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Why your hospitality company culture matters when recruiting?

Do you know why your company’s culture and values are an intrinsic part of what makes your hospitality brand an attractive option when recruiting?

Chefs in a kitchen

Your company culture is a vital part of who you are and what you do as a hospitality employer. It’s now a huge part of what potential recruits look at when considering employment and as important as salary and benefits.

Many of today’s hospitality job seekers are looking for a company with ‘personality’.

Your company culture is hard to get right, and many companies don’t put any work into developing an internal culture and set of values to attract top talent.

Your culture is about creating a vision that everyone within your organisation understands and wants to be part of. It’s about having a clear direction of travel and taking your people with you to achieve goals.

Spending time to find what skills and personality types you value, what works well for your existing employees and what type of hospitality business you want to be seen as will generate a culture that candidates will want to be part of.

Getting the ‘cultural fit’ right

Should you compromise on culture fit? The considered answer has to be, no.

A candidate might be a dream on paper but could be a disastrous cultural fit with your existing team. A new recruit could have an amazing skill set, but a negative attitude can impact on and bring your whole team down.

Having a strong internal culture will make recruitment and retention easier because you have a clear idea of who is ‘right’ for your brand and the qualities you need to enhance your existing team.

Every employer wants to hire the very best talent but taking time to really consider the ‘fit’ and whether your new hire will succeed and stay within your organisation will save time and money in the long term.

Culture ‘fit or culture ‘add’?

We’ve looked at culture ‘fit’ but you should also consider cultural ‘add’. Always hiring people who fit your ideal can lead to an identikit workforce. However, by creating a diverse and inclusive workforce, hiring for ‘add,’ you can create a culture that is innovative, dynamic and with a more engaged workforce.

The hospitality sector is well documented as being a diverse and exciting industry to work in. Existing research shows that by having a mix of gender and ethnicity and a clear diversity and inclusion strategy, improved performance follows.

Employing a diverse workforce will give you greater insight and can make you more innovative. Companies with above-average diversity, produce more revenue through innovation added to which employees in highly inclusive companies are four times more likely to report high levels of wellbeing and job satisfaction.

How to create your brand culture

Start by asking yourself the following questions:

  • Does your organisation feel ‘friendly’?
  • Is your workforce supportive and do they take an active interest in your business?
  • Do your employees feel valued and supported every single day?

Once you have the answers you can start to define what is important to you and your company. Revisiting your mission statement, strategic goals and core values can really help with this.

Another tool that can help to figure out your culture is to survey your existing employees, asking them to tell you about the things that work, and the things that don’t, using anonymous feedback to gain honest responses.

Once you know where the problems are you can prioritise these and invite your team to help look at ways to improve, implementing change that shows you’ve listened, understood and want to work to eradicate issues that stop people from being their best selves at work.

Engage your managers in your plans for cultural change – they can be catalysts and crucial for success. You may need to provide training before you roll out any changes within your extended teams.

Your company culture will change as your business does – it will flex and is a dynamic part of your brand. Keep checking in with your people, carry out regular surveys and understand how changes are positively impacting creativity and retention. Make sure that there is room within your brand for people to grow as if they have this opportunity, your company will grow too.

Top tips for cultural change within your business

 

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