The question above was asked of me recently, and it’s the same question corporate recruiters were asking when I was graduating from Cornell nearly 35 years ago. How do we as an industry attract and retain talent when there are so many other choices? Here is a novel recipe:
- Pay competitive wages
- Offer career advancement and a path for success
- Balance work hours and play hours
- Make the workplace a fun, engaging and dynamic place
- Train our executives to be better leaders
- Innovate and create – anytime, everywhere
Keith Kefgen is managing director and CEO of Aethos Consulting Group.
You get what you pay for: If our industry continues to have a reputation of paying lower wages, we will attract a lower level of intellect. Only when we are prepared to pay the best, will we get the best. According to job site Ladders, 10 industries had the most six-figure opportunities for workers with less than five years of professional experience:
10. Engineering and construction
9. Project management
8. Science and education
7. Human resources and legal
6. Accounting and finance
5. Marketing, media and design
4. Operations and general management
3. Health care
2. Sales and business development
1. Technology
This is what we are competing against, and we have a long way to go. When I was hired at Hilton shortly after college graduation, I asked the corporate recruiter why they didn’t offer my entire graduating class of 172 people a job. They clearly had the job openings. He said it was about culture, not about the dollars. That was my first lesson in the art of corporate speak.
A career that lacks growth opportunities will become dull: The Balance Careers, another job website, surveyed its members on the reasons they left a job. The top two reasons: 1) lack of opportunities and 2) I hate my boss. The first reason is where the hospitality industry should shine (I will address “the boss” reasoning shortly). With high turnover rates and a building boom, career-minded people should be attracted to our industry. We shouldn’t let the likes of Glassdoor determine our employment brands. True, our industry in fragmented, but we have industry associations and powerful brands that can make a difference in this arena.
Another bright spot in our industry should be the opportunities for women and minorities. Unfortunately, perception and reality are not the same. A paper by David Grant of Northcentral University, California, “Perceptions of career advancement in the hotel industry for African and Hispanic Americans,” demonstrates that hotel industry employees often perceive career advancement obstacles for African and Hispanic Americans. These perceived obstacles include a lack of mentorship and a lack of promotion opportunity. We can solve for these perceptions with more education, the commitment of AHLA members and more outreach in our communities.
Work-life balance, the great misnomer: People either have balance in their life or they don’t. Some people work 80 hours a week and are happy, while others work 40 hours and are miserable. The trick is to be happy and engaged in all facets of life. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in his popular book “Flow,” commented that “the happiest moments in life usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” By its very nature, hospitality work is in the service of others and generally in fun places to be. How we integrate work and fun is vital to the success of our businesses.
In Fortune’s 2019 list of the best companies to work for, companies such as Hilton Hotels have put their money where their mouth is. According to the article, Hilton’s program to upgrade back-of-house areas to make them as attractive as guest areas is paying off. The New York Hilton Midtown, for instance, renovated employee spaces with better lighting and more comfortable furnishings, updated its cafeteria and established a free program enabling employees to earn their GEDs. We are pros at creating memorable experiences for our guests; we should be able to do the same for our associates.
Leadership education: Not enough time is spent with young people in our industry teaching them about leadership. Accounting, law, computer science, engineering and other disciplines are taught and tested. But leadership is an on-the-job endeavor? I encourage our educators and industry leaders to break the chain of past practices. We need to encourage a lifetime of learning and a system for “making” better leaders. Marriott International, Disney and others have built their own educational programs and consistently outperform their competition. Smaller companies such as Union Square Hospitality Group and Zingerman’s Deli are featured in Bo Burlingham’s book, “Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big.” It proves that you don’t need to be big or have a big budget to be a great company and a great place to work. It takes dedication, passion and commitment.
Don’t be the buggy whip maker: The classic tale of being the very best buggy-whip maker is known to most. The lesson is real, and it affects the travel industry in significant ways: How could the likes of Uber, AirBnb and Priceline out-maneuver the largest operators in our business? In fact, the market capitalization of Booking Holdings (parent of Priceline) is larger than Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt combined. I encourage everyone to read William Duggan’s book, “Creative Strategy, A Guide for Innovation,” to get a practical understanding to how innovation happens. In fact, innovation can be as simple as the Heavenly Bed or as complex as the creation of the Internet. Most innovations are combinations of things that already exist. They are simply put together in new ways to solve a problem or challenge. Bill Gates didn’t invent software or PCs. He put them together in ways not seen before.
Our industry has always been quick to scoff at innovation and stick to tradition. Ian Schrager created an entirely new genre of hotel that now everyone is trying to copy. Interesting that it took an industry outsider to do that. I often ask hotel companies what their annually budget for R&D is, and most often get $0 as an answer. It is hard, if not impossible to innovate without a system for vetting and funding an idea. My recipe for success might not be an innovation, but I encourage young people in hospitality to challenge their bosses with the idea.