Ms. Gioia

Human Resources, Recruitment & Training

Recruitment Lessons from My Favorite Hotels in the World

By Joyce Gioia, CEO, Employer of Choice, Inc

General Managers worldwide face different challenges in recruitment. How they handle those challenges to provide the highest levels of service is a reflection of their leadership. And their strategies and tactics provide great insights for their peers.

Visit hotel schools

For a long time I have recommended to clients of all kinds that they go into the schools. Recently, I was pleased to discover that one of our favorite GMs, Fintan Odoherty from the Windsor Plaza Hotel in Saigon (now Ho Chi Min City), does just that.

Odoherty personally visits the 10 to 12 hotel schools in his city and "lectures" to interested students. His last topic was "the importance of communication in hotels". His presentation was preceded by his Human Resources Director delivering a talk on their property, and he finished the program with a look at "a typical day in the life of a Hotel Manager".

"The presentation generated so much interest that I had to bring the question and answer session to a halt after one and a half hours!", said Odoherty. These sessions and others conducted by his managers are so successful that they have quite a few students start with them part time, while they are still in college.

Advertise internally first

You would think that this "looking within first" would be a normal practice of all hotel properties, but in fact, it is not. One of the worst experiences I ever had was visiting a hotel chain that actually said, "It is against our culture to train people". What a disincentive to your staff to excel!

That's why I was pleased to learn that Sajid Khan, GM of the Golden Tulip, the only five-star hotel in Lagos, Nigeria, normally circulates an "an internal advert" first to ensure that deserving staff within the organization do get an opportunity to apply for the vacant position. When you hire from within, you encourage your current staff who are interested in career advancement to work harder.

It is also a good idea to engage in Strategic Workforce Planning, so that you know who needs to be "trained up" to take the next advancement. Your plan should include succession preparation.

"No-surprises recruiting and onboarding"

Paul Hutton, General Manager Hilton Sydney (one of the largest properties in the Hilton chain), has earned a long list of awards and honors. That's why we were not surprised to hear about his very thorough onboarding program. Hutton understands the value of really connecting with new hires.

Hutton uses two levels in his onboarding process. First, the senior executives interview the candidates; then the team members provide their "welcome and orientation into the organization".

"At the interview stage, we want candidates to know how the company is performing given the challenges we face, our expectations of them and their roles in our organization. At that time, we also share with them targets and incentives―if incentives are part of their total compensation packages," said Hutton

Moreover, there is no 'sugar-coating' of an offer to get candidates to sign; they want all of their candidates to make informed decisions for themselves What they see and hear at the interview must be consistent with what they find on the job in their first few months.

Hutton recognizes the importance of "welcome day", especially for junior team members; "it is the make or break start in their life with the enterprise". The Hilton Sydney goes way past what most companies do―just giving out a manual and the list of rules and do's and don'ts; this property hands out the company's visions, goals and values while, listing the three most important things the senior management would like the 'newbie' to help them achieve this year. Everyone carries a wallet-size laminated card of their core values. The team takes pride in being able to recite their five core simple values at Hilton.

At welcome day, they all go to lunch together in the hotel restaurant, not the staff canteen. The group includes the newly welcomed and three to four senior managers. They talk at length about their dreams, their career journeys, and how they got to where they are today. This shared meal is inspirational for the new people, who are often in a state of shock about joining a big hotel with 600+ staff. During this lunch, senior managers also make it clear that they really want input and ideas from the 'front-line'.

Using this extensive onboarding process, the Hilton Sydney is able to recruit "willing team members, who are committed to delighting our guests five minutes after they 'clock' into work for the first time―and every time", add Hutton.

Sometime next year Hutton will publish his first book, Jack of All Trades, Master of None. In it, Hutton chronicles his life and times, including lessons learned and fascinating insights into the leadership style of one of the most successful GMs in the world. I personally can't wait to see it.

Hire the right people for your culture

With all of these properties off-shore, I wanted to include at least one in the United States. Though I have never stayed at the Houstonian Hotel in Houston, Texas, it was recently named one of the top employers in town. With 756 full- and part- time people, the tenure among their staff is most impressive. Over 50 percent of the staff has been there for more than five years and 25 percent has been there for ten years or more. With that kind of success, we can all learn a lot from this property.

"First and foremost, to garner a sense of community you have to be one. It starts with selecting team members who share our company values. It provides a common language and expectations of how we will treat one another," said Jim Mills, hotel general manager.

When I asked Mills how they assessed whether candidates shared their values, he said they "do a lot of team interviewing." For senior positions, they may conduct as many as 12 to 14 interviews. "Skills are not the most important thing," he added. They recruit for attitude and values, because otherwise there will not be a good cultural fit. The Houstonian is all about creating a culture of high trust and high integrity by hiring people with character and competence.

Hoteliers are not the only people who should hire for cultural fit. One of the worst hiring mistakes I ever made was to hire someone with a big-company-culture mentality for our small business. We learned a lot from that experience. Thereafter, we really paid attention to the size of the companies people had worked for.

Talk about your company's plans for development

Odoherty also has a couple of other smart conversations with prospective employees. "We also talk a lot about the company’s future development, so that people see they can make a real career here for themselves and hopefully recommend us to their friends as well. It's always difficult to quantify how many people we get from that source, but it does appear to be significant," he added.

Talk about the perks you offer

Odoherty's property, the Windsor Plaza, also offers free English language classes. They have employed a few English language teachers and graded all current team members according to ability. These English classes are a good selling point to potential applicants; however they now benefit even more from classes at their current levels.

While a command of English is prized by GMs in some countries; in other countries, including the United States, knowing how to speak Spanish or French may also come in very handy.

Invite students and teachers to visit your property Odoherty and his managers offer about two site visits per month for local schools and colleges; all managers pitch in and come to meet the young people. Recently, the property picked up 15 new trainees from one of these visits.

Most of these signature practices will cost you nothing to implement and will have very positive effects on your recruiting process. What are you waiting for?

Joyce Gioia is a workforce futurist concentrating on relationship aspects of the future. This arena includes workforce and workplace trends, as well as consumer, education, and business-to-business trends. Ms. Gioia is also CEO of Employer of Choice, Inc, a distinction earned only by companies whose leadership, culture, and best practices attract, optimize, and hold top talent. Employers of Choice® enjoy "a higher level of performance, greater workforce stability, and the level of continuity that assures preservation of the knowledge base, customer loyalty, employee satisfaction, and stronger profits". Ms. Gioia can be contacted at 336-210-3548 or joyce@hermangroup.com Extended Bio...

HotelExecutive.com retains the copyright to the articles published in the Hotel Business Review. Articles cannot be republished without prior written consent by HotelExecutive.com.