Transforming Talent in Hospitality: Key Insights from Industry Leaders at Phenom Industry Week
The hospitality industry, encompassing restaurants and hotels, is a cornerstone of the global economy, employing millions and driving significant economic impact. The industry is now at a turning point, focusing on great service, guest satisfaction, and efficient operations. Talent development along with innovative practices in onboarding, training, and employee engagement, has never been more crucial.
To address these pivotal issues, we invited two leaders in the hospitality field to share their insights during Restaurants & Hotels Day of Phenom Industry Week: Debbie Wieland, Education Outreach and Foundation Director at Texas Hotel & Lodging Association, and Mandy Wagner, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at Life Time.
Read on for the highlights, or watch the full day right here.
Expanding the Hospitality Industry: Why Education is Critical to Tapping into Early Talent
Debbie Wieland, Education Outreach and Foundation Director at Texas Hotel & Lodging Association, transitioned from the grocery retail industry to hospitality, noting the significant focus on customer service in both fields.
Now, her focus is on addressing one of the hospitality industry's most common challenges: attracting, engaging, and retaining talent.
Biggest Challenges in Frontline and Hourly Hiring in Hospitality
Wieland emphasized a major challenge: the lack of awareness about the variety of roles within the hospitality industry. Students often only recognize front desk and housekeeping positions, overlooking roles in accounting, marketing, HR, sales, catering, event planning, and engineering.
"My main responsibility is to increase awareness of the opportunities and career paths that exist within the hospitality industry among young people," said Wieland, highlighting the need to reach college, high school, middle, and even elementary students.
But a lack of awareness is only one of the hurdles businesses face.
Managing Seasonal Hiring Demands
Wieland addressed seasonal hiring by encouraging young people to take on part-time jobs. This exposure allows them to explore potential career paths. She recommended cross-training existing staff to create an agile workforce ready to handle different roles during peak seasons.
Research indicates that early workforce experiences significantly increase the likelihood of pursuing careers in those industries. Wieland suggested keeping students involved once they join, giving them opportunities in various departments during busy times. This flexibility with student employment is mutually beneficial for both the individual and the company.
Increasing Awareness with Early Talent Groups
To increase awareness, Wieland recommended partnerships with educational institutions in the surrounding areas. Engaging with local universities and high schools can introduce students to hospitality career opportunities, broadening their understanding of the back end of the business.
Suggestions included classroom presentations, property tours, and hotel summer camps for more immersive learning opportunities.
Key Takeaways
Increase awareness of industry roles. Educate young people about the diverse opportunities in hospitality beyond front-desk and housekeeping positions.
Encourage part-time and seasonal work. Allow students to explore potential career paths and gain industry experience.
Implement cross-training programs. Maximize your current workforce by training them for various roles to tackle seasonal peaks.
Partner with educational institutions. Collaborate with local schools and universities to present hospitality careers and offer immersive experiences like tours and camps.
Sustain engagement. Once students join your organization, keep them involved and provide opportunities across different departments.
Tackling Unique Hiring Challenges With Life Time
In a dynamic industry like hospitality, where customer service and member experience are paramount, recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce is a complex challenge. Mandy Wagner, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at Life Time, shared valuable insights into how her team navigates these challenges.
Read on to discover the strategic approaches they employed to maintain a robust and effective workforce, or watch the session on demand below.
Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly Challenges
“We have an incomparable, innovative ecosystem of offerings but we’re most known for that athletic country club destination across 175+ locations,” shared Wagner.
Life Time’s ecosystem demands hiring for hundreds of different positions across their athletic destinations and beyond. Some roles have overlapping skills and experience requirements, while others need unique qualifications and certifications.
For example, hiring an esthetician in the spa department requires unique degrees and experience while the ideal candidate for a front desk position can encompass a wide range of skills from customer service to sales and marketing.
This variety across Life Time locations significantly complicates the recruitment process.
Attracting Across a Wide Spectrum of Job Profiles
High-volume hiring presents a major challenge, with Life Time casting for 28,000 team members annually and managing a 49% turnover rate.
Each athletic club destination has 10-12 departments, presenting distinct recruitment needs, particularly in two areas:
Seasonal Hiring: Life Time hires 8,000 seasonal workers annually to assist with peak seasons in different locations
New Club Openings: Ramping up to hire 100-400 new team members for each new location
Rapid hiring is essential to meeting deadlines and maintaining service levels during peak seasons. And the talent pool itself can be a challenge with brand perception playing a critical role. Attracting candidates in this space is difficult, especially after losing 40% of industry workers during the pandemic.
Creative Resilience at Life Time
When prioritizing some of these goals and strategies to overcome these recruiting challenges, “we had to consider a decentralized recruiting model,” stated Wagner.
Life Time’s team members manage member care while simultaneously recruiting and hiring for specific roles. To streamline this process and increase efficiency, the following strategies have been effective:
Showcasing an Amazing Employer Brand: “Putting our brand awareness and employer brand at the forefront of what we’re doing has worked well for us,” commented Wagner. Their career site and a video-first approach has allowed them to authentically showcase their culture and what a day-in-the-life on the job looks like across different roles. By authentically highlighting what it means to be a team member at Life Time, they’re not only attracting more talent, they’re helping encourage that right-fit talent to apply.
Revamping the Application Process: To increase hiring speed while positively impacting the candidate experience, Life Time customizes processes and leverages automation for innovative solutions throughout the candidate journey. Their conversational chatbot drove a 12% increase in monthly applications alone.
Diversifying Channel Strategy: “Meeting candidates where they’re at is critical,” noted Wagner. Implementing an omnichannel approach expands outreach, broadens the network, and allows teams to access various talent pools to fill critical roles across a wide range of departments. Wagner credits their career site, chatbot, talent marketing campaigns and social media activity, in particular.
Key Takeaways
Test a decentralized recruiting model. Assigning team members dual roles in member care and recruiting enables cross-functional training and agility during peak seasons.
Prioritize employer branding and process efficiency. Emphasizing employer branding and streamlining application processes to attract and convert candidates efficiently is non-negotiable.
Leverage an omnichannel recruitment strategy. Meeting candidates through various channels allows you to tap into diverse talent pools and interact with job seekers wherever they are.
By implementing these strategies, Life Time continues to navigate the challenges of recruiting in the dispersed and dynamic environment of the hospitality industry.
Intelligent Solutions for High-Volume Hiring in Hotels and Restaurants
By pairing the right strategies with the right technology, restaurants and hotels can effectively tackle common challenges on an ongoing basis. At Phenom, we understand the issues that hospitality industries face, which is why we developed a comprehensive suite of solutions.
Here are some of the ways our platform is set up to support hospitality high-volume hiring and retention goals:
Branded chatbot experiences: Using a chatbot that reflects the company's branding, tone, and imagery to guide candidates through the job search and application process. This personalized touch helps engage candidates from the start.
Automated workflows: Automating the hiring workflow to streamline processes like lead capture, profile building, and interview scheduling. This reduces the time and resources needed for resume reviews and interview arrangements, allowing hiring managers to focus on the most qualified candidates. Automation tools also help manage candidate information efficiently, ensuring a smooth transition to the company's ATS and CRM systems.
Referral incentives: Encouraging candidates to refer friends by offering incentives like points, free items, or entry into a prize drawing. This not only helps expand the candidate pool but also turns applicants into brand advocates who promote the company within their networks.
Technology for continuous engagement: An accessible platform allows employees to track and complete ongoing training and certifications, ensuring compliance and continuous skill development.
End-to-end automation: From generating candidate summaries to automating outreach and screening, the platform simplifies the entire hiring process, reducing the need for manual intervention and accelerating the recruitment journey.
Alumni network for rehiring: By creating an alumni network, organizations can stay in touch with former employees, offering job alerts, benefits information, and upskilling opportunities. This network proved effective for MGM, helping them fill 428 new positions post-pandemic from their alumni pool, and highlighting the value of maintaining connections with past employees.
Take a closer look at how the Phenom platform can support your hiring and retention efforts by booking a personalized demo with our team.
Kasey is a content marketing writer, focused on highlighting the importance of positive experiences. She's passionate about SEO strategy, collaboration, and data analytics. In her free time, she enjoys camping, cooking, exercising, and spending time with her loved ones — including her dog, Rocky.
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