The hospitality business still rests on the principle of people serving people. This means that the hospitality industry is one of the few to still host large teams at each site. This demands that proper leadership plays a central role in your organization. Here are the 3 essential goals of hospitality leadership.
Design Processes That Support Goals and Values
Don’t use metrics to measure someone’s performance if it will erode performance. For example, don’t measure the cleaning crew’s performance based on how quickly they clean all the rooms if hygiene is suffering. Don’t lecture employees for taking time to carry someone’s bags up the stairs if they didn’t have something more important to do. Empower employees to solve small problems on their own. If you require management approval, have managers make such requests a priority instead of customers getting angry at a second seeming snub.
If you value education among your employees and say that they can develop their skills on the job, let them enrol for Norwich University’s online leadership program on their free time. Or provide on the job training so that they can improve their skills and earn more pay.
Teach Them How to Share Your Values
It is one thing to say, “These are our organization’s values.” What is actually more important is to actually teach them how to put those values into practice. For example, one fast food restaurant made the news when it held formal lessons for employees on the niceties of etiquette. Yet it was necessary, because many didn’t have the habit or formal training to always say please, thank you and you’re welcome. While this sounds hokey, these social niceties made customers feel welcome and valued, often without any additional cost to the company because it occurred while the transaction was being processed. You read case studies like these as part of the leadership program Norwich University.
You may have stated that respect is a company value. Teach employees how to implement it in the workplace and with customers, whether remembering someone’s name, being polite when dealing with an irate customer or maintaining professional appearances. If your business is family-friendly, teach employees how to deal with children in a constructive manner instead of dismissing them disrespectfully.
Communicate at All Levels
Decrease reliance on periodic meetings and encourage constant, value-added communication instead. If there are issues with third party service providers, give your employees permission to report issues immediately for correction instead of having it wait for the next team meeting, management recording the issue and finally getting around to dealing with it. When you have meetings, solicit open and honest feedback.
Have company procedures and notices written in plain language, and answer questions about them. Answer questions as much as possible in clear and concise language. Admit if you don’t know something, and if you say you’ll find out, do so. Then communicate that answer to everyone else at the same time so that everyone has the same information at the same time.
Proper leadership is one of the building blocks of a strong team. If you follow the advice in this article, you should be able to improve your team’s morale and efficiency.
