The challenges of the labor environment have affected every corner of the hotel industry.
Lori Kiel, vice president of sales and revenue management for the Kessler Collection, said her team has seen drastic upheaval during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated economic downturn.
After cutting down to a skeleton staff during the depths of the crisis, Kiel said her team of revenue and sales professionals bounced back, adding dozens of new members in recent months. But that presents a new challenge for the field: How do you maintain a company's culture when the new hires noticeably outnumber the long-time employees?
Speaking with Hotel News Now during a joint interview of hotel industry revenue leaders at the 2021 HSMAI Revenue Optimization Conference, Kiel said that's one of her top challenges.
"I just never have onboarded so many people," she said. "It's really hard on the psyche when you have so many people that they just don't know your culture, they don't know the protocol. They come with their own three-ring binder, and you have to ask them to please put that on the shelf and learn who we are."
She said the industry, and Kessler Collection specifically, owes a debt of gratitude to those who stuck around through the worst of the downturn, adding her appreciation for the 13 employees on her team who remained through the crisis.
"They call themselves the OG 13. ... I do feel like we owe them something, because I've never worked more hours, more days in the 30 years of my career," she said. "I've never worked as much as I have worked in the last 18 months."
Lior Sekler, vice president of revenue management at HRI Lodging LLC, said those employees — on top of new hires — have faced a significant transition themselves.
"Compared to 18 months ago, there was a different model and different structure and [work was] following a certain pace," he said. "Now we just have to expect to be more nimble, more flexible, take our time. Things might not happen today. They might happen in three days."
Erica Lipscomb, senior vice president of revenue management at Crescent Hotels & Resorts, said the industry faces a crisis in dealing with this at a point where the enjoyment of working in the hotel industry just isn't there.
"My hope is very simple," she said. "I joined this industry because of how much I loved it and how it was fun. I got to properties now, and it doesn't feel fun. I just want everyone to smile."
Lipscomb said leaders need to do a better job managing workloads and leading by example to avoid cases of extreme burnout for their teams, comparing it to putting on one's own oxygen mask first in case of an airplane emergency.
"I remember after 90 days of just working nonstop because you're at home and you don't have to get up from your desk, thinking, 'What am I doing?'" she said. "I know better, right?"
Heidi Cosio, vice president of revenue strategy for Aimbridge Hospitality, said the job of being a leader in revenue right now involves making a lot more interpersonal connections than before and taking more time to do things like having informal conversations with team members or taking them out to lunch.
"It's just making sure you're staying connected from an eye-to-eye level," she said. "Because a lot of times, we're constantly just looking down, doing our job then leaving. It's about being able to say, 'I see you. I hear you. I'm here for you. Let's talk about it.'"
Those interpersonal connections are stymied somewhat by the fact that many employees are still remote, Cosio said.
"There are 25 people in our office, and there are 120 people on my team," she said. "So it's about how do you manage through those other 100 people and making sure they know they're seen and heard, too."
Sekler said managing that burnout also comes down to supporting employees taking time away.
"I love that my boss applauds me that I actually take three weeks of vacation," he said. "So it's important to do the same thing with the team."
He said team members are also more invested when they're given a say in internal changes, like making revenue managers deal with multiple properties at once.
"When we had to complex properties during the pandemic, I approached them and said, 'Listen, this is the reality, but I'm opening it up to you to decide which properties you want to take on.' So, they had more ownership in the process."
Linda Gulrajani, vice president of revenue strategy and distribution at Marcus Hotels & Resorts, said looking at the difficulties on the operational side puts things into perspective, as well.
"Every time I feel bad for myself, I look at the GMs filling in for the night auditors or the front-desk people or directors of [operations] that don't get time off, and not only do they not get time off, but they're dealing with horrible things," she said.
If there was a silver lining in that regard for the revenue discipline, it's that revenue managers have had more exposure to other disciplines and include more of it in their day to day.
Gulrajani said they're also learning to factor in operational challenges to revenue strategy.
"We care more about staffing," she said. "In the past, we never thought about staffing in operations, right? We just assumed it happened. But now it plays into how we sell our hotels and how we think about things. It's made us focus more on profit."