Emotional Exhaustion among Hospitality and Tourism Professionals in Cabanatuan City: Basis for Retraining

New research suggests we work more effectively, creatively, and collaboratively when we are happy at work. The brain works much better when a person is feeling positive. At those times, individuals tend to be more inspired and better at solving problems. This study was intended to determine the emotional exhaustion among hospitality and tourism professionals in Cabanatuan City and suggest an employee development plan to lessen the exhaustion experienced by the employees but otherwise perform their job satisfactorily, which will benefit both the employee and the establishments as well as the guests. The study adopted the descriptive method of research that involved survey from different hospitality and tourist establishments such as hotels, restaurants, and coffee shops within the premises of Cabanatuan City. One hundred employees from different hospitality and tourist establishments were subjected to answer questionnaires reflecting their level of exhaustion regarding negative thoughts and feelings, time pressure, strained relationship, counter productive work/behavior, length of service and salary. It was done using an evaluation sheet to rank and determine the greatest exhaustion level prevailing and answer the question of the researcher. The result of the study showed that length of experience and salary greatly affects the emotional exhaustion of the employees. The negative signs mean that the lower the length of experience and monthly income, the higher the emotional exhaustion of the employee. People from the hospitality industry sometimes feel emotionally exhausted due to the negative feelings they get from their job. Strained relationships, oftentimes, caused employees in the hospitality industry to be emotionally exhausted especially when talking of respect and conflicts. The study deemed that it is essential for employers to provide retraining programs to their emotionally exhausted employees. At the same time, employees affected with emotional exhaustion are recommended to undergo holistic interventions. Keywords— Hospitality Industry, emotional exhaustion, turnover, retraining.


INTRODUCTION
From the employees of the hotels and casinos of Metro Manila and the stewards working on ocean liners to the solitary chefs in small town eateries and the servers in the restaurants of the growing industry in Cabanatuan City who are people working in the hospitality industry, emotional exhaustion is a serious and common problem. Emotional exhaustion or burnout is one of the constraints of a job performance especially in the tourism and hospitality industry with a 24/7 nature of the hotel business as well as the round-the-clock guest service which demands hospitality industry employees to perform their jobs on a frequently stressful environment.
In the hospitality industry, the customers pay not only for the tangible products like food, beverage, hotel rooms and facilities but also the intangible product which is the service rendered by the people in the organization. A coffee shop may serve a cup of coffee may double or triple its price because of the excellent service rendered by the staff. People working in the industry need not only their ISSN: 2456-7620 https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.61.33 267 physical vigor but emotional strength and mental determination as well. Establishments offering good food and luxurious hotel rooms without excellent service are useless. It is very important that the hotel or restaurant staff should be emotionally stable in order for them to bear exceptional services. The researcher decided to conduct this study to determine the causes and effect of emotional exhaustion among the employees in the hospitality industry of Cabanatuan City. The researcher believes that it would be a great help to the owners, employees and the whole establishment if they found out what causes the emotional exhaustion so they can conduct some training or motivation program that will help the industry workers to render exceptional and excellent service and decrease the rate of employee turnover.

II.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM This study aimed to determine the emotional exhaustion experienced by the hospitality and tourism professionals.
Specifically, the study sought to answer the following questions: 1. How may the profile of the respondents be described in terms of: 1. Counter Productive Work / Behavior; 3. Is there a significant relationship between the profile of the respondents and their level of emotional exhaustion? 4. What emotional training program may be proposed by the researcher as an output of this study?

III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The researcher employed a descriptive method of research to describe the profile of the respondents and to look into their professional qualifications. This method was also used to identify the factors that influence hospitality and tourism professionals to experience burnout in terms of negative feelings and thoughts, time pressure, strained relationship and counter -productive work/behavior that lead to emotional exhaustion among hospitality and tourism professionals and their significant relationship if there is any.
This study was conducted in different hospitality and tourist establishments such as hotels, restaurants, and coffee shops within the premises of Cabanatuan City. The questionnaire was used to gather data such as the factors that influence hospitality and tourism professionals to experience burnout in terms of negative feelings and thoughts, time pressure, strained relationship and counterproductive work/ behavior among hospitality and Tourism professionals was patterned from Maslach's MBI (Maslach Burnout Inventory). In the questionnaire, the employees were asked to supply the information called for. The researcher personally administered the instrument to the respondents after seeking permission from the management of each establishments, particularly the owners and or the managers. The researcher set an appointment to the management regarding the schedule of interview. the selected hospitality and tourism industry were on available time to avoid disruption of the operation. Respondents were chosen because of their convenient accessibility and proximity to the researcher, which exclude the possibility of completing the 100% or full file of the all the employees working in the selected tourism and hospitality industry in Cabanatuan City. The respondents were the ones who assessed their level of emotional exhaustion because they were the ones who know what they really feel.

IV.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION This part presented the results and findings of the study based on the gathered data. Demographic Profile of the Respondents  Table 2 shows the profile of the respondents. In terms of age, it can be seen from the table that 77% belongs to the age range of 20-29 followed by the respondents ranging from ages 30-39 which consist of 22% and the least was in the age range of 40-49 which got the total average of 1%.
The data revealed that most of the hospitality workers are considered young adult.
According to Erik Erikson's Stages of Human Development (Bayani, 2009), Young adulthood can be considered the healthiest time of life and generally in good health. They have the physical strength and stamina to carry out the strenuous and draining job in the hospitality and restaurant industry. Moreover, many young adults choose the hospitality industry for the reason that there is the potential for rapid horizontal movement. Young individuals can make their way up the ladder very quickly if they work hard and provided that they possessed the qualifications.
In terms of gender, the table reveals that 53% of the respondents are female and 47% comprises the male respondents.
This evidently showed that the majority of the employees working in the hospitality industry in Cabanatuan City are female. This is also congruent to the National Statistics data of working Filipinos in 2014 which stressed that female workers are significantly higher by 6.23% than In terms of civil status, the data in Table 2 shows that 73% of the respondents are unmarried or single respondents and 27% are married respondents. The data indicated that out of 100 respondents, 73 workers in the hospitality industry of Cabanatuan City are single or not married.
In congruence to the age of the respondents, they are not yet married. They are the young adults who are in their early adulthood stage wherein they fall from late teenage years until their early twenties. Young adult nowadays does not settle yet in marriage and the responsibility of having a family. They tend to focus first on their career.
In terms of highest educational attainment, it was found out that ninety-nine (99) out of 100 respondents have a Bachelor's Degree and only one (1) respondent have managed to finish a Master's Degree.
The educational requirements for a career as hospitality worker include a bachelor's degree. In some cases, a high school or associate degree may be enough (Learn.org). But if the worker wanted to have managerial or other related higher position, he should be a bachelor's diploma holder and significant trainings.
In terms of length of service in the industry, Table 2 shows that respondents working for 1-5 years got the highest percentage of 50% followed by respondents working for less than a year with 35%. Respondents working for more than 5 years but less than 10 years and more than 10 years but less than 15 years followed with 7% and 3% respectively. However, 5% of the respondents have been working for more than 16 years.
It was observed that very few employees spend their professional life as employees in hospitality and tourism industry. Most of them go abroad after some years of experience in the Philippines while some of them try other options like entrepreneurship or other line of industry. To sum it all, most of the respondents take the Philippines as their training ground to gain experience for future immersion into other countries.
"Kumukuhalangako ng experience dito saPilipinastapos mag-a-abroad din ako." In terms of their position in the organization, Table  2 also presents that 72% of the respondents belong to the Rank and File employees followed by supervisors with 14%. Thirteen (13) percent are Managers and only one (1) respondent is the owner.
In terms of the department where they belong, Table 2 indicates that respondents are mostly from the Dining Area with 42% and Kitchen of a restaurant with 15% respectively. This was followed by Front Office with 9%. Eight (8)  Lastly, in terms of monthly income, Table 2 evidently showed that among hospitality professionals, 52% of the respondents received P5,000 -P10,000 per month. 16% of the respondents received P11,000 -P15,000 while 12% of the respondents receive a salary of P4,000 below per month. Only 9% of the respondents received P16,000 -P20,000.
In line with Maroudas, Kyriakidou, and Vacharis (2008) research, the effects of incentives on their employees in the luxury hotel setting of Athens, Greece. The participants were given a questionnaire that asked hotel identity, biographical data, and motivators used. The questions that were asked pertained to a list of incentives that were offered to the employees which included, but was not limited to: gifts, bonuses, paid expenses to seminars, meals, transfers, events, and insurance ( Table 3 presents the negative feelings and thoughts of the hospitality workers in Cabanatuan City. 59 of the respondents feel holistically exhausted upon coming home from work. This means that their job is "very stressful" for them. This may be caused by several factors lead to their exhaustion such as heavy workload in terms of customer/guest accommodation, side duties, heavy kitchen responsibilities and others. An interview with one of the respondents, she clearly stated: "Nakakapagod ang trabahonamindito, physically and emotionally. Pagdatingmo ng bahaywala ka nanglakas para gawin pa ang ibangtrabaho. Nakakaubostalaga ng energy." -Tracy, 24 Harvest Hotel Majority of the respondents said that they are emotionally exhausted in their work which means that their work is "moderately stressful" for them while 66 out of 100 respondents considered quitting their job is "not stressful" for them because of the personal and professional fulfilment they get from their job. Table 3 evidently exhibited that the overall weighted mean was 1.93 with verbal description of "moderately stressful". People from the hospitality industry sometimes feel emotionally exhausted due to the negative feelings they get from their job. According to Ann Blackburn of the Hotel Industry Magazine, employees with negative emotions damage team morale and performance, destroy the guest experience and the establishment's reputation. The employee's negative emotions inevitably end up at your door as a complaint.  ISSN: 2456-7620  https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.61.33 271 requires them to immediately respond, troubleshoot or solve problems. For them, this is "very stressful" due to some reasons like they do not want to get involved in the problem because that had enough from outside their work or they cannot think of immediate solutions to the problems that occurred. While majority of them emotionally exhausted when reporting to duty ahead of time, 44 respondents answered that they also feel exhausted when they are staying at work beyond their official time of duty and this is considered "moderately stressful" for them. And showing that it is "not stressful", only 4 out of 100 employees are emotionally exhausted when responding to customers' needs which means that greater respondents are attending to guests' needs and requests happily and satisfactorily.

Time Pressure;
The overall weighted mean for Table 4 is 1.92 with a verbal description of "moderately stressful". According to Zohar and Monachello (1996), one of the contributing factors to high level of stress among hospitality and industry workers is the long hours of work. Numerous studies by Marianna Virtanen of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and her colleagues have found that long hours of work results to stress that can lead to all sorts of health problems including impaired sleep, depression, impaired memory and heart disease.  Table 5 displayed that oftentimes, employees in the hospitality industry are emotionally exhausted when talking of respect and conflicts. 41 out of 100 respondents said that they are emotionally exhausted when conflicts and disrespect arise among the members of the team. This is verbally explained as "very stressful". Conflicts may occur if there is disagreement among the members of the team, which if not resolved may lead to negative attributes such as disrespect.

Strained relationships; and
The overall weighted mean for table 2.3 is 1.93 with verbal description of "moderately stressful".  Table 6 indicated that 37 respondents pointed out that energy and enthusiasm are the qualifications they must possess when working in the hospitality industry which in the survey, turned out to be "moderately stressful" for them. It is not all the time that a person or employee can possess these attitude or behavior.

Counter productive work/behavior?
There are times employees are not eager and energetic due to some factors that includes tiredness, personal problems, sickness and lack of sleep. This may lead to emotional dissonance wherein an employee is still smiling in front of the customers even though they are not feeling well in the inside. Though being enthusiastic and energetic cause employees' stress, there are still 67 respondents answered that even though they are moderately stressed when reporting to work eagerly, they still do not lose their enthusiasm towards their work. It is still "not stressful" to be dedicated to their profession. Table 6 has a total weighted mean of 1.90 with verbal interpretation of "moderately stressful". Significant relationship *correlation is significant @ 0.05 level Table 7 shows that age has no significant relationship in the emotional exhaustion of the hospitality and tourism employees as well as the civil status, educational attainment, gender, position in the organization, and the department they belong with.
Relative to the study of Ogaard et al. (2008), middle and senior level managers in hotel enterprises and first-class holiday villages in an effort to determine their job satisfaction levels, it was demonstrated that managers had exceptionally high job satisfaction level despite heavy working conditions.
Length of experience and salary greatly affects the emotional exhaustion of the employees. The negative signs mean that the lower the length of experience and monthly income, the higher the emotional exhaustion of the employee .  ISSN: 2456-7620  https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.61.33 273 Congruent to the study conducted by Varona (1996) on the relationship between communication satisfaction and organizational commitment in three Guatemalan organizations, it was found out that employees with more tenure status were significantly more committed to their organization. Older workers seem report higher levels of job satisfaction than younger ones. This means that if there is high level of job satisfaction, then, the level of emotional exhaustion is lower among employees who have longer work experience.
In relation to salary of the employees, Willis Tower Watson conducted study (May 2016), specific to the Philippines, the country follows the Asia-Pacific trend, with low pay being the primary cause of stress. "Clearly there are a number of employees who are dealing with financial challenges where employers might be able to help beyond increases in pay. The good news is, there is a growing interest from employers in the Philippines to educate and encourage employees in adopting a financial well-being strategy," says Susan La Chica, Head of Health and Benefits for the Philippines at Willis Towers Watson.