ONE APPROACH TO GETTING
TEAM MEMBERS TO BUY-IN
TO NEW TECHNOLOGIES IS
GAMIFICATION.
Consider what happens now when a guest
wants more towels delivered to the room.
They will call the front desk, and that team
alerts housekeeping via walkie talkie, phone,
etc. Assuming housekeeping receives that
alert, it delivers the towels, and (hopefully)
calls the front desk to confirm the tasks is
complete.
Introducing Alexa to the guest’s room enables
that entire process to move into a dashboard
where various team members can use their
smartphones to coordinate their response
and reporting. Managers can collect data on
factors such as how long it took the staff to
respond, and the guest’s satisfaction level.
Analyzing that data can help identify areas for
improvement and opportunities to offer new,
more personalized levels of service.
When introducing new technologies
like voice-enabled services, it’s just as
important to educate staff on how it will
make them more productive. Reassure
them it’s about introducing efficiencies,
not reducing headcount. Change is always
scary, particularly the introduction of new
technologies, which frequently create the
fear among the staff that management
is trying to replace them with robots and
artificial intelligence.
New technology can be especially
intimidating to employees who are not
fluent in English or are unfamiliar with the
latest and greatest consumer technologies.
Remember that although consumer adoption
of smart home devices is rising, research
shows that the majority of consumers quickly
100 ILHA
grow frustrated when they first implement
those technologies. The challenge to hotel
managers is preventing their team members
from experiencing similar frustrations.
One approach to getting team members to
buy-in to new technologies is gamification.
Turn the work of learning how to use a
new app, software platform or device into
a rewards-based contest that recognizes
employees who both demonstrate early
proficiency, and a willingness to help train
their colleagues.
Whatever new technologies take hold across
the hospitality industry this year, your top
line goal is to show employees how using
those tools will make their lives easier -- how
they will be able to spend more time on the
work they find most engaging and rewarding,
and less time filling out spreadsheets.
About the author
Juan Carlos Abello is the founder and CEO of
Nuvola (MyNuvola.com), a holistic hotel software
company focused on the intersection between hotel
operating efficiency and guest experience. Having
spent much of his early career in the hotel industry,
Juan Carlos sought to modernize the way hotels
manage guest requests and created one of the first
cloud-based management platforms by hoteliers
for hoteliers. Now in its fifth year of business, the
award-winning platform is used by hundreds of
hotels and thousands of hoteliers worldwide.