Today’s innovative solutions let hoteliers adopt a modern labor management model that easily adjusts to market changes.
Lately, we have heard a lot about labor challenges. However, in the ever-changing landscape of the hospitality industry, the challenges aren't what they used to be. We’ve traded the issue of labor shortages for new forces like complex labor sourcing and increasing wages. Today’s high-salary, fewer-candidate market calls for a reevaluation of how hotels approach labor management, especially in a time where maximizing efficiency is critical to success.
As hoteliers begin to reshape their business models to bounce back from the unprecedented developments of the past few years, traditional labor management approaches are not evolving alongside them; in fact, they might be holding them back. Because these models are incompatible with the current landscape, they’ve led to inefficiencies in scheduling, forecasting, compensation and operations.
However, there is an opportunity to revolutionize labor management amidst these challenges and move forward in a dynamic, and often challenging, environment.
Data-driven tools, like Actabl, are programmed to optimize profitability and operational efficiency, helping hoteliers retain staff and enhance the overall guest experience. By leveraging these resources, hoteliers can adopt a modern labor management model that easily adjusts to market changes.
New era of labor management
Hospitality is a business that is focused on people; the guests we serve and the people who embody our service-first mindset. Hoteliers must invest in their teams to develop a streamlined labor management model and enhance productivity. The industry is losing experienced hospitality workers and replacing them with junior staff.
Labor is the single largest cost for every hotel, and optimizing labor is not optional; it's required to sell rooms and be profitable. Retaining skilled, experienced staff and compensating them appropriately can greatly impact business; investing in the right tools lays the foundation for achieving those goals.
Effective labor management is a bit more nuanced in the markets we’re seeing today, but if the whole enterprise utilizes simple yet efficient tools, these models can work to increase retention. Retaining staff has an obvious return on your P&L by reducing overall training costs and preventing productivity lapses due to turnover. Using tools like Actabl can help hoteliers gain more visibility and control over their operations, further identifying issues within the business and providing the insight to make necessary changes.
Data-driven tools are programmed to optimize profitability and operational efficiency, helping hoteliers retain staff and enhance the overall guest experience. By leveraging these resources, hoteliers can adopt a modern labor management model that easily adjusts to market changes.
For example, perhaps your team has been hyper-focused on reducing overtime and deploying contract labor. What if that’s the wrong strategy? Is it possible that by eliminating overtime, you’re missing an opportunity to invest more in employees who care about growing their careers in our industry? Investing in your engaged employees means you’re investing in the future leadership of your business.
The only way to see the full picture and make these kinds of decisions is by having a full understanding of your data - data from the portfolio to the region, to the property and to the employee. To do this, you have to have all of your data in one place. Centralizing your tech stack around a BI tool with a robust integration ecosystem, like ProfitSword, allows you to normalize your data at scale, identify trends and make data-driven decisions, then take action on that to create efficient, effective strategies build specifically to maximize current opportunities.
Today’s high-salary, fewer-candidate market calls for a reevaluation of how hotels approach labor management.”
Lindsey Goedeker
GPS for hoteliers
At Actabl, we consider ourselves an extension of your business. Our tools and teams facilitate continuous improvement through data-driven insights and operational enhancements that assist in maximizing rooms sold, optimizing team member schedules, managing overtime, and deploying contractor labor appropriately. It serves as a real-time GPS for hoteliers, guiding them through labor roadblocks and accelerating them toward utmost profitability in a dynamic and unpredictable environment.
Actabl empowers smart labor management, enabling hotels to minimize costs while ensuring optimal staffing levels. In addition to ProfitSword, Actabl solutions like Alice and Transcendent provide functionalities for optimizing day-to-day operations. By improving operational workflow, reducing redundancies, and ensuring that the staff is well-aligned with the hotel's goals, Actabl helps enhance overall productivity, service quality, and labor management.
In today’s complex and complicated hospitality landscape, using a comprehensive toolkit that can help with everything from automating shift swapping to identifying productivity gaps and market wage rates, enables holistic labor optimization, reinventing how hoteliers approach labor and best practices. We can’t change the macro landscape - but we can invest in the right tools needed to propel us forward.
Lindsey Goedeker is senior vice president, sales, at Actabl.
The views and opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel Investment Today or Northstar Travel Group and its affiliated companies.