NASHVILLE, Tennessee — While the labor shortages that plagued the hotel industry have eased in some small ways, overall employment in the industry remains down significantly from pre-pandemic levels, and hoteliers have had to take various measures to alleviate that pain.
Dan Paola, vice president of operations at hospitality development and management firm Raines Company, said the firm has had to adopt a "piecemeal" approach to staffing, including paying a premium for contract labor where there are shortages and increasing wages for housekeeping and front desk employees.
He said at this point retention is as big of an issue as recruitment.
"With housekeeping, you can get a high volume of applicants, but the issue is do they stay?" he said on a panel discussion titled "Short-staffed and Overworked" at the Hotel Data Conference.
He said staffing issues at Raines, which has 22 hotels mostly in the Southeast U.S., go beyond line-level employees.
"It was the line-level folks for awhile, and we've seen some leveling off of that, and now it's management positions," Paola said. "We drove wages so much from that line level that now people from the [director of sales to the general manager] want their turn. And they're finding opportunities and jobs and making some moves."
Jennifer Rinck, vice president of global learning and human resources for Hilton, said she agrees there have been "positive trends" with line-level positions across the U.S. And one of those long-term trends is the industry largely adapting to a smaller labor force with "operational efficiencies and gains through the pandemic."
"The recovery period has really been an opportunity for us to look at how we look at labor and what labor is doing," she said. "Not all positions we had previously are going to come back in the same way."
Steve Green, principal solutions engineer for IDeaS Revenue Solutions, said hotels will need to be more efficient with forecasting in regard to labor.
"We can all look at the top line and the bottom line and what actually pays the bills and salaries," he said. "That's a huge component that we all have to understand on how this all works together."
Paola noted the industry has a reputation issue coming out of the pandemic.
"As an industry, we laid off 2.5 million to 3 million people then asked them to come right back to work," he said. "We've lost some trust."
He said "continuing to show we can be trusted" will only become more important as competition for line-level employees grows with more "gig economy" companies and online retailers looking to hire those same people.
Rinck said rebuilding that trust, along with building culture, will be key for working through ongoing labor issues.
"I think we really dipped into that trust index and all of that equity we've built up over the years," she said.
She said the silver lining is Hilton has been investing in improving the employee experience even prior to the pandemic, defining things as broad as culture and benefits, and specific as what employee uniforms should look like.
"We did have a number of very loyal team members that came back to use and were excited to come back to our culture," Rinck said. "And this business is in their heart and soul."
She said that attitude gives her some hope for the labor outlook in the long term.
"There's a lot of people out there that really think this is their calling," she said.