Is it possible to bring self-care into the hospitality industry?
From my experience… yes, absolutely! I work in the hotel business and manage a large number of staff. The hospitality industry is all about service and customers.
In most places, most of the time, only the paying customers are seen as customers. As a manager, I see everyone as a customer, paying customers and staff alike, from chefs, to housekeepers, to waitresses, to waiters, to kitchen porters, to cleaners, to managers, to supervisors, to bosses, to owners… and the list can go on.
Bringing Equality into Service and Hospitality
If we were to take a step back and see ourselves all as equal and all as customers, then it becomes very important for employers and businesses to start bringing self-care into the workplace. After all, without healthy and joyful staff can there be any true care and true service in a business that is all about people?
I feel that the hospitality industry is all about service and through service we demonstrate everything about ourselves, and what we can offer. From greeting a customer at reception, to serving a meal at the table, to preparing the meal, to serving a drink, to cleaning a bedroom, the quality the respective staff members are bringing to all their tasks is felt by our customers.
When we are exhausted, tired, angry, frustrated or depleted it is felt throughout the whole hotel and all our customers feel it too. So it is ever so important that we are always working with self-care in mind, as our every action will affect everyone.
Over the last 3 years, with the loving support and inspiration received from Serge Benhayon, Universal Medicine and many other Universal Medicine practitioners, I have been able to bring some simple awareness and teachings on self-care into my personal life, and from there it has naturally expanded into our hotel business as well.
Expanding Self-Care to Include Business
Over the last few years I have been working consistently on looking after myself in a true sense. The most important turning point for me was when I realised that everything I do is felt by others. If I was exhausted, for example, all our staff and customers could feel how exhausted I was from my body language and through my communication.
As I began to support myself with rest times, taking the time to have regular meals, making changes with the food I was eating, and with anything causing me to feel exhausted, everything started to improve. My energy levels changed and I started to feel more alive again. This inspired me to keep working on myself and to expand even more on how I self-care.
As a result of my self-care I have now noticed that our staff have also been inspired to look after themselves in a more loving way too. They have all begun to take small steps to support themselves more lovingly in the workplace. Many used to drink lots of coffee and caffeine drinks to keep functioning, as working hours are long and often unsociable, but that has changed – most of them have now reduced caffeine intake or completely cut it out.
Most of our staff would skip meals or eat junk food and we found that at times we could get caught up in this food pattern too. We have always provided free meals for staff, but now we encourage healthy meals and break times to ensure they look after themselves.
We encourage staff to take a break: in the hospitality field it is very easy to keep working as the work never stops. Our service and reception staff now make the time to have breakfast if they are on early shifts, or lunch and dinner on late shifts.
Over the last 7 years of being in the hospitality industry, I have noticed that the chefs, generally, do not eat proper meals: constantly tasting food whilst cooking, when it comes to meal times they have no appetite left, and as they are so often exhausted, they no longer want to prepare any food for themselves. Instead of eating proper nutritious food, it has become the norm to keep going on endless cups of coffee, energy drinks, or alcohol.
To change this self-destructive pattern we encouraged our chefs to make nutritious meals for all staff and to sit down and share together, which they now do.
As a natural consequence they have reduced coffee and alcohol intake and they can feel the benefits of this level of care, feeling better within themselves. They are feeling less exhausted and therefore do not crave caffeine, alcohol and energy drinks as much.
The Ripple Effect of Self-Care
The atmosphere in the kitchen and the feel of the food prepared is also very different now: just this small change has transformed how the kitchen feels and this has changed the quality of the food that is provided, resulting in an increase in the number of customers dining in our restaurant.
We have also noticed a similar change with our housekeepers. They are also taking the time to look after themselves by taking breaks, expressing how they feel and asking for help when it is required.
This new level of self-care is felt in the public areas of the hotel, the rooms, the beds they make and the bathrooms they clean. In the public areas when they sit in front of the log fire or in the bar lounge area they feel a sense of calm, in the bedrooms they feel a sense of warmth. Lately most of our customers have shared with us how they find the hotel to be lovely, warm and cosy and that there is a very homely feeling.
All our staff are more joyful now, we all have a laugh and a giggle, and we are all seen as equal, just doing different roles. We have had staff leave and come back, sharing how they had appreciated the love and respect they experienced in being with us and that they had not experienced this anywhere else.
It has been something beautiful for us to appreciate, that the small self-care changes we have introduced as employers have had such a huge impact on many lives, staff and customers alike.
Our staff love coming to work and if we are in a situation and in need of extra help, they are happy to do extra hours. No job is too small or big. It’s a lovely space to work in. This has changed the customer base coming through and as a true reflection, business activity has increased through word of mouth recommendations.
We regularly get beautiful feedback from our customers and they tell us:
- “You have lovely staff”
- “You all make it very special”
- “We love the feel of your hotel”
- “Nothing is too much trouble”
Our aim is to provide a service with unconditional love in everything we do. This is what we are working to expand within the hospitality industry, a depth in the service we provide. We love what we do. This has all started with our own self-care and seeing everyone as equal, staff and customers alike.
As for the future there is definitely more for us to explore; for us, the journey has only just begun.
Inspired by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine who consistently provide a living example and reflection of self-care.
By Amita Khurana, BSc Information Technology, Hotel Director, Esoteric Practitioner – Bury St Edmunds, UK
Further Reading:
What’s all the fuss about self-care?
Is there such a thing as a job with no stress?
Universal Medicine: Practical applications in the workplace
698 Comments
There is a lovely simplicity to the self-care that you describe here which is having an affect on everyone around you, and it is this simplicity which I find most inspiring because it rely doesn’t need to be a big book of rules and agendas for self-care to be part of the everyday.
When you walk into a restaurant where the staff are taken care of and enjoy being there you can feel it in the place and in how things are done- nothing is too much for them and they are able to really care for the customers. In a place where there is a lot of pressure and staff are not treated well- you feel this in the place and staff get more annoyed or irritated by customers- it is interesting to observe this.
Equality and self-care are vital ingredients to living a loving and purposeful life and this is so beautifully reflected in your hotel Amita.
Amita, thank you, for writing this blog and actually taking the time to let us know, what true profound change is occurring in your hotel. Secondly a blessing to hear what is possible of change in such busy environment and how self-care can actually be truly applied everywhere. Love that! Keep it going and keep us posted.
“When we are exhausted, tired, angry, frustrated or depleted it is felt throughout the whole hotel and all our customers feel it too.” This is so true, not only our customers but our colleagues and then once we are at home, the ripple effect of not looking after ourselves is huge.
The ripple effect of self-care or self-abuse is apparent in any business you go into. It will be called the culture of the business or company, but it is really just the accepted behaviour of the individuals that make up the company, and as such can be changed.
You never ever hear anything like this is business school or in marketing yet it should be a well known fact that love and care offered in your service sells!
“without healthy and joyful staff can there be any true care and true service in a business that is all about people?” Valuing and caring for visitors and all staff equally is certainly Value Added.
Really loving the ethos that you treat staff the same as paying customers! I have personally experienced super long shifts without taking breaks or nourishing myself, largely because, as you say, work in hospitality never stops. I found it very difficult to stop and found myself in permanent drive which completely exhausted me. I find this article very inspiring but also feel it’s a team effort. I could easily blame my manager for me not being “given” breaks but I have realised that actually it’s my responsibility to put my health & wellbeing before my job and honour myself enough to claim that I am in fact worth taking a proper break, and doing so, regularly. For me when I did do this I actually felt awful, like I was slipping, not good enough and letting the team down. Interestingly in the absence of my manager, I would send others for breaks, even making them food/drinks and I felt the support that provided – but still did not do that for myself. It’s quite shocking how little I valued myself in that situation and useful to reflect on now, thank you.
The truth is we have to connect to our own worth, and start to honour ourselves, no one can do this for us. When we take the responsibility for ourselves then we start to build that change in our lives. Start with self and see how the ripple effect happens. That was my journey and still to this day, I work on myself and the ripple effect just goes deeper and spreads wider.
This line captures the essence of service for all industries – “I feel that the hospitality industry is all about service and through service we demonstrate everything about ourselves, and what we can offer”, inspiring another also to be the same.
It is through our own livingness and movements do we reflect and inspire others. There is no truth in sharing with people what to do if we do not live it ourselves.
Yes, self-care is so important for us all, ‘This has all started with our own self-care and seeing everyone as equal, staff and customers alike.’
The power of reflection to others based on your own level of self-care Amita is truly inspirational. It just shows how powerful we all are to make a huge impact on many people simply by living the way we would like others to live. This can only lead to natural growth and deeper loving relationships when we hold those values and live them to their fullest.
Absolutely Michael it starts with self, living life with the true qualities and values, through that our movements are felt by others. There is nothing we need to do, than to just live and move in a way that is true.
Amita, reading your article I can feel how often we put customers or clients needs first, before our own as staff, treating ourselves and our staff as equally important feels key and makes sense, there is then true care and a loving service that is offered from here; ‘If we were to take a step back and see ourselves all as equal and all as customers, then it becomes very important for employers and businesses to start bringing self-care into the workplace.’
‘After all, without healthy and joyful staff can there be any true care and true service in a business that is all about people? ‘ This could be applied to any business and also what I feel is when the healthcare should really embrace these factors the pressure that is now on people who work in the healthcare would be less and there would be so much more appreciation for everyone regardless of their role in the system, how would a nursing home, a hospital will be with true care and service?
Lovely to come back to this blog today and feel how self care and the deepening of that can have such far reaching effects. Very inspiring. Thank you Amita.
Self-care is definitely needed within the service industry as the customer is often put first before the staff, and usually at the expense of the staff. And let’s face it if we are being waited on it is a far more pleasant experience if the staff are not so busy that they look as though they are hating every minute of being there – this often happens when there is a shortage of staff and a lot of businesses employ the bare minimum at the expense of their existing staff members.
Amita your philosophy of seeing customers and staff as equal, combined with your active and practical support for the self-care of your staff has allowed a transformation for true service to occur in a workplace that is notoriously stressful, intense and hectic. Well done to all of you.
The message of this article goes for any industry: it is always about people, whether you have a lot of contact with customers or not. And then there are employees of course. The slogan for me, which I take from this article is: if you are not taking care of yourself, you cannot take care of others.
Well said Willem, if you are not taking care of yourself, you cannot take care of others, you cannot be a true reflection to others.
“As a manager, I see everyone as a customer, paying customers and staff alike, from chefs, to housekeepers, to waitresses, to waiters, to kitchen porters, to cleaners, to managers, to supervisors, to bosses, to owners… and the list can go on.” In fact were we all to see everyone we meet as a potential customer, client, friend and child of God, we would have more understanding, less judgement and the world would be a very different place. Your hotel is a microcosm of this.
“As a result of my self-care I have now noticed that our staff have also been inspired to look after themselves in a more loving way too.” This is beautiful Amita. What we offer by reflection is inevitable, but is it harming or healing – as you obviously do in your hotel. It is then others’ choice as to what they do with it.
“When we are exhausted, tired, angry, frustrated or depleted it is felt throughout the whole hotel and all our customers feel it too” This can be related to any industry, anywhere.
I just came from our local hospital, staff who are exhausted are never going to give the same quality care as a staff member who has looked after themselves and is ready to share their vitality.
Agree this is for any industry, we as individuals need to take care of our selves, well being and how we are resting, as everything is energy, and how we are living looking after ourselves will impact everything and everyone around us.
Self-care is diametrically opposed to what is inculcated in so many of us, in that we must look after others first…. Thanks Amita.
Chris so true, most of us have been brought up in looking after others before us, but we are so burnt out this way we are no good to self or others, infact we are harming everyone in the process.
It should go without saying that everyone is treated equally, but it is rare to find a place that operates with such love and equality as yours does Amita. May you be setting the standard of the future.