Workers’ daily stress reached a record high in 2020, and service employees were deemed to be among those most adversely affected due to the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This was revealed yesterday by Dwayne Devonish, professor of management and organisational behaviour at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies, during the Barbados Association of Admin Professionals Breakfast Seminar at Radisson Aquatica Resort.
Devonish, addressing the professional development training seminar attended by administrative staff and a wide cross-section of employees in the corporate space, said that even before the pandemic, the service industry ranked among the top five most stressful work environments globally.
Those stressors were only exacerbated during COVID-19 when workers were tasked with prolonged work hours and higher demands for excellence at an already complex time in their lives, he added. (JRN)