Research Statement: Looking into how employee motivation has changed in the restaurant industry due to the COVID pandemic. We will look at ways in which managers can deal with this change in the industry and strategies they can implement.
OB Article
Chanana, N., & Sangeeta (2020). Employee engagement practices during COVID-19 lockdown. Journal of public affairs, e2508. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2508
This article discusses how employee engagement has changed due to the pandemic. Dr. Nisha Chanana is a professor at Swami Devi Dyal Institute of Management Studies and Dr. Sangeeta is a professor of management at Maharaja Agrasen University. They were testing to measure employee engagement activities during Covid-19. They discussed how isolating, distracting, and unmotivating working from home can be. With the overwhelming family time and work responsibilities, it becomes harder to differentiate between work and play. They follow by explaining some strategies to make clear boundaries between life and work which include having a consistent schedule, reaching out to coworkers to collaborate, and having a healthy workspace at home.
Kraimer, M. L., & Erdogan, B. (2020). Personnel Psychology. Personnel Psychology, 71(3). Retrieved January 26, 2021 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/peps.12359
In this article, researchers test whether or not employees benefit from contact with one another through social mindfulness. Their hypothesis was that the employees’ co-worker-oriented perspective-taking is positively associated with providing instrumental and emotional support to their coworkers. They tested this hypothesis by taking data from three different groupings of 575 employees. Their results showed that there were positive effects on employees who had high-quality contact. Their research also exhibits coworkers’ can motivate one another by giving priority to other coworkers’ through being socially mindful and being a supportive coworker.
OB Article
Seetharaman P. (2020). Business models shifts: Impact of Covid-19. International journal of information management, 54, 102173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102173
In this article, the author talks about how the pandemic has had an affect on business. She talks about how no crystal ball gazing is going to help us to the effect that businesses have faced this last year. With the lack of knowledge we have on the pandemic, it is hard to get a steady pace going to open up. Just as businesses start opening back up, following new restrictions, the cases are still going up. She talks about how business minimized the amount of people working and the contact that they would have in their business to keep running and those who could not, were forced to shut down. So it is tough to keep a steady going business up right now just with all the things that are changing and us not having all the knowledge on COVID-19.
Shigihara, A. M. (2020). Postmodern life, restaurants, and COVID-19. Contexts, 19(4), 26-31. doi:10.1177/1536504220977931
This source looks at the threatened livelihood of the restaurant industry due to shelter-in-place orders, public-space avoidance, mandatory restaurant shutdowns, and modified service. It takes account of different workers across the restaurant industry and their experiences in dealing with the COVID pandemic and how it has changed their motivation and put them at a disadvantage. The source also compares the restaurant industry before the pandemic compared to after and how it has affected not only business but employees. This will be useful for showing the hardships the restaurant industry is currently facing.
OB Article
Sinclair, R. R., Allen, T., Barber, L., Bergman, M., Britt, T., Butler, A., Ford, M., Hammer, L., Kath, L., Probst, T., & Yuan, Z. (2020). Occupational Health Science in the Time of COVID-19: Now more than Ever. Occupational health science, 1–22. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41542-020-00064-3
This source is an article where ten experts are commenting upon occupation health issues that are unique to their area of expertise. The topics range from a variety of different issues including work-family issues, work stressors, and how to help reduce the impact of COVID-19 on workers. It describes different management strategies and methods which you could implement in order to improve well-being and reduce the stress of workers. These strategies would be useful to introduce to members of the restaurant industry with the goal of improving employee motivation during this period of time.
Johanna Anstensen, Aaron Brennan, Jobandeep Dhillon, Riley Fredricks, Kelsey Johnke