Building Hospitality Talent: Recommendations from Industry Leaders

Transcription

1 Building Hospitality Talent: Recommendations from Industry Leaders

2 About American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute Established in 1953 as a nonprofit educational foundation of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, the Educational Institute s mission is to continue being the preferred provider to the lodging industry, hospitality schools, and related hospitality industries by developing and providing quality resources to train, educate, and certify hospitality professionals worldwide. Please visit About is constantly innovating to help students balance education and life in a rapidly changing world. Flexible schedules, challenging courses and interactive learning can help students pursue personal and career aspirations without putting their lives on hold. serves a diverse student population, offering associate, bachelor s, master s and doctoral degree programs from campuses and learning centers across the U.S. as well as online throughout the world. For more information, visit About the Industry Strategy Group at Contents Letter from the Roundtable Hosts 1 Introduction: Hospitality Workforce Challenges 2 Roundtable Response: Collaborative Solutions 2 Current Education and Training Options 2 10 Keys to a Stronger Workforce 3 Recommendations 3 Next Steps 7 Roundtable Participants 8 Acknowledgments 9 Learn more 9 The Industry Strategy Group at offers research and advisory services to help industries meet national and global workforce development needs. Collaborating with national and international industry associations, helps industry leaders and employers to identify what skills and competencies today s workers need, and how best to help working learners build these skills while pursuing an industry-endorsed certification or an accredited college degree. regularly adapts its certification and degree programs to align with industry needs, and helps employers increase workforce competitiveness in multiple economic sectors. Contact IndustryStrategy@phoenix.edu.

3 Letter from the Roundtable Hosts This is a time of tremendous growth and change for the hospitality industry. As economic, technological, and societal factors require workers to possess an increasingly complex skill set, industry leaders struggle to develop and retain a qualified workforce. Talent development and retention are critical to business success. However, defining the education and training needs of today s workers can be a challenge. To help promote collaborative solutions, joined the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute to host a Talent Development Roundtable in December This inaugural roundtable identified key components of building a capable workforce, and explored how industry and higher education leaders can work together to create a pipeline of career-minded hospitality professionals. The recommendations in this report are starting points. It is our goal to continue working together to promote best practices for talent development that will benefit employees, companies, and the industry as a whole. George Glazer Senior Vice President Dr. Tim Welsh Senior Vice President, Industry Strategy Group 1

4 Building Hospitality Talent: Recommendations from Industry Leaders Introduction: Hospitality Workforce Challenges After several years of a recessionary economy, the hospitality industry is now on an upswing. According to U.S. government projections, the leisure and hospitality sector is expected to add 2.1 million to 3.3 million jobs by Yet despite promising career opportunities, recruiting and retaining qualified employees remains a challenge. Hospitality leaders recognize that training and education are essential to building a high-caliber talent pool, yet only 67% of hospitality businesses offer professional development opportunities. 2 With an average of 45% of operating expenses spent on labor costs, and employee turnover as high as 31%, 3 managers have a strong need to improve worker satisfaction and pathways for career growth. In addition to staffing challenges, the hotel industry faces environmental pressures that put added demands on its workforce. Online travel services and social media have fundamentally changed the way hospitality services are marketed, perceived, and sold. Self-service booking and consumer-review sites have put more functions in the hands of guests and created a need for hospitality managers and staff to assume new service roles and meet rising demands for quality. Roundtable Response: Collaborative Solutions To address the need for a skilled, sustainable workforce with the competencies to meet the industry s challenges, the and convened a roundtable to identify best practices for talent development. With executives from a cross-section of mid-level hospitality companies, and leaders from academic affairs, operations, and career services, the roundtable discussion modeled a 1 National Travel & Tourism Strategy. Task Force on Travel & Competitiveness Cooper, Caroline. How to Maintain a Happy and Motivated Team. ehotelier.com, 10/18/10. 3 Deloitte. Hospitality 2015: Game changers or spectators? collaborative approach to workforce advancement. This report presents key findings and recommendations for continued industry-education collaboration to build a hospitality workforce for the future. Current Education and Training Options Many colleges and universities offer hospitality degree programs for those aspiring to management positions within the industry. Certain high school programs introduce students to the industry, and workforce development programs prepare workers for entry-level positions. A number of professional associations, including Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI), Hospitality Financial & Technology Professionals (HFTP), and the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute (EI) administer professional The dynamic within our industry has changed dramatically. The voice of the guest wasn t a key consideration five years ago. Now through social media, customers can comment on their hospitality experiences to millions of people in seconds. Hospitality professionals must learn to manage their brand s image and reputation in real time. Chris Longstreet, Director of Learning Experiences, Choice University and Choice Hotels International certifications for various hospitality positions. For example, EI offers 22 different designations, providing workers with a professional development pathway that ranges from entry-level skills all the way up to a general manager certification, the Certified Hotel Administrator (CHA). Individuals can also pursue hospitality education through distance learning courses or through employer-provided training. 2

5 10 Keys to a Stronger Workforce To pinpoint additional education and training needs, hospitality leaders from diverse companies and brands identified 10 components of workforce development that could benefit the entire industry: 1. Educational standards and industry-recognized credentials 2. Development of brand-neutral skills in addition to brand-specific competencies 3. Greater educational emphasis on soft skills such as leadership, collaboration, and creative problem-solving 4. Training that is directly relevant to employees roles and career aspirations 5. More user-friendly educational formats to fit employees diverse learning styles and preferences 6. Internships offering hands-on work experience 7. Assessment of training outcomes to measure organizational benefits in relation to costs 8. Recruitment strategies to make hospitality careers more attractive to potential candidates 9. Clearer pathways from educational programs to career entry and advancement 10. Continuous professional development to help employees keep pace with changing conditions in the company and in the industry as a whole. The need for continuing education is huge, because our staff members come from various walks of life and professional backgrounds. While they re learning general leadership and management skills, they also need to understand hospitality-specific skills. Michael Morton, Vice President, Member Services, Best Western International Recommendations Roundtable participants identified the following specific steps to improve workforce development and provide a continuous pipeline of qualified employees. Create hospitality skills credentialing guidelines Although leaders agree that a set of core skills and competencies are common to a wide range of positions in the hospitality field, many large brands have their own training organizations with diverse approaches to talent development. The industry as a whole could benefit from guidelines for core curriculum that builds knowledge and skills common to all hospitality businesses. To ensure alignment with the needs of employers across market segments, skills credentialing programs must be industry-endorsed and nationally scalable. 3

6 Across brands, we recognize that there are fundamental skill requirements common to a front-desk role or a room attendant position, regardless of the employer. We need to develop staff members with those core skills. George Glazer, Senior Vice President, hospitality administrators must develop specific functional skills to manage competition, demand, customer segmentation, pricing, channels, group selling, basic inventory, and forecasting. In addition, training programs should be flexible enough to include customizable components to fit brand-specific cultures, systems, and people. Deliver modular, customizable education Teach core skills Today s hospitality professionals must have a firm foundation in core skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and customer service. Foundational skills training must develop these competencies irrespective of differences among job types, companies, and brands. At the management level, hospitality professionals must have a broad familiarity with multiple core areas of operations management. Roundtable participants identified the following management competencies as fundamental: Financial management Technology management Digital marketing management Reputation management Human resources management A one-size-fits-all approach to education does not work. The variety of needs, service levels, guest experiences, markets, and proprietary brand policies and procedures requires a more modular approach to education. A credentialing model based on demonstrated mastery of predefined competencies or skills rather than credit or classroom hours could prove more effective and economical than current training models. We have to recognize the emergence of a branded guest experience. Everything we do reflects our specific brand. To create the great hotels that guests love, we need to develop our staff members more holistically the way they think, the way they feel, their knowledge and skills. Gary Whitney, Vice President, Learning InterContinental Hotels Group Global operations management Additional areas for foundational training include cross-cultural communications, social media, and sustainability. Develop specialized workforce competencies To complement a hospitality-focused core curriculum, specialized skill development is necessary to prepare workers for certain types of positions. For example, within the managerial core competency of revenue management, Creating self-contained educational modules can enable training developers to tailor and update the content more easily and frequently to keep pace with changing needs and conditions. In addition, shorter, 5- to 10-minute training sessions have proven practical and effective, according to some roundtable participants. These coffee-break -length training sessions are often well suited to the work environment and learning styles of hospitality employees. 4

7 Offer stackable certifications Conduct diagnostic and needs assessments One option to provide scalable, yet customizable education is to offer stackable certificates for specific, focused skill sets. Stackable certifications can be readily mixed and matched, customized, and updated. Because their format is more condensed than that of comprehensive training or degree programs, these modular certifications can be more cost-effective in developing targeted skills. Many hospitality leaders expressed a need for better tools to assess education and job performance based on established industry guidelines. Students and employees should be tested against these guidelines to identify gaps in skills and knowledge. Such information can help companies better tailor training and development to address deficiencies and optimize strengths. We are demonstrating a best practice that is new in the industry: collaborating to define common educational fundamentals, then developing programs that are industry-recognized and nationally portable. Ideally, these programs will be interactive, delivered in shorter increments, and presented in formats that incentivize employees to learn. Dena Fradette, Senior Director, Retail and Hospitality, Industry Strategy Group, Link education to business outcomes Roundtable participants proposed an educational pilot program that includes post-education testing or assessment that would correlate educational activities to organizational performance in areas such as revenue building, quality and service improvement, and employee engagement. By linking learning to operational outcomes, businesses could quantify the value of education for employers and employees. The proposed pilot program could also be used to highlight education-tocareer pathways within the hospitality industry and improve the attractiveness of the industry to job seekers. Implement internships Participants suggested on-site internships to familiarize incoming employees, and especially new college graduates, with the industry before they start their careers. Such programs can help to validate hospitality as an appropriate career choice, 5

8 can assist in filling entry-level labor and knowledge gaps, and can provide practical experience essential for future success. Improve perceptions of hospitality careers To recruit new talent to the hospitality industry, roundtable participants recommended creating a marketing campaign that promotes hospitality careers as attractive and rewarding. This type of marketing could highlight the fact that there is a clear path from entry-level positions to senior management Hospitality leaders need to assess guest satisfaction and staff performance. We need organizational interventions with pre- and post-testing of behavior change. And we should focus on teaching competencies that enhance revenue, service, and quality. Gary Whitney, Vice President, Learning InterContinental Hotels Group jobs paying up to $100,000 per year. The availability of training and professional development programs at 67% of hospitality businesses is another potentially attractive factor. Increase industry-wide collaboration Employers, associations, and educators should meet regularly for inclusive discussions and share best practices for talent development. Individual operators, corporate chains, membership organizations, and other industry entities should be invited to represent diverse perspectives from the industry. Participants agreed that pooling industry expertise and resources to deliver educational tools and programs could yield multiple benefits, including: More clearly defined and rewarding career paths for employees Improved customer service and guest experience Lower education costs through elimination of redundant and unnecessary training Increased competitiveness and profitability industry-wide. 6

9 Next Steps The first of its kind, the roundtable hosted by the American Hospitality & Lodging Educational Institute and University of Phoenix opened doors to continued collaboration and joint solutions by a wider cross-section of hotel and lodging organizations, associations, and education professionals. Knowledge sharing among hospitality leaders and higher education partners helps us strengthen our talent pool, improve service delivery, and enhance brand image for all of our brands, across the entire industry. Michael Morton, Vice President, Member Services, Best Western International Participants expressed their commitment to ongoing knowledge exchange and sharing of best practices for hospitality talent development. Such collaboration can yield benefits for the entire industry by: Pinpointing evolving workforce development needs. As environmental, technological, and economic factors change consumers demands for hospitality services and perceptions of brand quality, hospitality leaders and educators must continually re-evaluate the industry s talent development needs. An industry-education partnership can help to ensure a balanced assessment of these needs and a coordinated approach to meeting them. Today s workforce development challenges cannot be solved by individual stakeholders in isolation. Rather, the imperative to meet continually evolving demands for high-caliber talent requires an orchestrated effort by industry associations and employers in collaboration with higher education leaders. Tim Welsh, Senior Vice President, Industry Strategy Group, Identifying strategies to align education and training to industry-defined competencies. Workforce education and training require a considerable investment of employer and employee resources. To maximize the return on this investment, industry leaders must ensure that educational programs and outcomes are aligned with employers needs. An industry-education partnership can facilitate continuous alignment of skills development with industry-relevant competencies. Connecting qualified candidates to hospitality careers. By partnering with educational institutions to create career pathways for students and graduates, the hospitality industry can help ensure a sustainable pipeline of well-qualified individuals to fill hospitality jobs and pursue rewarding careers for the future. 7

10 Roundtable Participants 8 Micah Arnold Senior Director, University Strategy Mike Mayor Senior Vice President, Education to Careers Bill Berry Dean, School of Business Michael Morton Vice President, Member Services Best Western International Joe D Amico President Apollo Group, Inc. Michael E. Nalley Senior Manager, Education & Training Best Western International Dena Fradette Senior Director, Retail and Hospitality, Industry Strategy Group Cheryl Ross Director, Americas HR & Corporate Learning InterContinental Hotels Group George Glazer Senior Vice President Douglas Viehland Executive Director Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs Christopher Jack Vice President of Operations and Certification Tim Welsh (moderator) Senior Vice President, Industry Strategy Group Chris Longstreet Director of Learning Experiences Choice University and Choice Hotels International Gary Whitney Vice President, Learning InterContinental Hotels Group

11 Contributors not in attendance Fran Brasseux Executive Vice President Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International Robert A. Gilbert President and CEO Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International Louis Robbins Managing Director Nickelodeon Suites Resort Acknowledgments The following individuals also deserve recognition for their contributions to the success of the roundtable event and report: Monique Donahue Vice President, Research & Development Elizabeth Johnson Senior Public Relations & Marketing Manager Brenda Moons Senior Vice President, Sales Lisa Fortunato Executive Administrator Office of the Chief Business Operating Officer Learn More For more information about industry roundtables, this report, or other workforce development initiatives, contact

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