Get It Yourself

Several times in the past few months I have encountered a phenomenon I don’t understand: continued staffing shortages in the hospitality and tourism industry. I worked in the hospitality industry during 2020 where I spent time with hotel sales managers who served pro basketball players eggs for breakfast, watched as front desk workers acted as security, housekeeping, and maintenance, and was stuck on an airplane for an extraordinary length of time waiting for the only mechanic in the US (see my blog “There’s a Difference Between Inconvenient and Inconsiderate“). What I am struggling to wrap my mind around is why we’re still having these challenges today.

Lately, after I go through the trouble of placing my catering order online as per usual (which by the way can take 15-20 minutes for a small meeting), it’s THEN I find out the provider does not have any drivers for the window of time I need the delivery. Even when I call and try to work with the provider on delivery timing and setup, the answer is “We just don’t have drivers.” Mind you, I’m not looking for a 3am delivery of piping hot donuts and coffee or dinner for 100 at 7pm on a Saturday; I’m looking for a small lunch order and I’m calling in at least a week in advance.

I encountered the same issue last week with a simple lunch order for two people from your standard fast-food place. I was helping my daughter move. We were carrying boxes up to her second-story place, cleaning, packing, unpacking, organizing, and such and wanted lunch to come to us like any other lazy American. We went through the trouble of ordering our meal with a freaky fast sandwich place, and discovered that they were not able to deliver. No drivers. We tried two more places – same thing. We were not ordering at an unusual lunch time or ordering anything custom-made. It’s bad enough that the usual restaurants can’t offer delivery service but it’s another not to find out until after you’ve wasted your time entering the order! If you’re not able to offer delivery, at the very least, remove the option from your website. Don’t make me jump through the hoops first.

But, what is happening? Are young people today above delivering pizza and sandwiches? Back in the day delivering pizza was like a right of passage. If you had a job, earned your own money, and had the benefit of owning your own car, you were the popular kid. I feel like there are plenty of young people playing video games, posting on social media, and worrying about how they are going to pay off their student loans that there should be an abundance of people in the workforce.

Which brings me back to my original quandary when I read an article recently released by the Religious Conference Management Association (RCMA) on the continued hotel staffing shortages. How is it that we’re four years past 2020 and the industry still can’t recover from staffing issues? These are solid jobs with benefits for large organizations who offer opportunities for advancement. It boggles my mind.

I ended up getting lunch for my daughter a couple of days in a row until her refrigerator was delivered and we could stock it with groceries. However, when booking an event at a convention center and expecting a plated dinner for 750 people, I can’t just go get it myself. It takes an army to deliver service like this. Venues need the personnel to not only deliver the meals, but prep them, clean up afterwards, and flip the room for the next event.

Where did everybody go?

Has a staffing shortage impacted your event? I’d be interested to hear your story.
Send me an email and tell me about it!

Check out a new resource just released on my website tracybaer.com for those who work with volunteers.