Podcasts to Help Hospitality Workers with Mental Health The AHA|SA and Employers Mutual Limited have developed a series of six podcasts dealing with mental health and wellbeing for managers and workers in hospitality. This series of podcasts provides hands-on advice you can put into practice straight away. As well as working with the broader business community for more than 15 years, organisational psychologist Hayley Lokan has worked closely with hospitality owners and managers, to understand the issues they face. She’s a practical person and she offers a wealth of practical advice on mental health and wellbeing strategies for hospitality workers and managers. A help sheet is provided with each podcast. BUILDING INDIVIDUAL RESILIENCE What does Resilience mean and why is it so important? Resilience refers to our capacity to manage the everyday stress of work and yet remain healthy, rebound and learn from setbacks and prepare for “future challenges proactively. This was an important skill before COVID-19, but since the pandemic – our ability to be resilient has become even more crucial. We know from the research that resilience is not a personality characteristic; it’s not a trait that we are born with. We can develop our levels of resilience; like building any skill, it requires focus, perseverance and commitment. The Resilience @ Work© framework, developed by Working with Resilience, outlines the seven factors that determine our levels of resilience. By understanding these factors, we can reflect on which of these aspects we do well, and where we may need to improve. It is important to remember that there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution when it comes to building our resilience. WELLBEING What does Wellbeing actually mean? Wellbeing is a widely used term and can therefore be misleading or misunderstood. It is not just the absence of illness or disease, but it refers to how you feel about 26 | Hotel SA | W W W . A H A S A . A S N . A U
yourself and your quality of life. Our wellbeing is a complex combination of our physical, mental, emotional and social health factors – including having good mental health, general life satisfaction and a sense of meaning or purpose. How can we improve our wellbeing? A framework developed by Royal Melbourne Hospital and Northwestern Mental Health Service provides a useful overview of the key components of wellbeing. By understanding the factors that impact our wellbeing, we are able to consider where our attention and focus is best spent. MANAGING STRESS What are the different types of stress? What are the sources of stress? How can you manage feelings of stress? This episode is full of helpful strategies you can put in place to deal with the stress in your life in hospitality – and life in general. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE What is emotional intelligence? Emotional intelligence refers to our ability to recognise the feelings in ourselves and others. It also refers to our ability to manage emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships. Is it important? Whereas the idea of emotional intelligence has previously been considered ‘fluffy’, we now have science and data to support its importance – particularly in the workplace. We know that emotional intelligence is a key success factor for strong leadership, customer service and sales, and provides the foundation for our relationships with one another. We also know that emotional intelligence is an important determinant in the mental health of young people. Can we improve our emotional intelligence? We can absolutely develop our emotional intelligence, but we need to understand what it actually involves. One of the most widely researched frameworks in this area has been developed by a company called RocheMartin. This framework breaks down emotional intelligence into 10 specific areas – or competencies – categorised into three areas: inner focus, outer focus and other focus. Back to Contents
