Preparing Hotel & Resort Staff For The Future of Work

Few businesses were hit as hard as hotels and resorts by the COVID-19 pandemic. When you’re so integrally tied to travel, anything that brings that travel to a halt is going to present a challenge.

An equally daunting challenge, however, is going to be when the tide turns and swarms of tourists head back out into the world. These travellers will all be looking for hotels and resorts to stay at during their vacations. They’ll be returning to a hospitality industry that is a whole new world, and that hospitality industry had better be ready to operate in that new world. We’ll give some helpful tips here for what your hotel or resort should expect in the future.

The Need for Rehire Training

Employees were laid off or put on paid leave en masse during the pandemic. As the industry recovers, they’re going to need to return to a job that they may not fully remember all the intricacies of. It’s also very likely that your hotel has updated protocol, procedure, and other operations. This means that you’ll need to have a flexible employee training program to handle both new employee training and rehire training. More than ever, you’ll have to carefully keep track of employee training to make sure everyone is on the same page.

New Health Safety Standards

The pandemic changed how we all view public health. Hygiene and cleanliness will be of the utmost importance to everyone, especially in places where COVID mutations could still be lurking. This means that all hotel staff will need to rethink regular cleaning. There will have to be specific rehire training for this new approach.

Digital Demand 

Hotels have already been pushing towards incorporating more digital convenience for their customers. While this was a neat perk, it will be a requirement in the coming years. Guests will demand that they be able to handle check-in seamlessly through apps on their phones and navigate all of the hotel’s offerings that way as well. 

Of course, this means that all your employees will have to know how these apps work as well. (Are you maybe starting to notice a pattern about how key this rehire training is going to be?). If they can’t process requests from the app on their end, it will end in a lot of unhappy customers. 

New Values 

Shut-downs provided a unique opportunity for the hotel industry to take a breather and seriously consider the future of work in the hospitality space. There has been long a call for changes to how the hospitality industry operates globally. Partially, this is about sustainability. There is a desire to see hotels do more beyond simple greenwashing to operate in an environmentally responsible way.

There is also greater demand for the upper management of hotels, and owners, to do more to help prevent the exploitation of workers. In countries outside of the west, low pay and poor working conditions are sadly typical for many workers. There is also the need to make sure that all hotel staff can enjoy a safe and comfortable working environment, free from on-job hazards and harassment by fellow employees and customers.

And, as you’ve guessed, all that will take extensive rehire training. 

Make Hotel Rehire Training Simple

Whether onboarding or training workers that are returning to work, 1Huddle makes it easy and fast to get employees the information and education they need. Our leaderboards and reward engine also encourage healthy competition, driving employees to want to win. If that sounds exciting, make sure to request a demo!