The Hidden Cost of Hiring the Wrong Hotel Employees

Glenn: [00:00:00] Hey, everybody. It’s your hospitality friend Glenn here at The Lodging Conference with Greg O’Stean, Chief Development Officer of Hotel Equities. Thanks to our sponsor Unifocus, workflow management redefined. Check them out at Unifocus.com. So we got a couple of things going on here. A little warning. Number one, I’m exhausted. This is the last interview I’m doing after being on the road for three weeks. Number two, we’re using a little forced perspective because I’m tiny. Greg is not tiny, but the one thing we have in common is we’re both people. Yeah. And isn’t that what hospitality is all about, Greg? 100%.

Greg: [00:00:32] Yeah, 100%. That’s like our mantra is people first tech forward, owner centric because everybody talks about AI, everybody talks about like how we’re going to deal with this or that, or the interest rates or whatever. If you don’t have the right people know the rest of it matters.

Glenn: [00:00:48] All right. So everybody tells me the same thing. Why is what you’re telling me legit? How are you taking care of people and why are you actually people first?

Greg: [00:00:57] We actually have training programs within hotel equities. And when I say people first, I’m talking about the people in the hotels, our 11,000 associates that are working in the hotels each and every day. Right. And it’s finding the right people in the right fit and giving them the right training so that when they show up for work, they’re happy to be there. Right. Because it comes through to the guests. Right? Yeah. If you’ve got the wrong people, you can have the best hotel. But if you have the wrong people, it’s a terrible experience.

Glenn: [00:01:23] Yeah, you’re absolutely right. For me, it really is all the people because quite frankly, you’re all amazing hoteliers and your physical properties are usually in top notch shape. So I’m not I’m not thinking about it in that way.

Greg: [00:01:34] Right. And it could the reverse is also true. Yeah. You could have a just okay property, but great people and you can have a great experience. Yeah. I like it when you have both. I like when you have a great property and great people.

Glenn: [00:01:45] That’s a win win.

Greg: [00:01:46] Yeah that’s a win win.

Glenn: [00:01:47] So the test I always do and you probably know this is I contact test when I’m walking down the hallway. Are they going to look at me? Are they going to acknowledge me. And that tells me a lot about management.

Greg: [00:01:58] So in the old days, yeah, I was at Starwood Hotels in the early days where we were buying hotels constantly. And when I would walk through a property with the general manager during the tour, trying to decide two things, are we going to buy it? And then two, are we going to keep this particular. And it was the exact same thing. Do the do the guest, I acknowledge him. That’s his team, his or her team. Do they? Does the do the team look up and they go, oh, hi, Miss So-and-so. Or do they run and hide like. And if if she knew everybody on her team and they engage with. That’s somebody I want to keep.

Glenn: [00:02:31] All right. So one of the problems that I see is people make the mistake of hiring because they need the bodies as opposed to being patient and getting the personality.

Greg: [00:02:41] So I it’s funny you say that because I’m trying to fill positions on my team. Right.

Glenn: [00:02:48] And that would be the development.

Greg: [00:02:49] Side for those, right? Yeah. And it’s taken a while and I tell my boss that like, look, it’s kind of like Goldilocks. It’s like, this one’s too hot, this one’s too cold. I’m like, I’m looking for the right person. I’m not, I’m not looking for a warm body. Right? There’s plenty of warm bodies. I’m looking for the right person. I think I finally found at least one of the three, but it’s it’s yeah, but it takes a while.

Glenn: [00:03:12] It really does because I, I think that to get to philosophy philosophical, but I think sometimes we make decisions to get ourselves out of an immediate challenge. That’s exactly without thinking about what the repercussions are going to be a year from now.

Greg: [00:03:25] And you create a new talent, right? Exactly right.

Glenn: [00:03:27] And it makes your life harder. So we think that we’re doing the right thing by trying to get people to be in our hotels or on your development team.

Greg: [00:03:34] But yeah, we are.

Glenn: [00:03:35] We could actually be hurting ourselves by not putting in that extra effort now.

Greg: [00:03:39] And you’re not only hurting the company, you’re hurting that team. Yeah. Because there’s a team dynamic, whether you’re running a FMB or running the front office or no matter what, there’s a team dynamic that has to fit. And if you bring in the wrong team member, then it’s I call it locker room poison, right?

Glenn: [00:03:53] So I love it. So what is just right mean for you when it comes to a hotel associate?

Greg: [00:04:00] It’s really they have to be someone who’s engaging with other people, whether it’s their, their associates at work or the guests that come in and they have to be able to, to listen and they have to be able to handle anything. Right. They can never say, well, that’s not my job. Right. Or I don’t do this, or I know that everything is your job. Yeah. Everything.

Glenn: [00:04:18] Funny enough, when we when I started in the industry. I don’t know about you. It used to be. I’m sorry. That’s not your job. You’re not allowed to actually go and do that, remember?

Greg: [00:04:28] Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And you still have that in certain markets. Right, right. Which is so frustrating to the guests to come in, and there’s 12 people trying to check in, and there’s eight people wearing uniforms, but only two people can check you in because of the work rules or whatever. And the guest doesn’t care. All they care is that I’m tired. I had a long flight. I want to check into my my room. And these people are just staring at me.

Glenn: [00:04:51] All right, before we wrap up today, what do you think is your biggest opportunity at Hotel equities in 27?

Greg: [00:04:58] Oh great question for us. We are really expanding into the lifestyle and full service and independent hotels. And we really bring for us it’s we love branded hotels. First of all, we love select service, we love full service, we love branded, but we feel like we can add more value when there’s a story to be told. And so for us, it’s about creating that story.

Glenn: [00:05:18] I love it because for the one millionth, 750,000th time experiences everything, if you’re not able to deliver on that in today’s economy, you’re going to be unable to get the pricing that you feel you deserve. Greg, thanks so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you guys for making it here. Thank you. Unit focus. Really appreciate you guys. See you all later. Bye bye.

Greg: [00:05:40] That was awesome. We did it all in one take. Yeah, you can make that work.