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Hotel Management Firm North Central Group Reexamines Recruitment

CEO Says Meaning of Flexibility, Security Has Changed for Hotel Employees
Third-party hotel management company North Central Group is developing The Trade Milwaukee, part of Marriott International's Autograph Collection, in an entertainment mixed-use district adjacent to the Fiserv Forum arena, home to the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks. (Rendering: North Central Group)
Third-party hotel management company North Central Group is developing The Trade Milwaukee, part of Marriott International's Autograph Collection, in an entertainment mixed-use district adjacent to the Fiserv Forum arena, home to the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks. (Rendering: North Central Group)
CoStar News
October 21, 2021 | 12:43 P.M.

PHOENIX — “What’s in it for me?”

That question is at the crux of the current hospitality labor shortage, according to North Central Group CEO Jonathan Bogatay. He described it as the third critical element today’s employers must meet for potential employees, along with compensation and flexibility.

“Compensation is critical. Flexibility is critical,” he said, speaking with Hotel News Now during a break at the 2021 Lodging Conference. “But then prospective employees ask, ‘What’s in it for me?’ and we have to be able to answer that. People want to understand what a workplace can really offer because they might have five other options. The benefits at all five might be comparable and the wage might be comparable. So what’s in it for me? Are there other benefits or creative incentives?”

Bogatay said his Middleton, Wisconsin-based third-party hotel management company doesn’t have all the answers to that question but is “asking more questions than ever before” of prospective employees, trying to figure out how to meet employees where they are while still running a business.

“I grew up in this business and flexibility then was that you could work 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., 3 p.m. to 11 p.m., or 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.,” he said with a laugh. “Now the reality is that we may have one team member only available for four hours on a Tuesday afternoon and two hours on a Saturday morning, and we’ll take them.”

For North Central Group, which manages a portfolio of 29 hotels and conference centers, that has meant retraining HR team members on how to recruit and just how much they can offer, from bus passes to education reimbursement.

“We don’t quite know yet how lenient we can be; it’s whatever moves the meter for that person,” he said. “Once I get you, I want to keep you, but the reality is that some positions in a hotel may stay for three years, and some may turnover five times in a year. That ‘What’s in it for me?’ question has turned out to be more pervasive than we think.”

Creating a narrative for employees outlining rewarding career paths is another part of the solution, Bogatay said.

Many younger employees may not necessarily want to put in the necessary time to gain experience to move up into more secure positions, he said. Compounding that is a level of insecurity around hospitality jobs.

“People always have wanted a degree of job security, but industry security is something new that people are worried about now as a result of the pandemic,” he said.

Telling and showing the story of how hospitality can create passion in people is what keeps the fire lit for Bogatay. But truly developing that passion in prospective employees is a long game, and he said this past summer wasn’t necessarily the most inspiring period in which to be making that point.

“Business was fantastic, but our guest was different,” he said, describing the wave of summer leisure travelers who descended upon hotels with pent-up travel demands that often resulted in “that guest creating a scene in the lobby and absolutely pummeling my guest-services representative at the front desk who just goes into the back office crying and ready to quit the industry.”

As demand peaks and valleys smooth into more normal patterns, Bogatay said he is hopeful the hospitality side of the business will rise in importance again.

“It really is all about the experiences — the experiences of our team members and the guests — and how we create those,” he said. “That involves people and I still believe we are in the people business.”

Company Growth

Celebrating 40 years in business this year North Central Group’s portfolio is largely Marriott International and Hilton-branded hotels across brands including Courtyard by Marriott, Home2 Suites by Hilton and Hampton Inn & Suites.

A conference center attached to a Hilton Garden Inn in Brookfield, Wisconsin, and an independently owned tavern round out the company’s portfolio, with a landmark development on the horizon.

In partnership with the 2021 NBA Champion Milwaukee Bucks, North Central Group is developing a new-build nine-story, 205-room hotel in the new mixed-use entertainment area around Fiserv Forum called Deer District.

The hotel, called The Trade and part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection, broke ground in September and will open in the first quarter of 2023 with a signature restaurant, more than 9,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor event space and a rooftop restaurant and lounge.

“We are creating this entertainment district that will truly become a destination,” Bogatay said.

Working on a project like this has spurred North Central Group’s leadership to reflect on its history and future, he said.

“We celebrated 40 years and now we’re having conversations about what the next 40 look like,” he said.

That future may include more diversification. The company added the phrase “real estate” to its mission statement to replace “hotel,” because Bogatay said evolution is part of the company’s story.

“We already manage a conference center today. We’re looking at multifamily, potentially at senior living, at all ways to diversify,” he said.

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