Effective training helps retain employees, build morale

Hotel & Motel Management, March 15, 2004 by Tony Dela Cruz

NATIONAL REPORT--Like virtually all operational aspects of a hotel, training can be influenced by the economy. The easy assumption to make is that the training department generates costs, not revenues, and therefore should be among the first line items reduced when a hotel's operating budget faces reductions.

Training professionals say this is a mistake, and stress training--in good times or bad--is a necessary investment in the ongoing health of a hotel.

What's more likely to change as the economy goes from good to bad and back again is the manner in which a hotel staff is trained, they say, as opposed to the number of people hired or retained.

"In our company, our staffing levels hardly fluctuate," said Brenda K. Helps, director of people development for First Hospitality Group, which is based in Des Plaines, Ill. "During shoulder periods, our team members may be given fewer hours, but we have never taken the 'fatten up in good times, trim down in bad times' approach to staffing."

First Hospitality has been able to control costs without significantly reducing labor since 9/11, Helps said.

"After Sept. 11, we felt extremely fortunate that we were able to avoid layoffs," she said, crediting the management company's associates for generating ideas to reduce expenses.

One basic strategy for using training as a budgetary tool is the process of cross-training. Lizz Chambers, director of training and development for Newport Hospitality Group in Newport, Va., said she probably conducts more training when the travel economy cycles downward.

"One of our main efforts is teaching front-office people to become salespeople, encouraging them to capture room reservations and to convert walk-in business," she said. "We drive that home a lot more during soft times."

At The Broadmoor hotel in Colorado Springs, Colo., maintaining the same degree and intensity of training in a post-9/11 economy has never been an issue, said Kate Simons, manager of training and development. Having the best-trained employees is viewed as a strategic advantage.

"From a training standpoint, we have increased our efforts, while many businesses are choosing to drastically reduce the training function or eliminate positions because training is considered a cost center," Simons said.

Keith Kefgen, president of Mineola, N.Y.-based HVS Executive Search, said upper-upscale hotel chains such as Four Seasons or independents like The Broadmoor might have so much invested in their training processes that they're protected from budget reductions. But that's not the case at all hotels.

"My experience has been that when push comes to shove, hotels cut back on dedicated training programs," Kefgen said.

HVS Executive Search placed two training directors during the past two years, and both subsequently were let go, he said.

Employee retention

Employee retention also has proven to be a slippery slope. Helps said keeping sales positions filled has been challenging for several reasons.

"In today's fluid markets, hotels cannot afford to keep a low-producing salesperson on board, and the high-producing sales professionals often get recruited away to other properties or to other industries," she said.

To keep the high-performing salesperson onboard, First Hospitality has had to focus on career development. In addition to the standard annual sales bonus, the company also offers quarterly incentives, and on top of that, various recognition programs throughout the year.

Another change in upper-level recruitment/retention strategies is a new reliance on industry recruitment Web sites instead of outside research firms for leadership positions.

"We have found that these Web sites are more cost effective, have a much wider reach, bring an almost immediate response and provide an excellent quality of candidate," Helps said.

More than half of First Hospitality's open management positions were filled through online recruitment resources this year, Helps said.

At The Broadmoor, employee retention is a by-product of a positive management culture that is capable and willing to put its brightest employees through college, Simons said. Through a tuition-reimbursement program, employees can go from being barely literate in English through most of college without spending any of their money on tuition. The Broadmoor awarded eight scholarships last year ranging from $500 to $2000.

"It helps with employee retention, but we think of it as taking care of our employees first," Simons said.

The turnover of line-level staff remains an ongoing challenge for most hotels. The commonly heard phrase is that a certain percentage of employees will always be ready to bolt for another job that pays a quarter more per hour. Again, the solution often is to make line-level employees feel they are part of a bigger culture.

Newport Hospitality Group's Chambers is a certification instructor with the American Hotel & Lodging Assn.'s Educational Institute, so all of the management company's employees are encouraged to go through the necessary grade training to become certified through EI.