Digital transformation is a prevailing and influential topic in the hospitality industry, shaping the sector's trends.
The pandemic has notably disrupted operations, prompting a rapid adoption of digital tools and an increased demand for mobile-first processes in hotel workplaces.
In light of these prevalent themes, hoteliers should pay attention to key HR trends.
Embrace digital transformation for your business and workforce
- Incorporate digital enablement to rebuild and retain your workforce, as hotels heavily rely on their staff to deliver exceptional customer service.
- Utilize technology to address operational challenges faced by hotels, such as staff scheduling, real-time communication, shift swaps, peak demand management, compliance, payroll accuracy, employee self-service, and data-driven decision-making.
- Leverage secure cloud-based tools to enhance productivity and build an agile and resilient business.
Agility and resilience
Hotels that have implemented digital HR and mobile-first tools facilitating real-time communication have exhibited higher resilience during the pandemic.
Agility and resilience enable hotels to effectively adapt to new regulations, changing rules, and constant disruptions, allowing them to anticipate, react, and pivot as needed.
Digital HR software simplifies various complexities associated with HR processes, including recruitment, onboarding, payroll management, and staff scheduling, while also contributing to resilience and agility.
This is an opportune time for the hospitality industry to leverage digital and mobile HR tools. Although a significant portion of hotel staff may not have a company email, most younger workers own smartphones, highlighting the importance of mobile connectivity through workplace tech as a key HR trend for hoteliers.
Establishing agility, resilience, and proactive use of technology within HR operations can provide a competitive advantage by ensuring operational recovery, ensuring safety, enhancing employee engagement, and delivering exceptional service.
Operational Efficiency
Operational efficiency is a critical objective for businesses, including the hotel sector.
To reduce costs and increase margins, hotels are adopting new ways of working. While staff are essential for delivering exceptional customer service, hotels are seeking innovative approaches to enhance operational efficiency and alleviate employees from inefficient and repetitive tasks.
For instance, housekeeping teams can use digital checklists on mobile devices instead of paper, and staff rotas are accessible 24/7 via mobile devices.
Digitizing HR processes and eliminating paper-based systems can significantly reduce costs, by up to 90%, according to McKinsey.
This digitization enables real-time communication, improves staff engagement, and provides access to real-time data analytics for better planning and decision-making.
By embracing digital solutions, hotels can achieve a 60% reduction in scheduling time, a 43% reduction in agency spend, and a 25% reduction in staff turnover, leading to improved operational efficiencies and enhanced margins.
Connecting a dispersed organization
A challenge faced by hotels is the dispersal of their workforce across the property, resulting in limited personal interaction between HR, operations, and hotel workers who have different shift patterns. To bridge this gap and ensure effective communication, hotels require a unified hub that encompasses information, collaboration, training, rotas, personal information, and communication. Additionally, establishing connectivity also extends to the social aspect. This goal can be achieved through the implementation of digital HR processes, allowing hotels to achieve 100% connectivity across their dispersed workforce.
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Conclusion
Hoteliers have an opportunity to embrace digital transformation to improve performance and create a more agile and resilient business. By digitizing and automating time-consuming, inefficient, and costly manual processes, hotels can enhance their margins and establish better security for critical documents, accessible securely via mobile devices. Automation of workflows and processes allows staff to focus on providing outstanding guest experiences and customer service, thereby increasing revenue per guest and revenue per room. Digitization, automation, and optimization are the prevailing HR trends for hoteliers.
