Hotel Managers should Trust their Teams and get out of the way.
When I was a first-time Hotel Manager, I had difficulties trusting my Team. Now, I stay out of my Team’s way and let them do their jobs, advising them before and after they’ve worked at accomplishing a task, versus throughout the entire process.
There's more to being a Hotel Manager than telling your people what to do. It's about building real relationships with your employees, so that you Trust each other and can get things done.
Unfortunately, many Hotel Managers don't care about their employees' morale, and spur them on by any means necessary. Although there is a no one-size-fits-all method, since every Hotel has a different culture and every Hotel Manager has their own unique style. But there are things that should be avoided in most situations if you want Hotel employees not to hate coming to work every day.
Here are some guaranteed ways to completely ruin Hotel employee morale.
Holding workers back, even if they're doing well.
Hotel Managers should trust their Teams and get out of the way. If people have initiatives they want to propose, or ideas to make things better, at least let them have their say. Let your staff own their ideas and give credit where it's due.
Dishonesty.
Always tell your employees the truth.
Never lie to your employees, even if they're sensitive topics. Honour the rewards that you've committed to (like a promotion or raise you promised). Employees will never work to their full potential for someone that they don't trust.
Setting impossible goals. If you do your staff will feel like they're underperforming, even though they probably aren't. A Goal exists to encourage performance, but when employees are consistently not meeting targets, their morale is going to never be where it should be.
T
hreatening jobs.
When you make your team members feel like they're easily replaceable, they have little incentive to perform. Making someone fear for their livelihood only causes fear, anxiety and distrust. It's easy to crush someone's spirit if you treat them like part of the budget.
Not accepting responsibility for mistakes.
Frequently, Managers refuse to accept responsibility for their worker's mistakes; which can ruin morale. If a member of staff makes a mistake, the blame should fall solely on the Manager; or on the whole team (depending on the culture).
Never offering any praise.
I am not saying that you should constantly be showering your workers with compliments. But, you should identify
when your workers do a good job, and then these people need some sort of reinforcement that they're doing a good job.
Calling employees out in public.
Don't try to teach people a lesson or make an example of them. Instead, pull them aside and deal with the situation in private. Public embarrassment can only serve to make employees scornful and ruin the Hotel environment.
Giving vague or incomplete instructions.
It's frustrating not knowing exactly what you're asked to do, and then if they do it wrong and are reprimanded by their Hotel Manager for it, that just makes things worse. Clarity is important in the Hotel.
Micro-managing.
When you micro-manage a Hotel employee, you're telling them that you don't trust their abilities. That sort of discouragement is enough on its own to make someone hate coming to work, even if they like everything else about the job.
In the early days, I had problems trusting my teams, to let them get on with the jobs they had been employed by the Hotel to do. But I soon realised that there was more to being a Hotel Manager than telling your people what you wanted them to do.
As I built real relationships with my employees, so that we could trust each other, and we could all get things done; I soon realised that everybody’s morale improved and we could all actually even start enjoying coming to work
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