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By Robert A. Gilbert, CHME, CHBA, President and CEO, Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI)
By now, none of us are strangers to one of the biggest challenges we’re currently facing in the hospitality industry: recruiting and retaining good talent. We are in the people business and making sure we provide the best experiences for guests starts with making sure we have a strong (and happy) team in place to drive business forward.
HSMAI and the HSMAI Foundation are dedicated to providing resources that inform our members about industry talent trends and help guide actions that assist in hiring, retaining, and developing team members. This year, the Foundation released the State of Hotel Sales, Marketing, and Revenue Optimization Talent: 2020-2021 special report, which identifies the macro trends on how the pandemic impacted where we are today and features insights on where we go from here.
In addition, the Foundation is conducting more research on one key source of the commercial talent pipeline: hospitality students. We recently wrapped up four forums with hospitality school deans and directors as well as faculty who teach marketing, sales, and revenue management courses to learn more about the current state of hospitality higher education and to gain firsthand understandings of how students perceive the industry as well as what we can do to engage them in the commercial disciplines. We are releasing a series of articles that highlight some of these insights over the next couple weeks.
We are also developing the spring Curate Presents program, “Commercial Talent Recruitment & Retention During Recovery.” This on-demand video series will cover tips and trends from hospitality thought leaders on attracting, retaining, and developing talent, and will be available in May.
As the pandemic recovery goes on, we’ll continue to make strides to rebuild and reinvigorate our teams. HSMAI and the Foundation will provide the resources necessary to help members make this progress.