Ask yourself, Is your team lacking motivation? Does it seem like they’re consistently underperforming and underachieving?
This is a common problem, especially among hotels that haven’t set growth parameters for their staff.
You need to see things from the perspective of your employees. Having walked a mile in their shoes, you’ll begin to see why they may not be cooperating or living up to your standards.
Interested in putting a new system in place to motivate your team? Do these four things.
1. Create Advancement Opportunities
Your entry-level workers may not stay with you for long if they believe they’re in a dead-end job. But if they can see that there’s a career path ahead of them, they’ll be more motivated to work harder and stay longer at your hotel.
Some of your team members may be motivated by the prospect of moving up to management. But others may find it more appealing to make “lateral” moves into positions where they get to do something different. It’s worth keeping an eye on your team to determine if anyone is exhibiting talent in areas you did not anticipate.
2. Set Goals And Targets For Your Team
In The Game of Work, productivity expert Charles A Coonradt points out the tension between management expectations and employee performance. He notes that many managers do not set clear targets and goals for their team members and yet become frustrated with them when they aren’t performing up to par.
Unfortunately, your employees are not mind-readers, nor are they capable of hitting invisible targets. Certainly, some will excel over others, but if your expectations are not clearly defined, they’ll be shooting in the dark, making assumptions about what you want them to do.
Setting targets is simple enough, yet many managers don’t realize how important this is – make it clear to your team what you expect of them.
3. Solicit Feedback From Guests
If you want to find out how you’re doing, get feedback from your guests. It’s difficult if not impossible to gain a holistic view of your business without outside feedback, and your customers can give you that much needed insider’s view into what’s going on. Many are happy to express their concerns and criticisms given the chance.
This isn’t to suggest you should reprimand your team members every time they make a mistake, unless, of course, they’ve committed an error too big to ignore. Rather, leadership should take responsibility for the problem and address their team as a group to help reduce and eliminate future instances of the same issue.
As well, positive feedback can be encouraging and help you retain more of your workers. Don’t forget to offer more praise to your team.
4. Incentivize Excellent Performance
There are myriad ways to incentivize your staff to do their best work – you can offer a monetary bonus, a day off, a special birthday gift, or even a free stay at your hotel. These types of bonuses should be offered to team members who exhibit excellence in everything they do and hit the targets you’ve set for them.
Incentives keep people moving towards worthy goals, which increases their motivation and ultimately their performance. It will help you retain valuable talent too.
Conclusion
Turnover is a major problem in the hospitality industry. If you aren’t thinking about ways to keep your best team members, you could easily lose them to another job. Do the above four things, not just to set growth parameters, but also to create a positive and healthy work environment.
Growth parameters are important, but motivation is equally important, and these two considerations often go hand in hand. Think about incentives, bonuses, rewards, and other perks that will keep your employees happy.