How to Empower Your Hotel Staff to Elevate Guest Experiences
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- By Harri Insider Team | June 11, 2024
The hospitality industry is unique for many reasons, but one of the most noticeable is that people are part of the product.
When someone walks into a hotel, the front-line workers are the ones leaving a first impression. If there is an issue to be resolved, customers will count on your employees. The truth is that your staff plays an essential role in shaping guest experiences.
How can hotels motivate staff to provide more outstanding service? Keep reading for actionable tips on how to empower your team.
How Much Does Empowerment Matter?
Empowerment matters more than you think. There is a plethora of established research that shows that when empowerment is executed in the right way, employees have a more positive impact on the workplace. They look for new ways to make positive contributions, have greater job satisfaction, drive productivity, and add to increased profits in a company.
On the other hand, refusing to empower your front-line employees will lead to disengaged staff, contributing to delays in service, a lack of accountability, a negative work environment, and reduced innovation. By creating an environment where staff feel confident, valued, and motivated, you can ensure that they’ll go the extra mile.
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The Right Environment Empowers Your Team
The overall atmosphere and culture of your workplace make a huge difference. Employees need to feel that you truly trust them and rely on their unique abilities. If you can demonstrate this confidence in tangible ways every day, then employees will be more likely to see themselves as a part of a larger social structure. That’s important because it leads to intrinsic motivation, meaning employees actually want to do a good job, rather than perform simply for monetary gain. This has been proven in studies within the hospitality industry: when people’s own pride and personal satisfaction are on the line, they put in extra effort.
Examples of Empowerment
So what does true empowerment look like? Here are some specific examples:
- Authorizing your team to make some decisions within their role.
- Providing the best resources and materials that will help employees to do their jobs.
- Giving employees a platform to share concerns, suggestions, or other contributions.
- Obtaining and providing employee feedback, as well as putting changes into practice when they make sense.
- Allowing employees to adjust their own schedule when possible.
- Expressing confidence in your employees and gratitude for a job well done.
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How to Empower Your Team Today
At its core, empowerment involves trusting your team to do their job. Display confidence in their abilities and their decision-making, and they’ll want to do the right things and go the extra mile for customers. They know you’re counting on them – and they can do a great job! Consider the following tactics for creating a more empowered workforce.
Training Ideas
- Develop a mentorship program. Create a program where more senior members can guide newer hires in their efforts. Set up “coaches” for new staff to help with everything from dress code questions to sensitive subjects.
- Encourage self-paced learning. It’s important that professionals try to improve on their own as well as at work. Provide resources like links to online classes or books that they can browse at their own pace.
- Establish budgets for areas of interest. Put your money where your mouth is and set aside some financial resources for things like classes, training, mentor lunches, etc.
Empowerment Strategies
- Use positions of power in prudent and positive ways. Make sure that your managers are personable and don’t abuse their authority. It’s well worth investing in special management training so managers can learn best practices.
- Set inspirational or managerial goals for employees. When an employee joins, let them know in clear terms what you are expecting. Be realistic and set measurable goals.
- Allow employees freedom in how they do their jobs (when possible). In the hospitality industry, it’s not always feasible to provide flexibility. Look for opportunities where you can give more freedom. For example, when it comes to scheduling, can you allow for shift switching that has limited manager involvement? For example, you can use Harri scheduling solutions to easily enable (and approve) employee-driven shift swaps, automatically factor in shift preferences when creating schedules, and give employees the ability to volunteer for open shifts.
- Involve employees in the decision-making process. When important decisions need to be made in the organization, make a point of collecting feedback from the people it will affect. For example, if you want to change front-desk policies, be sure to speak with your front-desk staff and get their ideas. No one knows the job better than those who do it every day.
Communication Techniques
- Give employees a platform for sharing their views and concerns. This could be through surveys, employee engagement software, or one-on-one meetings. Use Harri software to foster multi-way team communication and organize conversations. You can even implement the app on iOS or Android to maintain constant and proactive communication.
- Create custom message groups for teams. This allows your staff to better interact with their own department. You can use the Harri solution to organize message groups or news feeds based on role, responsibility, location, or unit to easily target the right team members.
- Move beyond in-person communication. Too many managers only speak with their reports when they are together, which isn’t often. It’s important to be proactive in your communication approach and check in periodically, not just when there’s a question or an issue. With Harri’s solution, you can send all forms of media to deploy communications in the best format, and you can centralize important messaging, announcements, or updates.
Empower Your Hotel Staff: Elevate Guest Experiences with Proven Strategies
Ready to empower your team and elevate guest experiences? Contact Harri today to learn how our solutions can help you create a stronger, more engaged workforce.