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Factors that mitigate employee job stress in the

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Article in International Journal of Services Economics and Management January 2010

DOI: 10.1504/IJSEM.2010.029790 Source: RePEc

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30 Int. J. Services, Economics and Management, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2010

Factors that mitigate employee job stress in the

service industry

Amarjit Gill* and Nahum Biger

College of Business Administration,
TUI University,
5665 Plaza Drive,
CA 90630, USA
Fax: 714 816 0367
Email: agill@tuiu.edu Email: nbiger@tuiu.edu
*Corresponding author

Smita Bhutani
Geography Department,
Panjab University,
Chandigarh 160014, India
Email: pb6757@yahoo.com

Abstract: The study examines the impact of empowerment and transformational

leadership on employee job stress. In addition, the study seeks to extend
Gill et al.s findings related to mitigating stress and burnout. Results show that
the improvement in the level of perceived empowerment and transformational
leadership used by managers mitigate employee job stress in the hospitality
services industry. This paper offers useful insights for service managers based
on empirical evidence.

Keywords: hospitality; EM; empowerment; TL; transformational leadership;

CCSEs; customer-contact service employees; JS; job stress.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Gill, A., Biger, N. and
Bhutani, S. (2010) Factors that mitigate employee job stress in the service
industry, Int. J. Services, Economics and Management, Vol. 2, No. 1,
pp.3045.

Biographical notes: Amarjit Gill is currently an Assistant Professor of

Business Administration at TUI University, CA, USA. He received his
PhD degree from Touro University International (Branch Campus of
Touro College, New York, USA) in 2004. His current research interests
include finance and management.

Nahum Biger is a Professor of Management, TUI University, Cypress, CA,

Professor of Financial Economics at the Graduate School of Management,
University of Haifa, Israel and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Finance and
Management, Ecole nacional des ponts et chaussees, School of International
Management, Paris, France. He received his PhD degree from York University
in Canada in 1974.

Copyright 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

 Factors that mitigate employee job stress 31

Smita Bhutani is a Professor of Geography in the Department of Geography,

Panjab University, Chandigarh, India. She has over 20 years of experience
in doing research, teaching and supervising graduate students in population
geography. Her other areas of interest include environment and sustainable
agriculture.

1 Introduction

Issues of employee empowerment, job stress and retention have been found to be
prevalent in service organisations (Shadur et al., 1995; Chebat and Kollias, 2000; Jamal
and Baba, 2000; Firth et al., 2004). Stress can cause serious health problems such as high
blood pressure. Stress is also linked to health conditions such as depression, heart disease
and asthma (McEwen, 1998), which may adversely impact upon organisations.
Job stress leads directly to health issues: physical (headaches, stomach problems
and even heart attacks) and mental (job dissatisfaction, anxiety, depression). These health
issues have a negative impact on employee commitment and result (in addition to the
employee health issues) in lowered productivity for service organisations (Gill et al.,
2006). Studies have found that employee empowerment and transformational leadership
are among the best strategies to handle organisational issues like employee job stress.
The term empowerment refers to an individuals belief in his/her ability to exercise
choice. Campion et al. (1993) define empowerment as the employees ability to make
business decisions and to accept responsibility for the outcome of those decisions. The
concept of empowerment is the antithesis of authoritarian management style, where
supervisors make all key decisions. Webster defines authoritarian management style as
relating to or favouring blind submission to authority (Kane, 1996). Empowerment is
also transferring power and responsibility to employees so that, within specified limits,
they will be able to provide the best possible customer service at their own discretion
(Wynne, 1993).
The term empowerment in management literature appears to have come into
general usage in the early 1980s (Collins, 1999). By the mid-1980s, it had become a
commonplace expression used in both management texts and in the vocabulary of
organisations. By the time Blocks book The Empowered Manager (Block, 1986) was
published, the term was already in use in large-scale organisations committed to cultural
change and was actively promoted by evangelical management advisors as a sine qua non
of change (Collins, 1999).
Although the term empowerment has been central to management thought and has
been practiced for a little over a decade now, not much research has been conducted in
the customer service management area to test the relationships between (1) employee
empowerment and job stress and (2) transformational leadership and job stress. However,
authors such as Hartline and Ferrell (1996), Lashley (1999, 2000), McDougall and
Levesque (1999) and Lam et al. (2001) have been able to transfer the concept of
empowerment to the hospitality services industry by conducting research studies.
The concept and definition of transformational leadership and the embodiment of that
leadership in transformational leaders were first coined by Burns (1978), and then
extended and operationalised by Bass (1985) as: leadership and performance beyond
expectations. For the purpose and use in this study, transformational leadership is
defined as the process of influencing major changes in the attitudes and assumptions of
32 A. Gill, N. Biger and S. Bhutani

organisation members and building commitment for the organisations mission and
objectives (Tracey and Hinkin, 1994). This definition emphasises the importance of
leadership characteristics as they pertain to (1) the leaders ability to define and articulate
a vision, a mission and a set of goals and objectives for the organisation and (2) the
importance of the followers acceptance of the mission and objectives.
Employee empowerment and transformational leadership hold a great promise for
advancing the quality of the hospitality services. Such measures may mitigate or even to
a large extent eliminate the deeper issues of employee job stress and create new
paradigms for the hospitality services industry. It has been found that empowerment
and transformational leadership reduce the stress levels of service employees (Pearson
and Moomaw, 2005; Gill et al., 2006; Dhaliwal, 2008). Therefore, the resultant thesis is
that empowerment and transformational leadership reduce the stress levels of hospitality
services industry employees. The results can be generalised to the hospitality services
industry.

2 The relationship between empowerment and job stress

Job stress can be conceptualised as an individuals reactions to work environment

characteristics that appear threatening to the individual. The harmful and costly
consequences of stress demonstrate the need for strategies to limit stressors within the
organisation (Savery and Luks, 2001). Empowerment, as one such strategy, has been
found to encourage flexibility and give more control to employees to perform their
duties, which in turn, reduces job stress (Davis and Wilson, 2000; Savery and Luks,
2001; Holdworth and Cartwright, 2003; King et al., 2004; Pearson and Moomaw, 2005).
Hospitality services industry employees are subjected to face different organisational
and personal factors such as locus of control, self-esteem, perceptions of supervisor
support, etc. (Firth et al., 2004), which in turn, lead to a feeling of job stress. To minimise
locus of control and other minor work-related problems, it is important to empower
hospitality services industry employees. Therefore, it is theorised that employees who are
empowered will feel less job stress than those who are not empowered in the hospitality
services industry.
Accordingly, the following hypothesis is formulated:
H1: The higher the level of empowerment perceived by the hospitality services employees,
the lower the level of job stress.
Conjecture: There might be differences regarding the nature of the relationship between
empowerment and job stress based on employee gender and length of employment.

3 The impact of transformational leadership on job stress

Stress is a mental and physical condition, which directly and negatively affects
an individuals productivity, effectiveness, personal health and quality of work (Gill et al.,
2006). Job stress can be conceptualised as an individuals reactions to work environment
characteristics that appear threatening to him or her. The harmful and costly consequences
of stress demonstrate the need for strategies to limit stressors within the organisation
(Savery and Luks, 2001). Transformational leadership, as one such strategy, has been found
to encourage open communication with followers, which in turn, reduces employee job
 Factors that mitigate employee job stress 33

stress (Tracey and Hinkin, 1994). Gill et al. (2006) and Dhaliwal (2008) found negative
relationship between transformational leadership and job stress; that is, transformational
leadership reduces employee job stress in the hospitality services industry.
Hospitality industry workers, like other workers, are subjected to a dynamic, multi-
national, multi-lingual and many times to unplanned or unforeseen peaks in their working
environments, all contributing to higher levels of work-related stress (Gill et al., 2006).
Therefore, it is theorised that employees who are more committed to their organisations
mission, goals and objectives (the results of transformational leadership) will feel less job
stress than those who are less committed. Consequently, we should find lower levels of
stress wherever transformational leadership is implemented in the hospitality services
industry. In addition, because of the dynamic, multi-national, multi-lingual and many
times to unplanned or unforeseen peaks in the working environment, the younger
employees tend to get stressed out more than the older employees because of the low
level of maturity. Shimizu et al. (2002) also argue that younger employee tend to get
stressed out more than the older employees.
Accordingly, the following hypotheses are formulated:
H2: The more the managers leadership is perceived as transformational, the less will be
the job stress of his or her employees in the hospitality services industry.
H3: The age affects negatively on employee job stress in the hospitality services industry.
Conjecture: There might be differences regarding the nature of the relationship between
transformational leadership and job stress based on employee gender and length of
employment.

4 Methods

4.1 Research design

This study utilised survey research (a non-experimental field study design).

4.2 Measurement
In order to remain (for comparison and reference reasons) consistent with previous
research, the measures were taken from three referent studies, which in turn are based on
previous studies in marketing, management and psychology. All measures pertaining to
(1) transformational leadership were taken from Dubinsky et al.s (1995), (2) employee
empowerment were taken from Hartline and Ferrells (1996) and (3) job stress were
taken from Firth et al.s (2004).
All the scale items were pre-tested to make sure that the questionnaires work. Age
variable was used as a control variable.
Age was measured by a single item which asked respondents (service employees) to
indicate their age group. Categorised alternative responses were: (1) 1830, (2) 3139,
(3) 4050, (4) 5159, (5) 60 and over.
Employee empowerment is operationalised as the extent to which Customer-Contact
Service Employees (CCSEs) feel that (1) their managers allow them to use their own
judgement in performing their jobs, (2) their managers encourage them to handle
problems, (3) their managers allow them freedom in their work and (4) they trust their
judgement in performing their jobs. Hartline and Ferrell (1996) used the eight-item
34 A. Gill, N. Biger and S. Bhutani

tolerance-of-freedom scale (Cook et al., 1981), which measures the degree to which
managers encourage initiative, give employees freedom and trust employees to use their
own judgement. Based on Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) loading scores, four
items were selected to measure the empowerment variable. Scale items were reworded
to apply to CCSEs in the hospitality services industry and the reliability of these
reworded items was re-tested. These items are as follows:
To what extent does your immediate manager/supervisor
(EM1) permit you to use your own judgement?
(EM2) encourage you to handle problems?
(EM3) trust your judgement?
(EM4) allow you freedom in your work?
Respondents were asked to indicate their agreement with each item, using a five-point
Likert scale ranging from Not at All to A Lot. Higher scores on each item indicate
that the managers allow employees to use a greater degree of empowerment to perform
tasks.
Hartline and Ferrell (1996) reported a Cronbachs alpha of 0.71 for the above four
items. We calculated a Cronbachs alpha of 0.89 on the responses of the 30 employees
who participated in the pre-test of the above scale items. All four items were included in
the final questionnaire.
Transformational leadership is operationally defined as the extent to which managers
motivate and encourage employees to use their own judgement and intelligence to solve
problems while performing their jobs, transfer missions to employees and express
appreciation for good work. Dubinsky et al. (1995) used the 12-item tolerance-of-
freedom scale (Bass and Avaolio, 1989), which measures a sales persons relationship
with their managers. Based on Dubinsky et al.s (1995) CFA, seven items were selected
to measure transformational leadership variable. Scale items were reworded to apply to
CCSEs in the hospitality services industry and the reliability of these reworded items was
re-tested. These items are as follows:
To what extent does your immediate manager/supervisor
(TL1) encourage you to be team player?
(TL2) get the group to work together towards the same goal?
(TL3) show respect for your personal feelings?
(TL4) inspire others with his/her plans for the future?
(TL5) transmit a sense of mission to you?
(TL6) enable you to think about old problems in new ways?
(TL7) let you use your intelligence to overcome obstacles?
Respondents were asked to indicate their agreement with each item, using a five-point
Likert scale ranging from Not at All to A Lot. Higher scores indicate that the
hospitality managers use higher levels of transformational leadership and employees
have a closer relationship with their managers.
Cronbachs alpha was not reported by Dubinsky et al. (1995) for the above seven
items. We calculated a Cronbachs alpha of 0.89 on the responses of the 30 employees
who participated in the pre-test of the above scale items. All seven items were included
in the final questionnaire.
 Factors that mitigate employee job stress 35

Job stress was measured as the extent to which employees feel (1) emotionally
drained by their jobs, (2) burned-out by their jobs, (3) frustrated at their jobs, (4) tense at
their jobs and (5) job-related problems keep them awake at night. Firth et al. (2004)
used eight items to measure job stress. Five items were selected to measure job stress
variable. The reliability of these items was re-tested. These items are as follows:
(JS1) I feel emotionally drained by my job.
(JS2) I feel burned-out by my job.
(JS3) I feel frustrated at my job.
(JS4) I feel tense at my job.
(JS5) Job-related problems keep me awake at night.
Respondents were asked to indicate their agreement with each item, using a five-point
Likert scale ranging from Never to Almost Every Day. Higher scores indicate that
employees have a higher level of job stress.
Cronbachs alpha was not reported by Firth et al. (2004) for the above five items.
We calculated a Cronbachs alpha of 0.88 on the responses of the 30 employees who
participated in the pre-test of the above scale items. All five items were included in the
final questionnaire.

4.3 Sampling frame, questionnaire distribution and collection

The study consisted of the population of restaurant (fast food and full service), hotel
and motel employees. Restaurants, hotels and motels in the Lower Mainland of British
Columbia, Canada area (North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Vancouver, Richmond and
Coquitlam) were chosen as a sampling frame. The delivery of restaurant, hotel and motel
services requires considerable customer contact and provides a real world setting
for testing the hypotheses; thus, the study was expected to offer good generalisation.
The Lower Mainland area of British Columbia, Canada, is large enough for the sampling
frame to achieve valid results. To solve sampling frame issues, it was ensured that
subjects were selected from restaurants and hotels/motels only.

4.4 Sampling method, sampling issues and possible planned solutions

The current study applied a convenience (non-random) sampling method to select and
recruit the research participants. This method was chosen because the owners, managers
and executives of the restaurant, hotel and motel firms were reluctant to participate in the
research and did not allow us to obtain a list of employees names and distribute surveys
to respondents this way. Therefore, there was the possibility of sampling bias (the threat
to representational ability of a sample). To avoid sampling bias, friends were educated
to choose research participants who were indeed representative of the population. For
example, friends were educated to ensure that they exclude all non-service employees.
To achieve a convenience sample, an exhaustive list of employees names, friends
names and their telephone numbers in the Lower Mainland area of British Columbia,
Canada, were created to conduct telephone interviews and to collect data in person.
A script was also used to conduct telephone interviews by us and our friends. In addition,
to set up the data gathering, a mailing list of friends names and addresses was completed.
36 A. Gill, N. Biger and S. Bhutani

Survey questionnaire bundles coupled with an instruction sheet were provided to

participating friends for collection of data.
All the research participants were taken from the non-randomly selected restaurant,
hotel and motel firms. The sample included at least 800 research participants
encompassing Canadian hospitality services employees. A total of 228 surveys were
completed over the telephone (approximately 13% completed), through personal visits,
and by mail. Twenty-one surveys were non-usable. This way the response rate was
28.50%. The remaining cases were assumed to be similar to the selected research
participants.
Volunteers distributed and collected most of the questionnaires. Some of the employee
questionnaires were completed through telephone interviews. Once the questionnaires
were completed, they were picked up in person from respondents and volunteers.

5 Study procedures

5.1 Issues related to confidentiality of the research participants

All individuals who were approached were assured that their names will not be disclosed
and confidentiality will be strictly maintained. In addition all subjects were requested not
to disclose their names on the questionnaire. Since the research was based on the survey
questionnaire, employees were not forced to respond to each specific question.
All subjects were provided with stamped envelopes and confidentiality was assured.
There was no obligation for the subjects to answer our questions over the telephone
and in person. Before any telephone interview, the person was asked for his or her
willingness to participate and of course no one was forced to participate.
Employee consent letter specifically indicated that by completing the survey,
subjects have consented to participate in the study. Any information that was obtained
in connection with this study and that can be identified with subjects will remain
confidential and will be disclosed only with subjects permission or as required by law.

6 Analysis and results

Data were processed with the statistical package for the social sciences. We used
multiple linear regression to accept or reject our null hypothesis and used p < 0.05 as our
level of significance.

6.1 Data analysis methods

Measures of central tendency, variance, skewness and kurtosis were calculated on
responses to all of the items. Skewness measures for all of the items were within the
range of 0.782 to 1.028, which is considered to be an excellent range for most research
that requires using statistics appropriate to normal distributions. Therefore, we used
statistics that assume scalar values and symmetric distributions to test our hypothesis.
Using a principle component rotation and a varimax rotation, we ran a CFA on the
16 items. Three factors explained 88.88% of the variance in the 16 items (Table 1), and
all of the items loaded on the expected factors (Table 2).
 Factors that mitigate employee job stress 37

Table 1 Total variance explained rotation sums of square loadings

Total variance explained

Rotation sums of squared loadings
Component Total % of variance Cumulative %
1 5.113 31.954 31.954
2 4.486 28.036 59.990
3 3.503 21.892 81.881
Note: Extraction method: Principal component analysis.
We factor analysed the four empowerment items and used the resultant weighted score as
our EM scale. The items loaded roughly equally on the scale. This factor explained
84.39% of the variance in the four items. Cronbachs alpha calculated was 0.937 on the
four items. We factor analysed the seven transformational leadership items and used the
resultant weighted score as our TL scale. The items loaded roughly equally on the scale.
This factor explained 74.93% of the variance in the seven items. Cronbachs alpha
calculated was 0.943 on the seven items. We factor analysed the five job stress items and
used the resultant weighted score as our JS scale. The items loaded roughly equally on
the scale. This factor explained 86.99% of the variance in the five items. Cronbachs
alpha calculated on the five items was 0.962.
Table 2 Rotated component matrix

Component
1 2 3
To what extent does your immediate manager/supervisor
(EM1) permit you to use your own judgement? 0.376 0.133 0.843
(EM2) encourage you to handle problems? 0.285 0.262 0.847
(EM3) trust your judgement? 0.288 0.241 0.867
(EM4) allow you freedom in your work? 0.321 0.262 0.759
To what extent does your immediate manager/supervisor
(TL1) encourage you to be team player? 0.840 0.259 0.173
(TL2) get the group to work together towards the same goal? 0.874 0.076 0.133
(TL3) show respect for your personal feelings? 0.703 0.281 0.406
(TL4) inspire others with his/her plans for the future? 0.802 0.185 0.295
(TL5) transmit a sense of mission to you? 0.833 0.159 0.245
(TL6) enable you to think about old problems in new ways? 0.807 0.111 0.238
(TL7) let you use your intelligence to overcome obstacles? 0.783 0.116 0.363
I feel
(JS1) emotionally drained by my job 0.170 0.913 0.131
(JS2) burned-out by my job 0.173 0.937 0.122
(JS3) frustrated at my job 0.193 0.916 0.186
(JS4) tense at my job 0.186 0.910 0.205
(JS5) Job-related problems keep me awake at night 0.103 0.810 0.299
Note: Extraction method: Principal component analysis.
Rotation method: Varimax with Kaiser normalisation.
Rotation converged in five iterations.
38 A. Gill, N. Biger and S. Bhutani

7 Testing of hypotheses

7.1 Relationship between transformational leadership,

empowerment and job stress
It was hypothesised that:
1 The higher the level of empowerment perceived by the hospitality services
employees, the lower the level of job stress.
2 The more the managers leadership is perceived as transformational, the less will
be the job stress of his or her employees in the hospitality services industry.
3 The age affects negatively on employee job stress in the hospitality services industry.
Overall, negative relationships between (1) empowerment and job stress and
(2) transformational leadership and job stress (Table 3) were found; that is, the reduction
in the degree of perceived job stress of CCSEs is related to the improvement in the
degree of perceived empowerment and transformational leadership used by managers in
the hospitality services industry.
A positive relationship between age and job stress (Table 3) was found; that is, older
employees tend get stressed out more than the younger employees in the hospitality
services industry.
Table 3 Regression coefficientsa,b

Unstandardised coefficients Standardised coefficientsc

B Std. error Beta t Sig.
(Constant) 0.246 0.240 1.027 0.306
EM 0.433 0.111 0.310 3.911 0.000
TL 0.316 0.106 0.238 2.995 0.003
Age 0.021 0.007 0.187 3.062 0.002
Note: EM = Empowerment; TL = Transformational Leadership; JS = Job Stress.
a
Dependent variable: job stress.
b
Independent variables: transformational leadership, empowerment and age.
Age was measured by a single item which asked respondents (employees) to
indicate their age group. Categorised alternative responses were: (1) 1830,
(2) 3139, (3) 4050, (4) 5159, (5) 60 and over.
c
Linear regression through the origin.
The regression equation is as follows:
JS = 0.246 0.433 EM 0.316 TL + 0.021 Age.
Note that around 28.3% (R2 = 0.283) of the variance in the degree of employee job stress
can be explained by the age, empowerment and transformational leadership (Table 4).
Table 4 Model summary

Model R R2 Adjusted R2 Std. error of the estimate

a
1 0.532 0.283 0.272 0.99979300
a
Predictors: (constant), age, empowerment, transformational leadership.
 Factors that mitigate employee job stress 39

Table 5 ANOVAa

Model Sum of squares df Mean square F Sig.

1 Regression 79.977 3 26.659 26.670 0.000b
Residual 202.916 203 1.000
Total 282.893 206
a
Dependent variable: job stress.
b
Predictors: (constant), age, empowerment, transformational leadership.
As shown in Table 5, ANOVAs test is also significant at 0.000.
We noted that the size of the sample (with a predominance of restaurant workers)
might affect the results. We first tested to see if EM, TL and JS were significantly
different between restaurant and hotel/motel CCSEs. Using one-way ANOVAs, we
found that perceived employee empowerment did not differ between the two types of
CCSEs (sig. = 0.712), perceived transformational leadership did not differ between the
two types of CCSEs (sig. = 0.457) and perceived employee intention to quit did not differ
between the two types of CCSEs (sig. = 0.105).
We then re-tested the hypotheses for subsets of the sample.
A negative relationship between empowerment and job stress (Table 6) was found;
that is, the reduction in the degree of perceived job stress of CCSEs is related to degree
of empowerment in the hotel/motel services industry.
A non-significant relationship between transformational leadership and job stress
(Table 6) was found; that is, the reduction in the degree of perceived job stress of CCSEs
is not related to degree of transformational leadership used by managers in the
hotel/motel services industry.
A positive relationship between age and job stress (Table 6) was found; that is, the
older CCSEs tend get stressed out more than the younger employees in the hotel/motel
services industry.
Negative relationships between (1) empowerment and job stress and (2) transformational
leadership and job stress (Table 6) were found; that is, the reduction in the degree of
perceived job stress of CCSEs is related to the improvement in the degree of perceived
empowerment and transformational leadership used by managers in the restaurant
services industry.
A positive relationship between age and job stress (Table 6) was found; that is, older
employees tend get stressed out more than the younger employees in the restaurant
services industry.
Note that around 19.5% (R2 = 0.195) of the variance in the degree of employee job
stress can be explained by the age, empowerment and transformational leadership (Table
7) in the hotel/motel services industry. Around 36.6% (R2 = 0.366) of the variance in the
degree of employee job stress can be explained by the age, transformational leadership
and empowerment (Table 7) in the restaurant services industry.
40 A. Gill, N. Biger and S. Bhutani

Table 6 Regression coefficientsa,b

Unstandardised coefficients Standardised coefficients

B Std. error Beta t Sig.
Hotel/motel services industry (N = 81)
(Constant) 0.460 0.438 1.052 0.296
EM 0.422 0.187 0.304 2.260 0.027
TL 0.051 0.171 0.040 0.300 0.765
Age 0.027 0.012 0.239 2.191 0.031
Restaurant services industry (N = 126)
(Constant) 0.177 0.283 0.623 0.534
EM 0.397 0.137 0.287 2.910 0.004
TL 0.478 0.132 0.359 3.613 0.000
Age 0.018 0.008 0.167 2.278 0.024
Note: N = number of responses.
a
Dependent variable: job stress.
b
Independent variables: transformational leadership, empowerment and age.
c
Linear regression through the origin.
The regression equation is as follows:
JS (Hotel/motel services industry) = 0.460 0.422 EM 0.051 TL + 0.027 Age.
JS (Restaurant services industry) = 0.177 0.397 EM + 0.478 TL + 0.018 Age.
Table 7 Model summary

R R2 Adjusted R2 Std. error of the estimate

Hotel/motel services industry
0.441a 0.195 0.164 0.99202030
Restaurant services industry
0.605a 0.366 0.350 0.98203127
a
Predictors: (constant), age, transformational leadership, empowerment.

Table 8 ANOVAa

Sum of squares df Mean square F Sig.

Hotel/motel services industry
Regression 18.560 3 6.187 6.287 0.001b
Residual 76.760 78 0.984
Total 95.320 81
Restaurant services industry
Regression 67.264 3 22.421 23.249 0.000b
Residual 116.691 121 0.964
Total 183.955 124
a
Dependent variable: job stress.
b
Predictors: (constant), age, transformational leadership, empowerment.
 Factors that mitigate employee job stress 41

As shown in Table 8, ANOVAs test is significant at (1) 0.001 for the hotel/motel
services industry and (2) 0.000 for the restaurant services industry.

8 Discussion and implications

The main purpose of this study was to determine whether the improvement in the degree
of empowerment and transformational leadership reduces the degree of perceived job
stress of CCSEs in the hospitality services industry. This was done by surveying a sample
of hotel/motel and restaurant employees from the Lower Mainland area of British
Columbia, Canada. These employee perceptions and judgements are the basis of our
overall findings that the degree of reduction in job stress is associated with the
improvement in the degree of empowerment and transformational leadership. The results
of this paper support the findings of Pearson and Moomaw (2005) in which they indicate
that perceived empowerment decreases employee job stress. In addition, the results
of this study support the finding of Tracey and Hinkin (1994), Gill et al. (2006) and
Dhaliwal (2008) in which they found negative relationship between transformational
leadership and job stress.
Results show that transformational leadership used by managers does not mitigate the
job stress of CCSEs in the hotel/motel services industry. This may be because of the level
of responsibilities in the hotel/motel services industry. For example, CCSEs who act as
night auditors in the hotel/motel services industry are not only responsible for customer
service but also responsible for cash and other account maintenance. In addition, results
of this paper show that the older employees tend to get stressed out more than the
younger employees in the hospitality services industry. This finding contradict the
finding of Shimizu et al. (2002) in which they argue that younger employee tend to get
stressed out more than the older employees.
Since the hospitality services industry is identified with high levels of customer-
contact, it is imperative to explore all potential human resource management practices
that may mitigate employee job stress because it has a negative impact on the service
organisations. Service employees play a boundary-spanning role in the hospitality
services industry where they interact with many individuals from inside (fellow
employees and managers) and outside (guests) their organisation. This large role set
requires service employees to satisfy frequently distinct needs and expectations of
multiple parties, and only one of those parties is their manager/supervisor. This requires
the employee to perform pro-social behaviour and often times, demonstrate dedication to
the hospitality services organisations. Therefore, it is important for managers/supervisors
to empower employees and to use transformational leadership, since empowerment and
transformational leadership reduce employee job stress.
In order to empower employees successfully to mitigate their job stress,
managers/supervisors should:
1 Explain to employees what empowerment is and how it could impact them
personally. Managers/supervisors should provide examples of authority that the
service employees will have in decision making. For example, managers/supervisors
should explain service employees if they will have authorisation to resolve customer
complaints such as replacement of poor quality food items, small amount of cash
refund, change shifts without notifying shift manager, etc.
42 A. Gill, N. Biger and S. Bhutani

2 Change their behaviour to create an empowered work environment.

3 Select right employees (e.g. employees who possess initiative and the ability to get
along with other people) for empowerment.
4 Train employees to make sound decisions and work closely with others.
5 Communicate expectations to service employees clearly.
6 Align reward and recognition programmes.
7 Have patience and expect problems such as wrong decisions made by empowered
employees.

8.1 Implementation of transformational leadership approaches

There are many organisational barriers (e.g. lack of employees understanding of the
mission, goals and objectives, communication barriers, lack of time, cultural barriers,
shortage of staff, employee de-motivation, high employee turnover, managers
understanding the degree to which transformational leadership needs to be implemented,
etc.) that make it difficult to implement transformational leadership approaches (Gill and
Mathur, 2007, p.332).
To overcome the above-mentioned challenges, hospitality services managers/
supervisors need to:
Communicate organisations mission, goals and objectives to CCSEs by breaking-
them-down for each individual employee based on the hospitality function
performed.
Encourage downward communication by using bulletin board, via handouts
appended to employee paycheques, and through communication to employees to
delegate responsibility.
Encourage upward communication by having an open door policy (e.g. management
by walking around) for employee suggestions to obtain feedback on the degree of
transformational leadership implementation.
Learn effective time management skills to deal with lack of time barrier.
Have regular on floor training and coaching, which in turn, will encourage employee
buy-in to perform different job functions in the hospitality services organisations.
Have constant communication to reinforce the vision, mission, goals and objectives
of the organisation (hotel) as well as individual department (e.g. housekeeping, front
desk, food services, etc.).
Change own leadership style from regular to transformational through practicing
new leadership skills.
Practice effective listening skills (e.g. show employees that you want to listen, be
patient, hold your temper, go easy on argument and criticism, and ask relevant
questions) to overcome with communication and cultural barriers.
Act as mentors (e.g. train, advise, coach, support and encourage) to CCSEs to
overcome with employee de-motivation and the understanding degree to which
transformational leadership needs to be implemented barriers (Gill et al., 2006,
p.478; Gill and Mathur, 2007, p.332).
 Factors that mitigate employee job stress 43

All of the above require managers to internalise the importance of showing genuine
concern and respect for employees and their work. Since the consequences of poor
employee job satisfaction lead to other issues such as high employee turnover in the
hospitality services organisations, it is highly advocated implementing transformational
leadership as the managerial method of choice.
In practice, although it may be difficult for some managers to increase their use of
these transformational leadership behaviours and some employees may eye a change in
management style with scepticism, the potential benefits far outweigh the costs, and such
behaviours are developable. The importance of such a leadership development process,
however, must be championed and strongly supported by senior leadership.

8.2 Recommendations for future research

Although this study clearly shows that empowerment and transformational leadership
reduce job stress in the hospitality services industry, additional research issues and
questions must be addressed.

Figure 1 Empowerment, transformational leadership and job stressa,b

a
Original hypotheses are shown as boxes with thicker lines connected by thicker lines.
b
Speculations are shown as boxes with thinner lines connected by thinner lines.
The additional variables that should be researched include the following:
the degree to which managers understand the consequences of empowerment
the degree to which managers understand the desire of their employees to be
empowered
the degree to which managers understand the consequences of transformational
leadership
the degree to which managers understand employee job stress.
44 A. Gill, N. Biger and S. Bhutani

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