Hard to Watch Hotels Trudge

Our hotel operators in Canada need some love.

According to STR, in year-over-year measurements for the week ending October 8th, 2011, the Canadian hotel industry’s occupancy fell 0.1 percent to 69.6 percent, its average daily rate was down 0.7 percent to CAD$127.92, and its revenue per available room decreased 0.8 percent to CAD$89.07.

Talk about injury to injury. It's hard to watch the painful trudging of hotels trying to get ahead of this thug of an economic downturn the last few years, especially since they're the first hit and last to recover.

It's safe to say PEI's trudging has lead them into cardiac arrest with double-digit RevPAR decreases: 21.7 percent to CAD$46.46 and with the closest neighbour having to drive across the long bridge, I'm not sure they're going to make it. Besides, NS is stilled miffed at having to share a phone prefix with the slouches. BC is having palpatations with a -17.8 to CAD$79.21. Nothing a medical marijuana card won't fix. The best performer continues to be Alberta, with RevPAR rising 9.1% to CAD$89.19. Congrats! Oil really does makes the world go round.

Anyone who can, should show their nearest hotel some love this Christmas season: why not book a staff meeting there this Christmas? Or book it for a family Christmas get-together and save Mom all the work? Or just take a weekend away in your own Province and stay in a hotel new to you and explore?

At the very least, stop and give the GM a hug. Anything to stop the trudging, please!

Leadership Today

The failings of leadership have been cited as a cause of the global financial crisis. Perhaps this can be said of any significant crisis. So what does it take to be a successful leader in today's economy? Below is what industry leaders identify as the six essential characteristics of today's rising leaders.

What seems to be missing from this list below, obtained from industry leaders themselves, is ethics and morals. I think that is the biggest contributing factor to the various economic, political, social and environmental problems we face.

Their list:

1. Ambitious. Emerging executives are highly ambitious, but retain a balance between their ambition and arrogance. They are comfortable with their assessment of a situation.

2. Decisive. They aren't afraid of making decisions at an operational, tactical and strategic level. They don't hesitate to take action and responsibility for driving change, and can handle lots of information from a variety of perspectives to make effective, strong decisions.

3. Brave. They should be able to walk into a boardroom and hold their own. They need to be flexible, knowledgeable and have impact. A good emerging leader remains clam, in control, garnering respect by they way they hold themselves and delivering messages with confidence.

4. Empowering. They have the ability to empower other people in an organisation. They are happy to push decision-making downwards and don't need to hold onto a lot of the nitty-gritty work. They promote other people's ownership while still providing guidance and support to their team.

5. Entrepreneurial. They tend to be entrepreneurial, looking outside to see what's going on in the marketplace. They seek out innovative solutions to problems, challenge set paradigms, and reject the status quo. They focus on external drivers rather than just internal ones.

6. Visionary. They are able to set strategic direction, seeing where a business is heading and understanding the short- and long-term issues. They tend to be quite innovative, stepping outside the box and are able to put guidelines in place to set the pace of change and make things happen.

[Source: Human Resources Leader, 15 September 2009]

Innervate Your Team

Top Tips: Three Keys to Innervate Your Team

Q: How can I get my team to follow my lead, rather than just nod in agreement?

A: Your team wants to know why they should follow your lead? Don't tell them; show them, by focusing on the essential, not the merely important. The three keys to innovative leadership, according to G. Michael Maddock and Ralph Louis Viton in a recent BusinessWeek article, are:


1. Focus on the essentials:

Great leaders focus on the essential rather than the important. It's easy to spend your time on the important, but doing so isn't really going to inspire anyone.


2. Stay above the drama:

Recessions/transitions/restructurings are by definition temporary. Understanding that is key to your ability to focus on the desired outcome and the kind of organisation you want to build.


3. Lean into adversity and find opportunities:

Adversity isn't going to end just because the recession does. There will always be a competitor who does the unexpected, or an environmental event you couldn't anticipate. Or, for example, a situation like that financing you were absolutely certain was locked in, suddenly isn't.

Performance Management - The 12 Steps

Implementing a performance management system? Avoid these mistakes!

Companies are adopting performance management systems to help optimise their workforces in this tough economy. Here are some tips on how to do it well - and the traps to avoid ...

Mistake #1: Keeping managers in the dark - communication and training that focuses on the benefits to the manager can help turn resistance and fear into acceptance and excitement.

Mistake #2: Introducing too much change too quickly - focus efforts on a few key outcomes and show success in those areas.

Mistake #3: Creating complex performance review forms - Keep it simple! Approach system configuration with the specific end-user in mind.

Mistake #4: Underestimating change management - dialogue is critical to understanding what could be sabotaging the project, and offers and opportunity for users to take ownership of the process and avoid feeling as though this new way of doing things has been thrust upon them.

Mistake #5: Failing to adequately plan - Get together with peers who have gone through an implementation. Have contingency plans in place for delays, technical issues and end-user resistance.

Mistake #6: Keeping end-users out of the configuration process - allow a representative team of managers and employees to participate in the configuration of the system.

Mistake #7: Failing to ask questions and uncover issues - create a feedback survey and establish a regular forum for suggestions for improvement.

Mistake #8: Not establishing links to business objectives - consistently strive to communicate how the performance management system supports the success of the business.

Mistake #9: Unclear roles and responsibilities - identify everyone in the business who will be needed or affected by the new system.

Mistake #10: Lack of buy-in from senior executives - create a set of reports that show trend data relating to important business metrics.

Mistake #11: Ambiguity about what to measure - Examine your existing job descriptions. Every employee needs to understand the duties and responsibilities of their job and on what basis their performance will be measured.

Mistake #12: Failure to establish a culture of performance - Creating a culture of performance often requires a dramatic shift in the attitude of an organisation towards its employees from one of a 'workforce' to on that values unique contributions, recognises strengths and invests in developing weaknesses, and understanding the value of each individual.


[Source: Human Capital Magazine, Issue 7.9]

Planning for the Upturn

When faced with a downturn in the economy, the obvious reaction is to cut costs and typically that involes a lot of firing. However, in studying the successes and failures of hundreds of companies as they navigate downturns, numerous reports suggest that this approach is a short term savings that doesn't justify the larger and long-term negative impact of cutting the employee numbers.

Most executives understand the potential damage of massive cuts to employee numbers and see the negative impact of the firm’s reputation and the goodwill of their employees. However, the oft used method to cut the wage bill is with lay-offs.

In a recent survey of HR directors conducted by Hewitt, 81 per cent of companies said they plan to further cut costs this year even though they have already made significant reductions. Furthermore, 28 per cent say they are planning to do so by “restructuring” and 25 per cent are considering lay-offs.

Meanwhile, a recent Towers Perrin study of 600 HR executives found that while cost pressures remain intense, cutting too deeply into an organisation’s muscle – its talent – could seriously hamstring a fast return to growth.

As economists and reports have stated, we have entered this downturn very quickly and may come out of it equally as quickly. The Hewitt study showed that 54 per cent of HR directors believe the US’s economic upturn will begin at the end of this year or in early 2010 and most believe their own company’s economic improvement will coincide with that upturn.

So it seems that the logical solution for companies under economic pressure is not to buckle under the pressure in the search for a quick fix, but rather be creative and innovative in looking for other cost-cutting strategies that will keep the company not only alive, but strong for the upturn.

There are many other options companies can take that will either cut costs, or counter the need to cut costs by increasing productivity and performance.

Below are five cost-cutting strategies proffered by various HR directors, academics and survey findings, which will help companies avoid the dreaded lay-offs.

Strategy 1

Purchasable annual leave

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) have had their “equilibrium” program in place for the past four years. It was introduced as a flexible work arrangement whereby indi viduals could elect to work in a range of flexible ways. But, as the company felt the pressure of the downturn, they opted to offer additional purchasable annual leave for an extended period of seven months, until the end of January 2010.

The offer was made to 4500 employees and was communicated in a transparent way, so that each employee knew the reason for the offer – to avoid having to lay people off.

The results of the offer were significant. Ninety per cent of the 4500 employees accepted the offer to take between 10 and 15 days unpaid leave.

“It was an amazing response,” says HR director of PWC, Nicole Brazil. “It really said a lot to us about the fabric of our organisation and that people know we are all in this together.”

Exactly how much money the strategy saved the company – and in turn how many jobs it saved – is difficult to quantify, however, with more than 4000 employees taking an extra 10 to 15 days unpaid leave it’s easy to say it would have a huge impact on overall savings. This measure will be far more beneficial to the company than letting people go in preparation for when the economic pressure eases.

Strategy 2

Job sharing

At the outset it might not seem like a cost-cutting strategy, but, job sharing can actually work as a means of saving cash.

If two people are doing the one job, in one sense there are the same costs involved because a company still has to pay the same salary for a particular role to be performed. However, the savings in benefits normally paid to a full-time employee are significant, so in that sense there is a cost saving to be had.

Job sharing also leads to reduced absenteeism and increased productivity. Having two people doing the one job means they work out a schedule to do certain hours and they therefore have more time off work and tend to turn up for those scheduled hours, leading to decreased absenteeism.

Job sharing also tends to motivate people. Loyalty is up, productivity is up, but where the customer is concerned it can be less predictable. However, overall the advantages over-ride the disadvantages.

Strategy 3

Pay cuts and reduced hours

A recent Employee Insights Survey of 560 professionals showed that nationally, 70 per cent would prefer to stay at their current employer and work reduced hours than face alternative cost-cutting strategies.

One of the most successful strategies globally has been to cut both pay and hours. But the key to success when taking this strategy is to cut it across the board – by including every person in the organisation. The management must tell the employees what the situation is and explain the environment they are working in. They must explain that everybody is going to cut back in order to save jobs.

If pay cuts are not across all levels of the organisation, he says, it creates a level of cynicism and consternation among employees. People want to see that the situation is affect ing everybody – including senior executives – and that those strategies are a genuine and sincere attempt to save the company.

People need to buy in. If you have employees buying in and they see what you’re doing and why you’re doing it and it has a good level and degree of fairness, then people will work with you.

Strategy 4

Work with employees – not against them

In a lot of cases, cost-cutting measures are driven from the top down,. but sometimes it's better to go to employees themselves and ask them how they think they could save money or increase productivity.

The staff know their own jobs themselves and each of them knows where there is corporate slack, so if you can work on a system and involve the employees on eliminating slack – eliminating non-value-adding components of their work – it produces a lot of buy-in and goodwill.

The differentiator between companies in times like this is getting out there and growing the business and seeking opportunities to expand and grow when every one else is hunkering down.

A suprising statistic suggests that increasing performance by 1 per cent has a much greater impact than reducing employee costs by 10 per cent, so moving the focus to increasing performance under economic pressure is a better cost saving method.

The other big way in which HR can make a difference is through talent management.

HR can really make a difference by identifying who your best players are, who will bring you through this period and how you can help these employees, coach them, and position yourselves to ensure you keep them and mitigate the risks of them leaving.

Because of the speed with which we entered this down turn, and the possibility that we may exit from it just as rapidly, if a company doesn’t have the right people in place to respond when the upturn comes, it will be in danger. Therefore, there are a lot of dangers involved in cutting costs too much. If you’re just cutting costs and cutting costs … when the upturn comes you don’t have the people or the structure in place to respond.

Everybody turns to cost cuts as a good way to go, or taking out numbers as a good way to go – but it’s got a huge cost in terms of brand damage and reputation and that’s one of the hardest thing to get back.

Strategy 5

Avoid layoffs and utilize alternative measures first as a means to cut costs.

Lay-offs must be the very last resort. It has such a huge impact on the culture of a company and people don't forget.

It impacts staff motivation and although productivity may not be impacted short-term, in the long-term loyalty gets affected, work satisfaction gets affected, innovation gets very much affected.

You have all these negative aspects which sometimes are very difficult to quantify. You spend years and decades building a corporate culture and then a bump occurs in the economic cycle and managers jump straight to employee lay-offs.

While lay-off are not always wrong, companies must look for a solution that is creative, that will work in the short, medium and long-term and keep in mind that the economic downturn is only temporary and will pick up again.


[Source: Human Resource Leader, 25 June 2009]

Not a recession , but a HE-cession......

I came acorss this report on our current economic situation and found some suprising news for men.....

Although the recession is hitting Canadians hard across the country, a new CCPA report reveals that men are taking the biggest hit when it comes to loss of employment.

Canada's "He-cession": Men bearing the brunt of rising unemployment, by Income Inequality Project director Trish Hennessy and Senior Economist Armine Yalnizyan, shows that 71% of those who have lost their jobs in the recession so far are men.

The report notes that this recession differs from those of the 1980s and 90s, which ushered in the 'freedom 55' era of golden handshakes for older workers. By contrast there were actually 78,000 more workers aged 55 and over in June than there were at the beginning of the recession, a 3% increase since October.

"Most of the workers deprived of their jobs in this recession (63%) are between the ages of 25 and 55," Yalnizyan says. "Workers under 25, who make up 15% of the labour market, account for more than one third (37%) of job reductions since October."

The report also notes that Ontario accounts for two-thirds (66.4%) of all jobs eliminated to date in this recession, driving the province's unemployment rate to its highest in 15 years.

"The recession is affecting Canadians from all walks of life and all parts of the country, but it could easily be portrayed as an Ontario-cession, an age-cession, and, above all, a he-cession," says Yalnizyan.

To read more of this report, visit policyalternatives.ca

Ready for the Interview?

When an "economic downturn" becomes a reality in the minds of candidates and clients in the hospitality industry, one thing becomes a primary issue: interview behaviour.

Apparently candidates that have good management backgrounds, are educated, and present themselves well can disconnect somewhere along the line in their interviews with clients. Not good when clients are in a position to be selective about who they hire.

In any event, candidates looking for work need to be mindful of their interview skills. When you prepare for a marathon, you must wear the proper gear, know your strengths and the track, study the prize, stretch your muscles, etc. Likewise, for an interview, be aware of your appearance in dress and personal grooming, your demeanor, resume presentation and references, knowledge of the prospective employer. As well, it's going to work in your favour to acknolwedge the current market situation and how it affects your current and future aspirations with the company you join.

If you take the time to prepare for an interview as you would for a marathon, for example, you'll avoid some of the tragic pitfalls I've encountered as a recruiter. For instance, one candidate showed up for a restaurant management position wearing a baseball cap, another man didn't shave for an interivew for an Area Manager position, while another rambled on with chatter due to nerves. They were all politely declined by my clients.

Perhaps in a booming economy, with a small pool of qualified candidates, these mishaps by candidates would be overlooked, but not now. Candidates now need to ensure their interview behaviour is top notch and they're fully prepared because you really can't afford even one disconnect along the way. As a recruiter, I can sometimes help candidates in putting their best foot forward, ie: a free interview prep program online to stretch those interview muscles. Candidates need to use all their resources to be a successful candidate in difficult economic times. Good luck!