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Employee turnover is costing you money.
Here is what you need to do to stop losing great employees and throwing money out the window.
Welcome to another edition of hospitality property school.
I am your instructor, Gerry MacPherson.
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Turnover rates in the hospitality industry have grown in past years, in some sectors up to 70% and this includes the hospitality property sector.
Turnover can impact everything from staff morale to a property’s ability to deliver consistent guest experiences, to budget and overall profit margins.
While there are many factors that contribute to an employee’s decision to leave, it’s up to properties owners and managers to take corrective action.
Research has shown that owners, managers and executives polled believe an improved employee experience is important, only 22% reported that their properties excel in making this a priority.
What can you do in making a happier, more engaged team?
I’ll look at three strategies that have shown to immediately improve your employee’s experience, productivity, and a brand’s bottom line.
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- Connect with your employees the right way
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- Empower employees with meaningful feedback
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- Show the benefits of automation
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Connect with Your Employees the Right Way
One of the most damaging bi-products of turnover is employee detachment.
If employees are not invested in a hospitality properties mission and brand, they can’t provide a memorable experience. They need the right tools to remain involved and to feel empowered to do what they do best.
On average, only 3 in 10 hospitality industry employees feel they have the right tools to be productive. But with the right investment, if you double your employee count to 6 in 10, you could easily realize a 27% increase in overall employee work quality and an 11% increase in profitability. An investment in the right tools would pay for itself in no time.
To establish what’s most valuable to your employee in their daily lives, you need an effective feedback loop.
- Your employees need to believe their job has purpose and value and to do this you have to provide a genuine and relatable explanation about the importance of your company goals.
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2. You have to get to know your employees and learn their pain points. Give them a chance to voice what they believe the solutions are. They might have the solutions.
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3. Study and document in your operations manual, each job on your property, so you can find benchmarks to measure against.
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4. Observe your property’s top-performing employees and leverage their talent and insight into your training. Ask them to help you develop best practices you can immediately apply.
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5. From there, research and invest in the right tools and materials that would be most effective in raising each benchmark you identify.
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What is the next step?
Repeat steps 1 – 5.
If you can maintain this cycle, your employees will be happier and feel motivated to put forth their best efforts for you.
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Empower Employees with Meaningful Feedback
Another strategy for increasing staff engagement is through meaningful feedback. There are two key ways of feedback you can use to better engage your staff.
- Recognize excellence
- Improve performance reviews
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Recognize Excellence
In a recent poll, 70% of employees up say they don’t feel sufficiently recognized for good work. This is a huge mistake that can quickly present moral problems into your property.
Recognizing hard work and commitment is important to building engagement.
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Here are 3 easy ways to celebrate success.
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Markers and Badges: These are a well-known feature of gaming and social media, but they’re nothing new. For centuries, they have proven their worth in recognizing progress and conveying expertise.
You set goals and easily track the progress of your employees. The value of these markers or badges is not only to recognize your employee’s achievement but in identifying that employee to others as an expert or authority in a certain field or skill. Becoming known as the go-to person or resident expert.
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Friendly Competitions: Organize competitive events to give your staff a chance to show off their unique talents with others. Competitions like this have grown in areas to even include participants from other properties.
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Recognition Proclamations: Initiate a monthly or quarterly recognition program to highlight an employee or employee’s achievements. This can even include a rewards system to encourage others. Just make sure leadership is involved in the process to bring credibility and further engage your staff.
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Is this making sense? Let me know by leaving a comment
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Improve Performance Reviews
Like most employees, hospitality property employees tend to dread performance reviews, with many saying they don’t feel like their reviews help them. This is usually due to a lack of meaningful data around their day to day performance.
One of the easiest ways to collect data around your team’s performance is to inspect what you expect.
For example:
Room Cleanliness: Room cleanliness is one of the most impactful pieces of the guest experience. Room inspectors are highly effective at understanding quality of work, and areas of opportunity to lessen repeat problems.
Guest Interactions: Guest personalization is becoming a strategic foundation within the hospitality industry. This means the interactions between your staff and your guests are essential to observe.
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The more meaningful and actionable the feedback is for your staff, the more engaged they will become. By adding positive recognition and continuous feedback, as mentioned before, you can achieve 27% less turnover, and increase your profitability by 11%.
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Create a Case for Automation
Today, guests expect service faster than ever before, saying the top quality to an exceptional experience is fast response time to their needs and issues. In order for your employees to meet or exceed expectations like this, they need to be able to react quickly and have the right knowledge at their fingertips. Automation technology, when used the right way, is vital to delivering a positive experience that will keep guests coming back.
While adopting new software sounds great in theory, many owners and manager are not prepared to overcome the hurdles associated with making the switch. While admitting automation is important to enhance productivity, only a third said they were prepared to implement these new technologies.
It is important to choose a technology partner with the experience and resources to assist your implementation and provide ongoing support for the technology you invest in. Trust is key, so take your time in choosing the right fit.
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In conclusion
Connecting with your employees the right way, empower your employees with meaningful feedback and showing them the benefits of automation are three ways that have proven successful in lowering employee turnover and increasing your profit.
You can’t afford to ignore these practices.
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⇒ TO READ OR LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE ON KEYSTONE HOSPITALITY PROPERTY CONSULTING:
https://keystonehpd.com/KHDC165
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⇒ And don’t forget to join the “6 Day Challenge” here:
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RESOURCES & LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
The Keystone HDC Training Tutorials
https://courses.keystonehospitalitydevelopment.com/
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Keystone HDC Post Downloads
We add to them every month.
https://keystonehpd.com/KHDC140
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Join our community in “The Hospitality Property School Group” – Check it Out for One Full Week for Only $1
https://keystonehpd.com/membership-site
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RESOURCES & LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Keystone HDC Post Downloads
We add to them every month.
https://keystonehpd.com/KHDC140
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Say hi on social:
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/KeystoneHDC
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/KeystoneHDC
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Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/keystone-hospitality-development/
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Listen to The Hospitality Property School Podcast here:
https://keystonehpd.com/itunes-podcast
https://www.spreaker.com/keystonehdc
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YouTube
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Hospitality Property School is a division of Keystone HDC
