6 minute read
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly of Staffing
By Kerry Roy, Founder of Camp Katúr & Cerchio del Desiderio
There’s a new term called ‘The Solopreneur’, a self employed individual who works solo on their business –apparently not needing anyone else to help with the running of their project. But, for the majority of glamping businesses, an inhouse team is essential for development, whilst maintaining smooth operation of the business.
Imagine that you have 6 rooms or more and you are a Solopreneur! You would be run ragged with exhaustion. Some areas of the business would begin to slip into a state of dismay and, after a period of time trying to be a Super Human, the feeling of resentment towards your business will creep in. Many Glampreneurs enter the business for the change of lifestyle, but, if you wish to diversify, the lifestyle will be nothing but work, work and more work depending on the size of your site. You can create yourself a job, or create yourself a business.
Hiring staff can be both exciting and challenging at the same time. It’s important that you as the owner play to your strengths. Some skilled tasks can be delegated to freelance experts – this could be website design, web management, marketing, social media, wedding planning or accounting, all of which are roles that to employ a specific skilled individual in these areas would be higher salary costs. The work of these roles are likely to be ad hoc occasional requirements.
However, the less skilled roles that are also crucial to the business on a more regular basis are often delegated via an in-house team such as, housekeeping, reception/ reservations, maintenance management, activities and restaurant staff. So that you, the owner, can focus on the growth and income of the business working more on it than in it. In the words of Steve Jobs, “The musicians play the instruments. I play the orchestra.”
To employ or not to employ
There are of course pros and cons to consider, especially for small seasonal glamping businesses whom often may not be able to commit to year-round employment contracts. However, you can still employ staff on part time seasonal contracts. In some countries whereby tourism is one of their biggest GDP sectors, the government offer to fund staff a percentage of their salary during closing season, therefore benefiting the employee during closing season. The benefit to the employer is that the same member of staff will often return the following season because they have some level of security during off season months. When you have good staff, you don’t want them to leave and have to repeatedly advertise for and train new staff. Some employers may even offer to spread the salary of the opening season over a period of 12 months or offer an end of year bonus, providing the employee has reached all required targets successfully.
If you’re worried about entering into legal work and contracts, then the better option is to use agency workers or freelancers which takes away the responsibility of holiday pay, sick pay, maternity/paternity leave, health insurance, pensions and so forth.
Within the hospitality industry, an increasing number of businesses are now using virtual assistance (VA) or AI to also cover the likes of reception reservations, especially if the owner is not always available and does not have a large enough site to employ an actual receptionist. Remember though that many of these external or automated services do not know the business like you do, or like a trained member of staff would, so a percentage of their assistance is just message-taking for you to then follow up.
Below are three recommendations of Freelance websites, where you can find ad hoc assistants for various skilled tasks.
Bark
Fivver
People Per Hour
Employment in-house
The Good
Better control of hours, work tasks & growth opportunities for both parties
Employee more invested in the company
Trained staff can help take the company further faster than that of temporary external contractors
Loyalty and availability
Delegation longevity
The Ugly
One bad apple can spoil the barrel. When there is conflict amongst the team or between yourself and a team member, it can make for a very uncomfortable environment that can negatively impact team morale and productivity. Depending on your country, Human Resources Laws vary on how you can tackle a bad apple. Unless there’s a reason for legal instant dismissal, yourself and the team will have to learn how to work with the sour situation, as well as learn how to effectively manage the employee’s character, work ethic and negative attitude in the hope to resolve all conflicts and morale.
What type of boss are you?
Many who enter into the glamping industry have not been trained how to be a manager or a boss. Being the boss can either feel natural or it can feel awkward for many – especially when having to patiently deal with varied personality types, team conflicts or occasional aggression from the people whom you pay to help run the business smoothly. The glamping industry is often more of a relaxed environment than that of corporate. Often the owners live within the business whereby their personal lives are exposed to the team, making it difficult to create a separation between the boss persona and personal persona. Gone are the days where the boss is the narcissist, suit-and-tie character pointing the finger. Nowadays, staff fortunately have a more ‘open door’ culture, with managers who are less strict and more fluid and compassionate in their management style. However, too much flexibility can also backfire, so it’s important from the get go that all new members of the team have clear job descriptions, working hours and responsibilities, along with clear boundaries for both parties to engage in a successful working relationship.
Management of hours
Improved cash flow is the key to success within any business, even if you have great turnover and great end of year profits. The cash flow is what will make the business survive, so it’s important that you control the hours your team work – not your team.
There are certain roles within the business for which you know the hours required to work. Therefore, fixed hour employees are often on a salary so that you know the exact amount to pay each month. In other roles, for example housekeeping, it will depend on the fluctuation of guest reservations – it is more difficult to put housekeeping staff on a salary. Instead, you can set hourly pay or pay per room. Most accommodation providers set a standard on the max time it should take to clean a room; normally it is between 30 minutes to 1 hour for a small/medium sized hotel room. However, some large self-catered glamping accommodation will take longer, as it is not as easy as just pulling a trolley along a corridor room to room like in a hotel. There are variances to consider within the glamping industry, but the importance is that you have a good system ensuring that hours are kept to a minimum, whilst still being able to maintain high cleaning standards.
