Retaining and hiring employees has been a struggle for the hospitality industry, and since boutique hotels and companies are working on smaller scales than the brands, it requires acute attention to detail.
Speaking during the 2021 online Boutique Lifestyle Leadership Conference by BLLA, Guy Maisnik, partner and vice chair of Global Hospitality Group at Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Mitchell, said during a session titled "An Inside Look: The Boutique Hotel Labor Crisis" the reason some people aren't returning to their companies or positions is because they didn't see growth.
"The ones that didn't want to go back in the industry saw no place for them. It's a little bit surprising to me, because one would think that hospitality of all places would provide that kind of growth," he said. "You've heard the stories, the person that started as a dishwasher and worked their way up. That is more the exception [not the norm]."
According to a poll by Pew Research this year, about 66% of the unemployed "seriously considered" changing their field, which was a higher percentage than seen during the Great Depression, Maisnik said.
Jim McPartlin, chief people officer at Highgate, said his company instills three pillars for its employees: education, mentorship and career tracking.
"There is a conversation now, aside from just wage and benefits, which are important, but also around 'What about me?'" he said.
The generation of those that are 25 to 30 years old want to know there is a career path ahead of them, Maisnik said. Hotels must do a better job to create that pathway, he said, and inspire people to say "I want to get on that path."
McPartlin said the boutique hotel segment has always pioneered new ideas, and he feels this segment can now lead the change in the staffing crisis and work-life balance.
"There are opportunities ... [to show] here's what we're going to do as individual hotels or here's what we're doing as a company to really honor that process and set the pace for everybody else," he said.
Flexible Scheduling
Investing in employees who are vital to the company is a priority for Pablo Migoya, managing director at Hotel Hugo and Hotel Hendricks in New York City.
Speaking during the "Winning Back Boutique Hotel Talent" session at the conference, he said certain positions can still have work-from-home opportunities coming out of the pandemic.
"It's a matter of how does that function properly [so that the hotel can] continue to be successful," he said.
As an example, his director of sales just had a baby and is due back from maternity leave on Nov. 1. His team is already working on a program that would allow that employee to work from home on a consistent basis.
"I am willing to make that happen for her because she's worth it to me," Migoya said. "She's a person that works in a very complementary manner with our operations team, which sales and operations sometimes has a little bit of animosity."
Attracting Outside Talent
In instances when hotels aren't able to promote anymore within or need to seek talent from outside of the hotel industry all together, there's been other forms of recruitment. Some of those forms might not be helpful long term, however.
Migoya said he's seen a billboard for a hotel in Miami that advertised money for anyone who simply applies for a job there.
"That's not necessarily the best way to do it in my opinion," he said, adding he instead takes a boots-on-the-ground approach.
"If I see a line of people at a particular store and the cashier's just getting hammered but that person is handling it, I would go to that person and say 'Hey, what do you think about this position, why don't you give me a call?'" he said.
Brian Cooke, global director of corporate sales of Freehand and Generator Hotels, said he's seen some brands abuse short-term incentives to attract talent fast, which holds a risk component.
"You may not be bringing in the person that really knows they want to work in a hotel or knows they want to work in hospitality and really rather is attracted by that initial signing bonus," he said.
His company is more focused on those people on the sidelines who felt they were born to work in this industry, he said.
When Migoya is hiring, he also looks for people who not only have talent but have a network of people that would be interested in working in hotels.
"I think the networking component is, again, getting back to basics," he said, adding networking is not easy and it takes time.
"When you're bringing in talent that you know you've worked with or that came from a strong referral, you almost go into it even more well-positioned to put that person in action because you know what their strengths and weaknesses are," Cooke added.
Training
Migoya said at his hotels, the line-level employees are just as important as the executive level because they are the future leaders. If properties have exceptional guest-service agents, the leadership team must figure out how to keep them.
"There's no reason that bellmen and [guest service agents] aren't shown the STAR Report, for instance. They need to understand why that additional upsell is important at the end of the month," he said, referring to a hotel performance report created by STR, CoStar's hospitality analytics firm. "This is a function of knowledge is power, even with bellmen and GSAs."
Training the line-level staff to also be the ears and eyes on the ground to attract new local and corporate accounts is key, Cooke said.
In terms of cross-training, Migoya said nothing has been formalized yet as a standard operating procedure at his properties. But if it happens organically and becomes part of the culture, then that's a plus.
He hopes that the change in the lenses that executives have been wearing the past 18 months lets them realize how hard the housekeeping and other line-level teams have been working remains.
"The [executives'] participation level is on a much deeper level, which makes them really buy into the whole operational [process] and story behind the hotel," he added.
Technology
Speaking during the "Boutique Hotel Investment" session, MCR Chairman and CEO Tyler Morse said implementing technology on property to replace labor won't solve the issue.
"People want the higher levels of service, where you can generate higher [average daily rate]. Technology is not going to decrease the number of hours of labor," he said. "There's no artificial intelligence in hotels, there's no machine learning — these are just buzzwords. We are in a high-labor, high-operational business and that's not changing."