How can a family hotel owner hold on to her life-long dream despite crisis compensated by overtime working?

Initial situation

Anna is 47 years old, already overtime working as the owner of a hotel in a small town. She is a host with heart and soul, the small family hotel and her guests are her life. She has 2 employees. It is important to her to make a difference, to realize something, to change. She is highly committed to her employees and invests a lot of time in motivation, but also in providing her employees with good working conditions in terms of a pleasant working environment and the best possible working conditions. Anna works hard on behalf of her employees and is always ready to listen to their concerns and problems. As a hotel owner has been particularly challenged in recent years: crises, inflation and the loss of two employees have taken their toll on Anna and sapped her strength.

Anna tries to compensate a lot by working even more than before. We all know that this won’t work forever. Worries and fears about financial survival, as well as compensating for many of the work steps that her employees used to take care of, and a lack of rest breaks mean that Anna’s stress levels are now chronically high. She is often in a bad mood, which is also felt by her employees. Anna is now much more thin-skinned when dealing with difficult customer inquiries. As a hotel owner, she now hardly gives any space to her hobby, cooking, which has always been a place for inspiration and relaxation. So things can’t go on like this. The new situation calls for new, creative solutions, but she simply lacks the energy to find them or even actively implement them.

Afraid of having to give up her lifelong dream of a family hotel, Anna decides to share her worries on betterlinked.eu. The community also includes other companies from the hotel and catering industry. Perhaps she will find inspiration and ideas on how others are dealing with similar problems.

Anna embarks on a change of perspective shared by the community

Do Anna’s sensitivities sound all too familiar to you?

The problem can be solved step by step in the community:

1. Anna registers on betterlinked.eu and starts by researching what challenges other users post on the platform about personal challenges related to a busy workday.

2. Using various keywords, she comes across the topic of breaks and regeneration in everyday life. In her busy everyday life, where she often even has to think about a toilet break, breaks to recharge her batteries should now also fit in. She can’t even imagine that. However, user posts tell her that by introducing micro-breaks (active breaks of around 30 seconds), she has taken an important step towards achieving her own work-health balance – despite a lot of work and high performance demands.

3. Anna researches the stress tips and finds some resource tips that deal with the topic of touch for stress regeneration. She decides to start using the “Feel your fingers” exercise when talking to customers. By the end of the first day, she is already smiling quietly when customers approach her. She automatically links her thumb and index finger and looks forward to the pleasant feeling when the stress flows away. After a few days, she can actively take more time to talk to customers. She no longer has to force herself to be friendly. Her employees also notice the change, their work is more fun again. A brief exchange with the boss, as in the past, is no longer perceived as a “disturbance”.

4. In the meantime, she has also researched the challenges described by other entrepreneurs on the platform. Staff shortages are a very common problem. Excitingly, she comes up with good solutions for other sectors, which she posts as comments on the platform late at night.

5. Finally, she plucks up courage and posts her own story of permanent overtime working. She emphasizes what really hurts her. Because of all the work, her commitment to her employees suffers and she doesn’t have time for the most important thing – building and strengthening relationships with her customers. “Interesting,” Anna thinks, “I always thought it was the amount of work that never ends that was annoying. But it’s the relationships that make her job so special – the interaction with people that she didn’t have time for before.” WOW!

6. She has really struck a chord with the community. She gets a lot of feedback and comments on her post. Showing commitment to others is her great strength, from which she draws her strength – she encourages the community in this. “Why don’t you cook with your guests once a week, nobody else offers that”, pure relationships and resilience! says one user and another asks for a job interview. She left the catering industry because too much stress and too little humanity “broke her”. But a boss like that would motivate her to return!

The result WIN – WIN – WIN for the overtime working Anna and her team

Conclusion

Anna would not have expected this success, a new employee and so much confidence to break new ground for her family hotel, that brings new energy. She has now integrated the mini breaks perfectly into her daily routine. Her employees are now also on the platform, breaks are part of her company’s USP, and she also shares this information with her guests.