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First, if certain employees are not fully competent at their jobs, others in the team
have to compensate for those weaknesses by picking up the slack. This creates
disharmony which over time will affect engagement, as who wants to continuously
do the work that someone else is paid to do?

Second, on a broader scale, most employees want to learn and grow in their
jobs, so helping them to build their competence and capabilities also increases
their willingness to engage. Some hoteliers can be a bit short-sighted in this
regard and one manager reflected a not uncommon concern when she said:
‘Why would I spend time and money training people when all they’ll do is soak
up the learning and go on to a better job?’ It’s hard to argue with this in some
ways. Well it is, if you only view training in cost terms, when in reality it is an
investment.

Employees move on, that’s life, but they are more likely to engage whilst they are
with you, or at least to perform to a higher standard, when they are competent
than if they are not. In any case, when employees feel that they are developing
in a job this can actually influence their decision to stay longer with you, as
they see it is in their self-interest to do so. Making the effort to increase the
competence of your employees pays off in a number of ways and is therefore
worth doing.

Engagement and cooperation are interdependent

The levels of cooperation in your hotel are both a driver of employee engagement
and a reflection of it. The more that your employees cooperate with one another
the stronger the team spirit that develops amongst them. Feeling part of a
successful team is a proven driver of engagement. Conversely, when employees
are engaged, you will also find that cooperation between them is naturally higher,
because when they see themselves as a team, the desire to support each other is
greater. So, the more you can do to get your employees working and interacting
with each other the better, because building team spirit and cooperation across
your hotel will increase engagement.

One problem which sometimes arises in our industry is that although employees
can work well within their own area, different departments can actually work
against each other, intentionally or otherwise. The classic example of this problem
is the kitchen versus restaurant syndrome. There is often too strong a focus on
‘my department’ in hotels and you should break down these barriers at every
opportunity. There should be only one team at your business.

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Control and engagement are not enemies

Control and engagement may not seem like obvious bedfellows but there is an
important relationship between them. To see how they are linked we need to
explore the issue from two perspectives.

ADDRESSING UNDERPERFORMANCE
Amidst all this talk of employee engagement, there’s still a need for the work to
be done to a high standard if you want to run a great hotel. Therefore supervision
and control are not the enemies of employee engagement and remain at the core
of what you do. Monitoring performance and maintaining discipline are vital
concerns, using effective leadership approaches of course. When individuals who
consistently underperform (be that in relation to the quality of their work or their
behaviour) and are allowed to do so without correction, this reduces the potential
for engagement of others around them who are making the effort.

Here is an example of the damage that ignoring underperformance can do. In one
hotel, there was a long-serving member of the team, we’ll call him Johnny, and he
was, to put it mildly, a complete pain. He did his work, although not to any great
standard but he never did anything bad enough to warrant his dismissal; he could
at times be charming to customers, which is probably what saved him. However,
he spent most of his working day moaning about one thing or another and
everything was a problem in his eyes.

The harm that this guy caused to the hotel was immeasurable and apart from his
own average performance, anyone who was positive and engaged was quickly
worn down by exposure to the ‘moan fest’ that was Johnny. Many good employees
left the hotel because they couldn’t cope with the negativity.

Yet, for all of this, he was never dealt with properly by the management team. His
performance was simply put down to ‘ah sure, that’s Johnny for you’ and he was
tolerated as if he was some sort of loveable eccentric.

Allowing people to continuously get away with underperformance in one form or

another makes engaged employees question why they should bother. So, when you
tackle employees who are not delivering for you, you send out a message to
engaged employees that their effort is worthwhile. It also lets any other slackers
around the place know that they won’t be tolerated either.

EMPOWERINGYOUR EMPLOYEES
The second aspect of control to consider here is the degree to which your
employees are empowered at the hotel. People need to feel that they have meaningful

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input into decisions which affect them and that they have a degree of autonomy
to act on their own initiative. This doesn’t mean you let them run the show, but
everyone needs to feel that they have some control over their lives at work.
Engagement is always higher in an environment where empowerment is strong.

Effective communication builds engagement

The association between engagement and communication is very strong and where
there is open, two-way and effective communication the levels of employee
engagement will always be higher. We talked earlier about the personal aspects of
communication and improving your own abilities as a communicator will
contribute to engaging your employees.

However, from an engagement point of view, the structural components of

communication are critical. One of the most frequently heard complaints from
employees is that they get fed up with not knowing what’s going on, which is often
reflected in the simple phrase ‘nobody tells me anything around here’. Employees
often jokingly call it mushroom management – being kept in the dark and fed . . .
well, you know the phrase. It can impact heavily on engagement levels when you
don’t communicate with your people in an effective way.

There should be a range of formal channels in place which allow you to interact
with employees on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. In addition, you
should ensure that there are regular social or teambuilding events which are great
for stimulating informal communication and lifting morale, which in turn
contributes to increasing the levels of engagement.

More challenged means more engaged

An important factor in determining levels of engagement is how challenging
employees believe their work is; most people eventually get bored doing the same
thing day in day out. Luckily in our industry there is plenty of variety but even so,
it can still become a bit mundane over time, especially for experienced employees.
Once an employee has mastered the needs and demands of their own particular
job, the sense of learning and stimulation can quickly dissipate which reduces their
potential for engagement.

To counteract this, you should explore ways in which you can increase the sense
of challenge associated with their work; that concept of challenge will naturally
have a different meaning from one person to the next. Some individuals might
simply be happy to come in, do their job and go home and if they are productive
and work to a high standard, then you can ask no more. But others will have

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higher expectations and ambitions and it is these individuals for whom addressing
the challenge issue is particularly important.

Conflict and engagement are linked

It might initially seem somewhat unusual to associate conflict with employee
engagement but there is actually quite a direct link. Conflict is a feature of all
organisations and is normal and indeed sometimes necessary. What is abnormal
about conflict is not that it happens but often how it is dealt with. When conflict
at work is poorly managed, it can have a detrimental impact on employee
engagement.

Constructive conflict can be positive when it focuses on issues not personalities.

Such conflict is healthy because it leads us to challenge each other and as a result
we often find better ways of doing things. It can also enhance employee
engagement, because employees feel that they can question, in an acceptable
fashion of course, the decisions which affect them.

Constructive conflict should not be stifled, for to do so is to potentially stifle not

only creativity but engagement too. However, you do have to ensure that
individual behaviours or approaches do not shift away from the issue to the
personality; it simply needs to be managed.

Destructive conflict where it is personality driven, not leading to any benefits,

accompanied by damaging behaviours or creating a negative atmosphere should
be dealt with firmly and proactively. This form of conflict is also a feature of every
business; sometimes it can be low level and other times more serious; both are
problematic. Although those who are directly involved in the conflict can often
be quite comfortable with it, indeed some even thrive on it, others who are not
involved suffer the consequences.

Sometimes the ‘bystanders’ feel pressurised to take sides and at the very least the
conflict can poison the atmosphere they have to work in every day. Who wants
to have to put up with that? Allowing destructive conflict to continue, or fester
will impact on employee engagement so you do need to respond to it, even though
it is not always nice to have to do so.

Compensation influences engagement

In this case, we will explore compensation in the broadest sense, not just restricted
to pay, although that is naturally important. On the pay side, the question is often
asked, if you pay people more, will they be more engaged? The emphatic answer

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is no, not unless the other factors which impact on engagement are addressed too.
Clearly, pay has a role to play – people need to feel valued for their work – but
if engagement was only dependent upon pay then your hands would be tied, as
there is always a limit to what you can pay and people always want more.

Taking a more holistic view, it is essential for your employees to feel

‘compensated’ or valued for their efforts and pay is a factor in that, but far from
the only one. Compensation in the broader sense relates to other issues such as
how your employees are rewarded for performance beyond the norm, beginning
with a simple thank you right up to structured recognition mechanisms and
performance-related pay.

You should maximise the use of informal and formal structures which allow you
to acknowledge and, where appropriate reward, good performance; feeling
undervalued will serve as a negative force on employee engagement.

Change is a factor in engagement

Continuity and a degree of certainty are important in any business because too
much change can be frustrating for many people, particularly if it isn’t leading to
improvements. You often hear employees sneering about the ‘flavour of the
month’ referring to new initiatives which they know will eventually disappear if
they keep their heads down. Constant meaningless change erodes the potential for
employees to engage because they simply get fed up of the lack of direction.

However, continuing to do things a certain way just because ‘we have always done
it this way’ is equally as damaging to engagement, as there is no sense of challenge
or desire to raise the bar. Change and innovation processes can contribute to
improved engagement but only when they are well managed, inclusive, based on
solid rationale and lead to improved working practices or results. The manner in
which you manage change at your hotel will therefore have a strong role to play
in engagement levels.

SUMMARY
How well you master these twelve factors will determine the overall levels of engagement
you will see in your hotel. You are never likely to get every employee to generate the same
level of engagement but by consistently paying attention to these issues you can, over time,
encourage all employees to contribute more to your business. Before we move on, you
should give some thought now as to how well you currently address these factors in your
hotel.

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