Hiring the right staff is essential for your business’s success. It’s especially important for hotels, as guest satisfaction significantly impacts a company’s growth. From ensuring you get people with the right expertise to continuously training them for consistent improvement, a hotel staffing plan can help. This guide will walk you through how to create an effective one and implement it in your hotel business.
What Is a Staffing Plan?
A staffing plan is a strategy that allows you to get an overview of your current staffing situation and needs to adapt to your company’s goals. A hotel staffing plan can include an analysis of your staff’s current strengths and areas of opportunity, what staffing positions or specialties remain unfilled, your hotel’s competitors and staffing advantages, and training requirements to improve your current and upcoming workforce.
Human resource departments typically oversee this type of planning, but hotel managers and executives may collaborate on the hotel staffing plan to help manage budgets and optimize profits.
Staffing Model vs. Staffing Plan
A staffing model and a staffing plan are both helpful in strategizing for your staffing needs. Staffing models use forecasting techniques to figure out how many workers a hotel needs, what skills are required to meet the company’s goals, and how the recruitment process will work. The staffing plan details the specifics, such as job descriptions, recruitment timelines, training, succession planning, and more.
How to Create a Staffing Plan
To create a hotel staffing plan, you need to reflect on your establishment’s past performance, create SMART goals, and determine the solutions that will help you achieve them. Effective staffing planning isn’t built in a vacuum, and hotel needs will vary based on your circumstances.
1. Plan Your Goals
Your hotel will likely have set goals for the year or quarter. The best goals will be SMART, meaning they are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. For your staffing strategy to be effective, it needs to align with these goals.
Suppose you want to improve your guest satisfaction score by 10% within the next year. This may require you to improve your staff’s performance through training, hire more essential workers during peak seasons, or streamline your check-in and out processes.
Answering the following questions can help you determine solutions:
- What new or additional work skills or tasks do your goals require?
- How many staff do you need to perform the work?
- If you need to hire new staff, what would be the requirements?
- Do your staff need training to improve their skills? Does your current staff have the experience they need to succeed?
- When hiring for peak seasons, would it be better to hire seasonal staff?
2. Create a Skills Gap Analysis
A skill gap analysis will help you strategize effectively. You can compile current job descriptions, understand how many staff you have, and determine their competencies. This gives you an overview of your hotel’s current strengths and identifies skill gaps you need to fill.
Some of your staff may already have the expertise you’re looking for but their current role doesn’t align with it. A skill gap analysis will help you determine if you can move people into new roles. High performers may also stand out, which can help you identify those suitable for promotions. Low performers may benefit from more training.
3. Strategize for Additional Staffing Requirements
Once you’ve determined that your hotel will benefit from additional staffing, you need to strategize for the recruitment process and assess how to best execute your plans. The hotel industry is booming, with a worldwide industry market size of $1.5 trillion in 2023. If your hotel is growing with the trend, you may need to hire permanent staff to scale and match the demand.
If you experience fluctuations in demand, such as off-peak seasons, then seasonal staff may make more sense for your business. Your strategy should depend on the patterns that you identify with your hotel. Consider other factors that can influence team performance. How many of your workers are nearing retirement? Are any of them planning to take maternity or paternity leave?
Are there bottlenecks in any of your hotel processes that may benefit from additional staffing? Are your competitors increasing their staff, which potentially contributes to their industry position?
4. Devise a Training Plan for New and Current Staff
A training plan is useful for new and existing staff. Training the workforce you already have can even be more cost-effective than looking for new ones to fill the skill gap. Consider surveys and performance reviews when looking for growth opportunities. Review your staff’s career goals. By aligning the training to their goals, you can foster a more invested and motivated team that ultimately contributes to a more positive culture.
5. Update Your Staffing Plan as Needed
The ideal staffing plan is flexible and adapts to your organization’s goals. Various software and tools can help you optimize operations, including customer relations management systems, online workspaces, content management systems, and beyond. Regularly review how efficient your systems are and how you’re progressing toward each of your established goals. For instance, you may adjust job descriptions or training methods as needed.
Benefits of a Staffing Plan
A staffing plan is a great tool in identifying your hospitality staffing needs. It can help you:
- Identify the right skill sets when hiring.
- Maintain a competitive advantage with a top-performing team.
- Expand your operations effectively.
- Reduce the cost of recruitment.
- Restructure existing positions.
- Develop plans for promotions and improved salaries.
- Minimize turnovers through improved staff experience.
A hotel staffing plan helps you understand the state of your operations and make adjustments where your staff plays a role. Because your team is your asset, it’s important to ensure they have opportunities to continue improving their skills and experience a positive work environment.
According to the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA), 65% of hotels report staffing shortages. A staffing plan lets you determine when and how to provide better benefits and higher pay to attract and retain the staff you need.
How Budget Impacts Hotel Staffing
Adhering to your hotel’s budget is critical in reaching your goals. It’s especially challenging to create a budget in an industry that fluctuates based on demand, vacation periods, holidays, and other external factors. Various resources are available to help you structure a more precise and adaptable budget, such as the framework created by The Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry (USALI).
Here are ways your financial status can affect staffing:
- A department budget helps in analyzing hotel department expenses, including worker wages.
- Budgets account for seasonal fluctuations, which can help you adjust staffing accordingly.
- Cost forecasts help you predict labor costs to ensure sufficient resources.
- Understanding the current market can help manage your expectations regarding consumer trends.
- Industry benchmarks help you analyze your competition and serve as reference points for staffing changes you need to make.
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