Hotels Starved for Help: Boom Creates Shortage of Hospitality Workers

Robert Kisabeth’s biggest problem on an average Tuesday doesn’t have anything to do with filling the 248-room Embassy Suites hotel he manages in Rogers. It’s whether he’ll have enough servers to work a banquet that evening.

Kisabeth will pay his regular banquet staff about $10 per hour, but will shell out $14 to $18 per hour to a temporary service for workers when he’s short-staffed for an event.

“With all the new businesses and all the new growth, the market we are talking about where we have a shortage, isn’t really growing,” Kisabeth said.

Kisabeth said the increasing options in the hotel and restaurant industry just make wages and hiring more competitive.

“The vendor community is coming in, but we don’t benefit from that growth because the spouse may not work,” Kisabeth said.

The job pool is expected to get even bigger.

By 2010, Northwest Arkansas will have about 297,240 workers. That’s a 28 percent increase over 231,060 in 2000, according to the Arkansas Employment Security Department.

Of those totals, advertising and promotions managers will see their industry grow 50 percent from 120 to 180 jobs. Food service managers will see a projected growth of 41.9 percent from 310 to 440 positions, and lodging managers will see a growth of 31.3 percent from 320 to 420 jobs.

The Northwest Arkansas Community College gathered a forum of hospitality industry executives in March and came up with a new curriculum to help serve the sector’s local needs. NWACC will launch a new Certificate of Proficiency in Hospitality Management when classes start on Aug. 23. The hope is that the program will eventually feed into the four-year degree program at the University of Arkansas.

Classes will be taught at the Embassy Suites in Rogers. Course work will focus on food and beverage operations, the lodging industry and tourism. The UA and NWACC programs together could serve the growing need for hospitality industry professionals in Northwest Arkansas for many years.

Building Blocks

In the last year, the number of its students majoring in Hospitality and Restaurant Management at the UA has doubled. Students in the program graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Human and Environmental Science. The program had fewer than 10 graduates in 2004, however, the number of students enrolled for the fall semester is around 50.

“More students are interested in the hospitality industry, and the hospitality industry has increased tremendously in Northwest Arkansas and the whole state,” said Janet Noble, associate professor in the University of Arkansas School of Human and Environmental Science and an instructor in the Hospitality and Restaurant Management program.

Noble said she has seen graduates go to work for places such as the Embassy Suites in Rogers, the Hampton Inn of Fayetteville and Tan-Tar-A Resort in Osage Beach, Mo. Noble said graduates from the program, which had three students when she arrived in Fayetteville 10 years ago, are trained to become owners or managers of food and hotel operations. In addition to completing 1,000 hours of work experience and an internship above that, students take classes in marketing, accounting and personnel management.

Wishing for Workers

The Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism’s 2003 annual report said travel-generated payroll from 2002 to 2003 was $35.3 million in Benton County and $63.5 million for Washington County.

Kisabeth said it’s difficult to find people to fill middle- and upper-level management positions, as well as the hotel’s banquet positions. He said one area of his hotel has actually benefitted from the influx. Construction workers bring their families with them, which makes some of the housekeeping and kitchen positions easier to fill.

Kisabeth said when the Embassy Suites opened in 2003, they recruited 13 of their 17 managers from outside of the area.

“Even though they may have experience at a smaller hotel, that doesn’t translate to experience here,” Kisabeth said.

Kisabeth will teach the lodging portion of the Introduction to Hospitality Management course offered by NWACC this fall. He said he hopes the course will eventually serve as a recruitment tool.

“The whole key is to get young people that may not have been interested before, interested or at least exposed,” Kisabeth said.

Kisabeth said the Embassy Suites, along with general manager Kevin Smith at the Holiday Inn Northwest Arkansas, have an advantage by both being John Q. Hammons-owned hotels because the opportunity for advancement is greater.

“We’ve sent one of our supervisors there to be manager,” Kisabeth said. “They’ve sent a banquet captain to be manager here. The nice thing is that they are able to get to a certain level, if there is an opening, they can step up to another position here, or move to another property.”

Kisabeth said future retail development could further strain the hotel’s labor pool.

“With the growth of the shopping centers and higher end retail, I could potentially see a lot of my front-desk agents going to Dillard’s or other retail locations that are opening,” Kisabeth said.

Getting Focused

Bethany Stephens, vice president of advertising and promotion at the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce, said she joined the focus group for the new NWACC hospitality certificate because she wants to get more people excited about the field that she loves.

“People have misconceptions about the industry,” Stephens said. “I think that contributes very strongly to that labor shortage. People aren’t looking to it as a career,” Stephens said.

Stephens said she sees the importance of having quality employees in the hospitality industry because that in turn promotes the area to visitors.

“When we have adept employees, whether they are at hotels or restaurants, those are people that are helping in my goal to promote Rogers because they are reselling the destination for me,” Stephens said.

Stephens will be one of the teachers in the Tourism module of the introductory NWACC course.

Karen Hodges, vice president of learning at NWACC, said the course is designed so industry professionals can take a portion of the course for noncredit. For example, a manager could sit in on the food and beverage operations part of the course only.

“The desire was to take the existing workforce and encourage them to get some additional educational training so that they can advance and so that they can be better representatives of Northwest Arkansas,” Hodges said.

The course advisory group, Hodges said, met seven times from its formation in March. The course still has to be certified by the state, Hodges said, which should happen this fall.

Becky Paneitz, president of NWACC, said she thinks the new hospitality certificate will help fill some of the skilled labor pool needs.

“With unemployment at around 2.9 percent, people can get a job,” Paneitz said. “It’s a matter of getting people with skill.”

She said a key factor in the success of the new certificate will be getting the industry to support the training by providing incentives.

“If I go through a training program and you don’t and we both get the same starting salary, then what is the incentive?” Paneitz said.

Server Need Makes For a Niche Market

Brady Long, owner of People Brokers LLC, said his experience as a catering manager with Tan-Tar-A Resort in Osage Beach, Mo., gave him the idea for his temporary worker agency. He said the venture, which specializes in banquet servers, will clear $500,000 in gross revenue in its first year.

When hotels like the Embassy Suites in Rogers and the Holiday Inn Northwest Arkansas have banquets that exceed a certain size, they require more servers than hotel managers can afford to keep on their regular banquet staff.

Both properties will call Long when they have a large event to staff and will pay from $14 to $18 per hour for his servers.

Kevin Smith, the general manager of the Holiday Inn Northwest Arkansas, said that he uses Long at least once every two months. Smith keeps a staff of about 25 to 45 on full or part time and some functions require even more.

Long has about 60 to 80 trained banquet servers and setup staff on call that supply to both Arkansas and Missouri properties. They are in charge of their own transportation, although Long said he will provide for their lodging at an area hotel if the event requires an overnight stay. He works most functions with his staff.

“We may put eight people in a van and head down to Arkansas, but we have a good time when we go,” Long said. “When you can make work fun and profitable, that’s great.”

Kisabeth said it isn’t cheap to hire temporary staff, but it saves them from overstaffing.

Long’s more than 10 years with the Marriott property gave him insight into the challenges hotels were facing.

“I talked to the people in the hotels where I was,” Long said. “I saw the problems. Getting quality staff was just a problem.”

Whereas the banquet business tends to be slower in the summer months, Long said, the Lake of the Ozarks area restaurants are booming. When business slows down in the fall, many servers are looking to pick up some extra work.

During busy times, Long said, he will have several servers who work full-time hours.