How Tech Can Help Hospitality Attract a More Diverse Wave of Talent
The effects of the pandemic continue to be felt across all kinds of industries and in many different ways. One of the most pressing is a critical shortage of labor. And this is an area where hospitality has been hit particularly hard.
Having been furloughed throughout much of the pandemic, many hospitality workers are now seeking out more secure and more stable work elsewhere. Given hospitality’s historically broad mix of workers—especially its large proportion of women—there’s a real risk of this impacting the industry’s diversity.
Then there’s the financial impact. With the cost of losing a single employee often reaching tens of thousands of dollars, the industry urgently needs to think how to counter this trend. The bad news is there’s no silver bullet. These changes are being driven by broad societal issues and complex individual incentives that no single business can entirely control.
That said, there are a range of actions that hospitality companies can take to both manage short-term talent scarcity and rebuild for a more inclusive, diverse and equitable future. One of the most important is to understand how digital technology can enhance both the experience of the workplace and the long-term prospects of the workforce.
In front-line hospitality roles, for example, smarter scheduling with automation and artificial intelligence (AI) promises real change. Predictive platforms are now able to anticipate peaks and troughs in demand far more effectively and enable businesses to match individual employees’ desired work patterns. For part-time workers (who are often women) this added control over scheduling can be transformative.
Then consider how tech plays into long-term reskilling and retraining. The industry knows this is a looming issue. In fact, as some of our Accenture colleagues have pointed out in a new book on automation, it’s estimated that about half of all employees will need reskilling by as soon as the middle of this decade.
This is why hospitality companies are or should be looking at how AI and other automation technologies can not only help them enhance the work their existing employees perform, but also reskill them, as well as support the recruitment of new and more diverse sources of talent.
A good example is Hilton Hotels. The company offers virtual training programs to help employees returning from parental leave get up to speed more quickly. It’s also partnering with Guild Education to offer programs of continuous learning to help employees advance their long-term careers within the company.
Other industries are quickly capitalizing on the opportunity. Bank of America, for example, is now using VR simulations in over 4,000 locations to train staff in a wide range of skills, including client interactions.
We’re also seeing interesting partnerships in this space. For example, FutureofU: Skills. Jobs. Growth. is bringing together a group of businesses to provide training in key future skills, like digital, cloud and data science, which helps women and others return to work after having children.
The metaverse is another potentially exciting area for the industry. Some businesses are already exploring how to use mixed reality experiences to transform corporate training and help employees learn in a more accessible, more effective, and more enjoyable way. In fact, the metaverse has all kinds of broader implications for travel companies: Marriott Bonvoy for example, has started building a metaverse presence by creating NFTs (non-fungible tokens) in collaboration with three leading digital artists.
The above examples show how the flexibility and accessibility that tech enables can promote workforce diversity, enhance day-to-day working experiences, aid recruitment, and support retention. This is all the more important as the industry looks to rebound from the pandemic and capitalize on the pent-up demand for travel and hospitality services that’s undoubtedly out there.
In the end, it’s about recognizing that hospitality has both commercial and moral incentives here. Opening up the business to a more diverse wave of talent is a way to mitigate the impact of widespread labor shortages, while also making the workplace more inclusive and more attractive for potential recruits. It’s both the smart and the right thing to do.
About the authors
As the Global Travel Industry Sector Lead for Accenture, Emily Weiss is responsible for driving the growth of Accenture's Travel business across Hospitality, Aviation, and Travel Services through the delivery of transformational industry solutions.
Dyllis Hesse is a Senior Managing Director at Accenture. She partners with clients to drive performance, growth and innovation. She has more 20 years of experience, helping leading companies and brands across the travel, consumer goods and retail industries with their digital transformations.