Talent Management

5 Hospitality Recruiting Trends You Need to Know

23 November 2018

5 min

“There are no problems, only opportunities”. All industries face challenges. While some industries experienced a rapid growth in the past year, others experienced obstacles. Changing consumer behaviour, variable purchasing power, increasing competition in the marketplace such as home rentals have had a significant impact on today’s hospitality sphere. Though, one thing remains the same: the desire to travel. With this in mind, and the world turning into a global village, the leisure habits of people too got transferred from one corner of the world to the other. However, this increase of demand and growth of the hospitality industry, comes with much higher expectations. So, what does this mean to HR?

Get Serious: host your own career site

Hospitality head offices are empowering local managers by providing them greater autonomy and larger budgets to manage and market to their communities. They’re offering centralized guidelines and support, which maintains consistency in program delivery and brand messaging.

According to a study, 41% of hospitality recruiters believe word of mouth is the most effective way to recruit. However, what is the extent of this approach? Is it best done at a local level? Successful large businesses can lead and maintain a consistent brand and service while allowing local management to post their own jobs and reach out to local candidates, given their own unique needs and geographies.

Reach talent pools and address skill shortages with smart processes

Are you using a job multi-posting tool? Leveraging on smart processes like such, allows management to build and access a broader talent pool with a consistently full pipeline: allowing more time to be spent on operations.

The Hospitality industry faces a lack of awareness and knowledge. Whether it is simply because it remains unexplored, or that staff members do not have enough access to knowledge to connect with their industry’s demand, this brings about the suffrage of skill shortages within the hospitality sector.

As a result, this becomes a root cause of the problems within the industry. Since manpower is what makes or breaks hospitality, businesses cannot afford to use robots for tasks that require human creativity, passion and dedication to create an experience. The issue is now global: the hospitality industry is currently facing a shortage of dedicated and qualified workers.

This comes as a major recruitment challenge. The days of recurring business because you’re the only restaurant in town are gone. In an era of tough competition, it is now time to devise creative client retention strategies.

How does this impact HR?

When referring to resorts and hotels, it is the staff that is the main driving force behind their success: the right staff makes it worthexperiencing. Think about it: people often rave about five-star experiences at small roadside eateries. Why? Well, the secret is in the service; not the sauce. What about your assigned cabin steward at a cruise? If you have ever been to one, you most likely remember their hyper personalized service. Great food and great service go hand in hand; in this case the consumer would rather forego the lavish look for a smaller, more intimate setting where the wait staff makes them feel at home. The same can be said for the hospitality industry. If enormous hotel chains kept rude employees with limited knowledge, they wouldn’t have the same reputation they enjoy today, would they?

This is why the right staff is the most crucial part when it comes to the hospitality industry, and today there are many modern and creative ways to attract the best talent.

Address high turnover rates with real-time analytics and applicant tracking systems. Connect those dots right!

Staff in the hospitality industry face plenty of challenges themselves, such as odd working hours and lower pay rates. Though it seems trivial, these things may make them quit a lot sooner than employers would like. As a result, the hospitality industry is currently experiencing high turnover rates. As such, it makes recruitment a challenge too: how to find the most qualified and professional candidates?

The root of this problem stems from recruiters not performing the proper pre-assessments prior to hiring. So how does this happen to HR Professionals? Candidates will always try to present their best and most polished versions for the cameras. In simpler terms, a hospitality recruiter may never see the candidate’s realpersonality until its too late.

So, how dowe find out a candidate’s actualpersonality? The answer is: Social Media! Being able to connect with candidates on social platforms has a lot more benefits than you think. Social Media integration with your Applicant Tracking System will provide quick referrals and references from former colleagues, bosses or friends. All this information will help hospitality HR professionals assess the candidate for future successes as well as identify strengths and weaknesses – all based on their experience and achievements.

Sure, this pre-assessment period may take a while, but it is better to fill a vacant position with the right talentrather than the wrong person.

Employee Retention? A case for onboarding!

Ah, employee retention: one of the biggest (and most frustrating) challenges within the hospitality industry. Now, you have the right talent, but how do you retain it?

For starters, employees seem to leave early if they’re not happy, skilled enough or -and this is a big one, ladies and gents – have no idea how each department interacts with each other. So, implementing a proper onboarding process is the key to kicking things off on the right foot. The interaction via a successful onboarding will make new recruits understand the company structure and feel comfortable in their new position; and nothing instills more confidence and loyalty than comfort.

In turn, a successful onboarding will create healthy inter-departmental communication, which will help with skill development.

But don’t be fooled: their challenges are many and need to be managed effectively. In this case, allowing for flexibility and the assistance of hospitality managers and learning and development solutions will help.

The power of being social:

Hospitality is an interpersonal industry: you want guests to come through your doors and qualified candidates to fill your individual locations. Rather than having all communications shared via your headquarters’ or parent company’s social media pages, individual locations are owning their online presence by sharing relevant community content.

For example: Popular Restaurant locations share local operating hours and tie-ins to local events, while the occasional corporate-chosen feature highlights the employer brand. Others choose to showcase its compassionate culture by posting about local fundraising efforts. The importance of internal sharing of team content–like the retirement party for its director of housekeeping, or the end of year holiday party contributes to employee’s internal engagement.

Companies can channel the atmosphere of each community, post local roles, showcase the workplace culture and more. Individual locations can use social media platforms or internal community channels, all while supporting their overall employment brand.

Find out more about how to better manage your workforce from hire to retire, with a modern Talent Management Suite designed to fit your industry best practices.

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