Employee engagement in your hotel in the post COVID world
As your hotel begins to receive guest, and take steps towards survival, it may be essential to create activities to improve employee engagement in your hotel.
This year has been extremely difficult for everyone in the industry and while hotels are making losses, your team has also helped in reducing the burden.
From taking a “voluntary” paycut to reducing expenses by going on leave, it is stressful times for everyone.
When your hotel opens, your priority as a general manager may be to improve revenue and profit however remember the building block of the hotel are the employees.
In a tough environment, you will need your team to rally with you and if you take care of simple employee engagement activities, it will help your employee morale sooner.
Staff Cafeteria Meals
One of the biggest perk of working in a hotel is the cafeteria. If during the pandemic lockdown, you reduced the offering, try to bring it back as soon as possible.
We all know that the cafeteria has the most ROI when it comes to employee engagement.
However you need not splurge. Adding a simple salad, or doing a theme dinner with props from the banquet will keep your cost similar to what it is now but keep the team active and engaged
Smaller tea time breaks with local dishes may also be a good way to improve the variety of meals.
Training your team
You may have reduced your team members but the people who are with you needs to be trained.
The world has turned upside down and your team will have to adjust to the new normal and learn things they were not aware of.
During the lockdown, many of us have become familiar with online tools and platforms to conduct meeting and are now comfortable with the new way of doing business.
Offer your team access to our online training library at a very nominal cost per year. It will be a very good investment on the team and give them access to continued learning for the entire year.
Training the team will also showcase your commitment to them and their career.
Townhall and Department meeting
As a General Manager or HOD give your team members an opportunity to express their opinion. Mental anguish is very real and you should allow the team members to vent and give their opinion as well.
If possible have a counselor come in for some counselling session where they can talk about mental health.
Fitness class or classes on improving financial situation will also be beneficial for the team during this time.
In conclusion
At a time when your employees are looking to you to show the direction, you have an opportunity to show the employees that you care.
Simple techniques like training the team, giving them an opportunity to talk to you and making their meals pleasurable will go a long way in improving morale of your team members and improve employee engagement in your hotel