During the pandemic, the travel, leisure, and hospitality industries ground to a near halt. Many companies were not allowed to operate for several months, and even as reopenings move forward, many had their maximum capacities limited. Couple that with many customers canceling their plans, either out of necessity or concern for their health, and the impact of the pandemic was even greater.
Now, vaccine rollouts and declining infection rates mean that many customers are returning to the travel, leisure, and hospitality industries. As a result, companies in these niches need to ramp up operations quickly, ensuring they can hire, onboard, and train new staff effectively.
If you want to boost your workforce quickly and make sure that your newest employees are ready to support your customers, having a reliable approach to recruitment and training is essential. If you aren’t sure where to begin, here are some tips that can help.
Broaden Your Recruitment Efforts
When you need to bolster your workforce fast, broadening your recruitment efforts is a crucial step. Along with traditional methods like major job board listings and vacancy announcements on your career page, reach out to candidates through other channels.
Social media is an ideal option, particularly if you want to reach younger generations. Connecting with professional and community organizations, as well as local colleges or high schools, can also be wise, giving you access to reliable pools of newly minted talent.
Working with a recruitment firm is another excellent choice. Often, they have robust networks or pre-vetted professionals, allowing you to find job seekers with the right skill sets quickly.
By broadening your approach, you increase your visibility. In turn, this can lead to more applicants, making it easier to find the right kind of candidates for your open jobs.
Update Your Job Descriptions
When you want to hire quickly, updating your job descriptions is a must. Make sure the language remains neutral and inclusive, ensuring it appeals to the widest selection of candidates. This increases diversity in your pipeline, which works in your favor.
Additionally, limit your must-have skills list to only capabilities that are genuinely required on their first day. Often, candidates will screen themselves out if they don’t have everything you request, even if they could perform the job well. By limiting your must-haves, more job seekers will view themselves as qualified, increasing the odds that they’ll apply.
Start Onboarding Before Day One
In many cases, onboarding requires a significant amount of reading and paperwork. Luckily, by embracing a digital approach, you can get new hires started on these critical steps before they arrive on their first day.
Provide digital copies of the employee handbook and similar materials. Embrace digital signatures for as many forms as possible, allowing the new hire to complete the paperwork remotely. That way, you can build their file in advance and free up time during their first days on the job for other activities.
Embrace Virtual Learning
Virtual training programs can help new hires get up to speed on various job-related skills. With simulation training, you can prepare your team for common customer service encounters, allowing them to get experience navigating a range of situations. With more traditional eLearning, you can introduce them to important topics, including safety training needed to remain compliant.
Plus, by using virtual learning, employees can participate from nearly anywhere. This makes it easier to follow social distancing guidelines and provides you with the utmost flexibility, ensuring training can fit into even the busiest of schedules.
Do You Need to Train Your Newest Batch of Travel, Leisure, and Hospitality Employees?
If you need support from learning and development (L&D) professionals to update your training program to meet the demands of today’s travel, leisure, and hospitality industries, the team at Clarity Consultants wants to hear from you.
With almost 30 years of experience in L&D, Clarity has the expertise you need to update your approach quickly. Plus, if you need new L&D staff members, Clarity can be your candidate search ally, connecting you with top-tier talent at just the right moment.
If you’re ready to partner with leading L&D professionals, Clarity Consultants is here. Contact us today.