Hospitality is a consummate people business, in which guests entrust their safety and well-being to our care. There are few service relationships that are more intimate than the one we have with these guests. As hard as we work to win the trust of our guests and ensure the success of that relationship, we must apply an equal zeal to getting it right with our internal customers: our people.
Of course, this challenge is complex, impacted by the state of the economy, employment levels, the local availability of workers with desired skills and the wage rates being offered by our competitors. Let’s not neglect the tone and tenor of our dynamic society and its scrutinized alphabet soup of generations that make up the bulk of our team members.
If they come, will they stay?
How do we acquire all the needed talent to manage our organizations and operate our properties? It’s not all about flashing more dollar bills to applicants, whether for executive positions or frontline staff, where so much of today’s labor pressures seem to be concentrated.
Certainly, all serious team members want a competitive salary and benefits, excellent training and potential for advancement, along with working in a safe, non-intimidating, non-discriminatory work environment. The industry is making excellent progress in these latter areas with the attention being given to issues such as emergency alert devices and housekeeper safety.
What else can we do to make the work experience at the front lines of hospitality more attractive and rewarding?
We can start by adopting more flexible scheduling schemes, which will help cast a wider net for potential quality staff. In many cases, hospitality organizations may already be doing a good job of accommodating part-timers such as college students and interns. It’s time to expand this flexibility to other classes of team members: career staff who want to be able to pick their children up when school lets off; those who want to attend family events; seniors looking for part-time income who may shy away from working at night; or staff who want to “share” a single scheduling commitment.
Next, flexible scheduling goes hand-in-hand with a flexible work environment. Are there ways to relax protocol, including dress codes, and encourage expression of personality without negatively impacting guest services or profitability? We won’t know unless we try.
Letting loose a bit will help us celebrate spontaneously the many positives, the outright fun, of our industry. This is especially important in an era of analytics and emerging forms of artificial intelligence. Our staff is constantly being monitored and assessed according to strict, seemingly objective, standards by guests, by the brands and by ourselves. We must make sure we don’t toss the baby out with the bath water following too strict a “numbers” approach.
Leadership redefined
Certainly, it can be a delicate balancing act between treating everyone exactly the same, in the interest of fairness and ease of administration, and allowing individual personalities to percolate through an organization. It takes astute leadership to navigate between any extremes.
Moreover, as we have been inferring, it takes leadership willing to really know each person under one’s supervision, with the confidence to allow flexibility in scheduling, dress code or expression of personality. It’s about understanding when to consult the team member or procedure manual and when to consult common sense.
The bottom line is simple. Society is evolving quickly. The guest is evolving quickly. Each of us can think of some ways to stretch hospitality’s envelope without tearing it. Not just copy whatever is #trending these days, but something more creative and visionary, enhancing our core vision as hoteliers. If we don’t, some of competitors for talent likely will.
Kerry Ranson, a 21-year veteran of the hospitality industry, is chief development officer at HP Hotels.
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