Giving employees the shifts they want, online learning, financial support, and discounts are helping hospitality companies engage and retain their workforces.
During a panel discussion at the recent Annual Hotel Conference 2023, Mark Goodyer, UK&I HR director, Sodexo, said his company has 15,000 UK employees who are either on the real living wage or the national living wage.
Sodexo employees have access to an online learning platform in the language of their choice; a salary loan scheme to deter them from resorting to loan sharks; and discounts for use by up to ten of the employee’s friends and family.
For teams working at events like Royal Ascot, the company has technology in place to allow employees to choose shifts with their friends, Goodyer said.
“I went down to say thank you to the 3,000 people we had working at Royal Ascot and the resounding thing for me was the fun and laughter that you heard. Now don’t get me wrong. It was a warm day with a constant stream of customers. It’s a difficult job, but they had smiles on their faces because they’re enjoying the environment and they’re working with their friends,” he said.
The way people find jobs is often through social media and word-of-mouth rather than jobs websites, said Pete Willis, commercial director, Harri, and that employees referred by friends were more likely to stay.
The hospitality charity Springboard trained 3,500 at risk young adults for employment last year. Chris Gamm, the charity’s CEO said that 74 per cent are still in their jobs 12 months later.
“Yes, they may need a bit of extra support, but they will be super engaged, and they'll turn up super early and they have the best customer service. So don't overlook people who are at risk of getting left behind,” he said.
Establishing and promoting an Employee Value Proposition (EVP) plays an important role in retention, the panel said, although the right software needs to be in place to support the EVP.
“HR departments are now keen on giving people a promise such as: ‘you’ll get a 75 percent match on your rotas; we’ll give you your rota two weeks in advance. You can get advance pay,’” said Willis. “But without technology, the heads of department will have no clue to what people originally signed up for and what they were promised by the company.”
It is not just young people who want flexibility; post-Covid, it’s everyone, added Willis: “You’ve got to give people the flexibility to swap a shift or see who else is on the rota with them.”
However, a recent CGA and Harri report found that only 23 per cent of hospitality businesses have the technology in place to allow their staff to swap shifts.
In terms of keeping employees engaged, hotel marketers are very good at segmenting their guests and it would be a good idea to apply the same thinking to staff, said Ros Hardiman, group people and organisation development director, Kew Green Hotels.
“We have to become a lot more diverse and a lot more focused in terms of how we try to reach out to our employees,” she said. “If I look at our business, I know that the majority of our staff sit in that 35 to 45 age bracket, which is interesting because you might assume they are much younger. And that's the point. You have to know your workforce, know where they are in their lives, know what’s important to them.”
She added that this would involve creating intranets that were not just repositories for policies and procedures but that found ways to engage and interest their audience.
Outsourcing and multi-skilling can increase productivity, the panel said. Robert Holland, managing director UK&I, Hotel Partner Revenue Management, said that several functions such as telephone reservations, digital marketing and revenue management can be performed by people working from home.
Upskilling people to work in various roles - reception, concierge, breakfast room - is invaluable to increasing productivity, said Willis.
One hotel company measuring the characteristics and experience of its best performing members of staff is Village Hotels, said Willis, which uses the data for recruitment purposes.
Hardiman at Kew Green Hotels, added: “One thing we have started to do a lot more is focus on data. There are direct links between guest satisfaction, employee satisfaction, but also profitability, staffing costs, all of those sorts of things. And we are starting to track that a lot more.”
Kew Green introduced an operating model built around multi-skilled employees early in 2023. The hotels that have truly engaged with the operating model have reported the best performance metrics, said Hardiman.
“For me, the key message is you cannot afford not to invest in these things,” she said. “All too often we're looking at ways of cutting costs. But actually, when we invest, we see the return quite quickly.”