“The Great Resignation” has become a hot topic of conversation and debate in recent months. This trend, which began in early 2021, has resulted in vast numbers of employee exits in multiple industries, including hospitality.

According to a June 2022 survey by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA), 97% of surveyed hotels reported staff shortages, with 49% saying that they are “severely understaffed”. These businesses are struggling to fill open positions, even though they offer a host of attractive incentives for potential hires, such as increased wages, flexible schedules, and expanded benefits.

So why are so many people quitting hospitality?

And what can these businesses do to stop the bleeding?

The Great Resignation: Hospitality Edition

Many exits in hospitality are the result of mass layoffs that happened during the lockdowns that curtailed traveller and guest numbers in 2020 and 2021. Hospitality employees’ pushback against mandatory vaccinations also led to many resignations in this sector.

The sudden surge in exits can also be traced to the uncertainty associated with the industry. Workers need more stable jobs which the volatile hospitality sector cannot guarantee. In addition, millennial hospitality workers want to work in relevant, meaningful, and high-paying roles in a high-quality work environment where they can work on their personal development. The sector often falls short in all these areas.

These factors explain why the highest turnover in hospitality is among millennials and employees aged 30 to 45, and why 21% of millennial hospitality workers have changed jobs within the last year. These include workers who occupied vital positions such as managers, sales directors, and sales managers.

So what can hospitality businesses do to retain and attract more employees?

3 Ways Hospitality Businesses Can Address The Staff Shortage Challenge

Hospitality workers have many transferable skills and are very customer-focused. Moreover, they are usually good at problem-solving, building relationships with co-workers, and thinking fast on their feet. These qualities make them attractive prospects for other industries. However, hospitality companies can prevent their staff from leaving and even attract new talent. Here’s how.

Promote a healthy work environment

A healthy work environment is one of the best ways to retain hospitality workers. To start with, managers and owners must make it a point to listen to team members and their concerns. They must create a collaborative environment in the workplace and also promote healthy relationships between employees and management where the driving forces are mutual respect and trust.

It’s also vital to create performance management plans with tangible goals for employee growth and development in the organization. Managers must also help their existing employees to level up by creating opportunities to learn new skills which demonstrate that the business cares about its people and is focused on retaining them for the long term.

Explore ways to offload work pressure

Despite the staff shortage, some hospitality businesses such as hotels are continuing to offer many services as “default”. One example is daily housekeeping which not only poses an extra workload on the employees but also increases the costs of cleaning products and equipment.

Considering the needs of the guests, housekeeping can be retained as an opt-in service for an additional fee to cover business costs. The change in approach brings dual benefits, it takes off the additional work pressure from the employees and serves as a new revenue channel for the brand.

Another way to offload work pressure from the staff is to reduce repetitive work with the help of automation. For example, a chatbot can respond to guests’ most frequent questions so humans can deal with more complicated requests. Similarly, self-service kiosks can handle simple tasks such as table reservations or spa bookings and allow your team member to offer more experiential services to the guests.

Support their mental health needs

Many hospitality organizations are trying to combat staff shortages by giving existing employees extended hours. Some people don’t mind this because it nets them a higher paycheck. But in the long run, too much overtime overwhelms employees and even results in burnout.

Hospitality organizations that give extended hours to existing employees – and even those that don’t – just focus on their staff’s mental health and well-being. Managers must look for ways to help their people maintain work/life balance. Leaders must also implement learning and development programs, and explore staff acquisition and retention strategies like financial incentives, flexible schedules, and extra vacation days.

Conclusion

Hospitality businesses are experiencing many adverse consequences of The Great Resignation, including negative reviews, overworked teams, and lower revenues. However, the crisis also offers them the opportunity to reflect on their working conditions, renew their focus on employee wellbeing, and treat employees like humans rather than as numbers. 

Of course, the challenge is not easy to resolve. But by putting more thought and effort into their employee retention and hiring practices, hospitality organisations can address the problem and come out stronger on the other side.