WEBCAST
Preparing for Hospitality’s new normal with Adam Rowledge

Preparing for Hospitality’s new normal

British Travel & Hospitality Hall of Famer Adam Rowledge has over 20 years of experience as a top hospitality operator. Now in his role as MD of Rowledge Associates, he advises leading players in hospitality and retail – including the likes of Hotelhero – helping them to adopt a people-first approach.

As an award-winning advocate of businesses taking a people-first approach, Adam was a natural choice for this session tackling the top staffing questions asked by our community of hospitality operators.

Pressed for time? Read on for a couple of key advice highlights that we’ve selected from Adam’s talk.

Why repetition is key to learning new skills

Whether you’re learning a new language or learning how to use a new POS system, one factor is essential to success – repetition.

Did you know that the average person will forget up to 80% of what they have learned just one month after a one-off training session?¹ In other words, to make new skills stick, we need to be able to repeat them over and over again.

That’s why the value of training that engages your staff cannot be overestimated. And with so many of them either furloughed or returning to new working conditions, right now is a ‘real golden opportunity’ to train and develop your people.

Supporting staff who are worried about returning to work

For all of us, this is challenging time to return to work.

New sanitary conditions, new expectations, no set time frame on when we can return to ‘normal’.

Many of your staff might already be dealing with the pressures of home child care, or looking after sick family members. Some might be worrying if they have a job to return to at all. The likelihood of anxiety and mental stress is high.

As managers and owners, we have a responsibility to treat these concerns with the clarity and honesty they deserve. We may not have all the answers, and that’s OK. No one does at this stage. But we can communicate what we do know as soon and as clearly as possible.

More importantly than that, invite your people’s questions and listen compassionately.

It’s your staff who will be on the front line of accelerating out of this crisis. Supporting their mental health is more than just ‘the right thing to do’.

“I’ve been saying this to everyone from the start [of furlough]… there’s never been a greater time to engage with our teams in training and development.”

The statistics show that people who receive regular appreciation from their managers are four times more likely to stay with businesses.

You don’t remember everything you hear in an eight-hour training session… Repetition in anything – whether learning a language or performing any kind of work-based skill – is really important.”

Adam Rowledge

MD | Rowledge Associates