EMPLOYEE WELLBEING IN A CASINO ENVIRONMENT: PERSPECTIVES FROM MALAYSIA

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.