LONDON and SAN FRANCISCO, June 26, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- StaffConnect, the leading provider of mobile employee engagement solutions for the deskless workforce, has released a new eBook, entitled Can Mobile-First Technology Solve the Hospitality Industry’s Employee Engagement Crisis? This new e-book investigates why the hospitality sector has one of the highest numbers of disengaged employees and the negative impact such disengagement can have on an industry focused on providing excellent customer service. The e-book explains how mobile-first technology in today’s digital workplace can help drive real, measurable shifts to rectify the problem.
A study by Quantum Workplace found that less than three-quarters (74.3 percent) of employees in the hotel, travel, and leisure industry are actively engaged, with 7.5 percent either disengaged or hostile. Other studies suggest that the industry’s engagement levels could be even lower. In a study on employee engagement in full-service hotels, You Han of the University of Nevada reported that “Employee disengagement [is] becoming a severe issue in the hospitality industry,” citing research from Gallup that revealed out of 32,000 full-time employees in mid-size and large companies, only 35 percent were highly engaged. Han noted that customer service employees have among the lowest levels of engagement in all categories studied, which leads to higher turnover rates.
The eBook explains that high staff turnover, frequent absenteeism, and a shortage of skilled candidates are part of the problem, but there is more. Hospitality jobs have traditionally offered low pay and long hours, leaving many workers feeling unappreciated. The challenges multiply considering that as employee morale decreases, turnover and absenteeism rise, along with quality-of-service issues and even safety issues and accidents. In a vicious cycle, as customer service levels are impacted by the poor morale of remaining staff, guest satisfaction also suffers, as loyal customers cannot create lasting relationships when staff members are constantly changing.
In other words, the employee experience (EX) directly relates to the customer experience (CX), and has a direct impact on a hospitality company’s brand as well as ratings. As J. Willard Marriott, founder of the Marriott Corporation, has said: “Take good care of your employees, and they’ll take good care of your customers, and the customers will come back.”
These combined and damaging issues make it even more critical for employers in the hospitality industry to find an effective way to consistently engage, motivate, and retain the staff they have, helping to turn around the industry’s current high turnover and absenteeism rates. Engagement needs to be escalated to a board-level issue, particularly in industries like hospitality that are built around providing high levels of customer service. If not, the negative impact on profitability, employee productivity and retention, overall work culture, and ultimately brand advocacy, is too great.
In a world that’s increasingly digitally driven and focused, the key to making a shift is integrally connected to technology. To be successful and drive engagement, hospitality organizations must embrace new mobile-first technology that facilitates adoption by employee users via personalization, an engaging user experience, and a strong perceived utility that the platforms and applications being used truly support getting the job done faster and smarter, with greater efficiency and convenience. But more than this, hospitality organizations need to employ technology platforms that allow them to effectively measure engagement, so that they can use this information to make cultural shifts toward improving their employees’ experience of the company. Employee engagement technology should:
- Work across multiple touch points in the employee experience, since true engagement is two-way and can’t be meaningfully measured without employee interaction
- Reach the entire hospitality workforce including deskless workers, not just employees in the office
- Help create better engagement by opening up new two-way channels of communication between hospitality employees and managers
- Enable HR and senior management to stay in touch with hospitality staff no matter when or where they work, or what their role is
- Accurately measure and analyze hospitality workforce
“Ultimately, inspiring employee engagement is about creating an emotionally connected organization where the entire workforce is empowered to interact, share, and collaborate with their peers and leadership—no matter what they do, or where or when they work,” said Geraldine Osman, CMO, StaffConnect. “With the assistance of a well-platformed, human-designed application that is mobile-first and caters to the intricate communication and cultural challenges inherent in any hospitality business, the industry’s employers can finally reach down into the heart of engagement, helping to shape and redefine how hospitality employees see and experience the entire company—and thus how customers do.”
For more about employee engagement and the deskless workforce, visit:
- eBook link: https://www.staffconnectapp.com/download-the-hospitality-ebook/
- Infographic link: https://www.staffconnectapp.com/wp-content/uploads/finalstaffconnect-hospitality-ebook-infographic-final-6.26.19.pdf.pdf
- Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PInhpPdo5rc
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About StaffConnect
StaffConnect is the leading provider of mobile employee engagement solutions for the deskless workforce. The StaffConnect platform transforms the employee experience by enabling enterprises to connect, communicate and engage their entire workforce, especially remote, deskless employees. The customer-branded mobile app gives employees ‘a voice’ - with access to company and user-generated content to increase loyalty and productivity. The cloud-hosted platform empowers employers to target that content, with analytics, to deepen engagement with everyone. From offices in London and San Francisco, StaffConnect’s platform and domain expertise are supporting large businesses around the world to inspire their workforces to deliver better performance, improved customer experiences and greater shareholder value. For further information, please visit: www.staffconnectapp.com.
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PR Contact:
Sabrina Sanchez
The Ventana Group for StaffConnect
(925) 785-3014
ssanchez@theventanagroup.com