The Older - the Better. Hospitality HR & Management better change now!
We are facing tremendous unemployment right now in hospitality but it might be the time to re think the HR process how to hire and how to keep employees that benefit the company.
The healthy bartender might be dead already
Not long ago ago the US had this “healthy Bartender” thing. The thinking behind it was that the bartender has to look healthy, fit, bodybuilding features as the guest could associate this with healthy consumption. Never mind qualifications! Seems that it didn't work well when the guy put the Manhattan in the beer glass or ran with the cash. It seems to be over - and that is good. Just some of our Managers haven’t learned the lesson.
Some companies benefit from keeping their staff and let them grow old with dignity. No better way to promote your business - no better way to satisfy loyal costumers.
Here a few thoughts and examples.
A recent post on linkedin summarizes the benefits and accomplishments that come with age:
"Why should companies recruit
people over 60 for senior and responsible positions ?*
Because they are more productive than those below 60 !
A massive study in America has found that the most productive age in a man's life is 60-70
From 70-80 s the 2nd most productive age.
The 3rd most productive age is 50-60.
The average age of a Nobel Prize winner is 62.
The average age of a CEO in a Fortune 500 company is 63.
The average age of the pastors of the 100 biggest churches in America is 71.
The average age of Pope is 76
This tells us somehow - God has designed that the best years of your life are 60-80 !
IT IS WHEN YOU DO YOUR BEST WORK.
A study published in NEJM found that at 60 you reach your peak of potential and continue up to 80 !
So, if you are between 60-70, or 70-80, you have the best and second best years of your life with you !
Source:
*New England Journal of Medicine: 70.389*
( all credits go to: #alittlebitluke and his linkedin post)
A bar that hires only over 50 years of age
Years ago in Barcelona a Bar changed hiring strategies and hired only over 50 years of age. There was some thinking behind from which our now boring standard HR procedures and management can learn.
Owner Kim Díaz “I was looking for waiters who are over 50 because I knew they’d be fantastic and because society has unjustly pushed them out of the job market,” Díaz told The Guardian, “These guys have 20 or 30 years of experience, a lifetime. Here the waiter’s profession is in decline but the people I’ve employed see it as a vocation.”
(Barcelona Bar Only Hires Staff Over 50-Years-Old
BYPETER BASILDON 03 March, 2015)
Rafael, one of the new over 50 staff members at the bar, said he had trouble finding work because of his age. He welcomes the idea and thinks it makes for good business, “it makes sense to employ people of my age. We’re making a comeback, we’re not going to complain. We’re here to work, to get along with people, get paid and do a good job. And clients notice this, the experience we have and the good service they get.”
(Barcelona Bar Only Hires Staff Over 50-Years-Old
BYPETER BASILDON 03 March, 2015)
I was lucky to work for companies that valued their staff over years and the longer they stayed - the more they valued and supported them. I learned a lot there.
I also worked for companies who saw older employees only as a burden - they know everything better, they might be more often sick, they get slow, they cost too much. Short sighted - unexperienced management can only come to this conclusions and harm the company. HR should know better - but most failed!
If you are a good Manager you can manage, guide and develop the young ones, learn for yourself and foster the old ones and maintain quality, stability and at the end something that young and old - Guest and Staff - will truly value - TRUST!
Author: Stephan Busch, Academic Director at the State University for the Humanities Moscow RGGU, Faculty of Tourism & Hospitality and the Swiss International University earned his Master Certificate in Hospitality Management from Cornell University, USA. He has a diverse experience in launching operations, business development and service training- for hotel and cruise companies in Asia, Europe, Canada and Russia.
www.itsjusthotelsservice.com, contact@itsjusthotelsservice.com