SHOULD YOU EMPLOY A SALES SPECIALIST?

How do you decide whether or not to employ a sales specialist? Again this really depends on your own skills and aptitudes and the potential of your business. There are many sales situations where potential contacts really benefit from speaking direct to the owner or manager. On the other hand there is a lot of research and routine follow up that can be organised by a sales executive. But what you cannot avoid is the need to have a sales focus within your hotel. Without this focus your business will inevitably suffer and you risk disappointing all those ‘warm’ prospects that phone. If you do not feel comfortable with selling then either get comfortable through training or bring people into your hotel that are comfortable.

Mostly it is a question of economics. If your occupancy of a 30 room hotel is 55 per cent and the rate you expect from extra business to take you to 70 per cent is £ 50 net, then the potential is £ 82,150 each year. Say that you have to pay a sales executive £ 25,000. Is the extra revenue interesting?

Don’t forget the 55 per cent that you already have. It takes a lot of effort to keep that sort of occupancy, since just by natural attrition you can lose up to 25 per cent of your business each year: companies move, your contact moves, the competition undercuts your rates, the expense policy changes or any number of other reasons.

What you cannot do is pass on your responsibility for producing top-line revenue. You have to stay involved in the sales activities and probably look after certain sales accounts yourself. You also need to be involved with in-house sales training and in this way provide effective leadership.

Responsibilities

I highlighted earlier some of the sales tasks. In addition there is a great deal of work to be done within the hotel by a sales specialist to make every team member part of the greater ‘sales team’. Reception staff need to be helped to up-sell to more expensive rooms and banqueting or meeting specialists need to be motivated to up-sell to better menus.

Who does what is up to you to decide, but the training needs internally mustn’t be underestimated. Even where you have reception or banqueting managers there needs to be a system for ensuring that the sales training is undertaken.

Recruitment

Although the type of selling that takes place in a hotel is relatively soft, it is nevertheless difficult to stay motivated through the inevitable setbacks that a sales executive receives. You need someone with persistence and the ability to see things through. It is not a job for instant gratification. Look at the applicant’s CV for examples of where they have had to use their initiative.

Ideally they will come from a sales background, but don’t be fooled by hotel-type job descriptions such as ‘banqueting sales’; usually this is nothing of the sort. There is a big difference between actually getting on the phone and waiting for it to ring. I have always favoured people from outside the hospitality industry, usually selling business to business; membership development staff from health clubs seem to have the right attitude.

The sales executive will often be the first impression that prospects have of your hotel. So if he or she does not make a great first impression on you then be very wary. You shouldn’t have any trouble at the interview because the sales candidate should do most of the talking. Of course you don’t want someone who is going to bore your prospects with too much talk and not enough listening but the only really effective tool that a sales person has is their mouth and the words that come out of it. So they need to be quick thinkers, persuasive talkers and good at writing. In my view the most vital attributes are an interest in people and a genuine smile that involves the mouth and the eyes.

Managing and motivating

The most effective thing that you can do for a sales executive is make it easy for them to do their job. You need to give them your wholehearted support and ensure that there is no friction between sales and operations. Each separate part of your organisation needs to be educated about all the others. Sales need to understand the technical and operational limitations of what they can offer and operations need to understand how the sales process works and their part in it. Entertaining clients to lunch must not be seen as total pleasure but as part of a very serious effort to sustain everyone’s livelihood.

Small amounts of public praise go a long way and your consistent encouragement will often be better than financial incentives. Look for any small sales success and try to avoid criticism. If you do put in a system of financial incentives, they work much better if they are based on activity goals, which will be related to the identified needs of the hotel.

Evaluating

Sales staff tend to be very goal orientated and you need to agree some specific goals with them and evaluate them from time to time. You should never ask that a certain number of calls be done each day but look at useful metrics:

• New business starts (if you are trying for new corporate business).
• Conversion of enquiries from quotes (if you are sending out group or meeting quotes).
• Number of show rounds (if you are trying for new corporate, meeting or wedding business).
• Conversion of brochure requests/internet enquiries to actual business (if you are promoting weekend business).
• Room up-sells per month (if you have the facility).

You can also look at some softer issues such as cooperation with other departments and fulfilment of sales training tasks.

Meetings

A good sales executive is inclined to action rather than introspection so the fewer meetings the better. However you will probably see the sales executive informally fairly frequently, so you need to schedule some formal time to reflect on what has gone well and what hasn’t. I would recommend a weekly meeting (outside of prime contact time) to talk about the forecast for the next few months and decide on some strategic actions if necessary, particularly with regard to the internet and pricing. You can also discuss the good and bad aspects of last week’s sales actions, talk through the specific plan for the week ahead and agree what assistance is needed from you to help the sales process with specific prospects.

Attributes of a successful sales person

You will know that you have a good sales executive if you can identify most of these attributes in your specialist:

• Daily disciplines. They will break down their goals into daily activities based on their knowledge of how many calls they need to make to achieve a user.
• Ability to prioritise. They will concentrate on those prospects likely to produce new revenue rather than make easier calls to already loyal customers. They will cancel a networking lunch if a good prospect offers them a meeting.
• Understanding revenue. They will know that the name of the game is revenue not rooms and will be aware of the implications of room rates and RevPAR (revenue per available room) but will also think about total spend in pursuing different business possibilities.
• Remains optimistic. They learn from their setbacks and develop tactics to offset them. They remain focused and demonstrate that they really care.
• Initiative. They will feel ownership of your hotel’s sales performance, will display initiative to solve clients’ issues and will be creative.
• Urgency. They are never complacent and stay focused on keeping on top of their plan.

Alternatives

An alternative to a specialist sales executive is to look at the skills and ambitions of your team and see if there is any useful downtime that could be utilised within the shifts. This is not entirely satisfactory since sales development is a long-term task and most operational issues are immediate. The immediate always has priority so any agreed sales development activity always takes second place. However something is always better than nothing, although you need to ensure that every contact with a prospect reflects your image and culture.

HOW CAN YOU CREATE A COMMITTED TEAM?

It is obvious, but nevertheless true, that the activities of the people you employ will determine the quality of service you deliver to your customers. Having happy and motivated staff with the right skills will make for happy guests. It is also a truism that you should recruit your team members for their attitude since, by and large, everything else can be learned.

It doesn’t matter what function the person fulfils within your organisation, there are some common characteristics that are very important. Some of these characteristics may seem difficult to identify but they illustrate what you should be looking for when recruiting a new employee. Finding someone with them all may be like searching for the Holy Grail and you may have to develop some of them by coaching and training later on.

What makes a good employee

A good employee should:

• be professionally competent;
• be loyal to their colleagues and the goals of the business;
• be flexible and willing to change;
• be helpful and co-operative across the organisation;
• be cost-conscious and not waste resources;
• feel responsible for both success and failure of the business;
• use their initiative for the benefit of the business;
• work conscientiously to maintain and develop quality;
• treat their colleagues with respect and dignity;
• learn from their mistakes;
• be open and honest;
• be self-reliant;
• have self-discipline and stamina.

But perhaps the most important characteristics which you need your employees to display are:

• responsibility
• loyalty
• initiative.

Responsibility

It is easy to despair of ever having a committed team. Owners become very sceptical of their employees ever displaying the sort of commitment that they display themselves. You can reduce this commitment gap by having your employees feel responsible for the results of your hotel.

Responsibility, however, is a two-way street. Not only must you give responsibility and authority to your staff but also they must be willing to take responsibility. Giving responsibility is one of the most powerful ways of taking advantage of the natural energy, talents and creativity of your employees. Taking responsibility is one of the best ways to develop personally and create a meaningful life.

People feel responsible when they:

• have something to be responsible for;
• are aware of the goals;
• feel that they have influence.

The experience of being able to influence a situation makes people feel important and creates hope and expectation of progress. It strengthens their self-esteem, which enables them to take more responsibility. Once staff members have accepted some element of responsibility they automatically start to take on wider issues. They will consider their own development, the development of their department or area and the development of the hotel.

To get the most out of life everyone needs to take responsibility for their own actions. Each person chooses the life they live. You will recognise staff that feel they are victims of circumstances by the excuses they give. For example, an employee might say, ‘I’m sorry I’m late but my car wouldn’t start.’ What they should say is, ‘I am sorry I am late but I failed to ensure that my car was in good working order.’

Here is an ideal opportunity to talk to your team member about taking ownership of their problems and solving them themselves.

Loyalty

When employees feel responsible for your hotel’s performance, then they are in a position to be loyal. They will then be proud of your hotel, defend it when necessary and make constructive suggestions for improvement.

Loyalty, however, is an opportunity for conflict. Although you want all your team to be loyal to the business, people sometimes have conflicts with their family commitments. Conflicts also arise when all members of the team do not pull their weight, or a team member notices a colleague making repeated mistakes which managers ignore.

Staff who are not loyal are very disruptive in any organisation. Anyone making negative remarks about the hotel or their colleagues, or not taking responsibility for failures (blaming other people), should be encouraged to seek alternative employment. The loyal employees will expect this to happen and are likely to feel disgruntled when it doesn’t.

Loyalty is about doing everything for the long-term benefit of the hotel. This does not mean saying ‘yes’ to every request. It should mean that if a team member does say ‘yes’ they will do everything they can to achieve the task. It also means that anyone should be allowed, and expected, to say ‘no’, if they cannot perform the task to the required standard.

Initiative

Staff who feel responsible for the success of the hotel, and are loyal, are likely to be prepared to display their initiative. This can be in minor areas such as dealing with guests’ complaints or making major suggestions to innovate your service delivery.

To encourage staff to display their initiative you need to give them the freedom and the opportunity. It is also vital that the goals of the hotel are fully understood and accepted so that everyone is pulling in the same direction.

Employing family members

When you operate a hotel just with family members there is generally no real problem. Well, apart from the usual issues that arise in families about everyone doing their fair share etc! Even in this situation it is wise to be clear about job descriptions and responsibilities, particularly where young people or more distant relatives are involved.

The real problems arise when you employ family members in addition to other people. Blood is always thicker than water, which makes it very difficult to evaluate fairly the contribution of your relatives. All the normal relationships between employees go out of the window since the family member, however hard they try to fit in, is always seen as having a direct line to the boss. All the various feedback mechanisms fail, with none of the family getting the real picture about the business or their own performance.

I remember working for a fairly large private hotel company in the South Pacific when the owner sent his optician son-in-law to work in corporate head office. It seemed amusing at the time imagining where his particular skills were being applied but it caused a lot of dissatisfaction, particularly about his salary. I am sure it all seemed very straightforward from the owner’s point of view since it was his business. However, it caused a lot of resentment and confusion.

There are many examples of entrepreneurs in the hotel business trying to ‘keep it in the family’, and few of them have been successful. However good your son might be in the business, there is always that nagging doubt about whether he would, or could, have succeeded on his own. I recall a colleague of mine mentioning a conversation he had had with his boss who happened to be the son of the owner of the business. The son admitted that his father couldn’t really sack him because he would still have to support him!

A group of employees or a team?

We often call our group of employees a team, but do we really organise things so that they are able to work like one? Are you convinced that all the good qualities displayed by your local sports team are displayed by your employees? Can you answer ‘yes’ to the questions below?

• Do you work together towards a common goal?
• Is everyone committed?
• Does everyone do their best at all times?
• Do you have fun?
• Are you proud to be in the team?
• Does everyone feel responsible for the successes and failures of the team?
• Does everyone work for themselves and the team to succeed?

If you answered ‘no’ to some of them, then you need to take some positive action to develop team working. For everyone to do their best you must specify exactly what is expected from them. They should all contribute to the success of the business but it is vital that they understand exactly how success is measured.

Characteristics of a successful team

If your team is to be successful and achieve the results you expect, they must have:

• the right tools for the job;
• a positive attitude;
• the necessary competence (skills and motivation);
• fairly allocated responsibilities and tasks.

The characteristics of a successful team are that:

• Goals and tasks of the team are both understood and accepted by each individual.
• Responsibilities and roles are clearly allocated.
• Everyone feels free to express their feelings and opinions.
• People support and encourage each other.
• Disagreements are not suppressed or overridden.
• Individuality is encouraged to achieve team goals.
• Criticism is frequent, frank and relatively comfortable.
• Performance standards and rules are clear.
• When action is taken, clear assignments are made and accepted.
• Goals of the individual and the team are aligned.

Organisational conflicts

There are three key factors involved in the success of any organisation. You will want to achieve the best in all three but they are so interlinked that conflicts can arise:

1 Productivity

Productivity is the optimum use of all resources (including human resources) to create results. Companies need to be productive to survive. Individuals need to be productive in order to function well in their job, retain self-esteem and contribute to the team effort.

In order to create positive results it is vital to:

• define the goals;
• define the tasks to reach the goals;
• determine when and by whom the tasks should be done;
• apply resources, time and energy to these tasks.

2 Relationships

Relationships both within the organisation and with the outside world are about company culture, communication and how people are treated. The business is likely to be more successful if employees enjoy their work, have a good work/life balance and really believe that they work for a caring organisation. People who feel good about themselves and others are likely to be motivated to do their best under the most difficult circumstances.

3 Quality

Customers have an expectation of quality, which you may or may not consider reasonable. It is vital to define the quality you expect and then measure how close you are to achieving it. The goal is to close the gap with the help of your team.

Links between productivity, relationships and quality

You need to keep looking for new ways to increase your productivity, improve relationships and develop quality. But these areas are so interlinked that actions in one area can cause a negative change elsewhere:

• You cannot expect receptionists to deliver high quality service (quality) to guests if communication between departments is poor and they don’t feel valued (relationships).
• Attempts to cut costs (productivity) may lead to lower standards of service (quality) and therefore have an impact on how customers feel (relationships).

Sharing the workload

As I mentioned before, the typical owner of a hotel has an extremely wide range of responsibilities. You cannot possibly perform all the tasks yourself so you have to divide them up somehow. You have to delegate responsibility. This is a major commitment on your part, in terms of both time and effort. Sometimes it is tempting to say to yourself, ‘It’s quicker to do it myself rather than spend time explaining it to someone else.’ This may be true in the short term but it does not solve the long-term task problem and it definitely disempowers your team member (more about this later on).

Delegation does not relieve you of ultimate responsibility. What it does is give authority to a staff member to carry out the designated tasks using whatever tools are necessary and to an agreed timescale. Hopefully they will feel that they can use their initiative to achieve what has been agreed.

On a day-to-day basis you do not need to make all the decisions. How often are you asked what you consider to be a stupid question? It is far better to push the decision-making down the organisation to its most appropriate level.

Some major advantages of delegation are:

• decisions are made at the right level;
• your time is released to do more productive tasks;
• staff skills are used appropriately and developed;
• operations continue when the owner is absent;
• the workload is more fairly distributed.

However, to make delegation work you must trust, recognise, and make rules.

Trust

You need to work on the assumption that everyone will respond positively to the opportunity to take responsibility. You will never know how they can perform unless you give them the chance. You cannot be half-hearted about it. Believe in your team and most of the time they will live up to, and probably exceed, your expectations. You might also learn different ways of doing things.

Recognise

Recognition is vital to effective delegation. Not only recognise when staff have performed a task but also look for other opportunities, such as if they do something really helpful. Don’t forget to pass on recognition you get personally for tasks that were actually carried out by members of your team.

Make rules

For delegation to work staff need to know:

• What is to be done.
• How much authority they have.
• Why the task is to be done.
• How the task should be done.
• When the task should be completed.
• What the priority is.
• Likely problems.
• Feedback required.

Coaching for better delegation

Obviously you can’t just say to a team member, ‘Here is a new task, it’s now yours, go away and get on with it.’ You need to prepare the ground and ensure that the team member is in a good position to accept the new tasks that you would like them to take on. You must try to find out why anyone is reluctant to take on a new work task. To be an effective delegator you need to be aware of how your coaching skills can smooth the path for the person to whom you are delegating. This delegated work should always represent an opportunity for genuine advancement in terms of skill and responsibility.

Coaching is the art of improving the performance of others. It attempts to close the gaps between an individual’s present level of performance and the desired one. It is a continuous process of setting goals and then helping get them achieved. One useful model to use in goal setting is the GROW model:

• Define the performance Goals.
• Understand the Reality of what is going on at the moment.
• Explore the Options for achieving the goals.
• Agree When the tasks will be done.
• Implement the agreed actions.
• Feedback on how things went.

This process should take place whenever you interact on a formal basis with your team. You will also need to decide the most appropriate way to coach different team members. Initially some will need to be directed more than others, but the long-term aim should be to let employees do most of the talking so that they set their own goals and find their own solutions. They are likely to be more committed than others who may have been more closely directed by you.

The hospitality industry has always championed practical skills rather than academic learning. To be a top performer you need to be able to influence others and be sensitive to their feelings, whether these are your colleagues or your guests. These issues of ‘emotional intelligence’ rather than ‘academic intelligence’ were highlighted by Daniel Goleman in his 1996 book Emotional Intelligence – why it can matter more than IQ. He contends that people with emotional intelligence are:

• Self-aware: People who are self-aware know how they feel and how they are likely to react in any given situation.
• Self-regulated: People who are self-regulated are able to accept and manage their own feelings. They work well within teams and develop good working relationships. They remain in control when conflicts arise and encourage staff to do the same. They recognise their own limitations and their need for a sensible work/life balance.
• Motivated: People who are motivated have the desire to excel for themselves and the hotel. The skill is to link their desire to succeed to improving your hotel’s service.

You can help yourself and your team to improve everyone’s emotional intelligence by collectively reflecting on your experiences and learning from them. You need to be willing and able to give and receive feedback that helps you all see yourselves through other people’s eyes. Your team members can then be encouraged to take responsibility for their own results and pursue challenging goals. This requires quite a high level of self-confidence and skill on the part of a manager but is really the key to progressing from delegation to empowerment.

What is empowerment?

As I said earlier, delegating responsibility implies that this responsibility can be taken back and is often seen as a temporary arrangement for the benefit of the giver not the taker. The hotel organisation continues to be a typical pyramid structure (hopefully kept as flat as possible) with some tasks pushed down the organisation to be done by the most appropriate person.

Empowerment, however, is not about temporary delegation but about devolution, which is a permanent change. The manager is no longer at the top of the pyramid in a traditional controlling position supported by his or her staff. In the empowered organisation the manager plays a supporting role at the bottom of an inverted pyramid by facilitating, consulting, coaching and mentoring staff so that they are enabled to reach the organisation’s service goals. Leading is from behind not from the front.

There are several books on the subject available if you wish to read further. My intention here is just to highlight some of the benefits should you really be committed to enhancing the whole culture of your service by empowering people in your organisation.

There have been significant changes in the education of young people over the last few years. The advent of computers and the internet has revolutionised the availability of information. Some of us remember learning tables by rote and remembering facts by the bucket-load. There is no longer any need for this. What is important now is knowing where to find information. This has bred a more initiative-led culture where young people are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning.

Many hotels have traditional cultures with people ‘in authority’ directing staff to carry out tasks in a predetermined way. There is then a culture clash between young people having to work in a parent/child situation that they thought they had left behind. Unfortunately some staff and some managers actually like this parent/child relationship. It enables the manager to feel that they are ‘in charge’, and can dispense tasks and rewards and make rules to ensure compliance. Staff like it because they can act out whatever role suits them (e.g. sulky teenager, naughty rebel, princess etc) and be rewarded if they are ‘good’.

These relationships do not benefit anyone and are certainly not the way that adults should relate to each other. Staff need to be helped to grow so that work relationships become truly adult/ adult.

Profile of an empowered organisation

There are a number of aspects of an empowered organisation that contribute to effective implementation. Most are about your attitude to staff and the way that you deal with them on a professional basis.

Trust

This is the most important factor in the success of an empowered organisation. It is demonstrated mostly by your willingness to tolerate mistakes that are made in pursuit of your goals. Staff need to feel that you trust them to take risks and will tolerate the errors that might occur. You need to be able to praise the reasons for taking the actions, even if an error was the outcome. This is not to say that you have to put up with incompetence or the repetition of avoidable errors.

Staff need to feel that they can admit to making a mistake. They need to believe that they are more likely to be criticised for not trying, rather than for not succeeding. The last thing you want is for mistakes to be covered up as so often happens, since this does not help you improve your service.

Openness

In a climate of openness staff will feel able to voice their concerns and criticism in the same way that they admit their mistakes. They should feel able to let you know whether or not you are providing the right guidance and support that they need to perform their tasks.

To be completely open you also need to keep them fully informed about your plans and even your thoughts. You need to share with your staff so that they share with you.

Goals

An empowered organisation is underpinned by a set of shared goals by which everyone judges their success. If everyone knows where you are going it is more likely that you will get there. Everyone needs to buy in to what you are striving for, so they need to be part of the process. It just will not work if you pin up a mission statement in the locker room! You need to create a shared vision about the kind of organisation you want to be.

Appraisal and training

Traditional appraisal systems can often be a very one-sided affair with comments flowing from manager to staff. More effective is a system where individuals feel responsible for assessing their own performance and progress. Personal objectives and individual tasks are aligned with business objectives and are set by open negotiation between manager and staff. Appraisals also give staff an opportunity to comment on how their manager is performing.

Of course, since staff have objectives, they also need the tools to help them achieve them. During an appraisal it is important to analyse the skill and knowledge gaps that staff believe they have and make plans to fill them. Training is an essential commitment from the company and needs to be budgeted for, and thought of as an investment rather than an expense. This does not mean that there is a free-for-all in going on expensive external courses. Often the skill gaps can be filled by on-the-job training from peers or supervisors or by coaching from managers.

Communication

In most hotels, where information flows at all, it is usually downwards. This is not really communication at all, which is essentially a two-way process. Difficult as it may be, it is vital to open a channel that allows staff to contribute by asking and telling. This is another aspect of openness, since it is important for the development of customer service excellence that staff feel free to share errors and problems for the mutual benefit of the organisation.

Benefits of empowerment

There are many benefits for you, the organisation and your customers. It allows hotels to respond quickly and flexibly to customer and market demands, and staff to become fully utilised.

Customer service

As customers, we have all come up against the staff member who does not have the authority to sort out our problem or does not seem to care that their actions prevent us from ever using the company again. They have their job and they are going to stick to the rules otherwise they will get into trouble.

I recall visiting an outlet of a well-known restaurant chain that had run out of rice and yet there was a shop only five minutes away. What possible objective could the manager have been set that prevented her buying some rice?

Is your organisation like this? Does your waiting team really care enough to pass back comments to the kitchen? Do the chefs accept it all with good grace and use the feedback constructively?

In an empowered organisation staff manage their relationships with customers as they see fit, using their initiative and understanding of customer expectations.

If someone does make a complaint you need to find out how best to compensate them. What is going to make them feel that they have come out of the situation with their self-esteem intact? A particularly effective approach is to ask this question, ‘I am sorry that our service is not up to your expectations, but I want to make sure that you are satisfied. Given the circumstances, what would you like me to do that would be fair?’

The word ‘fair’ is very powerful and should prevent you from being asked for anything outrageous but, even if you are, at least you have set up a dialogue that should lead to a mutually satisfactory outcome.

Motivation

Staff who have the opportunity to enhance their skills have a greater sense of achievement. The job they do is seen as being more important, and they feel that they can make a real impact on the organisation.

Less stress

Research shows that stress is often caused by lack of control over your work activities. Workers on a factory line suffer more stress than managers who can organise their own daily activities. Empowerment increases staffs sense of control by enabling them to make more of their own decisions about what they do and how they do it.

Organisational effectiveness

In a rapidly changing world where there is a need to react quickly, you need staff who can respond without having to seek advice or permission all the time. Managers need to place more trust in their staff’s skill and knowledge. Empowerment helps to remove the blocks on performance that traditional management approaches can produce.

Management skills

An empowered organisation is one that does not allow poor managers to evade their responsibilities. Indeed, managers probably need to be more skilled than before. These skills are however more difficult to acquire since they are people skills. Management becomes more collaborative, with application of more encouragement than direction. Relationships become more adult/adult and managers achieve results by being an authority rather than being in authority.

Traditional management skills include, amongst others:

• planning
• communicating
• co-ordinating
• motivating
• controlling
• directing
• leading.

In an empowered organisation there will be less emphasis on the last three. In addition a manager will now need the additional skills of:

• enabling
• facilitating
• consulting
• collaborating
• mentoring
• supporting.

Leadership is now from behind, rather than from the front. Managers will recognise the skills and knowledge of the frontline staff and will harness these to achieve the agreed organisational goals.

Time

In a traditional organisation the owner or manager retains a lot of day-to-day responsibility and feels the need to check that everything is being done as it should be. Where empowerment is fully in place, responsibility is devolved to the team, maybe with managers in the background looking after strategy. This leaves you more free time to dedicate to securing the future of your business, knowing that the day-to-day interactions between your customers and staff are in capable, responsible hands.

WHAT INCENTIVES CAN YOU USE?

Finding good incentive schemes that deliver both improved results for the hotel and the right benefits for the staff is no easy task. You might consider that it is everyone’s job to sell and provide excellent service, so why should employees have an extra reward just for doing their job? You may already have tried a number of ideas that failed to produce the expected results.

Unintended consequences

The downfall of many schemes is often the ‘unintended consequences’. For instance, you can give reception staff an incentive with a bonus for each upgraded room they sell on check-in. They then become so focused on this that if a guest merely asks for road directions they are treated in an off-hand manner and feel that the service is poor. The same applies in a restaurant where efforts to drive wine sales are directed at customers irrespective of whether or not they are a prospective wine drinker; customers can then feel pressured and resentful.

Non-financial incentives

Your own circumstances will dictate what sort of schemes might work. If you only have a few staff then something very personal keeps up motivation, such as away-days, after-shift get togethers, and up-selling prizes. I know of a few hotels that reward extra effort with their own internal ‘money’ that staff can spend in their own unit or in other hotels in the group.

Financial incentives

If you have a larger operation with a manager in charge, then it can provide effective leadership if a good proportion (up to 25 per cent?) of his or her salary package is assessed on delivering an operational profit, based on those aspects that they can control.

However it is important for the management team to have both long-term and short-term incentives. The long-term scheme could focus on commitment to the organisation over three to five years, with whatever they have earned from the scheme being converted at some stage into cash or shares.

For any formal scheme to work, staff must first of all feel part of an empowered organisation. You can then work out with each staff member those key aspects of their job that will deliver above-average results for the hotel. For instance, for a receptionist their Key Performance Indicators (KPI) can be the number of guests taking dinner in-house, the number of executive rooms sold and the average room rate each day. An incentive scheme can then be introduced that rewards success in any of these areas; say £ 1 for each diner booked in to the restaurant and £ 5 for each up-sell to an executive room. Similar schemes can be introduced for all staff, from room cleaners (control of room consumable costs) to accounts (reduction in creditors).

Of course you need to balance the enthusiasm that staff develop in their own areas with the impact these can have on your guests. For example, any incentive for the chef to reduce food costs must not involve any reduction in quality standards, but then this is just another management issue.

Devising a scheme

However, developing a successful scheme needs considerable care and involving the team might enable you to devise a scheme that suits everyone. No one wants their pay to be totally reliant on team performance, not least because teams are often fluid and sometimes don’t last for very long without personnel changes. A good basis may be to keep individual incentives, which satisfy basic human needs, and then in addition have everyone receive the same percentage of salary in addition as a team bonus.

One important feature is that people want more from their jobs than their pay. They want recognition for extra effort or valuable contributions to the business. If you are going to reward someone make sure that they are seen to be receiving it. Presentation and delivery can be just as memorable as the reward itself.

If staff feel involved and committed in the first place, they are likely to respond favourably to any scheme that you introduce as long as they consider it fair. The essential elements of any incentive scheme are to:

• Keep it simple.
• Reward individual and team performance.
• Make it fun and interesting.
• Pay cash earned on time.
• Continually communicate progress.
• Not have money the only focus: non-cash rewards can work just as well.

KEY POINTS

• Provide effective leadership and make working with you fun.
• Define who does what in your organisation and set everyone, including yourself, some realistic goals.
• If you employ sales specialists, work with them to achieve your revenue objectives.
• Communicate with your team by talking to them, but also listen and act.
• Continually develop the skills of your team.
• Understand the aspirations of your people and help them achieve them.
• Empower your team so that they deliver superior customer service.
• A well thought-out incentive scheme usually produces benefits for your hotel and for the team.