288 | ‘The Big Pause’: Hotels retooling employment policies as business slowly returns

Summary: Prospective hospitality job recruits gauge companies’ standards of care in workplace safety and diversity in a year of crises<br> Two nationwide crises emerged in the U.S. this year – the coronavirus pandemic and the public reckoning of systemic racism in just about every aspect of American life.<br> The outbreak in March of COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, forced hotels to close or drastically cut back on their workforces as occupancy plummeted to unprecedented lows.<br> A couple months later, America’s streets resounded with the voices of citizens denouncing racism and businesses began to respond by promising new and better commitments toward diversity, inclusion and equality in hiring and promotion.<br> Combined, the crises have rattled the hospitality industry’s employment strategies. Hotel owners and operators are struggling to bring back laid-off workers and recruiting new employees in the wake created by the intertwined events.<br> Jobs Picture<br> America’s hospitality employment sector has been ground zero for the economic fallout caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Tourism Economics recently reported that in March and April nearly 17 million jobs in leisure and hospitality were lost.<br> The leisure and hospitality industry includes lodging accommodations, food and beverage, and arts, entertainment and recreation. Overall, it has begun to recover slightly. Four million jobs were created or restored by July.<br> But more than one quarter of people who worked in the industry remain unemployed.<br> In addition, the pace of rehires and new hires has significantly slowed, from 2 million new jobs in June to 200,000 in July.<br> <br> {caption}In an August employment report for the U.S. Travel Association, Tourism Economics showed 17 million jobs in leisure and hospitality (light blue) were lost in March and April. The dark blue segment depicts jobs pre-pandemic. Jobs in leisure and hospitality are returning, albeit slowly. Though leisure and hospitality comprise 11 percent of the nation’s jobs, the sector accounts for 40 percent of current unemployment. “If every industry recovered to their pre-pandemic levels except for leisure and hospitality, the unemployment rate would fall from 10.2 percent to 6.2 percent, still 2.7 percent higher than pre-pandemic levels,” reads the report.{/caption}<br> <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/delross/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Del Ross</a> is chief operations officer at <a href="https://www.hoteleffectiveness.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hotel Effectiveness</a>, a technology company that manages labor costs for hotels. He has his own data that align with what Tourism Economics has found – that hotels are employing about half the workers they did before the COVID-19 pandemic.<br> In many cases, hotel owners and operators that are hiring back are finding out that many furloughed workers are reticent to return. This has led managers to reconsider how they onboard employees in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak.<br> It’s a balancing act, for sure.<br> “The number of people you have to keep onboard at a hotel to keep it from falling apart and the number you have keep on for very minimum staffing are actually very close,” Ross said.<br> <br> {caption}HIRING PACE: Hotel Effectiveness research reveals where hotels are rebuilding their workforces over the past six months and where rehiring remains flat.{/caption}<br> Besides the challenge of generating enough revenue to pay workers, hotel owners and operators are finding out that many laid-off workers do not want to return to the job out of fear of contracting COVID-19.<br> “People were afraid to come to work because of the high-touch nature of what we do,” Ross said.<br> “We’ve been very focused as an industry on the guest experience, guest safety and guest health. But employee health is critical as well, especially to the employees.