The labor market shortage has been a frequent topic of discussion in the industry as demand for hotels has surged back from the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On a visit to Hawaii, I was training a client who literally blamed the lack of staffing on “those entitled young people these days; they just don’t want to work like we all had to.” Yet the very next day at a different, fully staffed company, I met an amazing young workshop participant who was filled with enthusiasm and eager to learn. She volunteered that she was “only 19” and it was her first “real job” out of high school.
In San Diego, I was told that it was “impossible to find qualified staff these days” and “they just keep on turning over.”
If your company is facing challenges recruiting and retaining frontline staff, the way I see it is there are two choices: Continue to blame external factors; or look in the mirror, accept that we as industry leaders are partially to blame, and change our ways.
Here's some advice on where to start that change:
- You are making it too hard and too time-consuming to apply. Do you require work experience to be submitted in a certain format as opposed to simply attaching a resume? Do you force applicants to take a communications or personality test as part of their initial application? By the way, I think requiring such testing is fine when offering an interview.
- Your job posts include a long list of work requirements and scheduling demands, but fails to list the unique advantages of joining your team.
- You take too long to respond to applicants and too long after interviews to offer a job. The good candidates won’t last long.
- You require multiple interviews — for an entry level job — and they are scheduled several days apart, and only during business hours. The best candidates are probably working another job and it is hard to pull away, so if you want multiple leaders to interview candidates, make it easy for them.
- You are not flexible with scheduling. Why are most hotels still staffing to the same three-shift model that was around when I started in this industry, which can be very hard for students, parents, caregivers or those who do gig work on the side? We should be evolving staffing hours to meet the realities of single parents, budding entrepreneurs with home-based businesses and those who care for special-needs family members.
- You don’t have a strong work culture, causing people to be less loyal. When people care about their co-workers, they won’t call off for no reason; they will offer to cover a co-worker’s shift, and when it is time to leave they will give plenty of notice. Plus, if you have a strong, “work fam” culture, your existing staff will do recruiting for you!
- You don’t know have a strong connection with your frontline staff. If you want your staff to welcome and greet guests, then welcome and greet them daily. If you want your staff to truly care about guests, care about your staff. Do you know the names of or employees’ kids, pets, grandchildren and significant others?
- You buy in to the unfortunate negative stereotyping of young people who have been classified as “Generation Z” and/or “millennials” and accepted what are merely psycho-graphic models as facts. To me, these labels are as meaningful as classifying people based on their astrological sign. Let’s remember that the Strauss-Howell General Theory is just that — a theory.
The biggest reason no one wants to work for your hotel — and I know this one will be controversial with hotel owners and financial leaders — is that our industry not only underpays, but is also understaffed in some of the most important positions. That includes the front desk, where the hotel truly makes its first impression and the “air traffic controllers” for all operations work.
This problem predated the pandemic and is especially an issue at the focused-service and upper-midscale hotels, which are probably the most prevalent among new-builds of the past 15 years.
Many of these hotels have upwards of 150 rooms, and most have very short average stays, which means there is a lot of activity, even with some guests opting for self-check-in.
Even with reliable workers, this staffing model allows no backup plan when someone is legitimately ill or has a personal care appointment or a family emergency.
When you drop the numbers into a spreadsheet, it seems plausible that one front-desk associate can check in 100 guests in an eight-hour shift, but the reality is there are “bottleneck” periods of peak demand during which you need at least two or even three staff to properly cover activity.
Why don’t we break down some silos and create cross-functions? How much is that extra front-desk mid-shift employee really going to cost you, and what could the investment potentially bring? What else can we have them do during the slower times of an eight-hour shift? How about training them to help your salespeople follow up on the “weaker” leads, which they are not able to get to? Examples include replying to requests for dates that are sold out or to those who submit incomplete or vague requests for proposal. How about standing on the other side of the lobby and truly connecting with in-house guests as they wait for their Uber or traveling companions and finding out if they might be a prospect for future business while also encouraging them to come back next time and/or to post a review?
I commend you for being open to new ideas, and congratulate those of you who already do most of these things.
Yes, there is a real labor shortage lately as humans everywhere took pause to reevaluate their priorities in life during the COVID-19 pandemic. But many leaders are making it worse with self-fulfilling prophecies and buying in to negative stereotyping of our younger generations. The proof just might be in the fully staffed competitor across the street or down the road.
Doug Kennedy is president of the Kennedy Training Network, Inc. Contact him at doug@kennedytrainingnetwork.com.
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