Overview

When are groups coming back? This is undoubtedly a question in many hoteliers’ minds, but perhaps the better question is, how are you going to manage operations when they do come back?

Right now, the industry is narrowly focused on two central issues – the post-pandemic surge in leisure guests (as epitomized by the concept of ‘revenge travel’) and the labor shortages resulting from so many furloughed staffers permanently leaving the industry (amongst other factors). Both of these matters not only influence the groups’ segment but also compound many of their underlying problems.

To help navigate the impact of these two issues to realize big revenue gains from the upcoming return of groups, we recruited Steve Anevski, CEO and Co-Founder of Upshift (www.upshift.work), an on-demand staffing platform with the backing of Recruit Holdings (parent company of Indeed). The company has experienced tremendous growth in the past two quarters, particularly as Upshift’s ability to properly vet then deliver high-quality shift workers gives hotels the assurance they need to effectively facilitate events once more.

Revenge Travel for Groups: 3 Reasons for Travel Growth

1. Mortality Salience – Increased vaccination rates in conjunction with governmental decrees will give groups permission to travel.
2. Envious Participation – Visions of large events all over the country and abroad will fuel conversations of groups following suit.
3. Scaled Escalation – Instead of conventions, companywide town halls, and 200-or-more attendee receptions, think intimate weddings, family reunions, hub-and-spoke hybrid meetings, and senior-level only corporate retreats.

Managing the Nightmare of Upcoming Events

So, let’s list off all the problems that a hotel may encounter in trying to rebuild its group segment in Q3 and Q4 2021:

1. Smaller groups, meaning more management time required to negotiate all of these at the same time then juggle room blocks and coordinate all specific requirements.
2. Dire shortages of shift-based labor caused in large part by people leaving the industry as a direct result of the pandemic.
   
3. Drastically shorter lead times for event bookings as groups opt to rush back with something in the near term and release that pent-up demand.
   
4. New SOPs related to COVID-19 safety, compounding each group’s specific requirements and mandating more team training.
   
5. Inability to bring back many full-time, fixed- cost employees due to the increased carrying debt from a disastrous 2020, the still-depressed revenue on the books, and an inability to accurately forecast the shape of an individual hotel’s occupancy recovery.
   

Together, these five factors can make hosting an event a nightmare to effectively render (and create a slew of financial headaches if an event isn’t rendered properly) or outright untenable for some properties. To respond to these market conditions, hotels must remain nimble and recruit labor on an as-needed basis much like how revenue managers yield rates in the face of compression.

Temp Labor Challenges

For 2019 and earlier, variable labor demands were addressed by temp agencies. Like so many other aspects of business, though, the pandemic has brought to light the inherent fallacies of these third parties.

1. Quality Control – There is no ability to control 1 the worker’s quality, experience, or training that arrives.
2. Unprepared for Work – Many times, temps arrive wearing the incorrect uniform, show up “under the weather,” or fail to review the necessary instructions before arrival.
   
3. Attendance – Often, temps arrive late, don’t 3 show, or arrive entering the FOH entrance instead of BOH.
   

Labor Tech to the Rescue

Maintaining a mostly variable labor force in the name of being able to accept group bookings creates a critical problem in terms of how to source and motivate these shift workers. That’s where new-age platforms like Upshift come in, where many veteran banquet workers, as Anevski pointed out, have already signed up so that they are more visible and available for hire on-demand.

Upshift has the ability to better manage labor for the coming groups’ surge and the issue of shorter lead times by giving a hotel immediate access to a larger pool of possible hires. Concurrent to this, HR departments would get a palpable productivity boost by using an online portal instead of the old school, paper-and-pen method. Above all, the benefit worth reemphasizing is the heightened accountability. For example, Upshift goes about this through a meticulous prescreening and background check process, combined with a third-strike policy of banning any temp for life from the app should they receive negative feedback three times from a hotel employer.

“The talent that we have found through Upshift has been outstanding, and it has really allowed us to be proactive as demand continues to shift,” said Chris Cano, General Manager for Columbia Sussex Management. “The transparency, flexibility, and financial control I gain through the platform is unique and has been instrumental in controlling costs as we rebound from 2020.”

Despite the narrowing of lead times that hotels may see for upcoming groups, the rule still applies that meetings and events are most likely to be initiated internally by planners a full quarter ahead of the desired date. As such, the time to start aligning your property with a wholly digital method of streamlining your temp workers is now.

Just as the time to realign operations in advance of the leisure travel surge was this past winter, consider how you plan to pivot for the return of groups later this year. In this sense, using an on-demand labor platform like Upshift will help you to more effectively service any events you get as well as give your team more confidence in its ability to manage groups to help you win more business in the first place.

As the workforce changes, Upshift has created a solution that today’s Hospitality Industry can rely on. Upshift’s primary goal is to provide high-quality, reliable, fully vetted W2 workers – on-demand. And the best part is, Upshift’s success rate is north of 95%.