A Hotel HR Guide: How to Motivate Employees

HR Guide: How to Motivate Employees

By Nathan Gawlik
Nathan Gawlik's experience includes being a General Manager of a Hampton Inn and other front line roles such as a Banquet Captain, Front Desk Agent, Housekeeper, Catering Event Manager, and Director of Sales.

Many people think that the functions of a human resource manager are purely administrative. While administration is a significant part of nearly all managerial roles, there are lesser known soft skills that should be considered as well. Creating company cultures and conducting engagement initiatives can be a worthwhile practice.

More recently, Human Resources has come to be known by several other names such as Talent Manager, Human Capital Manager, Personnel Manager, Partner Resources, People Operations, and Employee Experience Coordinator.

While all of these roles perform administrative tasks synonymous with managing and organizing personnel and their needs, some also take on the role of Internal Event Coordinator and create initiatives to keep employees engaged. After all, Google's Human Resource mantra is, "Find them, grow them, keep them."

This highlights the need to keep staff engaged and motivated. Younger generations are constantly looking for a better position, one that aligns more closely with their preferences and needs. Gone are the days that an employee would stay at a company for forty years and then retire.

If you are seeking to employ general labor for your boutique hotel or bed and breakfast, this typically comes in the form of younger, low-skill employees. While their hourly wage might be less than someone with higher education, it can't be overstated how important engagement and developing great work experience can be for all staff members.

Motivation Mental Errors

Perhaps you have preconceived notions about motivation. You might be asking yourself, "Hold on. I already pay the employees and offer them additional benefits, but I still need to motivate them?"

Let's unpack some of those mental errors.

How do you define motivation? Is it about energy and what each employee brings to the workplace? Likely, but that's not the whole story.

A big part of motivation is connection between people that work well together. Someone might be able to do the job, but if they bring with them a lot of baggage, they will likely have tendencies that are counterproductive and can negatively impact whole workgroups or departments.

According to Kerry Goyette, Founder and President of Aperio Consulting Group, if we aren't considerate of how we engineer our teams, we can really set the project up for failure. Somewhat counterintuitively, research tells us that if we place a low performer with a group of high performers - instead of lifting the low performer up, the whole group tends to be dragged down.

Kerry goes on to say that she believes employees are already motivated; it's the employer's job to unleash that motivation. You can see her Ted Talk - Stop Trying to Motivate Your Employees here

Motivation isn't a one size fits all

Not at all. You will need to use several different motivational tools in your tool bag to meet the needs of various employees. It's truly a challenge to be an HR manager and meet people where they are. You will need to adapt your management style for the individual you're interacting with.

Plant Seeds and See Who Waters Them

Did you know that most of us stop trying to be better at our job after just a few months? It's true.

One of the main reasons is the level of the challenge itself. Either the job is boring and too routine with little likelihood for advancement or conversely, if something is too hard we just give up and quit.

It's impossible to know just how much one person can handle over another. Don't force your employees into boxes. Of course we try to hire for a role but if there is something extra we were really hoping this new associate would excel at, present it to them, but don't make it a condition of their employment.

Some people just want to clock in and clock out. You need those people. Others want to excel and constantly reach for the next big challenge. The only way you will know is to plant a seed and see who waters it. You could be surprised at who steps up to take on an exciting new initiative.

I developed what I called the Achieve Program for my front desk staff. If the employee wanted to participate in the program they had to complete an additional 40 hours of training across different departments. Employees were eligible for this program after being employed 60 days and upon completion, they would be given a fifty-cent raise.

Furthermore, employees that had completed the Achieve Program were highlighted if an elevated role became available. This was a win-win for everyone. The employee was better able to serve our guests because of their broader knowledge of the property and in turn they were given a raise and positioned themselves for advancement in the future.

So What is Motivation?

Kerry Goyette says, simply put motivation is our drive to seek pleasure and avoid pain. It's the carrot and the stick.

On the pleasure side is ambition, accountability, compensation.

On the pain side is the innate desire to protect and preserve. People are highly motivated to protect and preserve what they have. Often the thing they wish to preserve is their life outside of work. Don't forget that work is a means to an end for most people as individuals trade their time for the utility that income provides. James Bird Guess suggests maybe 50 percent of employees are like this. These are the Paycheck Employees.

Incentive programs are for the employee - not the property.

70 percent of employees are disengaged. How do you motivate them? Consider how to take each of your individual staff and turn the means into the end? The dynamic and the employee attitudes change when people get a sense of belonging from their employer. They receive social currency they might not receive elsewhere. Fulfillment and gratification are the ultimate carrots to positively motivate and encourage productivity.

Save with Engagement and Motivation

Serving in an Human Resources role helps you determine how to deploy human capital. Determining if a candidate has the needed skills to do a job is the most common metric used to assess them, but there are other beneficial skills that are often overlooked. It's important to create an environment where staff are going to want to work so you can keep them coming back.

There is good reason to hold on to staff members too. Training is expensive. According to a 2018 Training Industry Report, training costs the average company well over a thousand dollars per employee on average with most staff members not proficient in their role for 2-3 months.

This is just for new staff members, as many employers provide some form of ongoing training throughout the year with their current staff. These labor costs only increase if your property has a high level of seasonality.

The labor associated with someone developing the training, plus administering that to a new employee typically means that the trainer will be less efficient at their regular job because of that training session - all of which has a very real cost.

Plus, studies have shown that staff engagement has a great return on investment and can alleviate burnout. A study conducted by O.C. Tanner found:

Not feeling appreciated increases odds of burnout by 45%.
Lack of trust in leaders increases odds of burnout by 29%.
Not feeling a sense of purpose at work increases odds of burnout by 22%.
Decreased sense of belonging at works leads to an increased sense of burnout by 56%.
Feeling the company prioritizes the bottom line over people leads to an 18% increased sense of burnout.

Employees that are engaged tend to stay at a company longer, and according to the report, when employees have great everyday experiences they feel more positive about other areas of company culture. Promoting these great everyday experiences can give employees the ability to:

"connect to a purpose, feel a sense of opportunity, find success, feel appreciated, have strong wellbeing, and be positive about leadership. They are also more engaged and more likely to do more great work, be innovative, provide excellent customer service, and be more productive."

Motivation is often the key to success.

Motivational Fit

Hire for motivational fit. Just because someone can do the job, doesn't mean they will do the job. A resume just tells us what they can do - not what they will do. An extrovert can't turn into an introvert and vice versa. Typically you would seek an extrovert to staff your front desk and an introvert to work behind the scenes in housekeeping, for example.

"The greatest gift of any manager is to discern what makes each person tick. Find their motivations and you will have all the tools you need for a successful business."

Be aware of your own bias. Don't always hire based on your gut. Don't always hire the person that is most like you. The best teams are those that are diverse and don't always think like you. If you serve the general public it's good to have a cross-section of people as diverse as your customer base.

A front desk agent's personality type will and should be entirely different then housekeeper personality types. Housekeepers need to have high attention to detail, while front desk agents need to be bubbly, welcoming, warm, and empathetic.

These two personality types might have wildly different motivations. It's good to have an array of options to choose from.

Adam Martinez, General Manager for the Hampton Inn and Suites of Olympia Washington, said his main focus is HR. Becoming a GM within the last year or so, Adam admits that one thing he didn't realize was that HR-related tasks would take up so much of his time.

Prior to taking his position, Adam thought (or perhaps hoped) more of his job would be about "glad handing," having pleasant interactions with guests and making efforts to provide personalized and unique service - a sentiment that likely resonates with many Innkeepers, Bed and Breakfast owners, and Hotel Managers. Instead he said,

The people that you work with are human beings on their own. Human beings come with flaws, they come with baggage, they come with more or less common sense - you don't know. My job is mostly about reading people and making sure I'm picking the right person for the job but later on down the road they need to be able to get along with everyone. You can't have a wizard on a paint brush if he is just going to be a grumpy gills all day - especially in the hospitality industry. You're not just hiring the skills you are also hiring for personality.

The majority of my job is just keeping people together, sane, and focused so they can do the job that I need them to do.

The importance of motivation and engagement cannot be overstated. If you are just starting out in your business and you know you are going to hire staff, take some time to think about your incentive program and dedicate time every day to working with your employees.

This can come in the form of standup meetings each morning but also frequent interactions. Plan to spend at least 20 percent of your time actively managing and working with your staff.

Employee Incentives to Consider for a Small Business

There are two basic types of motivation. According to Indeed, these can be defined as:

Intrinsic motivation: Intrinsic motivation is the internal drive to complete a task.
External motivation: External motivation is the force of an outside element to complete a task.

Now, let's focus on external motivators since that is really the only one you can influence to any measurable degree.

Consider what your current incentive plan offers.

When was the last time it was updated? Is it even still relevant to your current staff? Meet people where they are. Incentive programs are for the employee not the property. They should change as your staff changes.
Have you considered conducting an employee survey? Have you considered asking the employees how they like to receive praise? Similar to the above, many people like to be recognized in a big group of their peers, but not all. Congratulating someone in front of co-workers can be a disincentive - make sure it's a true motivator for that individual.
Have you looked at allowing staff to provide you feedback and insights? Have you considered a 360 evaluation or a suggestion box for anonymous feedback? I used to tell my staff that I wasn't going to force them to live in a house they didn't help build. Communication is a two way street. Ensure you have provided channels for them to provide feedback.

Below are some examples that can help motivate your staff but I'm sure brainstorming with your staff will result in many more options that work for your specific property.

Brainstorming Inceptive options:

Free breakfast
Complimentary rooms for themselves or family
Department or property meetings so all staff are in the know.
Bonuses or tips
Gift cards to local coffee shops, restaurants, grocery stores, & gas stations
Candy or cookies
Provide an award certificate like employee of the month
1 hour lunch opposed to 30 minutes
one week of picking your schedule
Leaving early one day
Upsell incentive for associate. 5-10% bonus for upsell
If cleaning Minutes Per Room goals are met for the week, the employee gets to select an incentive
Have an employee incentive wheel employees get to spin.

We used to provide a ‘Get to Know You' Survey with the employee's first paycheck. I would ask them their favorite candy, among other things. When the employee performed well I would give it to them.

More than all these things, caring is often the best way to motivate staff members. Regular interactions and what I like to call ‘temperature checks' with associates goes a long way. Stop to help them make a bed, or jump in when things get really hectic to help out. Keep up with things going on in their personal lives and show empathy for their circumstances while being a guide - not a judge.

Whether you realize it or not, many people may look up to you just from an organizational standpoint. They expect you have the answer and likely value your advice. Not only is this often extremely gratifying from a social perspective but it also saves your bottom line. This type of investment is free.

Conclusion

I've asked you to challenge your assumptions about motivation. Only by doing so can you learn to serve your team better. Armed with this knowledge about human behavior you can work collaboratively with your team to keep them engaged and motivated at work. No incentive program is a one size fits all so providing channels for which team members provide feedback is paramount. Giving these tools to your staff will ensure they are successful and when they win, you win.

Resources

TED Talk | Stop Trying to Motivate Your Employees by Kerry Goyette

Linkedin | 4 Types of Employees Every Leader Must Know

OC Tanner | 5 things you might have missed about workplace culture

Google | Careers

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