Hospitality managers are more & more free agents? … But are you ready?!

More and more Hospitality managers are free agents, but organization- and HR setup handling this trend is almost non existent. Are you ready for this?!

Glad you joined our newsletter. In this issue I will share with you a complaint I hear a lot from MD’s, GM’s and shareholders/resort owners:

‘I cannot get my top managers to commit over 2 years!’

Bing; reality! The top of our industry is more and more compiled of so called ‘free agents’. This phenomenon is well known in for example IT branches, where highly skilled professionals can find better conditions at the competition in the blink of an eye.

I hear you think; ‘nice to know, now what?’ Fair enough but somewhat naïve when you realize how much money and time is spent nowadays to find the right candidate for the job.

Let’s say you are committed to finding a good F&B director for your restaurants and bars at the 5-start 300-room resort you are managing. You sit down with the HR manager who in turn contacts both the head hunter they are dealing with and post the position on HCareers and CatererGlobal, perhaps even on EHotelier; let’s go wild!

Within the hour the HR department is swamped by unclear resumes, with or without vague pictures from ‘specialists’ all over the world, even including some with F&B experience. The HR department will in turn nicely stack these resumes after shifting through them, dividing them in ‘garbage’ and somewhat useful and include the 4 or 5 resumes from the headhunters as well.

Your turn: these stacks of selected resumes are placed on your desk for your review and discussed with you and after the HR manager has interviewed the potential candidates, which you will do also. Depending upon the weight of the position you will invite the 2 or 3 final candidates for a personal interview and then… you will place your bet by choosing the new team member.

You are all too familiar with the above mentioned two paragraphs… Now if you would include a few questions in your selection and interview routine to determine if the candidate is or is not a free agent, you will gain serious time, energy, save money and moreover avoid massive frustration.

To explain this, let’s go a little deeper into the term ‘free agent’. In our business a free agent is an independent employee working for themselves rather than for a single employer (source Wikipedia.org) who believe their skills are in high demand.

Without engaging into the discussion if their skills are indeed in high demand at this moment, there are some very important opportunities you as manager can benefit from in these characteristics.

First of all free agents see themselves as specialists, highly motivated individuals, and most likely have the right experience besides the fact they are willing to commit for a defined period.

These characteristics are also your question markers. Is your candidate indeed a specialist? What is the yearly spread in their resume between ‘moves’? Is there global and positional growth? How does the person define her/himself? All these questions will direct you to your answer if they are or are not a free agent.

If they are; great, and If they are not; also great! Both provide excellent opportunities for you and can help you get your objectives without the frustration of considering these ‘revolving door’ positions in your resort. How come, you may think?

In order to comprehend this concept you will have to approach their hiring and employment with a different mindset. You are not filling the position ‘old school’;

...You are hiring a temporary specialist,

for a certain project for a defined period of time,

who is also looking over regular/routine affairs!...

Let’s dig into the case of our example; the F&B director. Besides the regular continuation of the daily operation; what are the year to year objectives and improvements you consider necessary? What areas are you looking for to improve? Service or software perhaps equipment or hardware; each area calls for a specific specialist. Don’t assume the F&B director position setup of the 90’s will get you your results today!

On another side, you can divide a part of the salary into a bonus scheme attached to these objectives. How about R&R incorporated into their contract in a down period relieving your P&L? Or perhaps bringing over their partner, or sending them with their partner on a ‘training’ trip-incentive?

Remember, the above mentioned items are quite common in other industries where the exposure to these free agents exists far longer. Slowly some Indian Ocean resort companies are incorporating these trends in their contracts, but we still have a long learning curve to bridge. Think about it and you may benefit massively from this new setup.

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With sunny regards & see you soon... Jenny & Frits Hannenberg