HCM pain points for Hospitality businesses — and tech solutions to remedy them

A snapshot of the Hospitality industry 

Hospitality businesses are a lifeblood for the world’s economies.  

As people clock off the job, their first port of call is often a bar, restaurant, or food establishment. For those looking to get away for a little longer, it would be a hotel, resort, or some form of accommodation. Regardless, these are the places that allow people to indulge in a small slice of luxury, even for a short while. 

For many people, however, Hospitality businesses act as exactly that — a luxury. In a tough economy, where disposable incomes are limited, expensive dinners and hotel stays are one of the easiest expenditures people can eliminate from their budgets. For Hospitality industries, this proves disastrous; bookings decline and therefore revenue. Alternatively, costs need to increase, and these are passed onto consumers. 

Should Hospitality suffer, so will the entire economy — Hospitality businesses employ large portions of global workforces. For example, 6.7% of Australian workers currently have their job in the Accommodation and Food Services industry and in the US, 16.82 million people worked in the Hospitality and Leisure industry as of December 2023.  

Introduction to HCM issues faced by Hospitality businesses

The pain points endured by Hospitality businesses generally centre on staffing issues — high employee turnover and disengagement, seasonal staffing challenges, and a lack of career development opportunities. 

Hospitality roles are often seen as temporary roles, leading to a large proportion of casuals in the workforce. After a certain period — working long hours, at inconvenient times, under high stress — these workers begin to experience burnout, disengage with their work, or simply leave their role altogether. These factors combine to create poor employee experience (EX), which ultimately leads to high levels of employee turnover.  And this can have both direct and indirect negative consequences for businesses. 

With the help of innovative HCM tech, Hospitality businesses can alleviate the headaches that arise from staffing challenges, one solution at a time.

Pain point #1: Complex workforce logistics 

An ever-changing workforce requires a proactive attitude towards workforce logistics. To achieve this, two key systems should be running like a well-oiled machine, at any given time: rostering & scheduling, and time & attendance tracking.  

For Hospitality managers juggling multiple responsibilities at once, rostering and scheduling can easily be neglected. Manual processes can mean multiple phone calls to find workers able to fill shifts, not to mention messy spreadsheets to keep track of everything. For smaller businesses, it may mean pen-and-paper rosters sticky-taped to the wall in the common area.  

Without a centralised and intuitive scheduling tool, miscommunication can arise and result in shift conflicts, absenteeism, and understaffing.  

The absence of tech also makes it impossible to accurately track time & attendance, which can lead to budget blowouts due to time theft from employees claiming to work longer hours than they have. 

Ultimately, this stresses the importance of labour forecasting. For example, a cafe with busy Saturday mornings should roster extra staff to cover for this peak period, while ensuring they’re scheduled to clock off when the rush is over. This ensures customers are served on time, workers get extra shifts if they want them, and the business saves on unnecessary labour costs.  

How Humanforce can ensure the workforce logistics are handled efficiently 

Rostering & Scheduling 

Humanforce’s Rostering & Scheduling solution is essential for Hospitality businesses, allowing managers to auto-generate optimised, award-compliant rosters with just a few clicks. Under this solution sits Event Rostering, a tool designed specifically for event managers to create complex, event-specific schedules spanning several days, locations, roles and areas. 

With this tool, employees can be split across multiple roles and locations over different days. This is perfect for Hospitality businesses in general, but especially for those who are more event focused such as function houses or nightclub venues. 

As highlighted earlier, matching talent supply to demand is critical. Using sophisticated AI, rosters can be auto-populated with suitably qualified and available talent who have specified their work preferences. AI can even help forecast how many workers will be required based on historical data – for example, function attendance data event for similar events or times of year.  

Managers can also switch to multi-view rostering for a more detailed view of employee schedules and labour costs. Finally, managers can enjoy these functionalities with intuitive click-and-drag controls and automated alerts for rostering conflicts. 

Time & Attendance 

Staff working at larger premises, inside large buildings, or with multiple entry points — such as hotels or resorts — may need to walk some distance before reaching their designated work zone. At times, employees may clock on before reaching these zones, resulting in unnecessary labour costs for the business. Employers who are conscious of this may still want to confirm their employee is at the venue, but ensure they clock on only once they arrive at the correct area.  

Humanforce’s Time & Attendance solution enables more accurate clocking for Hospitality businesses by providing real-time, shift-based information on staff and their work hours. The automatic time capture functionality, available via the Humanforce Work App or on-site kiosks using finger vein scanning, facial recognition and QR code technology, also means records are kept safe and secure.  

Managers can use pre-set rules to auto-approve digital timesheets that meet certain criteria, potentially saving time and resources.

Pain point #2: High staff turnover and a transient workforce 

The seasonal nature of Hospitality work leads to a largely transient, casual workforce. Peaks and troughs in consumer confidence largely dictate staffing and hiring patterns, especially during peak periods such as school holidays.  

This temporary, ‘time-being’ style of work is attractive for students, working visa holders, those unable or unwilling to work full-time, or younger people — until they seek something more stable, or with greater career development. For many, the intensity of the work is the final nail in the coffin. Long, late shifts on weekends and public holidays are only tolerable for so long. 

Another important aspect for Hospitality businesses to consider is an intrinsic link between the quality of the EX and customer experience (CX). A UK study showed that 45% of Hospitality workers are employed in roles where staff behaviours act as the crucial difference between a great CX, and a negative one (aside from high technical competence). In other words, happy employees equal happy customers. But if these employees are actively disengaged and leaving in droves, that becomes hard to achieve.  

In response to these retention challenges, savvy employers are focusing on the EX and how they can bolster and position their employee value proposition (EVP). 

How Humanforce can enhance your EVP 

Employee Engagement 

The Humanforce Employee Engagement solution gives employees a voice. It enables HR and managers to create bespoke surveys to gather employee feedback so that proactive steps can be launched to retain people for longer. Managers can track happiness and wellbeing over the entire employee lifecycle and align wider teams around goals for better collaboration. 

Despite the transient nature of employees in Hospitality businesses, checking in and ensuring they feel heard are essential parts of cultivating an engaged workforce. It can also lead to initiatives and programs that genuinely enhance the EX. 

Employee wellbeing (Benefits) 

According to Gallup, the number one way to prevent employee burnout is by making wellbeing a part of your culture — this includes providing the tools to help employees practice wellness and live healthier lives overall. 

The Humanforce Benefits suite, which includes a financial wellbeing app*, is a great way to alleviate financial stress by providing financial education, tools to budget and save money, cashback rewards for everyday purchases, and early access to pay. 

*Currently only available to Australian Humanforce customers.

Pain point #3: Skills shortages 

There’s no shortage of Hospitality venues worldwide. Whether you’re in the big city or a regional town, there’ll likely be a cafe, restaurant, or hotel nearby — and with little to no experience required in many establishments, there’s an abundance of people willing to work in Hospitality roles. 

However, the challenge for owners and managers lies in sourcing enough workers in an efficient and cost-effective way to meet consumer demand. Retaining skilled workers at a more managerial or niche level can also be quite difficult, due to high levels of employee turnover. 

Without careful planning and appropriate forecasting, managers may find themselves cutting too many staff in response to seasonal demand troughs. If these cuts are too aggressive, they can leave employers scrambling to find talent when demand increases – or it may place stress on existing staff to fill the gaps in rosters. 

How Humanforce can help find suitable talent 

Humanforce Talent 

Given the fluctuations in staffing requirements for Hospitality businesses, having access to a pool of pre-qualified candidates that can be called up on-demand is invaluable. 

Humanforce Talent is an all-in-one talent acquisition platform that pools pre-qualified candidates, contractors, internal staff and alumni into a single Talent Community. Managers can analyse demand forecasts and tap into the power of volume-based hiring, with the ability to contact the desired number of candidates for the job at hand.  

Each member of the Talent Community is given a profile complete with qualifications, achievements, preferences and work history. This reduces the time to hire and is a modern solution to contingent hiring — this being a real consideration for Hospitality businesses needing to mass hire at short notice. 

Humanforce Talent can also help build and reinforce your employer brand to stand out from the pack. Managers can create a career site that showcases their business’ culture with standout job listings, development opportunities, and wellbeing perks. The application process can also be enhanced with engaging visuals and content tailored to each role. 

Workforce Analytics 

One of the downsides of a transient workforce is a lack of consistency — and in an industry that prides itself on customer service, Hospitality businesses must be able to track key KPIs and metrics to optimise their workforce.  

Humanforce’s Workforce Analytics grants managers access to robust analytics & reporting capabilities, which can transform data into actionable insights. The reporting features can be used out-of-the-box or customised according to your needs. 

Hospitality managers who head multiple departments in different locations can view key metrics such as absenteeism rate, tardiness, labour costs, shift acceptance rates, and many more, all via the same dashboard.

Pain point #4: Managing high volume employee onboarding

In dealing with dynamic demand, Hospitality businesses need to ensure they remain agile in all areas — especially in terms of hiring. They often need to hire staff en-masse — and quickly. Therefore, keeping the onboarding and admin process as bump-free as possible ensures the swiftest possible start for these employees.  

To avoid potential delays, Hospitality businesses may need to calibrate their onboarding and offboarding systems and processes to accommodate short-term employees. Reducing logistical delays and the number of onboarding steps allows new hires to get to their jobs more quickly.  

For example, a pub in Australia preparing for ANZAC day celebrations could streamline their onboarding process by gathering only basic employee contact and bank details in the week prior to their start date, and providing uniforms and basic training the day before. 

How Humanforce can streamline onboarding 

Onboarding & Offboarding 

With casual employees constantly coming and going, it’s essential to simplify their arrival and departure.  

The Humanforce Onboarding & Offboarding solution encourages this seamless transition. It’s designed to enhance compliance and cost efficiency, eliminating time and resource intensive tasks such as employee information gathering, policy signoffs, and qualification updates.  

Even better, the onboarding workflows can be customised for each new hire’s specific role, team, and location. For Hospitality businesses wishing to accelerate their hiring process, this can be shortened to ensure that only the most essential documentation (tax, super, bank, and personal details) is digitally collected during pre-boarding from new hires or contractors for the swiftest possible start. At the end of tenure, offboarding workflows can also be customised to the needs of each role, the tenure of each employee, or their employment type (full-time, casual, contractor).

Pain point #5: Meeting compliance obligations 

Hospitality employees come from a variety of backgrounds — from wait people to security guards, to housekeepers and janitors, and so on. On the compliance front, this adds an extra layer of complexity.  

Hospitality businesses must acknowledge and comply with the complex industry awards and employment agreements under which their employees are protected. This is essential, as these industrial instruments are what dictate the calculation of payroll, as well as leave, notice, and redundancy entitlements. With employees coming in from diverse industries, however, this can become complicated.  

For example, an Australian RSL club hosting a large event would need to consider the different award requirements for kitchen and bar staff [MA000009], security personnel [MA000016], and landscapers [MA000101] preparing outdoor areas beforehand. This applies to any type of Hospitality business with employees from different backgrounds.  

How Humanforce can help employers stay compliant 

Awards & Compliance 

The Awards & Compliance solution allows Hospitality businesses to accurately interpret complex awards and enterprise agreements, track changes as they happen, and apply them with ease. 

The sophisticated award interpretation engine (sometimes referred to as a pay conditions engine) helps ensure that all modern awards and employment agreement pay obligations and entitlements are met, providing instant calculations to indicate exactly how much employees should be paid. The pay conditions engine quickly and accurately calculates wages, penalties, overtime and allowances in accordance with the relevant industrial instrument(s). 

Qualifications Management 

Keeping tabs on certifications, qualifications, visas and more can be a logistical nightmare, especially for Hospitality businesses. There are several licenses that employees must hold before being able to work, including those for food and alcohol service. If these employees are found to be operating without them, the business may face fines and further legal consequences. 

Humanforce’s Compliance Management solution focuses on qualifications management but can help with other compliance-related obligations.  

For example, managers can receive notifications about renewal dates for licenses, permits, and work visas before they hit, track qualifications and certifications for different job roles (such as first aid), and stay on top of recurring requirements with training and qualifications monitoring. A convenient self-service feature allows employees to update their own qualifications, while managers can export audit-ready data for upcoming compliance reviews.

Hospitality businesses need HCM tech to improve both the EX and CX

Hospitality businesses are essential businesses, providing people with a space to dine, drink, relax, and recharge. However, when times are tough for consumers, they’re even tougher for Hospitality businesses. Notwithstanding the dynamic conditions they operate in, workforce woes are a major problem area for Hospitality managers. But with the right tech solutions, these managers can improve the overall EX for better retention, performance, and most importantly, the experience for customers.  

About Humanforce 

Humanforce is the best-in-one platform for frontline and flexible workforces, offering a truly employee centred, intelligent and compliant human capital management (HCM) suite – without compromise. Founded in 2002, Humanforce has a 2300+ customer base and over half a million users worldwide. Today, we have offices across Australia, New Zealand, the US, and the UK. 

Our vision is to make work easier and life better by focusing on the needs and fulfilment of frontline workers, and the efficiency and optimisation of businesses. 

To learn more about how Humanforce’s solution can help automate people processes in your business, please contact us.