Navigating high turnover in hotels: Retention strategies

Recruiting for hotels doesn't need to be a hit-and-miss dating game, not when there's an easy way of getting to know people before you call them up for a job interview.

Glancing through piles of resumes to decide who makes the first cut can seem a lot like flicking through dating apps and deciding whether to swipe left or right. You make your judgement in a split-second, based solely on a flattering photo and short bio which could turn out to be a work of fiction.

Job interviews can be a lot like a first date. Often, it's not until you meet face-to-face that you realise you've been led astray.

Or, even worse, you might think at first that you've found "the one" but slowly realise that you've made a huge mistake and end up going through a messy break up.

Meanwhile, you'll never know about the one that got away because you swiped past them without a second thought.

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It's no wonder the dating game is so fraught with peril when you realise that around 80 per cent of people lie in their dating profile, according to study in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

People take the exact same approach to their resume, with 78 per cent of job seekers lying on their CV, according to a 2020 survey by reference-check firm Checkster. The most common lie is claiming proficiency in in-demand career skills which they don't actually have.

Just because someone looks the part doesn't mean they're your perfect match. There are other things that don't show through on a person's dating profile or resume, such as their attitudes and temperament, which end up determining whether they're right for you in the long run.

You might think there's plenty of fish in the sea, just like some hotels take high staff turnover for granted. But it takes its toll.

When your hotel has a revolving door of employees, the impact includes extra hiring, uniform and training costs. Then there's the major productivity and morale hit that comes with a constant sea of new faces.

After a while, the strain of working short-staff and constantly training newcomers can drive away your best employees, leaving you even worse off than before.

If you continue to strike out in the hiring game, the answer is two-fold. Firstly, you need to do a better job of assessing potential suitors before arranging to meet. Secondly, you need to consider whether your own profile is actually attracting the wrong people.

Thankfully, Expr3ss! can help with both of these challenges to help you find and retain great hotel employees.

Using short surveys, Expr3ss! predict hiring quickly and cost-effectively pinpoints applicants with the right skills, attitudes, temperament and cultural fit.

These surveys typically only take around six minutes to complete. They can include deal-breaker questions to ensure applicants have all the necessary qualifications before they're recommended for an interview.

The benefit of this approach is that it lets applicants show you who they really are, rather than tell you who they claim to be. This helps the right people stand out, even when it feels like you're looking for a needle in a haystack.

At the same time, you can also be more upfront in your job advertisements, in order to better manage expectations and encourage the right kind of people to apply.

For example, if your job ad simply says "cleaner wanted", you shouldn't be surprised if many of your seemingly great applicants don't pan out.

For starters, you need to make it clear whether you're looking for people to clean hotel rooms during the day or clean office buildings after hours. Straight away that could be a deal-breaker depending on someone's family situation and other factors.

Then there's whether they'll be working in a team or on their own, and whether they'll need to move around. The more they know upfront about what to expect, the higher quality of applicants you'll get. If someone knows the job is not right for them, they won't waste their time or yours.

You can also use Expr3ss! to look at your existing workforce, to determine the common attitudes and temperament of great long-term employees who work well with your team. 

This lets you create customised benchmarks for each role, that you can apply against your list of applicants. This way, you can quickly prioritise a long list of applicants to see who is worth calling up for an interview.

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Hiring people who are a great cultural fit for your team, and are keen to stick around, really helps reduce hotel employee turnover and minimise business disruption.

Long-time Expr3ss! customer LUXXE Outsourced Hotel Services managed to get its time-to-hire down to an amazing 3.8 days, but without actually rushing into anything.

One of the keys to tackling high employee turnover in the hotel business is hiring the right people in the first place. Rather than take a chance and hope for the best, it's better to know upfront whether or not they're likely to be your perfect match.