A Q&A with Scott Wintrip, author of High Velocity Hiring: How to Hire Top Talent in an Instant on Faster Hospitality Hiring

Scott Wintrip is the author of High Velocity Hiring: How to Hire Top Talent in an Instant, named a must-read book by SHRM’s HR Magazine. Over the past 19 years, Scott has led the Wintrip Consulting Group, a global consultancy that has helped more than 22,000 organizations build talent rich companies that have eliminated their hiring delays forever. For five consecutive years, Staffing Industry Analysts, a Crain Communications company, awarded Scott a place on the “Staffing 100,” a list of the world’s 100 most influential leaders. He’s also a member of the Million Dollar Consultant Hall of Fame and was inducted into the Staffing 100 Hall of Fame.  We spoke with Wintrip on the topic of faster hospitality hiring and more effective.

You’ve had experience both in staffing and in the hospitality industry.  What do you see as the biggest obstacle to finding talent in hospitality today?  What are some strategies for faster hospitality hiring?

The biggest obstacle to filling jobs in the hospitality industry is that companies aren’t drawing in enough quality job candidates. The skills shortage often the blame—there are more jobs than qualified individuals to fill them. The right recruiting process makes this talent shortage irrelevant. Companies in hospitality that draw candidates from all eight talent streams have an abundance of qualified people, more than they can hire. For more details on those eight streams and faster hospitality hiring, readers can download a free report I wrote on the topic.

Link to report: http://bit.ly/TalentRich

Your book High Velocity Hiring advocates for a fast process that results in faster hospitality hiring.  What do you say to hiring managers who say that High Quality takes time?  Particularly in the context of hospitality where quality and brand standard can be rigid.

Brands that are struggling to fill their jobs (and do quickly) are stuck in the old way of hiring. They keep a job open until the right person shows up. Leaders in these companies have been operating on a faulty premise: They equate time and effort spent on hiring with making a quality hire. The more time they take, the more energy they expend, the better the hire will be. Actually, it gives them a false sense of control. Taking lots of time to hire doesn’t save brands from bad hires. It only saves people from making a decision they’re afraid may be wrong. These are not bad people. They’ve simply have bought into a bad idea.

Can you explain what the concept of candidate gravity is and why it’s essential for faster hospitality hiring?

Every property in the hospitality industry has a pull on talent. That pull is weak, inconsistent, or strong. This pull is Candidate Gravity.

Properties with a weak pull are typically only effectively leveraging two or three of those eight streams of talent I mentioned previous. Those with an inconsistent flow of talent are often using only four or five. It takes all eight streams to maintain a strong flow of qualified people. Using all eight also comes with another benefit—less time and effort. Tapping into all eight take less time than using just a few.

You spoke about not worrying about all the positions that need to be filled, just the one that must be fill.  How does that change the day to day struggle many properties face in finding talent?

I break jobs down into three categories: core, essential, and supportive.

• Core Roles: An open seat creates an immediate and significant negative impact. The nature or amount of work in this role makes it hard to delegate. Filling the job, because of market demand, tends to be quite difficult
• Essential Roles: A job opening has a negative impact, but is less severe than a core role. The nature or amount of work isn’t as hard to delegate, but is still vital to the company. Filling an essential role is challenging, but tends to take no more than a few weeks.
• Supportive Roles: Supportive jobs are important,; however, openings for these roles have less impact when compared to core and essential jobs. Work is easier to delegate or cover while a replacement is found. Finding qualified candidates to interview for these roles usually takes a matter of days.

Breaking jobs into these categories helps leaders fill jobs in order of priority, making hiring more manageable given other daily demands.

Given your experience in hospitality and staffing, what are some of the unique challenges in the industry?  Some benefits?

Hospitality jobs require that people always be “on.” The guest doesn’t care if your dog died that morning. Nor does that guest want to hear about relationship drama. People go to hotels, restaurants, and other properties to be served. Finding people who can manage the demand of always having to be “on” makes it more challenging when hiring. This must be baked into the selection.

The chief benefit I believe is the dynamic nature of hospitality—it’s a stage. Every meal, interaction, and guest interaction is an experience. People who enjoy being on the hospitality stage and performing in a role of service will find themselves with a lifetime of opportunities that will never be dull.

How does technology help enable faster hospitality hiring? How is it hurting?

Automation helps us make smarter choices and be productive. Take, for example, innovations in the automotive industry. Cars can now warn us of oncoming traffic when we’re changing lanes. There are cameras and sensors to help us when we’re backing up. If we’re poor parallel parkers, some vehicles can park themselves. Certain models will automatically slam on the brakes to keep us from crashing.

The risk with this technology is that we become over reliant on it. When we rely too much on automation, our skills become rusty and our senses dull. Such was the case when a semitrailer pulled in front of a car with autopilot. The autopilot failed to avert an accident. The driver didn’t react in time, losing his life in the collision.

Automation isn’t perfect. It’s created by fallible people and used in imperfect ways.

That’s why hiring technology also has its pros and cons. It, too, isn’t perfect, nor is it perfectly used. On the one hand, it makes some aspects of hiring more efficient (digital candidate information is paperless and searchable). On the other hand, it creates effort and undesirable outcomes; for example, job boards can flood recruiters with the resumes of hundreds of unusable candidates.

Striking a balance, when it comes to automation, is the best strategy. You can use too little or too much automation. Use just enough technology that fits your hiring process, and you’ll constantly be able to hire quality people quickly.

What are some ways that hospitality hiring managers can work with staffing companies more effective and create processes for faster hospitality hiring?

The most powerful thing hiring managers can do to create better working relationships with staffing partners is to set clear and reasonable mutual expectations. These should include how you’ll communicate with one another, what you each need to do quality work, and what you’ll do when conflicts arise. By treating this relationship like a healthy marriage, the hiring manager is more likely to have a satisfying experience that meets his or her needs.

Do you need help create faster hospitality hiring?  Get in touch with HSS.  We can help with you fulfill your hiring needs.