Building a Workplace Where People Want to Stay: A Guide

From conducting interviews to assessing candidates and finalizing offer agreements, recruiting new employees can take up a significant amount of your organization’s time and energy. However, to ensure your hiring efforts pay off, you need to create a work environment where employees want to stick around.

In the hospitality industry, a number of factors contribute to employee retention, including respect, safety, and engagement. To help your business reduce turnover and build a dedicated, loyal team, this guide will explore five strategies for improving your workplace culture and giving employees the motivation they need to stay.

Hire for cultural fit.

Some employees will naturally feel more engaged at your business than others, and filling your staff with open-minded employees who are ready to be dedicated members of your team starts during hiring.

Hiring for cultural fit doesn’t mean only hiring employees who all have the exact same background, experience levels, and interests. Instead, it requires assessing employees’ values and work styles to ensure they will complement the rest of your team.

To hire for cultural fit, first consider what your company’s core values are and how they impact employees’ day-to-day work. For example, some employers value independent work and strong leadership skills, whereas others prioritize teamwork and the ability to ask for help.

Once you have your core values nailed down, create interview questions that reveal whether candidates’ values align with your business’s. In particular, asking how an employee would respond in a hypothetical situation can provide insight into their work styles. For instance, you might ask candidates for a front desk agent position at your hotel how they would act if they received noise complaints about a specific room and the guests in the room were uncooperative.

The best answer to questions like these will depend on your business’s procedures and values, whether those are creating a positive guest experience, working together as a team, or putting safety first.

Ensure employee wellbeing and safety.

Employees will only feel engaged at work and strive to do their best if their basic needs are met. Chief among these is safety. In fact, many hotels have linked employees feeling safe and cared for to better guest experiences.

You can promote employee wellbeing and ensure they always feel secure at work by:

• Providing necessary safety tools. Investing in employee safety is always an investment well made. Even if no situations occur, it’s still far better to have unused safety tools than to get caught unprepared. For instance, you might provide hotel employees working by themselves with panic buttons in case they encounter unruly guests.
• Maintaining up-to-date safety protocols. If an emergency situation does occur, your team should know exactly what steps to take to keep themselves and guests safe. When new employees join your team, ensure that reviewing safety procedures is part of their onboarding process, and direct your current team to routinely refresh their knowledge.
• Taking employee safety concerns seriously. If an employee reports that something makes them feel unsafe, always take their feedback seriously and investigate their claims. For example, your night receptionist may feel nervous being by themselves late at night, or your housekeeping manager might have concerns about the health impacts of certain cleaning supplies. In these situations, explore the concern and offer practical and timely solutions (e.g., implement a staff communication and safety solution, or all-natural cleaning product substitutes).

When employees feel safe and supported, they can fully focus their attention on their work and create a positive environment. Additionally, following industry safety protocols and relevant legislation is vital for protecting your business from liability.

Prioritize ongoing communication.

Strong communication helps every business perform better and engage employees. When employees have clear directions from their supervisors, they know exactly what tasks to perform and what’s expected of them. When employees can give feedback, they feel valued and listened to. And when teams are open and transparent, they’re better able to navigate challenges and work toward solutions.

You can improve communication at your business by:

• Holding consistent team meetings. Regular staff check-ins help you keep your team in the loop about the various goings-on at your organization. While you don’t need to have these meetings every day, giving employees a heads up about upcoming changes or possible challenges is always appreciated.
• Equipping staff with communication tools. Whether you manage a large or small property, providing a two-way voice solution can help your team stay connected, coordinate tasks smoothly, and respond quickly when challenges come up.
• Surveying employees. Reach out to employees to get a better understanding of their day-to-day experiences so you can improve them. Strive to create feedback loops where employees can share their ideas, get responses, and be reassured you’re taking care of any concerns they raise.
• Maintaining transparency. The more transparent you are with your employees, the more they’ll trust your business and, subsequently, feel loyal to you. For instance, consider how you can improve your pay transparency practices by creating spaces where employees are empowered to speak honestly and hear the reasoning behind your compensation decisions.

Clear, regular communication helps employees understand what’s going on at your business and what their role in it is. Plus, you can more easily identify and address small issues employees have before they become turnover risks.

Offer meaningful benefits.

Employees want careers where they receive fair compensation, including meaningful benefits. If another hotel in your area has similar pay and working conditions but better benefits packages, chances are that employees will gravitate toward them.

Businesses can offer employees a wide range of benefits outside of cash bonuses. For example, Astron Solutions’ guide to employee compensation  shares several forms of indirect compensation you might offer employees, including:

• Health insurance
• Paid time off
• Retirement plans
• Performance management styles
• Recognition of achievements and contributions
• Wellness programs

Some of these benefits have associated costs or are required by law under certain circumstances, such as providing paid sick leave. Others, however, can be implemented on a budget while still making a major difference in your employees’ workplace satisfaction.

For instance, corporate social responsibility programs related to employee wellness, like providing a flexible work schedule to improve employee work-life balance or sharing mental health resources, often are low-investment initiatives and can more than make up their costs by reducing turnover.

Build a culture of recognition.

Of course, employees’ work is rewarded with compensation, but many also appreciate a “thank you” for their efforts. Businesses where employees feel recognized and appreciated for their contributions tend to have more motivated teams and less burnout.

Employee recognition can be divided into the following three categories, all of which are necessary for building a culture of appreciation:

• Thanking employees at the end of their shifts, congratulating them when they do a good job, and other small acts of appreciation make up everyday recognition. These efforts have no formal structure and are simply meant to create a supportive atmosphere.
• Structured appreciation activities that aren’t directly tied to compensation are usually informal recognition. For example, if you have an employee of the month award or throw a party to celebrate the end of a successful busy season, your business conducts informal appreciation.
• Formal recognition is often noted in employees’ files and is tied directly to compensation and advancement opportunities. Merit-based raises, bonuses, and promotions fall under the umbrella of formal recognition.

Recognition is ultimately about rewarding the type of behaviors you want to see in employees. After all, if you celebrate an employee going the extra mile in a meaningful way, they’re more likely to continue going the extra mile in the future.

A guide to work anniversary cards advises businesses to recognize employees’ long-term loyalty through thoughtful messages and designs that reflect organizational values.

With meaningful appreciation strategies, you can reinforce your business’s values, celebrate employees, and create a better work environment all at the same time.  

Closing the loop: Appreciate, retain, thrive.

When your hotel creates a workplace where people want to stick around, you’ll see reduced turnover (and associated costs), a stronger team, and better guest experiences. To get started, consider what practices related to employee appreciation, safety, and compensation you currently have and how you could improve them to boost employee retention.