Recruiting in the Hotel Industry
The entire stay will reflect on your brand, so ensuring your employees are able to accurately display that is critical. Instead of referring to standard HR software to help make your hiring decisions, consider these tips to find the ideal person for the job:
Have a Clear Job Description
Even if you are starting your search from within the company, it’s important to have a complete job description for the position you are looking to fill. This will help you prioritize certain skills necessary for the job, and the industry specific qualities you would like to see in potential candidates.
This is especially beneficial when posting online. With a large amount of responses, you want to be sure you’re assessing not just basic job skills, but those that pertain to the hospitality industry.
Internal or External?
There are two different types of recruitment in the hotel industry, internal and external. Assess your company’s needs and current employee’s abilities to determine which kind is right for your business.
Internal recruitment involves selecting possible candidate from inside your current workforce. Often times, current employees are willing to take on new responsibilities for a higher position; the benefit: if they have the right skillset, it will take less time to train.
- If moving this employee from a non-customer focused position into a customer-facing one, be sure you assess their communication skills; guests are of utmost importance and a back-end employee may not consider that.
External recruitment is the most commonly used hiring process, but requires a bit more time. In a hotel, some positions may require specific forms of training or trade association credentials, and working with a professional in this process can be integral to finding the right person.
- Recruitment associations – college placement services, temp agencies, or employment exchanges – that are training students/working with un-employed people from within your niche are a smart choice for outside hiring.
Execute Background Checks
Background checks are of great importance to any hiring process, but especially the hospitality industry. Often times hotel workers not only encounter guests frequently, but they also have access to their personal possessions.
A criminal record check should be mandatory for all applicants, and you should thoroughly check all references provided to confirm that the information provided is correct. Consider checking bi-annually, as well.
Develop Training Techniques
One of the best ways you can ensure an employee is efficient is by providing a solid and thorough training program. These can be in the form of orientations, on the job, and off the job. Adopting good training techniques will give employees a better understanding of the duties and tasks they are being asked to perform.
After training is complete it is important to evaluate the effectiveness of your program and to make adjustments where needed.
- Orientations introduce new employees to their jobs, co-workers, upper-management and the organization. Orientations are used to create a comfortable work environment and relieve any anxiety the new employee might have.
- On the job training is the most commonly used form of employee training. It usually consists of a general explanation of the workplace and its operations, and will sometimes include shadowing coworkers.
- Off the job training is used to develop broader and more conceptual skills needed for specific positions; this can be valuable when hiring from within, as well. Types of off the job training include supplementary classes or lectures, online training courses, or interactive video learning.
Adopting these tips as well as an effective interview system can help you to screen through potential applicants to hire employees who will be best for the hotel industry. In a sometimes customer-centric and niched business, it’s critical that employees are a good fit for the role to ensure long-term employment and higher retention rates.