CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — To obtain the best possible results, hotel revenue management leaders know they have to build out a strong team that is proficient in both calculating numbers and communicating strategy to a hotel's key stakeholders.
During a roundtable discussion at the recent HSMAI Commercial Strategy Conference, Jack Easdale, chief commercial officer at By The Sea Resorts, said the best way to harness talent in the revenue-management field is to find interested undergraduate students who are studying an applicable subject such as economics or statistics. The once common path of someone coming up through hotel reservations or another field is usually no longer how things work.
"If you're willing to invest the time and [coach] somebody up, I think pulling out of an undergraduate degree is the way to go," he said.
Geoffrey Field, vice president of revenue management at Shaner Hotel Group, said it's not the easiest route to take, but it's the best option to cultivate talent.
"It's the hardest way to go, but it's ultimately the most effective way to go to have real good talent in your teams," he said. "Obviously, all of us would love to post a position and have 20 candidates who know everything about everything and can hit the road running when you hire. It's not out there. Going the hard route has worked for our company."
While engaging with undergraduate students is one option, there are other ways to find talent, sometimes within the same company.
"I like to focus within. Bring in someone like a salesperson or a [general manager] who has that experience into revenue management and taking that time and teaching them, it's a little bit faster than someone from straight out of college," said Jennifer Driscoll, vice president of revenue management at Ivy Hospitality.
Training anyone outside of the discipline is going to take time regardless, Field said.
A benefit of training someone outside of the industry is that they'll go into it without any preconceived notions or set habits, said Cassie Bond, vice president of commercial strategy at Lodging Dynamics Hospitality Group.
"I think starting younger, starting from right out of school, you're molding them. They're sponges, they're hungry. It's a lot more fluid. You can really figure out their passion and how to drive it," Bond said.
Another option is a bit of a mix between the first two proposals: starting someone in school off with a part-time job such as a front-desk position to get them acclimated with revenue management.
"We've got two or three group coordinators that were involved in strategy meetings like, 'Oh, cool, I like what this person is doing.' You get the interest before they even knew what revenue management was," said Harry Carr, senior vice president of revenue management at Davidson Hospitality.
One advantage that revenue management has over the other disciplines within a commercial strategy team is it garners applicants from operations, sales and marketing, while the other disciplines are more shoehorned, said Jenna Fishel, senior vice president of commercial strategy at First Hospitality.
Leadership Qualities
To get the most out of the talent being brought in the room, the leaders at the seat of the table need to pull the right strings.
Karen McWilliams, vice president of revenue strategy at Concord Hospitality, said it starts with empowerment.
"We've had a lot of success because every one of our associates have a voice. They know their voice matters," she said. "They want skin in the game, so we offer that up and they run with it, and their skills get very well-rounded and it's awesome to watch them fly."
From a leadership perspective, it's important to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your team members so they can become more complete, Field said. For example, someone might be great with numbers but lacking on the communication side when it comes to expressing the numbers and pitching a strategy.
Field said he tells his team that the hotels are the customers, and it's up to them to keep the properties satisfied.
"You have to deliver your deliverables in an effective way and communicate strategy effectively," he said. "We do get a general manager or property satisfaction survey where they're actually telling us how we're doing, so it's a constant process."
That communication piece of the job is the one that most revenue managers struggle with, said Libbi Carlson, vice president of revenue strategy at Remington Hospitality.
"If you have a great strategy but you can't communicate it, that's where I think we hit a lot of roadblocks with some of our folks, whether they're new or they've been in the business for a while," she said. "As leaders, we help coach them [by saying] 'I know what you're trying to say. Let's find a way for you to get that to all of those people.'"