On the Move

I am excited to announce the below promotion on the WEST team.

Ryan Thompson, the AGM of Framingham, MA has been promoted to GM of Salem, NH. Ryan joined the RRI team back in 2019 and trained and developed under Dan Fritz and Holly Young as AGM, and is now taking on a GM role across the border in NH. Ryan is excited to take on the challenge of Salem and show off his skill set and move the needle. Congrats Ryan on your new role.

So who will be next??? Open Positions:

Hilton Head, SC GM: Become a seacoast GM on beautiful Hilton Head Island! This property is looking for a strong GM who can turn their hard work to set their management style in place, make new employees feel welcome, have recruiting and onboarding experience, and has great quality standards and expectations.

Rockford , IL GM: Who’s ready to bring this Suburban Chicago property to glory? Lots of opportunity here, and you’ve got a great mentor in Erica Carey only an hour away!

Phoenix West AGM: It’s STILL COLD in many parts of the country! Who’s ready to take the next step in warmer weather? Head south to Phoenix and begin your GM career path.

St. Louis AGM: Join Ebony Jenkins, one of our newest and most energetic GMs we have at RRI West. If you have a desire to learn and energy to spare… then Ebony wants to chat with you!

FGM: Love to travel? Want to see different parts of the country and be a Super Hero that helps manage an open property while we recruit for a GM replacement? Then this job is for YOU!! Want to know what it’s like to be a Floating GM? Call Toni Martinez, Ken Vincent or Dianne Suga… they’ll give you all the details!

RRI West Region Alignment:

RRI West Alignment 4-1-22.pdf

Download PDF • 53KB

April is Stress Awareness Month

The Hospitality Industry always brings with it times of stress, especially in our environment today. Whether it’s recruiting, sales, in season business, stresses outside of work… our days continue to be busy and our daily plates full! Your mental health and stress levels are extremely important to us and we are always here to help if you don’t know where to turn! Please remember these tips: (source: www.clevelandclinic.org)

• Eat and drink to optimize your health.

• Exercise regularly.

• Stop using tobacco and nicotine products.

• Study and practice relaxation techniques.

• Reduce triggers of stress.

• Examine your values and live by them.

• Assert yourself.

• Set realistic goals and expectations.

And most importantly, remember that help is available for you! We have an Employee Assistant Program – FREE to all employees at RRI West. Simply call 888-319-7819 or visit: https://metlifeeap.lifeworks.com/ with the user ID metlifeeap and password eap

The Great Retention

(I promise, worth the read)

The labor market continues to be as challenging as ever. According to Sterling Hospitality (our Background Check vendor) … job opportunities between December 2020 and December 2021 rose 130%!! However, in that same timeframe, employee hires only increased by 60%. Estimates show that as of 12/2021 there were 1.7million jobs open in the hospitality industry. While we all know that RRI West is experiencing all this firsthand… we do have the ability to combat “The Great Resignation”. (as it’s become known.)

But how do we combat this?

There is a slow, but ever important movement growing across the industry, of which RRI West can be a significant part of… and that is The Great Retention!

What is The Great Retention you may ask? This is a new mindset. A dedicated, coordinated, focused effort to do everything we can within our control to welcome, value, train and retain those that are working for us! Industry leaders predict that 2022 will be a key year for companies to show how much they value employees or risk losing them. Employees aren’t really leaving because they’re unsatisfied—maybe some are—but most are leaving because they want to see what’s out there at a time when it seems far less risky to try. So, what can we do to begin The Great Retention?

• Make employees feel comfortable, every.single.day. While you may be desperate and grateful that they actually showed up… you need to hide all of those “desperate emotions” and simply make your employees (especially new hires) feel like the most important person in the room on that day. Greet them, clear your calendar to spend time with them while completing a new hires’s onboarding, give new hires a property tour, surprise a long term employee by helping them do their job, bring donuts in, call your night auditor every once in a while to say hello, anything to make them feel like we are rolling out the red carpet for their shift!

• Be flexible. When recruiting, be open to schedule flexibility. 3 years ago – we had the power to say, “you must be able to work XXX”. In today’s world – we need to figure out how to use the employee’s schedule requirements for our benefit.

• Give new hires time to learn. They will not be perfect and this needs to be OK at the beginning. While this doesn’t mean they can skip changing the sheets on a checkout or not following safety and security protocols, retraining is just as important as training at the beginning. Be receptive to small mistakes, coach them as to the expectation and let them try again.

• Other key contributors to Retention:

  • Make Day 60 as Important as Day 1!

  • Optimize Your Benefits… Paid Time Off is a benefit many companies don’t offer!

  • Recognize Your Employees' Hard Work... Thank you still works wonders!

  • Make Professional Development a Top Priority… Have a stellar employee? What West Edge classes can they participate in to grow their skill set, either personally or professionally? Contact Training for help!

  • Communicate… employees want to be heard and know what’s going on with the business!

  • Encourage Teamwork and Collaboration

This effort takes time and it takes… well… effort. But the rewards can mean the difference; not only to you, the GM, but to the employee who feels valued and begins to wake up each day and say, “I can’t wait to get to work and see what happens today!”

Do you have a GREAT RETENTION TIP? We’d love to hear it! Email Stephanie or Tamara in the month of April and be featured in the next Gazette! You might even win a gift card for your submission! 😉