Industries
Why hospitality employees leave and how to understand why
Hotel, restaurant and banquet staff leave for reasons that vary by department and season. How to ask what sits behind the first answer and act on it.
8 min readRead article
Hospitality · Campgrounds, RV parks and glamping sites
HR for Campgrounds, RV Parks and Glamping Sites: Remote Teams, Seasons and Outdoor Safety
A campsite or glamping property sells a stay in the outdoors, run by a small team living far from town. Here is how to organise remote crews, seasonal swings and safety in open country.
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Share your requirementsA campground, caravan park or glamping site sells tents, cabins, pods or pitches in a setting that is often remote: a hillside, a lakeshore, a forest edge or a stretch of desert. Guests arrive for weekends, festivals and holidays and expect clean beds, a hot meal, a campfire evening and someone who knows the area. The team usually includes a site manager, reception and booking staff, housekeeping, a cook and kitchen helpers, activity guides for treks, bonfires or water sports, drivers, caretakers and security. Most are from nearby villages, while the managers and chefs may come from elsewhere and live on the property. Bookings follow school holidays, long weekends, winter or monsoon seasons depending on the location, and nights can pass with only a few guests. Staff work long days outdoors, handle fire, water and wildlife, and are often the only help guests have in an emergency.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in campgrounds, rv parks and glamping sites, you may see
- Staff live where they work
- Peak weekends and empty weeks
- Guides carry more risk than their training
- Local hires and senior hires pull apart
- Nobody is near for backup
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
Who does the work in campgrounds, rv parks and glamping sites
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
- Site managers and reception staff
- Housekeeping and tent attendants
- Cooks and kitchen helpers
- Activity guides and campfire hosts
- Drivers and transfer staff
- Caretakers, electricians and night watch
- Local helpers for peak weekends
Where HR strains in campgrounds, rv parks and glamping sites
Staff live where they work
Housing, food and off-duty time are all on site, so a conflict at work follows people into their rooms and the line between work and rest blurs.
Peak weekends and empty weeks
A full property needs double the crew for three days, then almost nobody, and hiring and paying casual helpers becomes improvised.
Guides carry more risk than their training
Trek leaders, bonfire hosts and water-activity staff make safety decisions in the open with little formal instruction or record of what they have been taught.
Local hires and senior hires pull apart
Village staff and managers from cities differ in language, pay expectations and habits, and a shared way of working is rarely agreed.
Nobody is near for backup
One sick caretaker or a missing driver cannot be replaced from the next shift, so the manager covers and burns out.
HR topics for campgrounds, rv parks and glamping sites
Start with the topics that matter most here: HR Strategy and Workforce Planning; Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for hospitality, not in general.
HR Strategy and Workforce Planning
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Organisation Design
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Recruitment and Talent Acquisition
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Onboarding and Probation
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Employee Administration
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Compensation, Payroll and Benefits
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Performance Management
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Career and Succession Management
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Employee Engagement and Experience
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Employee Relations
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies, Compliance and Governance
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Exit and Alumni Management
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
HR Technology and Automation
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
HR Analytics and Management Reporting
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
HR Operations and Governance
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
What a working HR set-up looks like
The pieces a campgrounds, rv parks and glamping sites business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Plan the crew by booking, not by habit
A simple model linking forecast occupancy to the number of housekeeping, kitchen and activity staff needed, with a list of local helpers who can be called early.
What this coversHide
Plan the crew by booking, not by habit
A simple model linking forecast occupancy to the number of housekeeping, kitchen and activity staff needed, with a list of local helpers who can be called early.
What this coversHideA simple model linking forecast occupancy to the number of housekeeping, kitchen and activity staff needed, with a list of local helpers who can be called early. The HR strategy and workforce planning work shows how.
Write staff accommodation rules
Who stays where, shared-space conduct, visitors, meals, curfew and what happens when a person leaves, agreed in writing at joining.
What this coversHide
Write staff accommodation rules
Who stays where, shared-space conduct, visitors, meals, curfew and what happens when a person leaves, agreed in writing at joining.
What this coversHideWho stays where, shared-space conduct, visitors, meals, curfew and what happens when a person leaves, agreed in writing at joining. The HR policies work covers the format.
Train guides and record it
A practical briefing for each activity, an emergency plan the whole team has rehearsed and a record against each name.
What this coversHide
Train guides and record it
A practical briefing for each activity, an emergency plan the whole team has rehearsed and a record against each name.
What this coversHideA practical briefing for each activity, an emergency plan the whole team has rehearsed and a record against each name. Ask a qualified professional what certifications apply to your activities. The health and safety work holds the routine.
Cross-train for every critical task
Make sure at least two people can drive, cook the standard menu, run reception and handle the first aid kit, so one absence does not stop the property.
What this coversHide
Cross-train for every critical task
Make sure at least two people can drive, cook the standard menu, run reception and handle the first aid kit, so one absence does not stop the property.
What this coversHideMake sure at least two people can drive, cook the standard menu, run reception and handle the first aid kit, so one absence does not stop the property.
Settle pay and rest for remote work
Clear rules on duty hours, weekly off, allowances and how pay reaches staff who live far from banks.
What this coversHide
Settle pay and rest for remote work
Clear rules on duty hours, weekly off, allowances and how pay reaches staff who live far from banks.
What this coversHideClear rules on duty hours, weekly off, allowances and how pay reaches staff who live far from banks. The attendance and leave process defines the record.
Start by checking where you stand
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirements- List every task that only one person can do on your property and train a second person.
- Write the staff accommodation rules on one page and check them with the people who live there.
- Walk through your emergency plan with the night team and note what they could not answer.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the licences, safety obligations and employment rules that apply to your site, your activities and your seasonal helpers.
Confirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
How GullyHR helps
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
- HR strategy and workforce planning
A crew plan tied to booking seasons so you hire early and do not scramble each weekend.
- Health, safety and wellbeing
Drills and training records for guides and caretakers who work with fire, water and uneven ground.
- HR policies and governance
Written rules for staff housing, conduct and duty hours that everyone on site can follow.
- Retention and attrition
Reasons good guides and cooks leave remote properties and what would keep them for another season.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Our HR transformation approach
- 1
Assess
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
- 2
Identify gaps
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
- 3
Design
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
- 4
Implement
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
- 5
Automate
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
- 6
Measure
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
- 7
Improve
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
Blogs worth reading first
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in hospitality, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
HR Management
"We need two more people": the headcount plan nobody wrote
Hiring decisions made one request at a time, in the month the pain is worst. What a workforce plan contains and why a twelve-month view changes what you hire.
7 min readRead article
HR Management
The safety poster nobody reads
A laminated notice, an annual drill, and an incident register with three entries in two years. What workplace health and safety looks like when it is real.
7 min readRead article
HR Management
How to recognise and address employee workload problems
How to spot an unmanageable workload before it becomes an exit or an error, what to look at, how to talk about it and what to change, without guessing.
5 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Start with the local community and with people who worked a previous season. Keep a list with contacts and a short note on how each did, and call them before the booking season starts.
Who shares rooms, meals, quiet hours, visitors, care of property, what happens on a rest day and what a person must do when leaving. Put it in writing and explain it in the language people speak.
Give each activity a written briefing, practise the emergency plan and keep a record of who was trained on what. Ask a qualified professional which certifications and permissions apply.
Agree common standards for service and a clear structure of who decides what. Joint briefings before peak weekends help more than separate instructions.
Cross-train key tasks, keep a call list of nearby helpers and decide in advance what services you will reduce when you are short. A plan made before the weekend beats improvising during it.
Yes, and we would keep it practical. A first conversation would cover who lives on site and under what rules, which jobs only one person can do, and whether your guides are trained and recorded for the activities they lead. A first piece of work could be a crew plan built from bookings plus a one-page accommodation rule sheet. Scope is agreed in writing afterwards.
More on HR for hospitality
All 14 business types in hospitality · Find another business type
Hotels and guest housesTourism and travel companiesVacation rental managersEvent planners and banquet hallsEscape rooms and entertainment venuesFuneral and cremation servicesHR Strategy and Workforce Planning in hospitalityHealth, Safety and Wellbeing in hospitalityRetention and Attrition Management in hospitality