Village Hotels: Unleashing its employees’ potential

Unleashing its employees’ potential

One in three hospitality staff are planning on quitting due to a lack of progression within the sector, according to hospitality job agency Caterer.com.

Although Brexit and Covid-19 are still partly responsible for the high turnover, the industry’s retention problems predate the pandemic and the UK’s exit from the EU.

The reason: Hospitality is seen as a job rather than a career.

To change this perception, forward-thinking employers, like UK-based Village Hotels, are starting to cross-skill employees through digital training. In doing so, staff will have the necessary skills to work in different areas of the business. For example, bar staff could cross-skill by completing the kitchen staff training.

It is a model that gives staff autonomy over their learning. This ensures that staff are not only experts in their field, but they’ll also have an improved knowledge of their organisation’s wider business.

Crucially, it also drives brand consistency.

Individuals can master a range of skills

Understanding the needs of guests, ranging from corporate and leisure members to families, is vital to delivering an exceptional guest experience– and driving Village’s success.

To improve the guest experience, Village is upskilling and cross-skilling its employees.Staff are now exposed to roles and responsibilities that were previously reserved for managers.

Not only has upskilling employeesensured brand consistency, but it has also provided staff withan all-important development opportunity.

Grow their career and your business

“We train people to deliver in their role and take them forward to grow their career,” Flynn said. “Our next leaders are within the business. And you’ll see quite a lot of staff in the hotel day who have excelled at what they do and have moved up in the business.”

She added: “They have these great opportunities.”

Offering these learning opportunities through comprehensive training is key to future-proofing Village’s business.

“By investing in your staff and investing in training makes it easier to develop people and recruit from within – they’re your next talent pool.” Flynn explained.

A fine example of recruiting internally

The hospitality industry often comes under fire for failing to offer workers a career path. But at Village, that’s not the case.

Darren Williams, who is now Head of Food & Beverage Operations, started out behind the bar in 2007.

“There’s a lot of success stories in Village. People starting out at the junior level and progressing into senior management – and the salaries are worlds apart. If you want to get to general manager, there’s a career path for you,” Williams said.

To further improve its workforce’s career progression, Village needed to move away from traditional training methods.

A break with (training) tradition

Before Attensi, training was mostly paper, PDF or brochure based. These traditional types of training are:

• Time intensive in terms of production and how long it takes staff to complete.
• Difficult to update when brand standards, regulations or compliance inevitably changes.
• Lacking in practical application. In such a hands-on role, knowing how to handle real-life situations is key for increasing your workforce’s confidence.
• It was also difficult for Village to track engagement, performance and knowledge gaps.

Why game-based training hits the spot