LOS ANGELES — Finding enough people to fill empty roles in hotels has been an ongoing challenge, even before the pandemic.
The labor market has improved compared to recent years, but hotel executives at the Lodging Industry Investment Council said hoteliers need to do a better job telling the story of hospitality careers.
“It’s an incredible industry of opportunity,” said Doug Dreher, president and CEO of The Hotel Group. “I think coming through the pandemic, the industry reputation took a hit, and yet, at the same time, not many think you could become a dishwasher and then become a CEO. That’s a real story that doesn’t exist in other industries.”
Hoteliers have to keep adding to the base to attract new talent, he said. For his part, he’s on the advisory board for his alma mater’s hotel school and is a guest lecturer there as well.
PM Hotel Group is focused on talent acquisition, engagement, retention and development, President Joseph Bojanowski said. If a company does those things well, it will reduce turnover.
The company has also been active in internship programs, he said.
“It’s a great way for young people to see that story in action and be exposed to people who have realized all the benefits of being in the hotel business,” he said. “It’s a great place to hire people, and a good decision on their part because they’ve had exposure to the company, so retention tends to be quite a bit higher. It’s great exposure for us to who we would want to hire.”
Representation can help attract talent, Aperture Hotels CEO Charles Oswald said. The company’s corporate operations team is 70% women, and that includes directors and above.
Aperture Hotels recently hired a general manager who said she looked up all the companies she was interviewing with, Oswald said. When looking at the teams online, most of them only had women in human resources and sales roles.
“She’s like, ‘I want to go into ops. I looked up your site, and you have people in ops — that’s who I want to talk to,’” he said. “So, I think that piece is important.”
When it comes to telling the story, it’s important to know what that means, First Hospitality President and CEO David Duncan said. Hoteliers can’t wait for the Super Bowl ad to come out that talks about how great a life hotel employees have.
Individually, everyone can do a better job, and part of that should be talking more to state governors, mayors and city council members, he said. The hospitality industry is one of the few where people looking for a job can end up in a career, and not many people see that.
“It’s one of the places that can really bring people from challenged neighborhoods and really do wonderful things in communities,” he said. “We have to do a better job telling that story to every community leader that we have, because a lot of them don't realize it.”
Using terms like labor makes it sound like any input, like utility or real estate taxes, he said. The hotel industry needs to do a better job humanizing the story by talking about the people who work in the industry.
“It's amazing how many people we have that started at the front desk and are now the [general manager] or head of revenue management,” he said.
The story is not something hoteliers can tell once and be done with it, said Jim Butler, founding partner at law firm Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell and chairman of its hospitality group. They need to do it every day, all day and at all levels. It must start with the CEO who communicates that enthusiasm, energy and charisma to make people feel good and want to be there.
“That has to radiate out at all levels, to associates and interns — and it never stops,” he said. “That's what we do every day, like brushing our teeth. It’s [a] continuous story.”
That comes down to the culture of a company, said Mitra Van, managing director at Van Investments. Leadership starts at the top, and the top needs to be welcoming and make employees want to spend their time there. That culture works its way down to the properties.
Hotel owners think about the bottom line, and while they care about systems and technology, they look at an operator’s people and culture and how that’s presented, she said.
“If you don’t have a culture, you cannot get your people together, and you’re not going to know what your owner wants,” she said.
Alongside culture, representation and telling the right story, there are outside obstacles hotel companies face to fill empty positions.
The labor market will continue to be tight for hotel companies operating in the outdoor experiences space, said Scott Socha, group president of parks and resorts, travel at Delaware North Australia at Delaware North. The J-1 and H-2B visas are “absolutely critical” for staffing the company’s properties.
“With our business being seasonal, you can get maybe 90 days out of that high school-, college-age student,” he said.
Housing is another key component to employees working at hotels and resorts in rural locations, he said. It’s a big issue that needs to be fixed because the outdoor recreation marketplace has a $1.3 trillion economic impact on the country. There’s advocacy taking place with some progress, but there’s more that needs to be done.
“If you do not have housing, you cannot work,” he said.