Over the years, I have worked with hundreds of people in the hospitality business. While our retention rate is very high, we will on occasion lose someone. In every case, I take that as a shortcoming on my part for not having built a foundation strong enough to keep them. Since we started Hotel AG, we have lost one broker and one staff member. We moved two other staff members over to our sister company called Pipeline Social Media Solutions. The broker we lost left us in 2009 at the height of the financial crisis, and the other staff person left us to be a full-time mother.

I believe that people leave leaders and not companies. Sure, money is a factor, but I feel that money as a reason to leave is down on  the list as compared to the stability of the company, the vision of the company and the openness of its leaders. People want to be where they are valued and where their opinions matter.

I have seen some leaders that lead from a position of arrogance or fear. As far as I can tell, people do not stay long term with those kind of companies. Everyone wants to know the plan, know how to achieve the objective, and know that their leader is as committed as they are. People don’t like closed doors and locked files, or a leader that is slick with limited moral values. People like real people that have been where they are and treat them with respect.

Even children like to know where they are going and how long it will take. Ha. When my daughters were young, they wanted to know where and how long; it seemed once they knew this, that they were much more content and happy. It is like playing basketball without a goal at the end of the court. It doesn’t matter how great you pass or dribble, but it only matters how you accomplish and achieve the objective.

The college football semifinal payoffs were yesterday, and this is the first year that the BCS had a playoff between the top four teams. All other years, the national championship game was based on the opinions of the judges as to who were the two best teams. If the national championship game in two weeks was based on the “opinions” poll, neither of the teams that are going to play in the championship game would have made it. I hate sports where it is based on a judge’s opinion if you should be the winner or not as compared to sports that are based on who scored the most points and nothing else.

So in summary, I believe people stay with companies that have leaders with a vision and the ability to share that vision with the employees, brokers and partners.

Happy New Year. KT