In the fast-paced and ever-evolving world of hospitality, the pressure to “do more with less” has become a universal mantra. But how much more can hotel teams handle? And more importantly, are executives taking a hard look at how much they should be expected to handle?
This workload question came into stark focus during my conversation with a hotel executive client. He was trying to make sense of (and reduce) escalating turnover among housekeeping staff. As we peeled back the layers of the problem, it became clear that the real issue wasn’t pay, attitude, “lazy” hires, or lack of proper training—it was simply a bad capacity calculation.
When More Becomes Too Much: How We Went Too Far
A chief operating officer (COO) of a hotel management company, overseeing nearly 50 properties, called me in a moment of frustration. Housekeepers were quitting at alarming rates, and no one could quite figure out why. They had done their due diligence of wage reviews, scheduling discussions, and clear job responsibilities. What was going wrong?
As a retention expert who sees various reasons for excessive turnover, I had a hunch. One of the first questions I asked was simple: “How many rooms is each housekeeper expected to clean during an eight-hour shift?”
“Sixteen,” he answered without hesitation. That number rolled off his tongue with the confidence of someone who lives in spreadsheets and benchmarks. He knows his numbers!
“Okay,” I replied. “Was it always 16? Think back as far as you can.”
He paused. “No…I remember, it used to be 12.”
“So, how did we get from 12 to 16?” I asked.
The expectations didn’t transform overnight, they crept in quietly over the years, the way many operational changes do. First, management realized their top-performing housekeepers (the so-called “rock stars”) could clean 14 rooms in a shift. Naturally, 14 became the new standard.
While not an ideal approach, I can understand how they got from 12 to 14. Then I asked, “But how did we get from 14 to 16, if no one was showing that could even be done?”
“Easy answer,” the COO said. “The pandemic hit, and we had to work off a skeleton crew.”
The pandemic gutted staffing levels and tightened budgets beyond what was ever imagined. With fewer team members and tighter margins, the company pushed the expectation of cleaned rooms per shift up to 16 (at least on paper) for survival.
The Danger of the A-Player Calculation
The mistake here wasn’t recognizing that 14 rooms could be cleaned in a day; it was assuming that all staff should be able to perform at the same level as the highest achievers.
This “A-player fallacy” has become pervasive in many service industries, and hospitality is no exception. Most organizations my team and I work with have made emergency measures the norm, never returning to pre-pandemic expectations. What adjustments have you made to keep your company alive?
In this case, the company took the best-case scenario and turned it into the baseline. But not everyone is a top performer every day. And certainly, no one is an A-player in their new role on day one.
Yet when asked whether new hires were also expected to hit the 16-room target, the COO admitted, “Yes.” That was the expectation across the board—from veterans to brand-new employees. There was no on-ramp, no learning curve, no flexibility.
And suddenly, the turnover made sense.
The Hidden Cost of Unrealistic Expectations
Let’s pause for a moment and imagine being in the shoes of a new housekeeper.
You show up eager to contribute, unsure about your new employer, but willing to learn. You manage to clean 12 rooms, a solid effort for your first few shifts. But instead of receiving encouragement and praise for a job well done, you’re told, “You need to move faster tomorrow.”
You clean 14 the next day, and still, you’re told it’s not enough.
Even when you hit 15, just shy of the target and greater than most “rock stars” could do back in the day, you’re reprimanded and reminded of the 16-room standard you’re supposed to hit each shift.
This constant messaging—that you’re falling short, no matter how hard you try—can be crushing. It’s not just demoralizing; it’s unattainable for the individual and unsustainable for the organization. When expectations are consistently out of reach, people don’t rise to meet them—they leave.
This isn’t just about morale. It’s about math. Every housekeeper who quits creates a domino effect of additional hiring, onboarding, and stress on the remaining staff, who are then, in turn, more likely to leave themselves. It’s a vicious cycle we call the “death spiral of turnover” that begins with a failure to regularly analyze and recalibrate capacity.
Workloads Are Growing, But Job Descriptions Haven’t Changed
This story doesn’t end with housekeeping. The issue of swollen responsibilities extends across departments and industries. In many organizations, managers perform more HR duties than ever meant to be on their plates.
Consider “hiring managers” who once spent 10% of their time recruiting and onboarding new employees. Now, due to rising turnover over the past decade, that number has ballooned to 40% or more for some. And it’s not just the hiring tasks these managers have taken on. They’re now texting no-shows, rescheduling interviews, and covering the gaps when positions are vacant.
These added, inflated responsibilities aren’t reflected in updated job descriptions or pay scales. And yet, employees are expected to absorb them—without question, without pause, and often without additional support.
When managers don’t have time to be people leaders, they can’t effectively tackle the constant turnover issue. Managers have the most influence on whether staff stay or go at a job, but with overflowing plates, they don’t have time to maximize that influence.
The Slippery Slope of “Doing More with Less”
It’s easy to overlook how capacity overloads emerge. Rarely do they come from one big decision. Instead, they creep in over time from a series of small, reactive choices. A task is added “temporarily,” another expectation layered in without discussion, and suddenly, a manager or team finds themselves underwater and overwhelmed. Before you know it, their workload has nearly doubled, but their job title and salary have stayed the same.
Just because someone has successfully held a role with high demands without complaining, it does not make it sustainable. More company leaders I talk to today are realizing how difficult it is to replace former workaholics because the new workforce will not stay in a role that should be covered by two people instead.
The truth is, many hotels have become too lean for too long. We stripped away middle management layers in the name of efficiency, flattened hierarchies, and celebrated the heroism of “just getting it done.” But eventually, even the highest achievers burn out. Team members are exhausted, leaders are frustrated, and new hires are walking away faster than ever. Plus, continuing to operate in that model is not going to attract and retain the new talent we need.
Executives Must Lead the Recalibration
The expectation to “do more with less” may have gotten us through crisis mode, but it is no longer a viable strategy for the long haul. So, what’s the solution?
It’s time to recalibrate to realistic workloads. Recalibrating capacity is not an operational inconvenience—it’s a strategic imperative. If we fail to act, we risk losing even more talent, increasing stress on those who remain, and damaging our employer brand. (To learn more, check out my previous Hotel Executive article, 6 Ways to Build an Employer Brand Your Staff Will Rave About. )
When leadership takes ownership of the work environment they’re creating and commits to rebalancing the system, you create a healthier workplace ecosystem where staff can truly thrive.
Front-line managers can’t fix this alone; they need the direction of top leaders. And those top leaders must start asking hard questions. At your next executive meeting, step back and discuss:
- What does success in each role realistically look like today?
- Are we expecting one person to do a job that used to be handled by two?
- Where have we added tasks without adjusting job descriptions, compensation, or training?
- When did we last reevaluate job descriptions?
- Do new hires have an appropriate learning curve, or are we setting them up to fail?
- Which of our expectations and recognition mechanisms are based on A-player performance, which are likely to underappreciate our much-needed B-players?
Don’t wait for your teams to be so short-staffed they can’t serve customers. If turnover is a true priority, take proactive steps to understand the various issues often seen in today’s capacity planning, and be willing to adjust accordingly.
From Overload to Optimization: Reclaiming Organizational Health
Analyzing capacity isn’t about lowering standards; it’s about aligning expectations with reality.
In hospitality, where guest experience depends on the seamless execution of hundreds of behind-the-scenes tasks, your people are your greatest asset. And they are not limitless. Staff who feel their workload is manageable and that leadership acknowledges the scope of their responsibilities are more likely to stay, contribute, and thrive.
If you’re willing to look honestly at how much is being asked of your teams—and how much more has been unconsciously added over time—you’ll uncover one of the most powerful levers you have for reducing turnover, increasing satisfaction, and building a resilient, high-performing culture.
Reprinted from the Hotel Business Review with permission from www.HotelExecutive.com.
