Imagine this situation: you phone a business colleague, leaving a voicemail, and then this person replies two days later with a text message. How does this reply effort make you feel? For me - and this is just me we're talking about here - I'd feel rather insulted. Barring extenuating circumstances, a telephone call and corresponding voicemail imply a timely response effort be made via a return phone call. READ MORE

It's all about the team. Whether you are looking to fill open positions in an existing hotel, hire a new staff for a property soon to open or add talent at the corporate headquarters, attracting, assembling and retaining a top-notch team of employees is critical to success. Once hired, it is especially important to provide each team member with clear expectations, strong direction and a path of advancement within the organization. This entire process should both be true to and reinforce a company's core culture. READ MORE

Truly luxury hotels have the ability to engage their guests in a distinctive, exclusive and meaningful way not found elsewhere. They create a certain mystique that becomes almost addictive, bringing guests back time and time again. But because there is no standard definition of luxury, hotels have a challenge to be able to cater to a wide range of personal interpretations of luxury. From a sense of style and comfort, a legendary location, pampered attention, extravagance or ultra-simplicity, luxury is many things to many people. But one thing is clear - luxury delivers unexpected pleasures that exceed expectations in original ways. Learn how to best deliver that luxury touch. READ MORE

The “moral” of this article is: Every better business result requires a better conversation.” Every business result you want from your team involves engaging them in a conversation…actually an ongoing conversation. Whether it is a more gracious, welcoming guest experience; better teamwork; or employees showing more ownership and initiative, if you want better results than what you've been getting, you will need to engage them in better, more effective, more productive conversations. In this article, you will learn a six-step protocol that sets the stage for a productive conversation; a conversation that leads to commitment rather than compliance, a conversation that brings you the better results you desire. READ MORE

Faced with the constant challenge of seeking and finding top talent, the use of social recruitment can be a valuable addition to any company's tool box. Just one facet of today's revolutionized communication, social recruitment has become widespread in companies across the globe. In fact, according to a Harvard Business study, organizations who do not adopt social media for their recruitment needs will be out of business in the next five years. This article explores the use of social recruitment in the hospitality industry, and offers suggestions for best practices and policy development. READ MORE

Hiring the right employees can translate directly to the bottom line. Integrity Tested employees are easier to hire, manage, and cost managers less in terms of lower rates of employee theft, fewer sick days and other important indicators. Optimizing an organization's performance through Talent Management has been a popular topic of discussion for several years with HR professionals. This article will provide the strategic management team and HR professionals with a detailed understanding of why pre-employment assessments should be an integral part of any company's Talent Management process, specifically the recruiting component. Identifying the best people to hire is critical to the success of an organization. The cornerstone of this assertion is based on the idea that people are a company's most valuable asset. Properly managing the Recruiting process is the most important responsibility of the HR executive. READ MORE

Talent resourcing and retention are still major issues as we emerge from the recession. Recruitment as a central tenet to organisational success has grown to its highest level since 2008 and Job-seekers report renewed confidence as the private sector reports growth, providing a challenge to find the necessary talent to take up vacancies (CIPD, 2013 a). Graduate fast track schemes are still popular with big hospitality companies who recognise their contribution to skills gaps and succession planning. However, without the correct strategy they often result in a poor return on investment when graduates leave too soon, porting valuable skills with them. READ MORE

Most people value their smart phones over their laptops. Unfortunately, many business leaders, not only human resource professionals, have overlooked the value and growing importance of mobile technologies in people's lives. We all know that the youngest generations, especially The Millennials, love this technology. Not only do they enjoy connecting with technology, it's almost as if it is an extension of who they are. They live and breathe social media and mobile applications. As the hospitality industry replaces its sometime tech-reluctant retiring Baby Boomers with its tech savvy Millennials, we will see a growing importance to these, now established, technologies. READ MORE

While some employee turnover is inevitable and even healthy for an organization, rampant turnover constitutes a challenge for even the best hospitality firms, given the expense and disruption caused when employees leave abruptly and new workers must be brought in and trained. For these reasons, human resources researchers at Cornell and other universities have targeted turnover in numerous studies designed to analyze the specific reasons that employees leave and, more important, identify the levers available for limiting unwanted employee turnover. The available levers include specific methods of employee compensation, paying attention to employees' attitudes (particularly as a group), and allowing employees reasonable flexibility. READ MORE

Managing employee leave and staying on the right side of the law is challenging for employers, especially as federal and state laws continue to be enacted and interpretations of laws change and evolve. Hotel human resources teams must be prepared to recognize when and which law applies to an employee request for leave and manage the leave process. But they can't do their job if the employee's leave request is never brought to their attention or brought to them too late. Employers must train supervisors and managers to recognize requests for leave or attendance issues that may implicate federal laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act or state laws that provide for leave for a variety of absences such as school visitation, pregnancy or leave for crime victims, to name a few. Hospitality employers should address attendance and leave issues from a centralized decision-making perspective to ensure consistent application of, and possible modification of, relevant company policies. READ MORE

At its pure essence, business is about people. No matter the industry, the product or the service, it is people who make the difference. A business's success stems from aligning people against the organization's strategies. Culture is the soul of alignment, and though it is shaped by leaders, it is nurtured and driven by Human Resource professionals. In her article, Renie Cavallari, CEO and Chief Inspirational Officer of the hospitality training and consulting firm Aspire, presents the findings of 18 years of field research about what works and what doesn't to drive results in business. Her answer? Human development. READ MORE

Collaboration is vital to hotel success and a critical driver of improved operations and more valuable and meaningful customer experiences. But it won't happen on its own and hotel leaders and HR professionals have an important role to play in engaging and connecting employees in new ways so they can share their knowledge, perspectives, and passion for unlocking the real potential in every guest's visit. READ MORE

Remember when you went to the “Personnel” office to interview or make a change to your benefits? Now you go to “Human Resources”. Did you enter at the “Employee” entrance whereas now you go to the “Team”…“Talent” or “Cast” entrance? More than just the signs on the door have changed. The level of respect, focus, importance and sophistication of the “HR” function has morphed particularly in our industry that is hospitality. READ MORE

While human resources in its inception was traditionally viewed as an administrative function and career option for those with strong soft skills, the expectations of today's HR professionals have transformed significantly in that HR must now have deep business acumen while being fully engaged with organizational strategy and continually focused on identifying innovative ways to deliver value. One of the most effective ways to ensure that members of your HR team are fully grounded in the operations of your business is to hire them from within whenever possible. Growing talent internally will yield you multiple benefits: helping to enhance the credibility of your HR managers; completing work more quickly and efficiently; and strengthening the culture of your organization. READ MORE

Job credentials and employee portfolios are two sides of the same coin. The continued emphasis on professionalism and hiring the optimally competent candidates makes the development of a credential portfolio and important factor in the selection, recruiting and hiring processes. We have often heard about transferable skills, for example, veterans coming out of a branch of the service have gained experiences and training that could be useful in other venues. The issue is, are those skills being valued and do organizations see the transferability of those skills? Job candidates, in the example veterans need to assemble and communicate to prospective employers a portfolio of credentials. A portfolio, which is the collection of an individual's best efforts documented in some way: certificates and more will be the useful when applying for a position and enable employers to match credentials with job responsibilities and objectives. READ MORE

If you think your work should speak for itself then explain to me why so many famous artists were unknown until their death? If you want to be known in this lifetime as a master at your craft then you'll need to learn how to manage up in the top down world of business. HR professionals spend a good deal of time helping people in their organizations get noticed so these employees can receive the recognition and promotion they deserve. If this sounds like you, then it's time to step back for a moment and focus on your own career so you can continue to help others thrive. READ MORE