Right now, the hospitality talent market is highly competitive. See a great housekeeping candidate? Better move fast before they go to another hotel.
But while the need for speed is real, hasty hiring can cause worse problems than being short-staffed. Higher unemployment costs, lost productivity, and grim guest satisfaction scores, to name just a few.
Unfortunately, when you’re trying to recruit at the speed of light, it’s easy to cut corners and make mistakes. You can become so focused on filling your open housekeeping positions, you forget what’s most important of all: hiring the right people.
Here are three hiring missteps to avoid when housekeepers become harder to find.
Don’t Overlook Culture and Fit
When you’re short-staffed and need to hire quickly, “Can they do the job?” might feel like the only question that needs answering. Yes, bringing on housekeepers who can start strongly can save you time up front, but hiring on skill alone is a double-edged sword. A room attendant with experience doesn’t mean they’re the right person for the long-term. No matter how urgently you need to hire, make sure you ask yourself these questions:
- Is this candidate passionate about service?
- Do they embrace teamwork and helping others?
- Will they happily go the extra mile to make guests happy?
If these answers are “no”, chances are it won’t work out in the long term. Save yourself the headache (and expense) of having to rehire for the position weeks or even days later.
Don’t Put Training on the Backburner
Housekeeping training takes time. No matter how quickly you need new housekeepers to get up to speed, abbreviating your standard training program can cause poor quality, unhappy guests, and increased risk.
Instead of taking shortcuts with training, supercharge it! Use additional resources to make your training even more effective and to keep it on schedule:
- Supplement hands-on training with online learning and video
- Allow proven team members to shadow new hires
- Use a housekeeping staffing partner to help train new hires or cover shifts while training takes place
Don’t Do it All Yourself
As a hotel manager, you have a lot of hats to wear. Between marketing, finance, and guest satisfaction, being a full-time recruiter can feel like mission impossible.
A housekeeping workforce management partner, like Heart of the House, can make your life easier—especially in a tight labor market. Since they’re devoted to recruiting, screening, and training housekeeping talent, they can provide the staff you need quickly. They can even manage your entire housekeeping department for you.
Here are some additional benefits of working with a hospitality staffing partner:
- Flexible on-demand housekeeper availability
- Lower unemployment and worker comp costs
- Fewer hiring headaches
- More time to dedicate to guests and improving satisfaction scores
Although hiring is challenging right now, just remember that there’s no quick fix to hospitality’s talent shortage. The most important thing you can do is stay committed to hiring people who are the right fit for your hotel and your guests. Take good care of them, train them, compensate them, and they will remain loyal year after year. A good workforce partner, like Heart of the House, can ease the burden of finding quality housekeeping staff while helping you reduce costs and improve productivity.
