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
Hotels & Resorts · Resorts
HR for Resorts: Remote Sites, Staff Housing and Season-driven Hiring
A resort sits away from town, so its people live on site. The same team works, eats and sleeps within the property, and the season decides how many of them you need.
Not sure what you need? Tell us about your business in six short steps and we will come to the first meeting prepared.
Share your requirementsA resort may be on a beach, in a forest, beside a lake or in the hills. Guests stay several nights and expect meals, activities, a spa and evening entertainment without leaving the property. Staff come from nearby villages and from other states, and some live in staff quarters. Occupancy is strong in holiday and wedding seasons and soft in the monsoon or summer. Kitchens, housekeeping and gardens run all day, and activity staff may work early mornings and late evenings. The hospitality hub covers what hotels and resorts share.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in resorts, you may see
- Work and home are the same place
- The nearest town is an hour away
- Season decides headcount
- Activity roles carry real risk
- Wedding and group events stretch rosters
- Communities nearby expect jobs
- Meals and rooms for staff are rarely planned
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 resorts
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.
- Front office and guest services staff
- Housekeeping and laundry teams
- Chefs, kitchen and stewarding crews
- Restaurant, bar and banquet staff
- Activity leaders, lifeguards and guides
- Spa therapists and wellness staff
- Gardeners, engineers and pool technicians
- Staff quarters wardens and drivers
Roles we help you hire in resorts
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in resorts. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
Job descriptions for this sector
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
We set up the interview and hiring process for resorts
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
1. Role brief and scorecard
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
2. Stages and sequence
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
3. Question bank and scoring
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
4. Interviewer readiness
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
5. Offer and follow-up
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
Where HR strains in resorts
Work and home are the same place
Staff who live on site are always on call, and a bad shift can turn into a bad night in the next room.
The nearest town is an hour away
Hiring, medical help, shopping and family visits all depend on distance, so retention depends on how the site treats people.
Season decides headcount
Staff are added in the peak and let go in the lull, and the best seasonal workers are hard to bring back next year.
Activity roles carry real risk
Lifeguards, trek leaders and boat staff need verified skills, rest and clear stop rules, and the cost of a slip is high.
Wedding and group events stretch rosters
A single large booking swallows the banquet and housekeeping teams for days, then leaves them idle.
Communities nearby expect jobs
Villagers want opportunities, and local and outside staff may feel treated differently on pay and housing.
Meals and rooms for staff are rarely planned
Staff food and beds are the first thing cut in a quiet month, and the first thing remembered when someone leaves.
HR topics for resorts
Start with the topics that matter most here: HR Strategy and Workforce Planning; Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Employee Relations. 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.
Employee Relations
Two routes, one for complaints, one for conduct, kept separate.
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.
Policies, Compliance and Governance
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why, and which of them mattered.
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 resorts business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Plan headcount by month a year ahead
Link expected occupancy and events to a staffing chart so hiring is not a scramble.
What this coversHide
Plan headcount by month a year ahead
Link expected occupancy and events to a staffing chart so hiring is not a scramble.
What this coversHide
Link expected occupancy and events to a staffing chart so hiring is not a scramble. See workforce planning.
Write staff housing rules and standards
Room allocation, visitors, cleaning, meals and complaint routes set down once, applied to all, and reviewed with staff.
What this coversHide
Write staff housing rules and standards
Room allocation, visitors, cleaning, meals and complaint routes set down once, applied to all, and reviewed with staff.
What this coversHide
Room allocation, visitors, cleaning, meals and complaint routes set down once, applied to all, and reviewed with staff.
Keep a returning-staff list
A register of good seasonal workers, with contact details and a message each year before the season starts.
What this coversHide
Keep a returning-staff list
A register of good seasonal workers, with contact details and a message each year before the season starts.
What this coversHide
A register of good seasonal workers, with contact details and a message each year before the season starts.
Certify and rest activity staff
A record of skills and renewals for lifeguards and guides, with limits on shift length.
What this coversHide
Certify and rest activity staff
A record of skills and renewals for lifeguards and guides, with limits on shift length.
What this coversHide
A record of skills and renewals for lifeguards and guides, with limits on shift length. The health and safety work covers the routine.
Share event loads across departments
A brief for each large event so tasks, overtime and rest are agreed before the day, not on it.
What this coversHide
Share event loads across departments
A brief for each large event so tasks, overtime and rest are agreed before the day, not on it.
What this coversHide
A brief for each large event so tasks, overtime and rest are agreed before the day, not on it.
Open a clear route for local hiring
A fair process to take people from nearby villages into training roles, with progression visible to all.
What this coversHide
Open a clear route for local hiring
A fair process to take people from nearby villages into training roles, with progression visible to all.
What this coversHide
A fair process to take people from nearby villages into training roles, with progression visible to all.
Start by checking where you stand
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. Work through the checks using a recent operating period. The time needed depends on the records you hold; note missing evidence and use the findings to choose a priority.
Share your requirements- Chart last year's headcount by month against occupancy.
- Walk through staff quarters with a housekeeper and note what you would not accept for yourself.
- List activity staff and when each certificate or check is due.
- Ask five staff how they spend their off hours and what they miss.
- Find how many seasonal workers from last year you could call back today.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the licences, staff accommodation rules, activity safety duties and working-hour rules that apply to a resort like yours.
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 year-round headcount plan linked to occupancy, events and the off season.
- Workplace health, safety and wellbeing
Safe routines for activity staff, kitchens and staff living quarters.
- Compensation and rewards strategy
Pay, service charge shares, meals and housing weighed together.
- Grievance and disciplinary process
Fair handling of conflict when colleagues also share a roof.
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.
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Questions owners ask
Chart three years of occupancy and events by month, decide a core team for the whole year and a seasonal layer on top. Contact returning workers early and keep their terms clear.
Clean, safe beds, drinking water, working toilets, fair meals and a place to complain. Treat it as part of the pay package and inspect it as you would a guest room.
Pay on time, treat them well, share the next season's dates early and offer a small return bonus. Word travels in villages and towns quickly, in both directions.
A named senior, such as the activity head, who keeps skill records, checks renewals and has the right to stop an activity. Support them with clear rules and time to train.
Set house rules, a calm route for complaints and a person who listens. Keep work disputes out of the quarters when you can, and act quickly on harassment or fighting.
We would chart headcount against last year's occupancy, walk the staff quarters and list activity certificates due. A year-round staffing plan with a returning-staff list is a likely first job, and scope is written down for your approval.