In the past year, hoteliers across the U.S. looked for a return to normalcy as guests returned. Instead, they were hit with another new challenge to deal with on the fly: The Great Resignation.
Facing a labor shortage and to curb the growing numbers of employees quitting jobs, third-party hotel management companies have adjusted training practices and retention programs.
In December 2021, 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs. And just before that, a record 4.5 million Americans left their jobs in November, with hospitality and leisure employees leading the quit rate, according to Fortune.
Factors driving the employee exodus from the hotel industry include generally low flexibility in hours, a desire for a more competitive starting wage and employee burnout.
Training Adjustments
Hotel management companies are relying on cross-training of employees so they can work multiple positions across several hotels while staffing is at a low.
Michael O’Brien, senior vice president of human resources for South Carolina-based development, management, and investment company Raines, said new employees aren’t brought in with the intention of cross-training, but if they exhibit a capacity and willingness for it, his company can take advantage of it.
He added it has been a challenge to maintain a positive guest experience despite shifting employee roles.
“As I would describe it, it’s kind of the duck floating on the pond where you’re projecting calmness on top and there may be a lot of moving parts underneath the surface,” he said.
Laura Presnol, vice president of talent and culture at Atlanta-based hospitality management company Davidson Hospitality Group, said the company has been cross-training employees now more than ever to fill multiple roles.
“We don’t hire just for hospitality experience anymore,” Presnol said in an email interview. “The theory of hiring friendly [people] and teaching the technical is more important than ever.”
Suzanne Brittendall, area director of human resources for Atlanta-based investment and management company Hospitality Ventures Management Group, said staff are shifted between each of the four properties she oversees as needed.
Brittendall added that employees are guided as they try various positions to find a path that is the best fit for them.
In addition to cross-training, management companies have had to change their approaches to training in general due to the smaller labor pool having less hospitality experience than in the past. General managers, for example, are being assigned updated lessons on how to train and develop new hires, O’Brien said.
Instead of relying on the traditional brand training, Davidson developed its own skills program to better connect with new hires, Presnol said.
“[We] find ourselves looking at a blank slate which has given us the flexibility to craft programs that meet the modern learner’s needs and preferences,” she said.
Davidson's virtual learning platform includes training in the form of gamification, incentiving employees to learn and track their progress in a less formal manner through games, Presnol said.
The concept of overhauling standard training procedures isn’t unfamiliar to these companies; they all had to move to a more tech-friendly virtual platform due to the pandemic. Wilson Turner, senior director of human resources for HVMG, said the shift to online training has enhanced the product.
“What the pandemic did was bring [remote learning] full board and make that part of our learning and development even more relevant than it was before,” he said.
Retention Efforts
Keying in on employee retention early has been a trend across the industry. Turner said HVMG has raised retention and sign-on bonuses along with ensuring its starting pay is competitive.
“We really look at creative, innovative and unique ways to maximize communication, rewards and recognition and culture as we go into retention,” Turner said. “We know that if we can make that connection early on at day one, and they can get connected to our culture and to our company, we will be much more successful at retaining them longer term and helping them grow their career.”
O’Brien said the hospitality management company enhanced its training programs by focusing on integration within an employee’s first 90 days. The first three months with a company can be the most integral in regard to retention, he said.
Raines addressed staffing shortages at three levels: retention, more personal time off and on-demand pay, O’Brien said.
Management companies have also focused more than ever on building workplace culture, which has helped during the pandemic to maintain positive customer experiences despite the high turnover of employees, O’Brien said.
“We have spent a long time as a company building a culture around service, caring for our employees and caring for our guests, regardless of circumstances in our industry,” he said. “It can be a bit of a roller-coaster ride in how outside influences can impact our business, but by instilling that service orientation, we’ve been able to maintain positive service scores.”
People are at the heart of the hotel industry, and maintaining and reflecting that in a company’s culture is the best way to ensure solid retention numbers and service, Presnol said.
“It’s more than just enticing core values and great internal and external marketing campaigns,” she said. “It’s how we evaluate and measure performance, how we communicate and treat one another, how the systems we design and deploy focus around humanistic design theories, how we listen and respond to our team members’ concerns and so much more.”