Years ago, I lived in Trumbull, Conn., which, beyond the fact that it won the Little League World Series in 1989, is a nice hike from New York City and if you hit the Merritt Parkway at the wrong time of day, can be a three-hour commute—one way. I should know. I’ve driven it.
Ever since the Dutch sailed upon Manhattan in the 1600s, real estate and apartment rental prices on the island have risen. The expense is real, forcing many who aren’t Rockefellers to flee to the ‘burbs. Or, at least, Queens. For many, it made commuting to jobs a temporal ordeal—whether by car, subway, ferry, bus or bike.
According to U.S. Census Bureau data, the average commute time in the U.S. is 53.8 minutes roundtrip—or 4.5 hours per five-day work week. For those commuting to New York City, it’s 82.8 minutes roundtrip and based on average commute times, those working five days a week spend 6.9 hours a week and about 15 days a year commuting.
That’s a ton of lost time. It’s always been eminently clear that some people can perform their duties at home or at least some days per week at home. Ergo, remote working has always made sense; it just took a pandemic to put it in motion.
Remote working as it is has been a boon for the hotel industry, allowing people with a laptop to literally work from anywhere they want, like a hotel pool or hotel lobby. It’s also allowed families to relocate to locations farther outside major gateway markets, reshuffling the disbursement of population, and opening up new business to hotels and resorts across the country. This new norm is a lift for the industry, whereby weekly demand patterns have not just shifted but stayed more constant, where historically weakened Thursday to Sunday business is now more robust. As one hotel management executive told me, weekends are no longer on discount.
Of course, those who work at hotels don’t have the luxury of working from home. That would be weird and difficult, though check-in via Zoom isn’t so bad an idea. The pandemic wiped away numerous jobs in hospitality that have yet to be refilled. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor, more than 1.5 million hospitality and leisure jobs remain unfilled. And though hotel workers don’t have the ability to work from home, it’s up to employers to make sure their work experience is fruitful.
Wages have gone up, which helps, but job employment doesn’t always equate to job enjoyment, which goes well beyond financial gain. Management theorist Chester Barnard proposed a series of incentives, both tangible and intangible, in order to nurture employees. These inducements included money, but Barnard put a higher premium on things such as desirable physical working conditions, pride in workmanship, the opportunity for the feeling of enlarged participation and the condition of communing with others, or comradeship.
Throwing money at the labor void is a start, but it won’t fix retention. That comes with ensuring that the job is not a transaction, but the start of a career. The track record is real: men and women who started by holding doors are now sitting in the C-suite.
COVID is still around but the pandemic is over. Remote working remains and enticing hotel employees has never been more necessary and challenging. Workers have never had more choice: from Uber to Target, there is a long list of employers. What those don’t have is on-the-job training that can be the starting line that leads to a productive and worthwhile career.