Ribas Hotels Group works closely with people who leave the company as part of its HR policy.
— We take feedback from them, - said the company's Executive Manager Andrey Marenchuk. — We are interested in what went wrong and what factors need to be changed. This helps to avoid the recurrence of unpleasant situations in the future.
In the process of such communication, the company has deduced the main motives for employee layoffs at seasonal hospitality facilities.
1. Place of residence.
It is necessary to create a comfortable place to stay for a person who has left his native land, a comfort zone. The task of the employer is to create a second home for him, where he would be comfortable enough and where he would like to return. Some of our facilities do not have enough of this. But we try to update the dormitories and living conditions of our employees every year.
I will not hide the fact that we often face the fact that it is quite difficult to convince an investor to invest money in something that, in his opinion, does not bring income. He is ready to invest in improving the rooms, change the carpet, buy TVs. But when you recommend him to spend 10 000 UAH on the equipment of the staff room, the investor does not understand what exactly it is necessary for. Then I usually give an example of our hotel in Gribovka.
The Richard beach hotel has had the same shift of chefs for five years. Now we only tell them the launch date. They know where to start the season and how to finish it. Sometimes it seems to me that they know more about the facility than the management in the office and the owner.
For the third year in a row, the same shift of cooks also comes to the Park hotel "Cypress".
And the sooner employers realize that among today's eleventh-graders and University graduates there is not a single person who dreams of working in the kitchen, the faster they will learn to communicate with this category of future employees in their language. After all, the guys dream of becoming entrepreneurs, top managers, sailors, but definitely not chefs in resort hotels.
We try to show a different motivation for the new generation of employees: we create good living conditions, give valuable experience, and try to find a job at the end of the high season.
If you don't have enough resources, be so loyal to your employees that they go to other companies in the off-season to learn from their experience, and return to you in the high season.
You need to be able to start working well with a new person and decently part with them, if circumstances require it. Therefore, we try to get to know the employee better, create a favorable impression of ourselves as an employer, but in no case do not hold back if the person has decided to leave.
Many of our employees are a recommendation factor in the eyes of our partners. After all, some of them get settled in other hotels and talk about us. But what they say — positive or negative-depends on how they treated a particular employee and how they said goodbye to him.
For example, at the Bossfor hotel, the senior front desk manager was an employee who used to work for us. When, by coincidence, the hotel was left without a Manager, she recommended our company and the owners of the hotel turned to us for advice, and then for the management service.
Spotless reputation of the employer is also able to work for the profit of the business. For example, I am constantly working on my reputation and I have no doubt that I will find employees for seasonal objects. 70% of last year's employees will definitely return to our facilities. I'll only have to get 30%. That is, by the start of the season, we need to recruit about 600 line staff. Already in March, our hr Department received a call from about 400-500 last year's seasonal employees with a question: "When do I go to work?" They don't even ask if we're ready to take them. They know they are going to their second temporary home.
But if I had a bad reputation, I would have to worry every year about having to recruit 100 % of the people.
2. Failure to fulfill promises to pay wages.
Staff turnover in seasonal facilities occurs in two waves:
- End of June - employees have just arrived, go through the adaptation period, receive advances and most often face the fact that the owners do not pay what was promised. What do we have? Employees who have left their comfort zone, have not yet joined the team and the owner who does not fulfill his promises to employees. This is enough for a person to become disillusioned with the employer and leave the facility.
- The second wave comes on the eve of the first of September. Students do not stay until the end of the season and say goodbye. Mothers who want to send their children to school also leave their workplace. Personal priority will always be more important than the employer's priority. Therefore, immediately agree with the staff that you will need to work out Independence Day and then go home. For example, we reward employees who have worked honestly all season.
Even if an employee did something wrong, you can't hit him with the same coin. Be a better man and a person will think about it for the next year and give at least a positive recommendation. In our hotels there are such examples.
Communicate and maintain communication with people throughout the year. We have never completely parted with seasonal employees: as a rule, we congratulate them on holidays and try to remain friends. If there is an urgent need, we are always ready to help. For many, 2000 UAH can solve important budget problems. Reading this article, many people will say skeptically that we are suspiciously good or do this solely for the sake of PR. However, there is a purely entrepreneurial interest here. Line personnel are the people that generate the money. At least that's why you need to get along with them. And remember that the payday of the day when you are not the one to demand. If you want performance from your employees, you should also be an executive.
3. Lack of career opportunities.
If employees come to you from year to year, give them the opportunity to grow. For example, a maid has been returning to you for a couple of years — give her the opportunity to become a senior maid. It will meet your expectations, do not doubt.
In large companies, most often in the IT segment, work on a project can last years, with periodic breaks of several months, or even a year. In them, employers try to employ employees so that they then return to the project.
For those who believe that this is utopia, I will give an example. We recommended the administrator of one of our summer hotels to a representative of another Ukrainian hotel chain who was looking for an employee. Having gained new knowledge and experience, she returned to us as a Manager at the same facility that she left as an administrator. And this is just one example. Quite often, our employee leaves us for another company to take higher positions, and is being trained there. And when he expresses a desire to return to us, more competent and experienced — it has a special value.
