Why are hotel line staff wages so low?

Lynne Bellinger, managing director for the UAE of recruitment and training firm learnpurple

The results of the 2012 Hotelier Middle East Salary Survey revealed that the majority of hoteliers believe that wages for line staff are not adequate.

Lynne Bellinger, managing director for the UAE of recruitment and training firm learnpurple looks at why... 

I do agree that the majority of line staff are underpaid in the hospitality industry and it is no surprise that the management are in agreement with this.

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However, at the end of the day, the decision is not in their hands, but in the hands of the hotel owners who are very reluctant to lose any more bottom line profit by changing that. What they don’t see is the negative ripple effect, examples such as:

• All the HR time taken in finding staff that will accept the salaries, great talent are selected but have to decline due to the low salaries, leading the HR and recruitment teams back to square one (and the great talent being left at home!).

• The service suffers due to staff shortages as it takes approximately 6-12 weeks to replace them, with only one month notice period, hence the customer experience is affected as well as the morale of the team having to carry the extra burden.

• The service suffers also due to language barriers because they have to take staff with limited English language knowledge.

All of this affects the bottom line, also. The individual branded restaurants are getting this right and you can tell with the quality of the staff there.

Of course it is not all about the money as we at learnpurple have seen throughout our global talent toolbox system — the people are interested in leadership, career path, communication, development and values.

So if you are unable to get the money right, at least look at engaging them in other ways once you have them there.

Lynne Bellinger, managing director - UAE of learnpurple.