Hiring management people has always been a fragmented, inefficient approach.

Does this sound familiar?
A Management person leaves your hotel and you don't have anyone to promote. The Human Resources Department is contacted, the rest of the management team is advised and asked if they know anyone for the position, newspaper ads are written and placed, and the management team starts to network with their friends and associates.

(We all know how networking goes, right? People spend 20% of the call on the issue, 20% of the time getting re-acquainted, and 60% of the call on issues that usually have no direct bearing on the hotel's business. And we all know networking calls average about 15 minutes each. Then there is the time wasted on the 2-4 voice messages before talking to the person - at least another 5 minutes.)

Next, a property typically contacts professional organizations to ask them for leads on candidates, and the corporate office and/or franchise office is called. Sometimes Executive Placement companies are called.

Once resumes start coming in they are logged and typically routed to 2-4 people for review. Then there are the telephone interviews of candidates that looked a lot better on paper then they sounded on the phone. Finally the field is narrowed down to a few candidates. Now it is time for background investigations, credit checks, and reference checks. Finally interviews are done and hopefully a hiring decision is made.

The above technique takes on average 13-17 weeks per position. Some hotels used to have the time and money to follow this old fashioned technique.

The Contribution Factor
Every Management position, except sales, should improve profits by five times the annual compensation for the position the first year. (Sales people should improve profits at least 10x their compensation every year.)

Stated another way, every week a management position remains vacant your annualized profits drop 10% of the annual compensation for the position. (Vacancies in sales positions reduce profits 20% of the annual compensation for the position weekly.)

Yes, we all know most people don't start to contribute to profits the first week they start a new position, but your annual profits start to decrease the day the person leaves. More about this a later.

Hotels should also use Cost / Benefit Ratio.

The Trend
1991-1993 hotels reduced the size of their management staffs by 23%. Do you know of any hotel that reduced the number of reports, meetings, and other responsibilities by 23%? Of course not, if anything, each member of your management team has more to do. That means hotels must find ways to do things more efficiently. (Incidentally, almost all hotels have held their staffing levels at those reduced sizes ever since 1993.)

Any time people only do things occasionally they are not as efficient. Try golfing 6-8 times a year and maintaining a 3 stroke handicap. Yet, when it comes to managing the steps leading up to the hiring of management people that is exactly what most hotels do.

No management position should take longer than 3-7 weeks to fill.

We said above that hotels have management vacancies an average of 13 weeks. Let's look at an example on how that translates into bottom line dollars.

If the compensation for a position is $50,000 per year that means your profits start to drop $5,000 per week the first week the position is vacant. If it takes 13 weeks before a new person starts your profits for the next 12 months have dropped $65,000. Every week you can shorten the process improves your profits by $5,000.

We sincerely hope your property is much more efficient at filling positions than the 13 week average. Most hotels think their management positions take much less time to fill than they actually do. Before writing this page off as self-serving propaganda have someone go back two years and verify how long each of your management vacancies were open. Compute the average and you will have an actual average for your hotel.

If Ferree & Associates, Inc. Search and Placement Division can shorten your process by just three weeks your increased profitability will pay for their fee.

Securemploy has Options to Enhance Your Profits.

Securemploy Pinpoint Ads or Securemploy Candidate Sourcing are effective alternatives to classified advertising and executive search and placement and they are less expensive.

Hospitality Heart Beat can give you ideas on how other hotels are addressing their employment problems.

Diagnostic Evaluations can assist in making better hiring decisions and in getting the employee to maximum efficiency quicker.

SECUREMPLOY PROVIDES MORE EFFECTIVE WAYS TO HIRE PEOPLE, ways that eliminate the old fashioned fragmented approach, save you lots of time and money, and increases your opportunities to hire star performers.

Securemploy is the Research Division of Ferree & Associates, Inc., one of the hotel industries oldest, respected Executive Search and Placement companies.

Copyright © 1996-2005 Ferree & Associates, Inc.
Updated June 2005