Creating Careers, Not Just Jobs: How to Recruit, Retain, and Inspire Great Hospitality Talent - Steven Marais, Noble House Hotels & Resorts

Josiah: I want to go back to a theme that we had talked about before we started recording downstairs. We were talking about this notion of how do you recruit people? I want to talk a little bit about people because I want to talk about the recruiting process. I want to talk about how do you keep great people engaged. We're recording here in San Francisco. San Francisco, as in many markets, recruiting is really, really hard. I wonder if you could describe, this isn't the only market you operate in, but we're both based here, so this might be an example of the broader issue. What are some of the challenges that you have found or maybe are finding now when it comes to recruiting great people into the organization?

Steven: You know, I think it's generating excitement. There's a lot of the glitz and the glam that went with working at a hotel is sort of like fizzled out a little bit, and I think it's just because us as hoteliers have not really been promoting as much as we should. You know, I think it comes to a lot with, you know, sometimes there's social media about a guest having, you know, a negative interaction with the front desk. And so there's the perception that, oh, I don't want to get yelled at. Right. But I think there's also the point where there's not a lot of promotion around the benefits of working for a hotel. So, and also, like I was saying before about challenging and being challenged and being able to be put on a development path and seeing that there are steps to getting to where maybe a mentor is, or maybe where somebody else is, you know, there's a clear path. And I think that that's just not being promoted enough. I think a lot of our operators are just trying to get through the day right now, especially after. the pandemic. And I know it's been several years since then, but we're still trying to somewhat recover from that and put a lot of the roots back in place of hospitality.

Josiah: Well, it's interesting. I mean, just on that point, I'm curious because it has been a couple of years since then. Maybe it's a little bit, the pandemic obviously was a big impact, but were there other factors at play that preceded the pandemic? Like I was talking to some operators saying, staffing has just been a challenge before the pandemic. This isn't a pandemic related thing.

Steven: Is that a little bit of what you've seen as well? Right, exactly. And we talk in the boardroom all the time also about housing. San Francisco, obviously, very expensive. You and I both know that. But we have a lot of resorts that are in areas that really don't have that much housing. We have some resorts in the Florida Keys, and as you can imagine, there's not really that much space out there for housing, so it's inflated the pricing. We have properties that are very remote, that are in the middle of Wyoming, that are it's very hard to find housing, because there's a lot more demand to go to those locations. So housing's been a big struggle, cost of living's been a very big struggle, and that's why it's really hard to find talent, or find anybody that wants to work in the industry. I think a lot of the hybrid work, too, has gone into, played a factor into it, because, I mean, at the front desk, it's not really a hybrid job, or housekeeping, it's not really a hybrid job. You gotta be here. Yeah, you have to be here to do it, so.

Josiah: I wonder, I mean, just to that point, I think it depends on the role. Like, there's a lot of different roles in a hotel business, which makes it compelling. But I think, you know, we were talking about one of the challenges over the years has been being based in San Francisco in the Bay Area. Many people here are interested in working in technology, maybe at some point in their career. And so whether it's technology or some other industry that maybe people want to get to eventually, how did you communicate some of the benefits of working in a hotel to those folks, even if they wanted to end up in tech at some point.

Steven: that are not necessarily planning to be in the hotel industry for the rest of their life. But in San Francisco specifically, everybody wants to work in tech. That's just, it's just the nature of the location and where, where it is. So, you know, I had, I had teams, like I said, that would turn over like one or every one or two years after they would graduate college and then go work at, you know, in the tech industry. And it got to the point where, You know, I said to myself, all right, well, the value I'm going to bring to all of these team members and all these leaders is that they're going to learn as much as they can in this industry before they go out into the real world, into their real career. And it really served them right. Because I remember every single front desk agent that ended up working for. some sort of tech industry that learned a lot of the soft skills that you don't necessarily learn when you first get into any industry, such as communication, just regular communication, diffusing situations, basic accounting, basic email sending, basic everything. Things to you and me you think are basic, but nobody's ever told them or taught them this before. And even in college, you only learn so much. So I think And especially this property and a lot of our properties, they become a training ground for a lot of the younger workforce to if they don't want to be in the hotel industry for the rest of their life, at least there are skills that you're going to learn here that are going to apply to other industries.

Josiah: Well, I love it. And I feel like hearing you talk about technology in San Francisco at this moment, there have always been this sort of dynamic. I was talking to people who, you know, began their careers in the 80s and they wanted to get into acting. So it doesn't really matter kind of what the career or business or industry someone may want to do after this. This is the opportunity. But I'm hearing from you, this is, it all comes down to creating a great place to work, right? So this is whether someone spends a year working with you or 25 years. the fundamentals remain, right? This is going to be a place where you're going to learn and grow and there is a path to continue as you did. You might even make a pivot that you didn't see coming. You got to get people in the door and you got to keep them there. And you also got to cut turnover through some of the things that you mentioned. I guess, does anything else come to mind in terms of making this a great place to work, cutting down on turnover, keeping people engaged? I think having fun.

Steven: Yeah. And we hear, we hear this a lot now about how a lot of customer service has become transactional. And I think a lot of that is just not having fun. And I've actually been pushing our leaders to, to really engage with the teams and try to find ways to celebrate, try to find ways to, to have fun with our teams, create little competitions and find any reason to really celebrate what they're doing, whether it's success on guest services, TripAdvisor, or whether it's just somebody's birthday or whatnot. And I think that kind of culture. It brings everyone closer together, and it creates a really great environment. And I think a lot of the fun, which hospitality is really, really fun, I think a lot of the fun has just been very, it's turned to be a little bit more transactional at some properties.

Josiah: This is the opportunity, and I think this is kind of, if I think about the culture, I was telling you before we started recording, my dad was coming into town, what hotel should I stay at? Stay at the Argonaut, you're gonna have a great time there. He loved it, he was talking to everybody here. So he saw this, and so I think guests see this, But there's a lot that you have to do behind the scenes to get to this place, right? It's getting the right people in the door, but creating that environment, right? Because I feel like inspiration is kind of perishable, and you've got to keep people fired up every day, right?

Steven: Right. Right. Yeah. And it all goes back to what we were saying before about leadership, too. Like, leadership is a very important portion. If I know that my leader has my back, then I'm going to do everything I'm empowered to do to take care of the guests and to make sure that they have a great time.