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ANALYTICAL REPORT
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FROM:
DATE:
SUBJECT: Managers at Din Tai Fung
Nhu Nguyen and Alex Southivong
April 19, 2017
The Effects of Stress in Din Tai Fung and Food Industry EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report covers the main reasons of stress in the restaurant industry, such as Din Tai Fung.
There are many ways to prevent and combat stress in the restaurant via interviewing processes
and certain hiring procedures in the workplace. Compliance with employee manuals along with
supervision of several managers at the same time can help by combating stress in the work
environment. Informal communication between managers and workers is an effective and
powerful tool of persuasion. Dingli Xu, M.D. found new studies that being a waiter may be more
stressful than being a neurosurgeon, or teacher, or scientist, or a manual laborer. He has found
that jobs with low pay and high demand workloads like being a waiter, are at a higher risk of
developing heart disease, cancer, and stroke.
Though Foley offered a rather harsh way of treating subordinates at the restaurant, one should
think of developing emotional intelligence from the positions of the restaurant managers. While
Foley offers harsh pre-hiring procedures such as interviewing, compliance with the regulations
after hiring and interviewing right before the dismissal, workers may face burnout in the
workplace due to allegedly unimportant reasons such as uncomfortable circumstance of labor or
personal life problems. Ordinary informal communication and team-building can help reduce
stress in the workplace dramatically. Foley omits the issue of emotional intelligence at all,
focusing on strict corporate hierarchy. According to Foley, burnout in the workplace is always a
failure of the workers, but not managers. While Foley offers harsh pre-hiring selection of job
applicants along with strict monitoring of the workplace performance, emotional intelligence has
to be taken into account as an effective tool of encouraging the workplace without having to
dismiss failed workers and then spend time on recruiting new workers. Reluctance to consider
emotional intelligence will result in extra losses for the restaurant, which may face increased
turnover rate, which in turn inflicts extra financial losses due to lower working capacity of the
restaurant. Emotional intelligence skill to persuade the workforce, may save a lot of money for
the business, aimed at servicing people. The restaurant does not simply provide meals.
Customers also value the atmosphere and ambiance of the restaurant. Most customers value
high-quality servicing, not just tasty meals. Focusing on offering meals only would be an
erroneous step. At this point, recommendations by Foley should be complemented by the
recommendation to work on emotional intelligence from the managerial perspective.
My recommendations include the following: Counseling services to receive treatment of stress and precautions to avoid stress. Massage therapies are not only beneficial to physical pain, but helps improve mood. Company parties help build morale and build employee bonds. INTRODUCTION
PURPOSE
The purpose of this report is to highlight the issues of effects of stress on employees in the
restaurant industry, such as Din Tai Fung, and to recommend what they can do to avoid high
levels of stress.
BACKGROUND
Recent studies from Dingli Xu, M.D., have shown that working in high demand jobs, such as
restaurants, are one of the most stressful jobs. Working in the restaurant industry, there is a
higher risk of developing heart disease, cancer, and stroke. It is possible that when employees are
under stress, they are more prone to unhealthy behaviors, such as lack of exercise, smoking and
drinking, depression, and poor eating habits.
SOURCES AND METHODS
The sources used for this report consists of Forbes, which provides history and background of
Din Tai Fung. Food Network, a website that provides information of recent studies about how
waiting tables may be the most stressful job of all. All Business, which provided tips on
terminating the stress of restaurant employee termination. And the last resource that will be used
is Blue Cart, which teaches how to manage restaurant staff and get the best of out the team.
SCOPE
The scope of the study is limited to employees in the restaurant industry of Din Tai Fung and the
impact of relieving negative stress can have on the performance of those employees. This will
help the employers decide what general steps to be taken to lessen the effects of stress.
LIMITATIONS
It would be helpful if Din Tai Fung provided counseling or some type of psychotherapy, or
massages, at every Din Tai Fung branch. Although restaurant industries usually promote
alternative therapies, it would be useful to actually have these therapies within the company.
REPORT ORGANIZATION
The report consists of executive summary, introduction, body, conclusion, and recommendations.
Body, in turn will consist of paragraphs, backed by visuals such as charts and graphs.
Introduction consists of purpose statement, background information, sources and methods of data
collection, limitations of the research. BODY
Din Tai Fung is known internationally for their “xiao long bao”, which are steamed soup
dumplings, and consists of over 60 restaurants in ten countries and have been awarded one
Michelin star. (Jennings, 2011) Working at a Din Tai Fung restaurant can be stressful because of
high demands in the workplace. Dumpling chefs are constantly on their feet, using their fingers
to make dumplings, and their strength to roll out dough. Managers and waiters are constantly
walking around the floor and catering to customer’s needs. Being on the floor of the restaurant
can be extremely stressful because there is so much going on at once. Working in high-stressed
jobs, men have a 22 percent chance of suffering a stroke, whereas women, have a 33 percent
chance. Both have a 58 percent chance of suffering an ischemic stroke. (Reiter, 2015) Highstressed jobs may lead to unhealthy behaviors, such as lack of exercise, smoking and drinking,
depression, and poor eating habits.
Before getting hired, job applicants should be selected depending on their ability to combat stress
in the workplace from the very beginning. Every human being possesses individual peculiarities,
both physical and psychological. While some workers may be insulted or confused by some tiny
irritants, other workers may remain efficient all day long, responding adequately to various types
of irritants such as impoliteness from customers. On job applications, it should mention that
employees must be capable of handling an intensive influx of customers and provide excellent
service at the same time. Taking large parties and also touching base with other tables can be
extremely stressful when trying to accommodate to all your customer’s needs.
The most common stresses an employee faces are harsh treatment from higher up management,
lack of teamwork and cooperation, poor communication, low pay and high workloads, dealing
with rude customers, uncomfortable mental and physical conditions. Occasionally, waiters will
be sat with a table of awful customers that may act rude, and still have to smile through their
complaints. Working for low wages and long hours, and being on the feet all day can damage
mental and physical health of an individual. Waiters are always at fault even if they know they
were right, and working in this type of industry, waiters have no control because managers need
someone to blame. Employees are often stuck in jobs where the stress levels are significantly
high and they burn out by continuing to keep working in high-pressured jobs. It should be
mandatory of all restaurant businesses to employ techniques that will help reduce stress levels, in
order to improve work productivity of employees and avoid them from being burnt out by having
their stress managed.
Possible strategies to combat stress in the restaurant industry may include harsher oversight over
customer behaviors. For example, security officers at the restaurant should not allow the
customers to act rude toward the waiters and other personnel. The restaurant chain management
should think of interesting bonuses for waiters, for example, pay raises or corporate parties for
the employees. The restaurant management can also offer something more than just pay. It is
important to keep in mind that waiters work off tips on top of minimum wage. Hence, waiters
suffer from higher levels of stress because they know they are paid low wages and need to
provide excellent service in hopes of receiving a nice tip from customers.
While low-performance workers should be dismissed, employers should work on retaining hardworking employees in the restaurant to maintain stable level of profitability along with opportunities for future growth. While businesses should be ready to terminate low-performance
workers, they should also get ready for the risk of losing hard-working employees who in turn
face threats of burnout in the workplace. Since workers often establish strong friendly ties, they
may even quit as soon as one of their colleagues quits. In other words, one single dismissal can
indeed cause a chain reaction of dismissals, inflicting unexpected losses upon the company and
even compromising stability of operations (Choudhury, 2012). In this situation, higher up
management would become extremely stressed and should take into account friendly ties
throughout the workforce that may act simultaneously. To persuade and rehire those who left,
management may have no other choice but to raise wages. Urgent need of predicting possible
chain reaction caused by one single dismissal results in better managerial attention to
interpersonal ties between co-workers.
Managers have to take into account in preventing employee burnouts, caused mostly by stress
and having no time for breaks. To prevent burnouts, managers can set duties for a designator
“breaker”, to let waiters get on a 10 to 15 minute break during their shift. Although Din Tai Fung
provides a 10 minute break for every 6 hours worked, the restaurant gets so busy that sometimes
waiters don’t get a chance to take breaks. The best way to combat workforce stress in the
workplace is informal communication and team-building. Corporate parties on weekends can be
an excellent solution to communicate with the workforce and figure out what problems disturb
employees and thus may force them to quit. In many cases, managers can reduce the level of
stress in the workplace by offering more flexible work schedule for the employees. A slight raise
or nominal promotion can also motivate the workforce, distracting their attention from the
everyday routine, duties, and responsibilities in the workplace.
Foley summarized experience of combating stress in the workplace and offered ten tips to
prevent burnout in the workplace from happening (Foley, 2011). Foley strongly supports
employee manuals that simplify understanding of the workforce duties and responsibilities in the
workplace. A well thought-out employee manual should include provisions on how to combat
stress in the workplace. Employees should be obliged to read employee manuals to know how to
combat stress in the workplace on their own, without external help on behalf of the managers.
For example, employee manual may contain a set of advices on how to combat stress in the
workplace. Distressed employees may be advised to take cold showers to cheer up. Short breaks
amidst the work shift may also help relax tension and recover working capacity.
Managers should not intervene in the workforce interpersonal relations in a destructive way. For
example, managers should not discuss performance of one worker with another worker (Foley,
2011). Otherwise, mutual trust between managers and employees will be broken and comprised.
Employees will stop trusting their managers in terms of informing them on various issues, which
is important for effective operations at the restaurant. Managers should always keep in mind they
have to respect all employees regardless of their superior position. CONCLUSION
Concluding this report, we hope the higher up management team at Din Tai Fung can
accommodate and help prevent effects of stress in the work environment. Stress in the workplace
is a complex problem that requires planning and prevention. Job applicants have to be selected
on the basis of their ability to combat stress on their own. Furthermore, managers are capable of
reducing level of stress via numerous techniques such as information communication with the
workers, team-building, compliance with the employee manuals. Managers have to monitor
effectiveness of each other to prevent power abuse or unprofessional behavior from happening.
Managers should have to communicate with the workers on a regular basis, discussing various
issues in an informal way. Team-building and informal communication can help workers by
avoiding high level of stress in the workplace since they will know managers share their
concerns over high workload. Managers should estimate their own performance, and also dine in
other restaurants to compare their performances of staff. In addition, managers should pay more
attention to emotional intelligence as an effective tool of reducing losses for the restaurant in
terms of retaining workers instead of just firing them as soon as they fail to overcome stress in
the workplace. Foley advises to dismiss all unqualified workers, which will result in high
turnover rate, and in turn inflicts losses in terms of more time spent on hiring more people and
more money spent on agency services and other expenses.
RECOMMENDATIONS
After reviewing this report, we hope the managers at Din Tai Fung can provide more stress
management services so that staff members don’t overwork themselves. Not only do staff
members need better stress management, managers do too. Managers are more prone to stress
because they have to handle all situations that occur at work. Recent studies have shown that
working in the food industry can be extremely stressful both physically and mentally. It would be
stress relieving if every Din Tai Fung branch offers counseling services, psychotherapy and
massage therapies. Though it may seem unpractical that the company would accept and
compensate every worker for these services, maybe it could be taken into consideration and be
offered at a discount or taken out from personal employee wages. Workers will benefit from
these types of services and can help relieve stress drastically.
1. Counseling services: Providing employees with a mental health professional to receive
treatment for symptoms of stress can be beneficial and help avoid causes of stress. It may
be helpful to vent to someone about work, outside of work, instead of bottling everything
inside.
2. Massage therapy: If Din Tai Fung provided massage therapies from professional
masseuses, it would be beneficial for all employees to loosen up tight and painful
muscles which enhances circulation throughout the body and may lower stress levels. Not
only are massage therapies beneficial for physical pain, but also for improving stress in
joints and one’s mood.
3. Company parties: Company parties can help build morale and bring employees together.
Company parties can be as simple as “family” dinners at a restaurant, or a get-together at
a coworker’s house. REFERENCES
BlueCart, T. (2016, May 11). How To Manage Restaurant Staff To Get The Best From
Your Team. Retrieved April 19, 2017, from
http://blog.bluecart.com/2016/04/26/how-to-manage-your-restaurantstaff-to-get-the-best-from-your-team/
The World's Greatest Dumplings. (2011, November 23). Retrieved April 05, 2017, from,
httplobal/2011/1205/feature-dumplings-yang-din-tai-fung-restaurant-jennings.html
s://www.forbes.com/g
Choudhury, K. (2012). Workplace Stress. Managing Workplace Stress, 1-5.doi:
10.1007/978-81-322-06835_1
Waiting Tables May Be the Most-Stressful Job of All, Researchers Say.
(2015, October 20). Retrieved April 05, 2017, from
http://blog.foodnetwork.com/fn-dish/2015/10/waiting-tables-may-be-themost-stressful-job-of-all-researchers-say/
Foley, J. (2011, January 15). Ten Tips on Terminating the Stress of Restaurant
Employee Termination. Retrieved April 05, 2017, from
https://www.allbusiness.com/ten-tips-on-terminating-the-stress-ofrestaurant-employee-termination-15441235-1.html