As we all know, the Holy Grail of the hospitality world is the guest survey score. Get a bad score, risk a fine. Get too many bad scores, and you risk losing your flag. With so much on the line over a random survey, it is imperative the entire hotel staff operate on the same page when it comes to guest satisfaction.
Simply put, you will never be able to have happy and satisfied guests if you have unhappy employees. It is a simple concept yet one that far too many management companies in this industry fail to comprehend. In some cases, it is upper-level executives that have either never worked in operations or have not been in operations for so long handing down cuts or policies that are deemed unworkable by the staff. They forget how important the lower-level employees are to the overall success of an operation. In other cases, is supervisory managers doing everything in their power, either knowingly or unknowingly, to make their staff miserable every minute they are on the clock.
As you climb the corporate latter, always remember any department, any hotel for that matter, is only as good as its worst and most disgruntled employee. For that reason, we need to go overboard in ensuring every employee in the hotel is happy and productive. Also, remember, it is not always about money. Money helps, but often, it is work environment and equipment that lead to frustration at those levels.
So, how can you improve both attitude and productivity throughout a department or organization?
Create a Learning Environment – it all starts from the very first time an employee suits up and punches in. Is there a proper training program in place? Has that training program been discussed with the new employee? Are there graduated levels, checklists, and tests to ensure an employee moves on to new tasks only after becoming proficient at the earlier tasks?
Learning under fire simply does not work in this industry. For instance, if you take a housekeeper into a room, hand her a cart, and tell her to get to work, what are the chances of coming back to a room that is cleaned to standard. You not only have to explain the proper cleaning procedures, but you also need to go over the checklist of items you look for when auditing rooms.
If you cannot provide an employee with the proper training, then push back their start date until it can be arranged.
Training is also important for team members that want to move forward in their careers. If your team is not learning something new, then they are stagnant. If they are stagnant, they get bored. When they get bored, they look for work elsewhere.
Create a Team Environment – in this industry, it is all about the team. There are very few departments that can operate with only one person doing their job. You will always have rock stars who go above and beyond, but you cannot spend so much time lauding over them that you forget to acknowledge the work being done by everyone else.
To be honest, sometimes someone’s best effort is just not as good as your rock star employees. That does not mean this person is not trying or working as hard as the other individual. However, their input in the workday is every bit a vital as that rock star employee. Without the effort and work from Employee A, Employee B may not have been able to become a rock star. When you promote team effort, you never risk making someone in the department or organization feel isolated or underappreciated. Don’t be afraid to pull that “average” employee into the office to acknowledge his or her effort with a pat on the back. You never know, that one random talk could provide the motivation and/or confidence for that employee to take his or her effort to the next level.
Provide Motivation – as stated above, money is only part of the equation. This is something that takes work on the part of the manager in that what motivates one person will not necessarily motivate another.
For the single mother, daycare services being available or being able to work non-traditional shift hours is more important than making more money. For a young manager, feedback and training may be the most important, whereas an established manager is looking for promotional opportunities.
Take the time to learn about your team and motivate them by offering incentives that are important specifically to them. Do that, and you are assured of having a team that works together to help each other as well as working for the guest to ensure the guest’s satisfaction.
Do you think your property or hospitality organization could benefit from having better managers? Do you find the pool of local managers is simply not getting the job done? Then it is time for you to call Joseph David International. We are ranked as the #1 Hospitality Recruiter because we take the time to understand your operation so we can find the ideal candidate to fill the position. For more information about our hotel recruiter services, please click here.