TALENT ACQUISITION & RETENTION in hospitality. TRAIN PEOPLE FOR SKILLS in your boutique hotel.

Great employees are NOT difficult to find. It's important to know how to wisely do talent acquisition and retention in hospitality but it's much more important to train people for skills.

It's you who can make your team outperform. The team which works just like you would like and cares for the business just much as you do.

But you need to have right perspective, understand their drivers and create environment where these interests align.

It's not difficult but you need to be willing to do it. There are many hidden reasons why you might not find this comfortable, even necessary and correct, but it's next level of running a hotel and it's worth working on your leadership skills.

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Video Transcript:

Hello everyone. Welcome to Remarkable Boutique Hotels where we talk about outstanding experiences and everything that leads to them.

Today we are talking about your team, how to hire top talents, what skills to look for in people, how to train them to follow your vision of hospitality, essentially, how to have a winning team you can rely on. Let’s dive in.

The least favorite part of business for most of owners is human resources and that doesn’t sound good if we’re talking about hospitality, doesn’t it? I assume that’s because people are not as predictable as systems are, so it’s hard to look at your staff and feel responsible for their actions when you know you don’t have control over other people or in contrary that’s exactly when you conclude that you should control your employees which leads to even worse leadership style. So both conclusions are wrong. Yes, you have control over them but not exactly the one you might think. It’s more about ownership of your team’s performance.

Managing people is scarily underestimated and misunderstood. Lots of times, it’s simply taken as micromanaging everyone or expecting people to simply know their job, moreover, you fail to set proper boundaries and are either too friendly or not approachable at all.

To solve this confusion, I’ve prepared five step process for today’s video on how to make team who will take care of your business in a way you would do and even better, who functions seamlessly, in which everyone strives for excellence and genuinely cares for the company.

Okay, so first step, as always, is about you, the company. If you plan to have top talents, best people out there who have passion to serve and qualities you would highly appreciate in your team, give them environment they see themselves in. Meaning, to have top talent, you need to be top employer. Offer conditions which high achieving employees desire. And this is not only about compensation. Obviously, it’s one important factor, but if that’s all you see as important, you probably have unfunctional working environment. And by that I mean, not having clear instructions and expectations, not providing high quality training and job introduction with senior coworker support for at least couple of weeks, then not nurturing positive culture where everyone feels safe to ask questions, express needs, give suggestions, then possibility to be involved more, learn and advance in career, and so on and so on.

Actually, let’s break down this first step so you really understand it. Other steps are simpler. So, it’s about how you treat your employees but not from your personal perspective, it’s more in a good infrastructure way. What do I mean by that?

First, do you have a long term plan of your business that is connected to the plan how can employees help you achieve it. How can they contribute to it, on whatever position they are at. Do you have such presentation prepared to introduce each employee with your vision. For people to be great employees, it is important to see they will have a mission to be part of. And you need to paint this context for them so they can care about their results more.

Second, what is your onboarding process, are your new employees smoothly introduced into the system, but practically and genuinely which doesn’t mean handing them some documents to read and training to pass. That’s not enough. You should have onboarding plan for each individual employee where you write down their professional goal and motivation, their wishes, for example, if they would like to work for a week in another department to understand work flow better, then different chapters of training with objectives and hands on practical part while they are being supported by someone working longer then them.

And third, after that onboarding process, you want to have some routines that keep everyone on the same page throughout the month or week. That could be regular meetings, but productive ones, not just for the sake of it, so with trackable goals and real problem-solving or brainstorming ideas, collecting front line feedback and so on. Then, routines such as individual interviews where you go over that employee’s initial plan and update it for the next year, kind of keeping track of their ambitions within company. Team building is what belongs here as well.

Okay, so that was first step, to make sure you are attractive employer and that you have well implemented practices centered around employees and their development and growth in company.

Second step is hiring interview process and what to search for in people. It’s not education, certificates, even work experience. In hospitality, it’s soft skills that take advantage of everything else. You can’t teach people how to be welcoming, genuinely interested in how to help someone, always on service and to think creatively by observing and concluding on other person’s needs. Not everyone has these skills and if someone looks very competitive regarding their knowledge and experience, that alone should not weight more then soft skills. It’s easier to teach them your processes and transfer your know-how which is something you do anyways. Also, not every type of hotel service is the same, but since you are boutique hotel providing high quality service, you definitely need high-touch oriented employees who are kind, optimistic, curious, empathetic, ethical, self aware, have high integrity. In fact, you should make tactics on how to conclude if a person really has these skills and such personality instead of solely discussing points in their CV paper.

Third step is training for excellence. So, once you find someone with skills you think are essential, like the ones we mentioned, warmth, humility, ability to listen and so on. Then, you need to provide solid and well planned training to prepare them for high performance on their job. And the best part is, anyone can become top employee, if they have right personality prepositions this step is fairly easy because it’s based on your know-how. So, explain them their responsibilities, break down the job position tasks for them, connect each task with the process it’s part of and also explain other positions they will communicate with, receive inputs from or give outputs to. Don’t assume something goes without saying, that’s the most stupid mistake and most common one. Explain everything they need to outperform.

So, all this will give them broader understanding of business, which is the fourth step. So during this onboarding time, while you’re delivering training, your goal is also to make sure they understanding the big picture like company’s vision, style, values, then how those are applied, then what all departments exist and what their purpose is. You want to go level by level, describing main goals and painting the whole picture until you come to their position where you will provide detailed training. You want them to feel truly involved so they can care about their portion of contribution because they see you will appreciate it and that it counts, that their high performance won’t go unnoticed.

Fifth, and the final step, is to understand what motivates that particular person. Listen carefully and observe during two previous steps, what got them excited, what did they find tedious, are they type of people who like protocols, following procedures and easy step by step solutions or they are more hyped by problem solving, fast changing environment, challenges and on the spot creativity. This piece of information will be your most powerful tool for each individual person. You can use it to make them more content on their job by giving them appropriate accountability, and for you it means having high performing employees who are committed and highly motivated.

Hospitality is all about human interactions, for now. I mean, part of industry is turning to higher implementation of technology in order to deliver straight forward service, but the ones who choose to devote to specific niche providing unique guest experience will need enthusiastic, confident and humble team. When employees are content, at peace and attentive to details, guests will feel safe, stable and special so they will come again and again and again. It’s not a cheesy advice to put your people first. Take care of your team, because they take care of your guests.

Okay, that’s it for today. Until next occasion, have a beautiful experiences my friends.

Thank you for listening. Here at Remarkable Boutique Hotels, we want your hotel to be worth every penny and every second of your guests. Schedule a discovery call to find more about our remarkable methodology which is unique in the whole hospitality industry. I would love to hear your hotel story. See you there.