Wellness coach Susan Fitzgerald leads an exercise session for Wild Wadi employees that she suggests will alleviate stress and can be done during work breaks. Jeff Topping for The National
Wellness coach Susan Fitzgerald leads an exercise session for Wild Wadi employees that she suggests will alleviate stress and can be done during work breaks. Jeff Topping for The National
Wellness coach Susan Fitzgerald leads an exercise session for Wild Wadi employees that she suggests will alleviate stress and can be done during work breaks. Jeff Topping for The National
Wellness coach Susan Fitzgerald leads an exercise session for Wild Wadi employees that she suggests will alleviate stress and can be done during work breaks. Jeff Topping for The National

Health

To help staff cope with the rigours of the job, about 70 employees at the Wild Wadi water park attended a seminar hosted by wellness consultant Susan Fitzgerald, a former fitness manager at the Burj Al Arab hotel, to highlight the best ways to handle the daily with stress and fatigue.

Melanie Swan

October 25, 2014

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DUBAI // Despite the smiles they flash to greet guests and their friendly demeanour, working in the hotel industry can be a stressful job involving long hours and constant demands.

To help staff cope with the rigours of the job, around 70 employees at the Wild Wadi water park attended a seminar hosted by wellness consultant Susan Fitzgerald, a former fitness manager at the Burj Al Arab hotel, to highlight the best ways to handle the daily with stress and fatigue.

“While I was working at the Burj, I was seeing more and more of a need to advise people on managing fatigue and not feeling good,” she said. “There’s such high stress levels in hotels but it’s a stressful industry that’s really growing here in Dubai, which is why companies need to have this focus on wellness.

“People don’t know how to manage stress. The seminars are very simple so that whatever nationality or rank someone is, they can all learn from it. Tools like taking a few stress relieving breaths can be done by anyone.”

Ms Fitzgerald advises simple ways to beat stress, from eating better to simply learning better ways to communicate with team members.

“I do work out and eat well as I realise this is important to make me feel better and deal with the long hours, but I guess I didn’t quite realise how important it was,” said Richard Ndonga, 30, the food and beverage assistant manager at the water park.

“I hadn’t been doing it that seriously. There are things people just don’t realise like how much time they need to rest to be sure they get the most out of their goals.”

He said staff should be made aware of ways to improve their health on a regular basis. “It’s especially useful for us to have these tools before the really busy season and to have reminders of these things,” he said. “It would be good to have it twice a year.”

Tim Arnulphy, 22, a training and development executive for staff at Wild Wadi, said he knows only to well the benefits of finding a work and life balance as he is studying for a degree while working full time.

“It’s really helped me learn about stress management,” he said. “In hospitality it’s long hours and a lot of things to do so learning to balance this with your social life and studies with these little tips can really improve your quality of life. It’s really important to be able to separate work from your home life and being given practical tips to do this is great.”

John Rees, Area Director of Operations for the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels, said topics like stress management are often overlooked by the industry.

“The hospitality industry is very demanding yet very rewarding too. I believe that our industry doesn’t address stress management as much as we should, especially in markets like Dubai, Qatar and Kuwait where most of the workforce are expatriates and away from home.”

mswan@thenational.ae

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