There’s no doubt that the pandemic took its toll on the hospitality workforce with many employees leaving the industry forever, but perhaps no segment was impacted in a bigger way than food & beverage.
In a post-COVID environment, hoteliers have emphasized the importance of training and technology, as well as creating the right culture, to get less experienced employees up to speed within their respective F&B outlets.
Steve Palmer, president, Indigo Road Hospitality—which operates some 45 restaurants, as well as six hotels—acknowledged the importance of training for the hospitality company, as well as identifying the right people for the job.
“We are much more robust in our training programs because we know we’ve got a lot of first-timers to hospitality. We lost a lot of people during COVID; they went and found other things to do. So we’re hiring people with less and less experience, but we know that they’ve got the right heart and are teachable. That’s honestly what we would prefer at this point,” he said.
Sean Kreiman, SVP, CHMWarnick—a hotel asset management and owner advisory firm—also acknowledged the importance of training, but also reinforced the importance of finding the right personnel.
“I think as we’ve all seen post-COVID it’s been really challenging to hire the key hourly employees. They’re still out there, but that has been a challenge and you’re going to have some attrition as you work through it. I would focus on the hiring and making sure you have the right people. I think everything else for the most part you can teach. You’re hiring for the potential and then you’re trying to teach them and train them into the roles, but passion is a big factor,” he said.
Kreiman further added, “Operators have a lot of different tools from a training perspective and different ways of doing it. For example, if you’re launching a new [food & beverage] concept, you’re doing the different mock services and you’re trying it out. But I think it all comes back to engaging the team, leading from within, having fun, and putting them behind a concept that they can be excited about. I think that’s where the guests feel it.”
Palmer, meanwhile, emphasized the importance of creating a positive work environment and boosting employee morale to attract associates. He elaborated on some of the steps Indigo Road has taken to do just that, such as removing all alcohol from the workplace, effectively doing away with the “time-honored shift drink at the bar.”
Furthermore, the company launched a home loan program, which helps employees looking to purchase a home by offering them a down payment to be paid back over time. The company also pays for continuing education and provides free mental health care to associates, according to Palmer.
He further elaborated on how employees can advance and thrive in their hospitality career.
“The opportunity for growth in our company is immense. We have Hospitality University, where our best employees are nominated to come learn at a higher level from our home office in Charleston with the most senior people in our company. We’re just getting started; we’re always ideating and thinking about how we can be a better employer,” said Palmer.
While the training that comes from veteran experienced employees has been critical, Palmer touted the benefits of a robust technology platform as well.
“You’re able to monitor your staffing levels every week. You can do daily stand-ups amongst the team, monitor overtime, and look at how you’re staffing. You can also assess where you need to make cuts and, if you did, you can look at those trends,” he said.
For his part, Kreiman detailed CHMWarnick’s business intelligence platform, known as Proph+IT, which includes a labor tool to help hoteliers.
“It works really well for us. It’s something that I use with my teams all the time where we’re looking at labor stats, looking ahead to forecast, and looking at where we’ve been month-over-month historically. We’re also looking for trends at all the different positions and productivity. That’s a big part of our conversations with the operators,” he said.
Kreiman added that the company has tried to make sure the investment for Proph+IT on the part of owners and operators is not too onerous.
“We’ve put it at what I’d say is a really reasonable price to ownership groups to join. For probably less than what you might pay for a STAR report, we can get them into a platform with power BI and Excel. So it’s been well-received,” he said.
Finally, Palmer reiterated the importance of creating the culture, which has been a focal point for Indigo Road Hospitality.
“We’ve heard it a lot this year in the interview process, where people have said ,‘I’ve heard about your culture and I want to work for this company.’ I think it’s the way we treat people. Maya Angelou said, ‘People will forget what you said, they will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.’ That’s the foundation and the bedrock of our entire company. We know that if we make our employees feel seen, valued, and heard that we’re better for it and it’s a better business,” he said.
