With decades of experience guiding organizations through technological and cultural transformations, HRTech expert Ling-Yi Tsai has become a vital voice in the conversation around modern talent strategy. Specializing in the integration of analytics and technology across the entire employee lifecycle, she offers a sharp, data-driven perspective on why the hospitality industry’s traditional recruitment models are failing and what it takes to build a workforce that lasts. We sat down with her to discuss the deep-seated challenges in hotel hiring and explore the strategic shifts necessary to attract and retain top talent in a fiercely competitive market.
The article contrasts a 70-80% turnover in hospitality with 10-20% at Mews, framing it as a major business cost. Beyond pay, what specific, non-monetary benefits like commute support have you seen provide the highest return on investment for attracting and retaining on-site hotel staff?
That turnover gap is staggering, and it highlights a fundamental misunderstanding of value. When churn hits 70 or 80%, you’re not just losing people; you’re hemorrhaging institutional knowledge, service consistency, and hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in recruitment and training. The highest ROI always comes from benefits that directly solve an employee’s daily pain points. Commute support is a perfect example. For an hourly employee in a major city, the cost and time of getting to work can be a massive source of stress. Offering subsidized transit passes or arranging a shuttle from a central hub isn’t just a perk; it’s a direct investment in their reliability and well-being. Similarly, I’ve seen hotels have tremendous success with offering on-site stays for staff working very late shifts. It shows a genuine concern for their safety and removes a significant logistical barrier. These gestures say, “We see the challenges you face, and we want to help.” That builds loyalty far more effectively than a minor pay bump ever could.
You advocate for pay transparency but warn that a hotel must first align its existing team’s compensation. Could you outline a step-by-step process for auditing internal pay scales and communicating these changes to current staff to prepare for this strategic shift?
Absolutely. Rushing into pay transparency without doing the internal work first is a recipe for disaster. It can breed resentment and accelerate churn, the very thing you’re trying to fix. The first step is a thorough internal equity audit. You need to map out every role, who is in it, and what they are paid, looking for inconsistencies that aren’t justified by experience or performance. The second step is benchmarking that data against the current market. What are your competitors paying for similar roles? This gives you a realistic baseline. Third, based on that data, you must build a clear, logical compensation philosophy with defined salary bands for each role. This is your new source of truth. The most critical step is the fourth: communication. Before you ever post a salary range publicly, you must sit down with your current team. You have one-on-one conversations where you explain the new philosophy, show them where they fall within their new salary band, and make any necessary market adjustments to their pay. It has to be a conversation rooted in fairness and value, ensuring every existing employee feels seen and respected before a single external candidate sees a job posting.
The text suggests hotels are “paying more for less qualified talent” on sites like Indeed. For a manager wanting to pivot to paid social media, what would a sample campaign for a front-desk role look like, including the specific content and call-to-action you’d recommend?
The shift from job boards to social media is about moving from passive posting to active storytelling. Instead of a sterile job description, you create content that answers the question, “What does it actually feel like to work here?” For a front-desk role, I’d recommend a short, energetic video for Instagram Reels or TikTok. Forget a polished corporate video; give a phone to your most charismatic front-desk agent. Have them film a “day in my life” clip showing them greeting a regular guest by name, sharing a laugh with a coworker behind the desk, or highlighting the beautiful view from the lobby during a quiet moment. The content should feel authentic, not staged. The caption could be something like: “Love making people’s day? We do too. Our front desk is the heart of our hotel, and we’re looking for our next great team member.” The call-to-action needs to be incredibly simple. Not “click the link in bio to go to our careers page and fill out a 20-minute application.” It should be, “Send us a direct message with the word ‘INTERESTED’ to start a conversation,” or a link to a very simple form that just captures a name and phone number. You’re lowering the barrier to entry and starting a human conversation, which will yield far more engaged candidates than the one-click, resume-spamming tools on major job boards.
You advise hotels to “get your house in order” before promoting an employer brand. What are the first three practical steps or key metrics a hotel manager should use to audit their internal culture and ensure they are marketing a reality, not just an aspiration?
That phrase is everything because marketing a bad product, as the article says, will kill your business. You can’t fake a good culture. The first step is to deploy a simple, anonymous employee engagement survey. Ask direct questions about management support, communication, pay satisfaction, and whether they would recommend working there to a friend. The anonymity is crucial for honesty. Second, you must rigorously analyze your exit interview data. Don’t just file it away. Look for patterns. If the last six housekeepers who quit all cited unpredictable schedules or issues with a specific manager, you don’t have a recruitment problem; you have an operational or leadership problem. That’s your fire. The third metric is tracking your internal promotion rate. How many of your supervisors or managers started in entry-level roles within your hotel? If that number is near zero, you aren’t offering real growth opportunities. A strong employer brand is built on stories of pride, community, and growth. If you can’t back those claims up with internal data, your marketing will be exposed as hollow, and you’ll do more harm than good.
The article argues for elevating HR from an administrative role to a strategic “people team.” For a hotel with a small staff, what does this transition look like on a day-to-day basis? Please describe a few key changes in process or responsibility.
For a smaller hotel, this transition is less about hiring a new team and more about changing the mindset and function of the person responsible for HR. On a practical level, it means that person’s time shifts dramatically. Instead of spending 80% of their day on payroll, compliance, and reactive problem-solving, they start dedicating significant time to proactive, strategic activities. For example, instead of just posting a job when a cook quits, the new “people leader” spends time each month building relationships with local culinary schools to create a talent pipeline. Another key change is their presence in leadership meetings. They are no longer just called in to discuss a disciplinary issue; they are at the table during budget and forecasting meetings, providing data on turnover costs and advising on how staffing levels will impact the hotel’s ability to hit its commercial goals. Finally, their focus shifts from simply filling roles to developing the talent you already have. They would be responsible for creating clear career paths, so a bellman can see a realistic route to becoming a front-office manager. The job transforms from being an administrator of personnel files to a cultivator of talent and a core strategic partner in the business.
Do you have any advice for our readers?
My strongest advice is to start treating your talent acquisition and retention with the same strategic intensity you apply to your revenue management or marketing. For too long, hiring has been seen as a reactive, administrative task. But in an industry with 70-80% turnover, your ability to attract and keep great people is the single biggest factor determining your long-term success. Stop thinking of recruitment as just a cost center and start viewing it as an investment in your guest experience, your operational resilience, and your brand. Get your house in order, listen to your current employees, and be honest and authentic in how you present yourself to the world. The hotels that embrace this shift from a transactional HR function to a strategic people-focused culture are the ones that will thrive.