how do you maintain staff loyalty?

What kind of staff do you hire? Is it 'locals' or working holiday staff?

As for the 12 hour shift, it is a good idea and it's something I would love to do, work 12 hours for 3 days then have 4 days off... I wanted to do that at the previous hostel, but a few of the staff were not keen on it.

If you plan to do that, tell all new staff that you are likely to move to that 3 on, 4 off system in a few months, and what do they think of working under those conditions. Explain to them that those 3 days would be hard, but those 4 days would be paradise.

With that said, some people however are not keen on working more than 8 hours. I had one guy who would struggle doing 5 days a week, 8 hour shift at first. He could work 4 days no problem, but he would often find someone else to take his 5th shift. After 6 months, he was coping just fine with it, but you could not get him to do more than a 40 hour week. He would just baulk at it.

As for the 12 hour shift, it is a good idea and it's something I would love to do, work 12 hours for 3 days then have 4 days off.

All of our staff are paid locals as well. We don’t work with volunteers. We have done the 12 hour shifts, and it seems too long for them to give 100%. Eight hours seems like a much more reasonable time for someone to keep their energy up. A great receptionist is always “switched on” during their shift and that can really wipe them out after 12 hours. (Or maybe I’m just getting older so it seems that way?) On the other hand, several days off in a row each week sounds pretty great!

I can just make the workplace as funny as possible, as easy as possible. Co-workers will have as many time-off as possible but I only pay them by minimum wage, so that I can hire a lot of staff, keep the workload light and easy.

Bringing on more people with a lower salary each in order to reduce the workload for everyone is a viable option. Finding the balance is the same process some hostels use for yield management when they evaluate the best combination of price and occupancy to maximize the revenue. Whether or not this would work for you will depend heavily on what your staff wants from the hostel experience. In addition to less work for each person, having more colleagues also provides more flexibility if someone needs to have a shift covered, and more fun when the team gathers outside of work hours. (Maybe also more stupid drama within the team?) Personally, I would rather work more often for more money with fewer people. Not only would that give me more income, but it would make me feel like the team was more dedicated and I would take more ownership of the hostel. But as an experienced hostel manager I rarely look at things with the same perspective as a receptionist. If they’re leaving too soon with the current system, then perhaps a lighter load and more colleagues is the way to go for that team.

Could you share more details about :
- Priority scheduling opportunities
- Increased time off
- Educational opportunities

Priority scheduling: We are quite flexible with our scheduling because most of our staff are students and have a lot going on outside of the hostel. If there are specific dates that they don’t want to work or particular shifts that they would like to take, we ask them to submit those requests two weeks before the schedule is made. When we make the schedule we will take their requests into consideration. What I mean by priority scheduling is that the senior receptionists might have their requests considered first so they have a better chance of getting their ideal schedule.

Increased time off: This could be paid time off like vacation days or unpaid time when they can simply have a break from work. We have found that our receptionists appreciate both, especially around exam periods and when there are festivals nearby.

Educational opportunities: There are several organizations in our area that conduct seminars and trainings on topics like professional growth, business development, marketing/project management tools, etc. that seem to interest my team quite a bit. We would also like to take some of them to a Hostel Management Unconference to represent the hostel. I think they would learn a lot from other hostel operators and adopt a more managerial perspective, which could also help them toward their next promotion if a management position ever became available.

I want to bring this topic back up because I think it’s really important, and because as we move into summer in the Northern Hemisphere the workload and stress on the team both increase significantly. Keeping them happy is particularly important when the workload changes, especially just as we start getting busier than they’re used to and again at the end of the season when the adrenaline rush runs out.  Those are the two most popular times of year for team members to bail on us.

A university organization called AIESEC does a great job of getting talented and driven people to work hard and take on big responsibilities without financial rewards.  I was never a part of AIESEC and always thought it sounded a bit like a student cult, but my wife was a product of their program and loved the experience and what it taught her.  One thing that they do really well is to publicly recruit a lot of candidates but only select a few after a rigorous screening process.  This makes those who are selected feel like an elite squad who won a competition to earn their positions.  I have to admit that sounds pretty motivating, and it is likely to instill a sense of pride and determination towards the work being done.   They also ran for leadership positions within the organization, essentially winning the privilege of taking on responsibilities by means of elections.  And they earned fancy sounding titles that became shortened to acronyms so that only those people in-the-know would have a clue what they were even talking about. A whole elite community…

We started thinking again about how to set up different levels for the receptionists to achieve in order to keep them motivated, akin to climbing the professional ladder despite working in a very small organization.  While I don’t want my team competing against each other, I don’t mind emphasizing that they already beat the competition when they got hired.  That little ego boost is short lived, but it may give them just enough encouragement to get them started on the next challenge.  

As mentioned in a previous comment, we wanted to reward the team with opportunities for personal and professional development, vacation time, scheduling perks, paid travel, financial bonuses, group outings, etc. If anyone has suggestions of other perks we could offer, I would love to hear them!  

But it’s not enough to just give those things away based on how long someone has worked with us.  Those things probably wouldn’t be appreciated unless they were earned.  

So I also need some ideas of measurable goals and requirements that I could ask my team to shoot for each month to earn their bonus perks.  They would need to be things that contribute directly or indirectly to a positive guest experience.  For example:

• Designated number of extended bed nights (achieved by creating such a great atmosphere that guests don’t want to check out)
• Designated number of reviews mentioning individual staff members by name (achieved by working hard to make a great impression on each guest)
• Designated number of suggestions for physical improvements to the hostel along with a plan to implement them and cover the costs (achieved by soliciting feedback from guests or by analyzing the property - bonus points for actually implementing those suggestions themselves?)
• Designated number of suggestions for new products or services that the hostel could offer to guests to make their trip better/easier/cheaper/more fun and a plan for how to implement them
• Designated number of events they can organize for guests (ex BBQ, party, tournament, concert, workshop, city tour, excursion, etc)
• Number of relevant blogs written for the hostel website
• Number of social media posts that involve current or past guests
• Number of collaborative projects with other colleagues (to promote camaraderie and team morale)

I’m looking for more ideas to make sure there are plenty of ways to earn additional benefits.  The more diverse the better, because then everyone can pick the type of objectives that they prefer.

As each person achieves certain objectives, they could earn an unofficial title like a badge of honor (ex. Hostel Novice, Service Ninja, Reception Master… or maybe even something a little less dorky)  Achieving the requirements for each stage would entitle them to one or more of the reward perks (or possibly a choice of one from among several options depending on the stage)  How high any one person could climb would be determined by how many of the objectives they manage to accomplish.  They could earn multiple titles within the same month if they were feeling motivated.  Some would be very easy to achieve, and people might even get them by accident.  Others would require more effort.  Each month the whole team would start back at zero and have to work their way up through the ranks again to earn those perks the next month.  Some of the levels could also require a minimum amount of time working in the hostel. That way new or better perks could be received as people gain seniority, hopefully motivating them to stay longer and to continue working diligently.  

Some people may be perfectly content to not put forth any effort towards the objectives.  I’m expecting this to happen, especially with people who have been on the team for longer periods.  Since the objectives would all be measurable, (and probably part of the standard expectations of each team member anyway) it makes sense to also use them as progress markers over the course of the year.  Perhaps they would also become the basis for performance reviews, salary increases, honors, promotions, etc. It might become expected that by certain milestones (3 months, 6 months, 9 months, 1 year) each team member should have achieved a minimum number of titles.  This could help to clarify objectively which members of the team are making an effort, and which ones aren’t even trying.  Unfortunately it also runs the risk of demotivating some people if they see the goals as a requirement rather than an opportunity.

Essentially this is an attempt at gamification of team management. What do you guys think? Does something like this have merit, or am I heading down a path towards hostel team disaster?  How could something like this be adapted to make sure that it is advantageous for the team, the guests, and the hostel owner all at the same time?