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By Nathan Andrews, Author & Hospitality Consultant
And for the end of June as the legendry Busybee would say a ‘few stray thoughts and a few points of view ( all my own work)’. We are at the halfway mark of 2024 and from our industry’s perspective we haven’t seen too much systemic change thus far.
All the brands continue to be on a signing spree, with one major signing ten hotels in a day earlier this month! On the other hand, capital market consultants, seem to have a steady stream of assets that owners want to place on the block, combine both categories of asset owners those seemingly investing and those divesting and something simply doesn’t add up. Into this mix add the third stakeholder i.e. the talent and once again there is a contradiction of facts.
Employers bemoan the unavailability of suitable talent; the potential employees lament the absence of meaningful employment. How has this confusing and contradictory situation come about? Honestly just pure and simple short-sightedness.
Let us start at the top, most of the major companies’ leadership have emerged from the development stream rather than the operational side of the business. Which begs the question why? At the next level of senior management, there are simply not enough proven General Managers to go around. I asked myself while I congratulate the company on signing ten hotels in a day, whether they were also able to hire ten competent GMs for those hotels the same day. The physical pipeline for new signings is typically four to five years from signing to opening, and the development cycle for a General Manager is seven to ten years. Hence the crunch.
Even before the current industry optimism, there has been (with the notable exception of the Oberois) little or no effort at intentionally building talent. In fact, the opposite is probably truer, the industry has done its best to smother emerging managerial talent through a combination of unearthly hours, poor pay and an antiquated management culture.
Many might be familiar with the words of Sir Richard Branson “Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to”, a great HR mantra often quoted but even more often ignored. As an industry, we have sometimes given them the skills and attitude to be attractive to multiple service industries, but have treated them so badly they cannot wait to leave.
Talent doesn’t simply grow on trees it has to be identified, developed and nurtured all of which are intentional activities and sadly that has not been the case. Our training institutions for the most part are archaic, out of sync with the psyche of today’s students and out of step with the industry they are supposedly training them for, leading to more than half of graduating students not even joining the industry.
For those that persevere, the long hours and poor pay in comparison to other industries further serve to thin the ranks, effectively resulting in barely a handful acquiring the experience needed for senior leadership, and even fewer having the mental and emotional talent for leading a team.
A final point of view as Busybee would say, the solution to the problem lies within the challenge itself. A change in mindset across the board, a willingness to genuinely invest in our people by all stakeholders even if the investment is not realized by your organization; and maybe even a greater alignment between new signings and the leadership pipeline?
