Work in Hotels Under Conditions Related to the Covid-19 Disease

Abstract

Hotel employees are at increased risk of infection with SARS-Cov-2. Therefore, governments have taken many systematic measures to protect employees and employers (hoteliers). Since previous studies have almost entirely overlooked hotel employees' perspectives on the pandemic, this study determines how heterogeneously Slovenian hotel employees perceived the disease and their own work during and after the health crisis. The Two-Step and K-Means clustering methods were used to identify clusters of respondents. The One-way ANOVA with post hoc Tukey's HSD test was employed to verify the significant differences among groups/items. The sample included 301 completed questionnaires. A three-cluster solution with statistically significant differences was identified. Cluster 3, the largest, is particularly interesting, as its members are the most pessimistic of all. In contrast, Cluster 1, which is much smaller, included the most optimistic members (plain optimists). Cluster 2 is also interesting, as its members tend to be more extroverted – expressing the highest psychological burden and pessimistic views about the future provision of hotel services. Managers should provide clear instructions, education/training, tighten control, and do everything possible to prevent oversensitivity and excessively defensive responses that could hinder operational work.