluate their expectations around electronic communication”, the authors add, “as the pressure to respond promptly emerged as a significant stressor”. Staggered shifts and designated off-duty periods could encourage a healthier work–life balance.

Finally, employee assistance programmes and support systems should be tailored to employee groups, given that junior and senior staff and FOH and BOH employees respond to stressors in different ways. “By adopting a flexible and employee-centric approach,” the authors conclude, “hospitality organisations can foster a supportive environment that promotes employee well-being, engagement and long-term commitment”. This will contribute to the industry’s overall resilience and success.

Antony King Fung Wong, Seongseop (Sam) Kim and Yuchen Xu (2025). Does Hotel Employees’ Mental Health Matter? Assessment of its Antecedents and Coping Behavior. International Journal of Hospitality Management, Vol. 126, 104084.

About PolyU School of Hotel and Tourism Management

For more than four decades, the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University has refined a distinctive vision of hospitality and tourism education and become a world-leading hotel and tourism school. Ranked No. 1 in the world in the “Hospitality and Tourism Management” category in ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2025 for the ninth consecutive year; placed No. 1 globally in the “Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services” category in the University Ranking by Academic Performance in 2024/2025 for eight years in a row; rated No. 1 in the world in the “Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism” subject area by the CWUR Rankings by Subject 2017; and ranked No. 1 in Asia in the “Hospitality and Leisure Management” subject area in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2025, the SHTM is a symbol of excellence in the field, exemplifying its motto of Leading Hospitality and Tourism.

The School is driven by the need to serve its industry and academic communities through the advancement of education and dissemination of knowledge. With a strong international team of over 90 faculty members from 21 countries and regions around the world, the SHTM offers programmes at levels ranging from undergraduate to doctoral degrees. Through Hotel ICON, the School’s groundbreaking teaching and research hotel and a vital aspect of its paradigm-shifting approach to hospitality and tourism education, the SHTM is advancing teaching, learning and research, and inspiring a new generation of passionate, pioneering professionals to take their positions as leaders in the hospitality and tourism industry.

Contact: Ms Tiffany Chan, Marketing Manager, School of Hotel and Tourism Management

tiffany-sm.chan@polyu.edu.hk / polyu.edu.hk/shtm