My family and I took a weekend vacation over the Labor Day holiday to a somewhat unusual destination that set my mind wondering about labor availability and manpower issues. The resort will remain unnamed here, since some of my comments could be construed as less than flattering to the town and to the region. I truly mean no disrespect to any of the people who were kind enough to serve us this weekend and would not want to cause any pain with my comments.
The area to which we traveled was rural. I mean really rural. As in 25 or 30 miles between gas stations on the interstate, rural. The resort was part of a nearly one hundred million dollar restoration of a historic landmark, and it represents a recent influx of that much cash into what was until just a few years ago a small local economy with no tourism or industry to speak of.
The facilities were lavish, and the amenities were top notch. Travertine tile, marble, stone, rich woods and fine brass shone everywhere.
But everything was a little bit off. The dining room couldn’t manage its waiting guests well. The front desk’s processes made it awkward for folks with lots of luggage to check out without having to haul their bags to three different locations. The valet drivers didn’t know where to park your car or how to gracefully accept a tip as they ushered you into your vehicle. The pool attendant was overly concerned about counting the resort’s towels. And everyone was slow, slow, slow.
My wife noticed this same sense of “off-ness” independent of my own observations. When I asked her why she thought the service available at this resort seemed incongruously bad compared to the lavishness of the surroundings themselves, she posited the reasonable theory that the resort's management likely has difficulty laying in a sufficient supply of high-performing employees because they must necessarily draw from the limited labor pool of the area.
Perhaps exposing my tendency to believe that there’s always one person somewhere who is at fault for every failure, I blame the management more than I blame the labor base in the area. The services we’re talking about here are skills that can be taught. They are not esoteric skills that require employees to come to the hotel already highly skilled. Service received equals service demanded by management, I say.
So in my book, it is management’s fault, and they’ll either work out the kinks in their service provision or they won’t. But this raises an issue worth further consideration in my mind. If my wife’s theory is even partially true (which I think it is) and the owners of this resort really can’t find enough good workers, then they may have made a multi-million dollar blunder by not considering whether or not they could adequately staff this luxury-laden behemoth they’ve built. Patrons of such a costly resort simply will not tolerate the level of service currently being proffered there.
Is it possible they were so myopic in their planning as to believe that they could just cram anyone into those positions and everything would work out for the best?
Don’t they know how picky I am?
The area to which we traveled was rural. I mean really rural. As in 25 or 30 miles between gas stations on the interstate, rural. The resort was part of a nearly one hundred million dollar restoration of a historic landmark, and it represents a recent influx of that much cash into what was until just a few years ago a small local economy with no tourism or industry to speak of.
The facilities were lavish, and the amenities were top notch. Travertine tile, marble, stone, rich woods and fine brass shone everywhere.
But everything was a little bit off. The dining room couldn’t manage its waiting guests well. The front desk’s processes made it awkward for folks with lots of luggage to check out without having to haul their bags to three different locations. The valet drivers didn’t know where to park your car or how to gracefully accept a tip as they ushered you into your vehicle. The pool attendant was overly concerned about counting the resort’s towels. And everyone was slow, slow, slow.
My wife noticed this same sense of “off-ness” independent of my own observations. When I asked her why she thought the service available at this resort seemed incongruously bad compared to the lavishness of the surroundings themselves, she posited the reasonable theory that the resort's management likely has difficulty laying in a sufficient supply of high-performing employees because they must necessarily draw from the limited labor pool of the area.
Perhaps exposing my tendency to believe that there’s always one person somewhere who is at fault for every failure, I blame the management more than I blame the labor base in the area. The services we’re talking about here are skills that can be taught. They are not esoteric skills that require employees to come to the hotel already highly skilled. Service received equals service demanded by management, I say.
So in my book, it is management’s fault, and they’ll either work out the kinks in their service provision or they won’t. But this raises an issue worth further consideration in my mind. If my wife’s theory is even partially true (which I think it is) and the owners of this resort really can’t find enough good workers, then they may have made a multi-million dollar blunder by not considering whether or not they could adequately staff this luxury-laden behemoth they’ve built. Patrons of such a costly resort simply will not tolerate the level of service currently being proffered there.
Is it possible they were so myopic in their planning as to believe that they could just cram anyone into those positions and everything would work out for the best?
Don’t they know how picky I am?
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