hospitality employees
New Labor Challenges Arise in 2023
Robert Mandelbaum | June 6, 2024
By Robert Mandelbaum, Andrea Grigg The scarcity of employees has long been the primary labor concern for U.S. hoteliers, even before the onset of the COVD-19 pandemic. Historically, jobs in the lodging industry have had a negative perception as being too physically demanding, requiring too long of hours, and requiring work on weekends and holidays. The shortage of personnel was exaggerated during 2021 and 2022 as many of the employees that were laid off during the pandemic in 2020 opted not to return to the industry. The difficulty of attracting workers to fill line-level positions within hotels lessened somewhat in 2023. Reductions in ...
Hospitality in the Time of COVID-19
School of Hotel and Tourism Management | May 28, 2024
Hospitality employees’ stress levels during the COVID-19 pandemic and their later career trajectories may depend on both their experiences in the workplace and personal traits, according to Dr Wei-Jue Huang of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and co-authors. Hospitality work is demanding, and the pandemic and associated economic crisis may have led hospitality workers to reconsider their career trajectories. Through direct interviews with current and former employees in the U.S. hospitality industry, the researchers explored how workplace experiences during the pandemic affected these...
Beekeeper Study Finds Nearly 50% of Frontline Workers Changed Jobs in 2023
Beekeeper | January 22, 2024
Leading frontline success experts find a growing disconnect between frontline workers and managers; charts a path forward for struggling businesses SAN FRANCISCO & ZURICH--Beekeeper, provider of the leading frontline success system, today released its 2024 Frontline Workforce Pulse Report. The report surveyed 8,000 individuals to explore trends for frontline industries and details several ways frontline businesses can improve the employee experience amid high inflation and increased rates of attrition. The report suggests a growing disconnect between frontline workers and management, leading to increased disengagement among front...
Paying Their Dues: Why Hospitality Workers Entering the Industry Are Saying ‘Not for Me’
Cindy Johnson | January 10, 2022
By Cindy Johnson You know, we all have done it — worked our way up the ladder, pushed ourselves to physical and mental limits or sacrificed our personal plans — just to focus on our upwardly mobile hospitality careers. Over the last several decades, that is how industry leaders as well as new entrants forged their path to success: working hard, working long hours and “paying their dues” to move up. However, here we are in a world since the start of COVID and we find ourselves in the most acute labor shortage the industry has ever experienced. The hospitality industry has been hit hard by closures, layoffs, and furloughs and now com...
Hotels Have a Labor Problem. Is This the Long-Term Solution?
HotStats | October 13, 2021
It’s been said that perception is reality. Under that maxim, hoteliers are feeling vexed by the labor shortage. But what if the issue of worker availability didn’t exist? Could recruitment and retention problems stem from how management interacts with—and treats—employees, along with some issues in the structure of industry work? Neel Shah, President at Hotel Evolution and Del Ross, Chief Revenue Office at Hotel Effectiveness, think so. Show Them You Care “There’s definitely a connection between a stable staff and an ownership presence,” Shah said. “I invest time and effort to get close to senior leadership, suc...
People First: Complex Labor Market Putting Employees in the Driver’s Seat Means Hoteliers Will Need to Make Investing in People a Top Priority i
Ryan Hamilton | October 13, 2021
By Ryan Hamilton “Where did all the people go?” This was the question so often on the minds of hoteliers over the last two years, as news of the COVID-19 pandemic surfaced and rapidly permeated throughout our lives. Hotel lobbies that were once bustling with excited energy and tired travelers emptied, while airport terminals fell quiet. Hospitality professionals are in the business of serving people but, suddenly, there were simply no people to serve. And so, the question wasn’t just “where did all the people go?”, but rather, when will they come back? COVID-19 changed how we live and work in ways that will alter our behavior ...
Why You Are a Difficult Hospitality Employee
Don Kermath | March 19, 2019
By Don Kermath It's true, you are someone's difficult person. As hospitality workers we find some guests to be exceptionally difficult. However, guests are the reason we exist. Guests deserve the best possible service, but so do your fellow employees. They are your customers as well – your internal customers. if your guests deserve the very best service and they are your customer, don't your colleagues deserve your very best service too? A new study by ALICE (a hotel operations platform), shows 62% of guests say that rude staff made their stay frustrating. Any employee who is rude to guests is also likely to be rude to employees. ...
Why You Should Fire Most Hospitality Employees the First Week
Don Kermath | March 12, 2019
Don Kermath Have you ever dated the wrong person? You likely dated that person longer than either of you wished. What if you had set that person free after the first five dates? You probably knew it wasn't going to work out after the first date. Wouldn't it have saved you money, heartache, and time? Exactly. That's why I propose adopting a five-workday probation period for all new hospitality employees. You will save money on training, it's the most ethical thing to do, and you can get back to work immediately finding the right employee. You're going to spend about $2,500 in the United States to train your hourly hospitality employee, i...
