Hospitality, as an industry, is at a crossroads. Hotel professionals are passionate, trained, dedicated — and often burned out.
Our industry never stops. We are pushing the boundaries of excellent service 24/7, 365 days a week, and guest expectations never take a day off. Success in hospitality is hard-earned and often demanding, yet we say we promote work-life balance among our workers. We, as hoteliers, can no longer afford just to say it.
Today’s generation holds different values from our own, but that does not mean they are all incorrect. We can learn much from the new generation of workers as we adapt to their mindset. There is a clearly defined separation between personal and professional lives for them. Previous generations rarely thought to act as their brand advocates while existing in the workforce. Today, we can draw on their example to cultivate our professional development path.
It would be unwise to underestimate how important the concept of time is to younger generations. The benefits of technology that we tout so often, that it simplifies complicated tasks and cuts down on time wasted throughout the day, has given young workers the ability to plan more in advance with how they spend their time. The gig economy has given them a new way of thinking about work, where they make their schedules around customer activity and potential profit. It’s our responsibility to meet these expectations, or workers will move on.
Values
“Do our values align with those within the workforce today?” Hoteliers should be asking themselves this question throughout the end of the year and into 2024. Successful hoteliers are masters of putting themselves in their guests’ shoes, anticipating what would improve the guest experience before they even ask. Now, can these same leaders see things from their workers’ perspective?
All successful operators know what this industry demands of us if we want to be successful. However, there is a limit to what we can expect from workers in this era, defined by efficient technology and limited labor. The hospitality industry will likely never have an overabundance of workers again unless hotel leaders begin to think differently and proactively about improving the worker experience.
Sometimes, minor improvements in hotel operations practices can significantly affect a hotel’s worker retention rate. Often, a monumental shift in operations philosophy or a massive capital investment is unnecessary. Instead, hotels should consider how efficiently and consistently workers are scheduled for shifts, how well employers react to their life events, and how employees are recognized for their wins and positive behavior. Maybe a worker needs a mentor or a coach, not a manager. Maybe measuring a worker’s productivity isn’t working, so try measuring their performance and see if you feel the same way.
Additionally, the type of people we seek in the industry has changed. We were once interested in specialists, service-minded individuals who were masters of specific property management systems or knew the ins and outs of the local area. Today, we are looking for generalists with hospitality as their primary interest, with leaders leveraging evolving technology to train for the rest. Diverse skill sets are more important in a world of smaller teams.
Leaders Lead
If workers are mistreated today, they simply leave. Hoteliers can no longer afford to rely on high unemployment figures to drive workers to their doorstep. Operators cannot pressure employees into working longer hours than they agreed to or taking shifts they did not sign up for. In this environment, operators must become leaders willing to ensure their property is booming. Leaders must make a more significant investment in their team or associates because it’s the right thing to do, and it’s a necessary step toward growing your on-property talent.
Give your workers confidence. Doing so requires proper training but also the freedom to learn and make decisions for themselves to improve operations or elevate the guest experience. True successful leaders are confident, but they also share confidence among their team. Micromanaging young or inexperienced workers may feel necessary to improve operations, but in reality, this only helps leaders feel better. It does little to improve worker confidence and can be massively detrimental in the long run.
The promise of technology and the progress of the next generation has always been that it improves our lives, but now that we have access to more technology than ever, it seems like we are only using it to work harder. Our industry is responsible for making these tools work for us and using them to improve the hotel working experience. Artificial intelligence is not effective in our industry without also applying emotional intelligence to the equation.
People love our industry, and hospitality can be infinitely rewarding. The next generation of workers tells us we can learn to be successful and still have room to breathe — what’s really wrong with that?
Wendy Stevens is chief operating officer of Maverick Hotels and Restaurants.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or CoStar Group and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concern.