Candidates for hospitality positions at the leadership level have already demonstrated themselves to be driven in their careers. As such, they often look for opportunities to grow as leaders within a supportive corporate culture, not merely a competitive salary and benefits package. Hotel operators who offer this “added value” in their management-level roles thus gain an advantage in attracting and retaining these professionals, who tend to have more options in the current job market. As Ben Perelmuter, president & COO, TPG Hotels & Resorts, pointed out, smaller properties and select-service brands have proliferated over the last 10 years, creating more management-level opportunities in local markets. “The competition just becomes fierce for that quality individual and becomes a bidding war,” he said. “We see a lot of turnover, and it’s harder to kind of keep them anchored. Back in the day, people would move up within the hotel and then move on, for example, take a promotion at a hotel in another city. Now, I’m seeing more managers not want to move, and they just kind of bounce from hotel to hotel within the market.”
Sourcing sales leaders can be a particular challenge, added Debra Punke, chief human resources officer, Concord Hospitality. “The hardest positions to fill are our sales leaders. They’re not really remote positions, and many companies are now offering remote sales work, which makes it difficult to compete against,” she explained. Concord does offer hybrid sales positions, where the leaders still need to be onsite for client tours, for example. And if the candidate is only interested in fully remote roles, “you can’t push a square peg into a round hole,” she said.
The Leadership Pipeline
Assuming the basic terms of the job—salary, benefits, work arrangement—do align with the expectations of management candidates, it becomes a matter of attracting them with grow potential and company culture. But before looking to attract candidates from the outside, many hotel operators prefer to begin with an internal search. “We always look inside first. We’ve got about a 47 percent internal fill rate for leadership positions,” Punke said. “And we do that by creating a pool of ‘high potentials’ that we often go to.” She elaborated on the kinds of traits these individuals exhibit. “They have to show the desire and the capacity to grow as leaders. And their general managers and their regional VPs of operations or sales have to endorse them: they would see someone with a good work ethic, someone who is organized, and someone whom the associates support,” Punke said. Also important is that the staff member be “deeply immersed into our culture and believe in the company’s mission and values.”
Concord’s internal leadership pipeline is supported by its Emerging Leaders Program, which grooms staff members for their relevant leadership role—GM, sales director, chief engineer, chef, etc. The program “takes those high potentials, pairs them with a mentor, and provides formalized training and regular interactions to move them to the next-level leadership,” she related. “We usually put about two dozen through the programming every 18 months. Once they’re endorsed, they go through a meeting with the senior leaders in the company and the regional leaders at our home office in Raleigh. They get to showcase themselves, have meals with them, etc.”
The Emerging Leaders Program is an example of how a company can establish a “leadership culture” that ultimately helps to fill leadership roles in the organization with great internal candidates. During the latter stages of the COVID pandemic, Valencia Hotel Group began focusing on creating such a culture, and even established a “Culture Committee” that met once a month to “talk about, how do we make it better for the associates? How do we make them want to stay and want to grow with us?” explained Trent Freeman, VP of operations. “And one of the key things that came out of that was bringing the hotels together. We had, essentially, seven different silos—they were different hotels. So, we really tried to unify the cultures as one Valencia Hotel Group culture.” When line-level employees identify with the goals and values of the company as a whole, they feel encouraged to pursue their leadership aspirations in the broader organization, beyond the hotel where they work.
Best Practices for External Sourcing
Promoting existing staff members is often preferred as a more expedient and cost-effective way to fill management roles, but sometimes external recruitment can’t be avoided. And to make that process as effective as possible, “we don’t just post a job,” said Punke. “That is so ‘last decade.’ We go out and hunt candidates, proactively source on LinkedIn, and we’re networking everywhere we go.”
Punke added that when it comes to drawing the best candidates, a great company reputation is even more effective than an attractive job posting. “Our biggest recruiting tool is our reputation. Concord has a very good reputation in the industry, and people will migrate to those who have a better reputation,” she said. “Winners want to be with winners.” Perelmuter echoed this idea, noting the importance of promoting the company’s reputation as a rewarding workplace with caring executives. “There are a lot of vehicles for that [promotion]. Social media is one, where we share stories of people celebrating successes and promotions, as well as and charitable events. And I think that managers today are on social media platforms a lot, and they see that and want to associate with it.”
Conversely, there are many key qualities that the company will look for in the leadership candidate. “It’s [mainly] personality traits, because we can train a lot of things, but you can’t train someone to be a leader, per se,” said Punke. Many of those traits will already be confirmed with promising internal candidates, but external candidates are less familiar, and their leadership potential must be vetted at the interview stage. “They’ve got to have a hospitality heart. … They have to be a self-starter who’s generally positive, someone who cares about helping people develop themselves, and embraces the differences in people,” she noted by way of example.
The interview process itself is “fast,” Punke added. “We don’t spend weeks and months on this process because we know that the cream of the crop goes quickly. … Our goal is 15 days from post to hire for leadership positions.” She noted that her team stays in contact with the “runners-up” for these roles, “so we continue to filter them through as positions are becoming available.”
Getting Them Up and Running
“Statistics will tell you that 86 percent of people will stay with you if they have an effective onboarding, and it could not be more true,” said Punke. That key phase has two general goals: connecting the new leader with people and processes. While the individual comes in with considerable experience, he or she still needs to establish relationships with existing management and understand the organization and hotel’s particular procedures, whether it’s brand training, navigating a proprietary PMS, learning recycling protocols, etc. Toward the first goal, a new manager at Concord spends two orientation days at the headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina. “You meet all the senior leaders. You meet all the discipline heads. You are immersed into all the resources of our company,” Punke said. And then you head back to your hotel, and your regional vice president meets you there. They introduce you to the team.” Perelmuter also stressed that “you don’t want to just hire a new general manager and send that individual to the hotel without any support. … The regional VP of operations will likely hire that GM, and it is certainly our position that the VP of operations should be onsite with the GM on Day One.” Both Perelmuter and Punke also emphasized the advantages of implementing a mentorship program for new leaders, even though they are typically already seasoned professionals. A mentor can facilitate cultural immersion and serve as a resource for the manager who is not yet fully comfortable in the new role. “If I’m a new general manager, I may not want to go to my regional vice president and ask him this ‘silly’ question, but if I go to a peer, I feel a little more comfortable about that,” said Punke. “When you’re an external candidate, you’re learning about a new company, and when you’re an internal candidate, you’re learning a new position. Both require some sort of mentorship to make that process smoother, to make you ramp up more successfully and more quickly, and to feel more confident in your position.”
To ensure that confidence has been achieved and the new manager is able to fully focus on the role, regular check-ins are important at intervals such as 30, 60, and 90 days. Typically, the first 30 days are the most intense and the new hire’s situation stabilizes thereafter, but “every scenario is different,” Perelmuter advised. “It depends on how fast the manager picks up on these things. And every market is different. Some general managers are going to walk into a hotel where things are set up. The department heads have been there for a while, and they have stability.” But there are other scenarios, he said, where the manager is walking into a situation of upheaval and needs more support even well after the 30-day mark.
Ongoing Growth Opportunities
Managers, directors, and even VPs have succeeded in their careers in part by capitalizing on learning opportunities beyond their degree programs, and for most, that professional development never plateaus. Thus, hoteliers do well to facilitate that pursuit for their high-level hires. At Concord, it begins with a leadership development course that “all new managers and supervisors are required to go through,” Punke said. “It covers everything from communication to dining etiquette.” The course has also evolved over the years to cover topics such as emotional intelligence, managing different generations and cultures, and, of course, leveraging AI in hotel operations.
