It is a fact that when employees are more engaged in the business, they are both happier and outperform those that are not. The reason for this is the staff has something at stake when they are fully engaged in the business, which makes them more committed to its success. So, how can you get your team to be more engaged, thereby improving your chances of being a more successful manager in the hospitality industry?
Create a Departmental Vision
The hotel itself should have a mission statement. While that statement holds true of your individual department, you should also have a mission statement that is very specific to your departmental goals that will contribute to the overall mission statement of the property. By creating a departmental mission statement, you are creating a specific vision on which your team can focus.
In order to create a departmental mission statement, get the staff involved. Ask your employees what the goals of the department should be. What does the hotel mean to these employees? Use their input to create a formal departmental mission statement incorporating their answers, thereby personally investing them in carrying out that statement.
The departmental mission statement should be posted somewhere visible where every employee of the department can see it. Consider putting up a pegboard in the back hallway, so employees fulfilling the mission statement can be acknowledged for their efforts as well as telling the rest of the staff exactly what they did to deserve this honor.
This is something that should also be discussed during your staff meetings. You can also use negative experiences by guests and work through the problem with the staff members so they can see what went wrong and how they can turn the situation around and deliver on the mission statement the next time a situation such as this arises.
Set Departmental Expectations
Setting expectations prior to developing the mission statement is counterproductive. How can you set expectations for a department when there is no vision? However, by setting expectations after a mission statement has been created and agreed upon, the staff is far more likely to agree to these expectations as they can see they are creating a path towards the mission statement/vision itself.
Be Fair and Consistent
It is only natural for a manager to have favorites on his or her staff. I would tell you to avoid this, but it would probably fall on deaf ears. You are always going to have employees that work harder or that you simply clique with better. Even so, you cannot treat those employees differently when it comes to discipline and rewards. This MUST remain consistent throughout or you are setting yourself up for failure.
Build a Strong Team
I have stated many times that a strong manager finds employees that are better at their weaknesses. You do this to fill gaps in the team that need to be addressed. As a manager, you don’t necessarily need to be the best at everything, you just need to know how these things are done. Additionally, since you obviously cannot do every task yourself, find people that cannot only do the tasks, but they can do them better than you.
In addition to making your team stronger, you are also adding perceived value to that staff member. He or she knows you need them in order to have a stronger department, so they value their job and their position much more.
This brings us to the point of not hiring simply to fill a position but rather to fill a need or a void in the department. If a new hire is not capable of either filling that void right away or being trained to fill that void, why are you hiring them? If the local talent pool is incapable of filling that need, call JDI. Joseph David International is regularly ranked as one of the top hotel management recruiters in the country because we don’t just find candidates, we find the ideal candidate to suit your needs. For more information about our hospitality recruiting services, please click here.