EMPLOYEE WELLBEING IN A CASINO ENVIRONMENT: PERSPECTIVES FROM MALAYSIA
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Date
2023-02-13Author
Chaichi, Kamelia
Trupp, Alexander
Ranjanthran, Mageswari
Thirumaran, K
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Chaichi, K., Trupp, A., Ranjanthran, M. and Thirumaran, K. (2023) ‘EMPLOYEE WELLBEING IN A CASINO ENVIRONMENT: PERSPECTIVES FROM MALAYSIA’, in 3rd Critical Tourism Studies - Asia Pacific Conference: British University, Vietnam 13-17 February 2023, p. 35.
Abstract
The last decades have seen many studies exploring working life and employee well-being in different
organizational contexts. However, applications to the casino industry are scarce. This study examines
the dimensions of well-being at a casino in Malaysia to gain deeper insights into employee challenges
and motivational factors to arrive at practical mitigation efforts. There is limited research on casino
employees due to the nature of the casino industry, which shields its employee data. The review of the
literature showed that the majority of the existing research on casino employees is quantitative, and
recent studies suggest more qualitative inquiry to gain deeper insights into motivational factors for
casino employee satisfaction and well-being. The research team conducted 14 semi-structured
interviews with casino employees when Covid-19 raged in 2021. Responses were coded using NVivo
software to delineate the contents into analytical categories of well-being dimensions and arising
issues. The findings suggest that employees at the casino face challenges in achieving work-life
balance. Employee's well-being suffers from insufficient break time, irregular working hours affecting
family time, managing customer temper tantrums, and lack of emotional support systems and
remunerations altered by the pandemic. Women employees were particularly vulnerable to
interpersonal abuses. There is a need to create better working conditions and more promising career
pathways and to address well-being with counselling support for stress management. In addition, a
balanced approach by employers to the 'customer is always right' mantra is suggested. The research
focused only on one casino, and there was limited access to human resources or other management
departments to include an organizational perspective.