It is impossible to run a successful hotel without hiring the right hotel staff. After all, success in the industry is hugely reliant on customer service and there are a huge number of additional tasks and duties that need to be carried out. For instance, most hotels need marketers, receptionists, HR staff, accountants, cleaners, IT support workers, chefs, waiters, concierge staff and much more. Here, you will find tips on how to hire the best hotel staff for your needs.

Reasons to Hire Hotel Staff

There are many reasons why you may need to think about hiring new hotel staff, with the most obvious problem being a need to replace departing staff. If you lose a crucial employee, or if you start to find that your staff turnover rate grows, you are going to need to fill those hotel vacancies and that means finding people with the necessary qualities.

However, beyond this, you may notice certain staff are overworked, which is a good indication that you may need to add to your team, or you might also identify specific skills gaps within your business. When this is the case, hiring new staff who possess those skills may be a better solution than paying to up-skill existing employees.

Other indicators that you should look to hire new hotel staff include situations where employees have been unable to take time off for a long time, potentially including yourself. Alternatively, you may find that the level of customer service you are providing is falling short of customer expectations and/or previous standards set by your hotel.

Advantages of Expanding Your Team

Expanding the number of hotel staff on your books can offer a number of key benefits, including helping to free up the time of existing employees and helping to alleviate workloads. Although many hotels attempt to cut costs by keeping their teams small, this can often end up more expensive, with staff being paid overtime to get things done.

If you do have skills gaps in your hotel, hiring new staff can help you to deliver a superior experience for customers and may also help with day-to-day business operations. Finally, the addition of new employees can introduce some fresh ideas, with each of your new hires bringing with them outside perspectives and experiences.

7 Tips to Hire Hotel Staff

Hiring processes can be complicated and when it comes to finding the best possible candidates, there are many things to consider. To help, here you will find seven tips for recruiting hotel staff.

1. Be Clear on What You Need From Hotel Staff

The first step when looking to expand your team of hotel staff is to be as clear as you possibly can about what you need and why you need it. This means going through your hotel, from one department to the next, evaluating performance, identifying areas for improvement and pinpointing the departments that may need new staff.

Have conversations with departmental managers about what they need and what they would like. Keep track of the hotel staff that leave and make sure you have a plan in place to replace them before their loss is felt too strongly.

Regardless of whether you need a hotel manager, receptionist, cleaner or chef, you need to know precisely what position(s) you are hiring for and what that new hire will actually do in the hotel. It is also imperative that you hire at the right times – when you can afford to do so, when there is a need, but before performance drops too much.

2. Base Your Hiring Process on the Job Description

Next, for each of the positions you are looking to hire new hotel staff for, you need to create a job description. In addition to serving as a description of what the new recruit will actually do on a day-to-day basis, this job description should serve as the cornerstone for your entire hiring process and the eventual decisions you make.

Think about the minimum requirements for the position, not only in terms of formal education, but also previous work experience and soft skills. Is it a position where you can afford to invest time in training someone from scratch, or do you need them to have worked in a similar job before, so they can hit the ground running?

Furthermore, you need to be clear on what you are looking for, without making the job description too difficult for people to meet, or you may have problem finding applicants. While hiring for a hotel management position is likely to require previous experience, you could probably teach someone to wait tables in the hotel restaurant.

3. Think About Ways to Attract the Best Hotel Staff

While you may have identified a need for new hotel staff, actually attracting the best possible candidates to your hotel is another matter. The hotel industry is extremely competitive and it is perfectly possible that other nearby hotels will be looking to fill similar positions to the ones you are looking to fill.

With this in mind, you need to give some consideration to the various ways you can make your hotel attractive to those who are looking to move into the industry, as well as those who already work for another hotel. On a simple level, this means thinking about what you are going to pay them and what job benefits you can offer.

Beyond this, however, people are often interested in hotel careers, rather than applying for a single job. Consider what you can tell potential candidates about their future career prospects with your hotel. Is there opportunity for progression? Do you reward loyal staff? Could they potentially access training to advance their career in the future?

4. Hire From a Range of Different Channels

When you have a hotel job role that needs to be filled, you may simply think to advertise it on relevant job boards, especially those with a focus on the hotel industry, and this is certainly a perfectly viable strategy. However, you should think beyond this too, because the best candidates may not necessarily look at those boards.

For this reason, it is important that your hiring strategy extends to a variety of different channels and platforms. There are a wide range of different options, from turning to a professional recruiter, who may have extensive experience in sourcing the best candidates for hotel jobs, through to making use of social media.

LinkedIn, for instance, is an excellent social networking site for developing a professional network and by advertising jobs on the platform, you may be able to reach out to candidates who are not actively exploring job boards, but who may want a new job. Similarly, you could post jobs on your own hotel website and social media accounts.

5. Use the Interview Process to Narrow Candidates Down

Once you have your list of applicants, you can start to filter out the ones who do not meet your criteria and identify the ones who you think might have the best chance of fitting in. Then, you can use the interview process to narrow this list of potential candidates down even further, so that your final decision is easier.

It is important that you use your interviews to ask questions that help you to understand not only the skills and experience that candidates have, but also their personal characteristics and attributes too. You may also want to consider whether face-to-face interviews are needed, or whether phone or video interviews would work.

Give careful thought to who will actually carry out the interviews. Departmental leaders, who have experience in the role, could take the lead, but you might want to do it yourself, or you might want to build an interview team. When deciding on how many people to interview, factor in the costs and how quickly you need someone in place.

6. Hire Hotel Staff With the Qualities to Succeed

Once you have carried out all of the interviews, you need to make a final decision on which candidate(s) will join your pool of hotel staff. By this point, you have a lot of information about the applicants, but you can still gain more. For instance, checking references can help you to build an even clearer picture.

Going further, you may also want to carry out a basic check of social media profiles. In particular, LinkedIn can be useful for checking whether job histories match up with the information you have been given. Depending on the nature of their role within your hotel, you may also need to carry out a criminal background check.

Ultimately, your decision on who to hire should focus on choosing those with the right qualities to succeed. This means a combination of the right skills, the right level of experience and the right personal attributes. Even someone with all of the right qualifications may not be the best pick if they would not fit your company culture.

7. Invest Sufficiently in Training for Your New Hires

Finally, it is important to remember that the hiring process does not end at the point that you make your decision about who to hire. New hotel staff need to be trained to do their job. Moreover, they need to be made to feel like part of the team, given their work uniform, and made aware of company policies.

You are going to need to invest sufficiently in training, even if they have prior experience in a similar role. Hotels are all different and they are going to need to learn how things are done in your hotel.

It is also crucial to understand that training for new hotel staff is not something that can be provided once and then forgotten about. For the vast majority of job roles within a hotel, there is going to be an on-going need for training, especially as your wider hotel strategies change, technology improves and processes evolve.

Video: How to Recruit a Good Job Candidate

Below you find a video with tips how to recruit and hire the best candidates for your company.

Overview of Channels to Recruit Hotel Staff

When you are looking to recruit new hotel staff, there are a number of different channels to explore, from online hotel job boards and your own hotel website, to social media platforms and professional recruitment agencies. Understanding each of these channels can help greatly when it comes to finding the right candidates for your vacancies.

Search Hotel Staff via Hotel Job Boards

When it comes to finding hotel staff to fill vacancies, job boards represent one of the best available options. After all, the people using these platforms are all actively seeking work and some job boards specialize in connecting hotels with people who are keen to work in the hotel industry, or those who already work in the industry.

Overview of Hotel Staff and All Different Positions Within the Hotel Industry

A significant part of the recruitment process is focused not so much on identifying the right candidates, but on identifying the right positions to fill. As hotels grow or evolve, the number of people you employ may also increase. For this reason, it is important to have a rounded understanding of all of the different job roles.

Hiring staff with the required skills and qualities can be the difference between success and failure within the hotel industry. By following the tips provided, you can ensure you hire the right hotel staff for the right positions.

Ramy Ayoub

The post How to Hire the Best Hotel Staff for Your Hotel? appeared first on Ramy Ayoub.

Business growth and revenue management are top priorities for most hotel owners, and these concepts tend to rely heavily on optimizing demand for hotel rooms. One of the ways hotels can do this is through the Google Hotels platform. In this article, you can find details on how this works and what the main benefits are.

What is Google Hotels?

Google Hotels is a hotel metasearch engine, which forms part of the wider Google search engine. It allows customers to search for and book hotels online, and allows those involved in hotel management to increase visibility and attract more bookings. The service originally launched in 2011 and was initially known as Google Hotel Finder.

Aside from its core functionality in helping users to find and book hotel rooms, Google Hotels is also valuable as a room rate comparison tool and a review platform. It will allow potential customers to compare feedback, along with prices for different hotels, and even prices on different platforms that are selling the same hotel rooms.

How Does Google Hotels Work?

The Google Hotels service is able to present users with information about all of the hotels that Google is aware of. This awareness could home about as a result of online travel agents (OTAs), other hotel metasearch engines, professional relationships between the hotel and Google, paid advertisements, and more.

Examples of the type of information presented include hotel descriptions, reviews, location data and price information. Google Hotels also allows users to book rooms directly through the platform, which means potential hotel customers do not ever need to leave Google. This results in a greatly streamlined booking process.

With that being said, Google Hotels also provides links to other platforms, including hotel websites and OTAs.

For many travelers, Google represents the first destination for travel bookings, because it allows for instant price comparisons and the booking of hotels, airline tickets and much more. With this in mind, it makes sense for those involved with hotel marketing to capitalize on the platform’s popularity, in order to enhance hotel visibility.

While those within the hotel industry tend to favor direct bookings, because more of the money spent by the customer is retained by the hotel, it is a reality that the hotel industry is increasingly reliant on third-party services. These third parties can help to generate bookings, because customers discover hotels through them.

Google Hotels is unique in offering benefits associated with third-parties, while simultaneously boosting direct bookings.

What is the Difference Between Google Hotels and OTAs?

Online travel agents, or OTAs, sell services on behalf of companies in the travel industry, including hotels. In the process, they will take a commission fee, which will usually be a percentage of the amount the customer pays. As a result, while they have a clear role in your hotel marketing strategy, they can be expensive to rely on.

By contrast, Google Hotels is a metasearch engine, which searches other platforms, including OTAs, and shows availability information, along with the various room rates. In addition to this, hotels also have the opportunity to use Google Hotels to showcase their property, advertising rates and availability, and attract direct bookings.

What Are the Advantages of Google Hotel for Hoteliers?

In this section, you will be able to find out about some of the key advantages of using Google Hotels for those in the

1. Capture Customers Seeking a Hotel in Your Area

One of the big advantages of Google Hotels is the ability to attract and convert customers who are specifically seeking hotels in your area. This is important, because many Google users do not have a specific hotel in mind when they begin their search and they are seeking only the best available option in the location of their choice.

The results that are displayed when users enter a relevant search term will provide your hotel’s name, along with room rates, location details, reviews and various other pieces of information that can help to attract bookings.

2. Generate a Higher Number of Direct Bookings

Another crucial benefit of using Google Hotels is the ability to compete with OTAs for visibility in Google search results, while also linking customers directly to your hotel’s website and/or booking engine. Without this, customers would be more likely to book through those OTAs instead of going the direct route.

This is significant because direct bookings allow hotels to retain more of the money customers spend on the booking. After all, OTAs take a fairly large commission – sometimes exceeding 20 percent. If your hotel is not connected to any OTAs at all, Google Hotels helps to ensure you have a presence on search engine results pages.

3. Access to Important Customer Information

While Google’s service does essentially act as a link between the customer and the hotel, many bookings generated through Google Hotels are eventually made directly. As a result, when you generate bookings, you are able to gain access to valuable customer information, including contact details and demographic data.

When bookings are made through other third parties, they often gain ownership of the customer information instead. Such information is valuable for pre-arrival customer service, and the customer information can equally be used as part of a wider data collection strategy, so that the data can inform future business decisions.

4. Ownership of the Entire Customer Journey

In addition to gaining valuable customer information, another plus point associated with using Google Hotels is the opportunity to own the entire customer journey from start to finish.

This can be important for a number of reasons, but one of the most significant relates to pre-arrival communication. If a hotel has ownership of the entire journey, they can more easily communicate hotel policies with those who book, but also identify opportunities for up-selling and cross-selling too, which is vital for optimizing revenue.

How is Your Hotel Showcased in Google Hotels?

When you actually connect your hotel to the Google Hotels service, your hotel will be showcased in a number of different ways. You can find out more about these below:

In Search Results

The first and perhaps most obvious place your Google hotel ads will be displayed is within search engine results pages. Your hotel information and booking options will be shown to users who enter relevant search terms, such as those who are searching for hotels with your name, or for hotels close to your geographical location.

In Google Maps

Google Hotels will also display your hotel information within the Google Maps platform. This can be vital, because many travelers use Google Maps ahead of their trip in order to get a clear sense of local attractions, local facilities and nearby hotels. From the Maps interface, users are also able to book rooms directly.

In Google Assistant

Google Assistant is the name of Google’s AI-powered virtual assistant. It is found on smartphones, smart hubs and other similar devices, and allows hotels to reach users who are using voice search to find hotels. Furthermore, Google Assistant actually allows for bookings to be completed entirely through voice commands.

In Google Hotel Search

Finally, hotel ads will also be displayed when users visit the dedicated Google Hotels website (Google.com/travel/hotels) and conduct a relevant search. This is useful, because these users have very clear intent with their searches and they are also among the most likely to actually complete a booking.

What Are the Costs for Hoteliers Selling Rooms via Google Hotels?

Google Hotels works according to a bidding model, with hotels selecting their strategy and deciding how much they are willing to pay for hotel information to be displayed to users who have carried out a relevant search. One of the most popular options here is cost-per-click (CPC), where the hotel pays for each click generated by their advertisement.

The CPC model includes options for a fixed amount to be paid per click, or for a more flexible approach, where bids are automatically adjusted based on the likelihood of attracting a booking. An alternative to CPC is to pay Google on a commission basis and this can be set up so that you pay per commission per booking, or per guest stay.

Essentially, this means you will have a choice between paying out a percentage of the booking fee the customer pays, or paying a set amount of your own money each time one of your ads is clicked.

Video: How Consumers Use Google Hotels?

In this video, you will learn how consumers use Google Hotels to search and find hotels.

Video: How to Use Google Hotel Ads to Increase Direct Bookings

In this video, hoteliers will learn how to Use Google Hotels Ads and increase their direct bookings.

How to Become a Google Hotels Partner

Hotels have two main options for becoming a Google Hotels partner: connect availability information and room rates to the service directly, or find and work with an official connectivity partner or channel manager.

The first option will require you to create and maintain an account with the Google Hotel Center. From there, you should be able to connect availability and pricing information and link your new account to your Google Ads account.

Working with a connectivity partner circumvents much of this hassle, as everything will be taken care of for you. However, the downside is that this option will cost more and it could be prohibitively expensive for smaller hotels.

Reviews on the Google Hotels Service

The Google platform allows users to leave reviews for many business types, and hotels are no different. Google Hotels will display these reviews to users, enabling them to get a sense of what customers really think about your hotel. Crucially, the platform has been configured to detect and remove reviews that appear to be spam.

Understanding Google Travel Insights

Aside from Google Hotels, there are various other Google services that can benefit those in the travel and tourism industry, and a good example of this can be seen with Google Travel Insights. This particular service provides access to key performance and industry data, with examples including demand for travel and emerging booking trends.

Google Hotels forms one part of the much larger global offering from Google, and it has become extremely well regarded within the travel and tourism sector. By fully capitalizing on what the platform has to offer, hotels have the potential to improve online visibility, attract direct bookings and grow their business.

Ramy Ayoub

The post Tips for Hoteliers to Grow Bookings With Google Hotels appeared first on Ramy Ayoub.