During the past few years of record profits many hotels and hotel companies have invested heavily in ramping up their in-house and corporate level training resources. 

Now that we are in a down market, one can easily see which organizations truly comprehend and believe in the value of ongoing training versus those who view it as window dressing. 

As a vendor-partner to the hotel industry for training and development resources, it is interesting to see and exact names of hotels, hotel companies, and industry organizations are still investing in their team’s personal development.  From what I hear from my colleagues and competitors, it seems to be the top-tier companies across all organizations, market segments and locations that are still keeping hotel training companies like us plenty busy during what is one of the biggest downturns in industry history.  

This is not just because these excellent, top-tier hotel companies think training is a nice thing to do; it’s because visionary leaders realize the tangible ROI that training can achieve, if  properly implemented, measured, and followed-up on.

Unfortunately though, from what I hear of the industry at large, way too many companies are instead blindly cutting back on training and development at every juncture across the board.  Depending on the type of organization or company, this plays out as:

Hotel trainer positions that are left unfilled or eliminated.

• Cut-backs in budgeted hours for recurrent training.
• New-hires being scheduled to cover shifts before they have had proper one-on-one coaching with a supervisor.
• Lack of access to new training multimedia resources such as DVDs; missed opportunities for managers and staff to attend webinars and to use eLearning tools.
• Cutbacks in budgets for managers and leaders to attend management company or brand conferences and events.
• Training components of conferences and events being reduced; or annual educational and training conferences that are being cut out altogether.
• Reduction in the quality of the educational experiences being offered at annual conferences for associations, brands, and other trade groups.

• When forecasting temporary dips in business activity, schedule formalized, workshop style training during down-times.
• Even during periods of peak activity, there always seems to be dips in the “cycle of service” during which staff have predictable periods of down-time.  This is a great chance to schedule some on-the-job coaching.
• Sometimes business levels drop unexpectedly; during these times it is not always possible to cut hours by sending staff home early.  If so, conduct impromptu “grab and go” training meetings.
• Conduct individualized coaching  with frontline associates directly in their workplace between transactions during actual shifts.
• Reinforce what was done well; focus on what could have been done more effectively.
• Distribute copies of article reprints from publications such as this for discussion/review at meetings. 
• Checkout cost-effective multi-media (DVD’s and videos) from resources such as the Educational Institute or the Sunrise Basic Training series.  
• Reinforce training themes with workplace displays that can be made fun with simple word processing programs.
• Find ways to cut costs but to still attend industry conferences or events; book early to reduce registration fees.  The biggest cost historically is usually airfare and travel costs, which can be secured at value rates if you plan ahead to send your leaders to such events.
• If you are a hotel company or association, this is a terrific opportunity to show value to your stakeholders by finding a way to still offer quality educational and training events at future meetings.