What do you do when your work is what you turn to when things are not going well, but the actual problem is your work? This was the question on Glion Luxury Management and Guest Experience Master’s graduate Shreya Jhunjhunwala’s mind late last year and it took conversations with friends and a step into the unknown to go some way towards answering it.
At the time, Shreya was experiencing something she describes as a ‘creative block’, when the role she was in no longer seemed rewarding – and not in the financial or recognition sense either. She no longer felt fulfilled, something that’s increasingly important in an industry where working long hours away from home are commonplace.
While hospitality offers exciting international careers, there’s another side to it too. Those working in the industry often cite unsociable hours, work-life balance and unpredictability as causes of frustration, disengagement and burnout. It’s not only individuals who suffer the consequences – the issue can have far-reaching effects on hospitality businesses too, which already struggle with staff turnover and retention.
And although still working in hospitality – she is now Assistant Marketing Manager for one of the Millennium Hotels and Resorts properties in Dubai – Shreya found it necessary to walk away from it for a while to rediscover herself and reignite her passion for the industry.
Crunch time
“I had been working non-stop for years,” she explains. “In fact, the only real ‘break’ I had was studying at Glion, which while a wonderful experience cannot really be described as downtime. What’s always been important for me throughout my working life is that every day is a learning process. So either you meet new people or find out how to do new things. The other thing I need to keep me going is to at least have at least one satisfactory night’s sleep every week and in November last year, that wasn’t happening. So by that point I was mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted.”
Normally under such circumstances, Shreya would throw herself into her work, but with work being the issue, she had to look elsewhere.
“The first thing I did was to voice it out loud, so I spoke to my friends – who had noticed a change in me – and told them what I was going through,” says Shreya. “I had not applied for any other jobs by that point, but that was the time when I decided to take a risk and leave the role I was in. I remember asking myself, what is the worst that can happen? And the answer was that I may not have a job for some time and might have to go back home to India. But given that’s where my family is, the worst was not so bad. That’s when the realization hit me so hard that, if you're not changing something, you're choosing your current situation.”
Taking a break
So how was leaping into the unknown and leaving a job that had been the culmination of years working in hospitality?
“I thought that I'd be nervous and scared and would maybe panic,” says Shreya. “But the day after I put my papers in, I felt such a sense of relief. I'm not usually a person who would take a decision like that, so the first two or three days were very much about coming to terms with my new status. The fourth day was about deciding what to do next. I wanted to stay in Dubai, so I spent part of the day applying for jobs and the rest of the day just breathing, taking things slowly and doing some of the things I used to cancel because of work, such as making plans and meeting with friends.”
One of those meetings in particular was pivotal in enabling Shreya to reset after living through such a stressful period.
“I met up with a friend – a fellow hotelier called Sristi Torul – who knew all along what I was going through and she told me how important it is to slow down, take a break and reflect,” she says. “And one of the biggest highlights from that conversation for me was acceptance. Of the situation, of what I was feeling and of the fact there will be days when things do not work out how we want them to, so you need to be OK with that.
“From there, I learnt how to take things more slowly. And that’s not about slowing down at work – you do what you're supposed to do – but you need to pace yourself. It made me think much more about the whole idea of work-life balance. Taking a 15-day annual vacation to be completely peaceful for just those days only to come back to work and stress out again is not sustainable. And I realized I don’t want to live the ‘Sunday Blues’, where after 4pm you’re dreading going back to work the next day. I want to enjoy my workplace. To enjoy the hours that I'm there and my time after work as well.”
Critical in hospitality
After an extensive spell working in hotels, interrupted only by her Master’s studies, Shreya knows all about the challenges the industry presents. But following her experience late last year, she has reassessed what success looks like.
“When you’re operating in the higher echelons of hospitality, you're chasing deadlines and pursuing your ambition,” she says. “And we tend to blur the lines between them, but I’ve come to realize they are separate things. I’m now at the stage where successfully chasing ambition cannot come at the expense of my mental, physical and emotional wellbeing. That’s true for me, but it’s also the case for my employer. If I’m constantly dissatisfied or exhausted, my productivity is bound to fall.
“On the other hand, if you’re working for all the right reasons and you’re happy in your role, things such as acknowledgment, praise and promotions will come naturally. So it’s really important to remember you can achieve your ambitions without negatively affecting your wellbeing. Success is not always acceleration; it can also be realignment, taking a moment to pause and reflect and understanding what it is you really want.””
A fresh approach
Since that highly influential meeting and subsequent change of job, Shreya has noticed a distinct and positive shift in her own outlook and behaviour. In an industry seemingly obsessed with urgency, next-day turnarounds and continuous volatility, she believes this more considered approach is more important than ever.
“I think when you’re pushing yourself and working long hours with seemingly no real purpose, you become irritable and it affects your personality,” she says. “And what really changed things for me was when Sristi suggested I treat things like a marathon rather than a sprint. When you’re trying to achieve everything in a rush, that’s when you neglect your self and you risk sacrificing your wellbeing.
“When I was hyper-focused on my job, it made me feel like I needed to surround myself with other people at the end of the working week to make me happy. Now I’m more mindful of work-life balance, I know having some ‘me’ time and doing things on my own makes me happy too. I used to be afraid of doing stuff like going for a coffee by myself, but now it’s something I relish.”
So what advice does Shreya have for others working in hospitality who feel like they are struggling to cope with the demands and expectations of the industry?
“I think whatever you're doing should make you content,” she says. “It should bring back that satisfaction and happiness. Of course, nothing can be achieved without hard work, especially in this industry, but you need to remember to take a pause. Your mental, physical and emotional wellbeing is just as important a that Monday morning meeting.
“In the stillness, we remember the self that existed before speed became a measure of worth.”
Photo credits
Main image: Israel Sebastian/Getty
Mountaintop image: RunPhoto/Getty
