This study examines whether front-of-house workers' experiences of emotional labor affected their turnover intentions while working a food service job during COVID. To investigate, I asked a sample of 14 tipped workers and two general managers about their experiences working in restaurants during the lockdown and reopening phases of COVID. I learned about participants' experiences working and their reasons for staying and quitting their job during the reopening phases. From interviews, I collected data on workers' perceptions of health mandates, their customer interactions, and their own assessments of COVID-related risks. I analyzed interview data to assess how organizational changes during COVID affected workers' performances of emotional labor and whether their reasons for leaving related to emotional labor being altered. Findings show that workers had to manage customers' heightened emotions while handling their own. From decreased income, increased negative emotions, and mask interference, workers' experiences of emotional labor were significantly changed. Importantly, organizational changes made many workers uncomfortable in their workplace and in following organizational demands, both related and unrelated to emotional labor. These experiences led seven participants to ultimately quit and six to desire to quit without doing so. I conclude that emotional labor was intensified for workers' whose wage predominantly rested on their capitalization of interactions with customers. Evidence reveals how organizational changes led to increased feelings of stress, emotional burnout, and exhaustion. However, the widespread occurrence of these feelings and intensified emotional labor make it unclear whether increased and intensified emotional labor directly created or heavily influenced desires to quit. / Master of Science / My project aims to ask restaurant workers about their experiences working through COVID. Many people called workers "lazy" or complained about them quitting to use government assistance. However, I believe that workers quit for reasons unrelated to individual laziness or reliance on assistance. To investigate, I asked front of house restaurant workers about their experiences interacting with customers and their job conditions. I also asked them what it was like for them, as restaurant workers, to enforce mandates while trying to keep a customer happy for a tip. I interviewed 16 people that worked in a restaurant between November 2020-2021. I chose this period because during this year millions of workers were quitting their jobs. After interviewing workers, I analyzed what they said to see whether interactions with customers and their efforts to maintain tips pushed them to desire quitting. I found that workers' experiences in restaurants were changed greatly by COVID. Specifically, their incomes decreased, interactions were seriously impacted by the mask, and work became more emotionally exhausting. Many of the workers I interviewed wanted to quit while working with a mask on their face. It was clear that working during COVID was the only option for many of the workers I interviewed, and it often cost them their mental health and well-being to stay financially stable.

Restaurants are central to the growth of a tourist destination, and rural, small-restaurant owners/managers are important actors in the development of attractive meal offerings. There is a lack of research scrutinising the skills and knowledge that may contribute to the growth of small-sized restaurant businesses. There are specific conditions of daily work in the restaurant and in the hospitality industry overall, and these are also relative to seasonal conditions in tourist destinations. In this licentiate thesis, the overall aim is to elucidate the specific conditions of small restaurant owners in a seasonal tourist destination and the making of their meal offerings. This paper explores the complexity of daily work in the restaurant business using an ethnographically inspired method applying an insider perspective. The complementing research methods used were interviews, fieldwork, repeated field visits and a short survey. The insider perspective is a challenging research method in itself but helpful for detecting the daily practice, organisation, and routines of the informants and their personnel, as well as for indicating the impact of workload on the informants’ lives. The study was carried out with eleven owners of eight eight small-scale rural restaurants, four with attached lodgings, and two managers in one urban restaurant/hotel. The results of the study show that the offering of a restaurant meal is dependent upon the multitude and variation of the culinary as well as hospitality competence of the practitioners, and the complexity of restaurant work has to be matched with a proactive daily practice. Use of time, reflectivity, and the need for professionalism is in focus. / <p>Forskningsfinansiär Besöksnäringens forsknings- och utvecklingsfond, BFUF</p>

Why do temporary foreign workers employed in the British Columbia hospitality sector have difficulty enforcing their workplace rights? Using the themes of people, place and time, this thesis explores the demand and supply of migrant workers in the British Columbia hospitality sector, and the challenges temporary foreign workers face at the intersection of immigration law, employment law, occupational health and safety law, and workers’ compensation law. The thesis argues that the low-skilled Temporary Foreign Worker Program shifts the negative consequences of unfair working conditions and workplace health and safety risks over people, place and time: from Canadian workers and employers onto temporary foreign workers; from Canada to elsewhere; and from the present into the future. Workplace rights are not enough for hospitality sector workers, what is needed is better tools for the enforcement of those rights. / Graduate