Employee compliance training is of great importance to the hospitality industry. There is little room for error in a work context where services are produced and consumed simultaneously. With hotel staff being on their feet all day and technology becoming an increasingly useful tool for training of any kind, traditional classroom settings are no longer the most efficient way to train staff and achieve top-notch customer service.

In this blog, we address the benefits of eLearning and how it can help the hospitality industry with compliance. We have identified 5 common problems of compliance training that can be eliminated with the use of eLearning platforms.

The Importance of Compliance in Hotels

Well-trained staff can make the difference between a good review and a potentially reputation-damaging review. Employees must know how to treat guests, follow procedures, and have up-to-date knowledge of the ever-changing health and safety regulations. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, people have started to pay more attention to hygiene and cleanliness. Mark Griffin and Andrew Neal state that the perception of a safety climate directly relates to the individual knowledge, motivation, and behaviour of employees in the workplace.

What are the common problems of compliance training?

1. Budget

Traditional employee training is costly and many organisations have a tight budget for such investments. In times of financial hardship, this is usually one of the first things to be cut. One of the biggest advantages of eLearning is that it drastically reduces the cost of employee training. It eliminates:

• travel cost • printing and other material costs • salaries for instructors and support staff • rent cost for physical training space The only investment is a subscription to the platform itself and perhaps extra packages or features.

According to ABN Amro, the hospitality industry in the Netherlands has an annual turnover rate of 40%. It is extremely expensive for organisations to provide individual training to every new hire. eLearning is a very cost-efficient way not only to train existing employees but also for the onboarding of new staff.

2. Consistent Customer Service

To maintain the ideal brand image, consistency in customer service is a must. According to Forrester, “95% of consumers use three or more channels in a single customer service interaction’’. Inconsistencies in service touchpoints confuse customers. This may lead to irritation and decreased customer loyalty. The root causes of such problems are often found in the training of employees. It is difficult to ensure consistent training when this is done externally in small-scale classroom environments.

By making use of eLearning platforms, organisations can offer the same courses to large numbers of employees at the same time to ensure consistency in knowledge and customer service, which leads to an increase in customer satisfaction and ultimately, an increase in revenue.

3. Knowledge Measurability

The biggest challenge of traditional learning is measuring the effectiveness of the training provided. eLearning is a big step toward a measurable return on knowledge. Modern platforms allow for insights into user information such as the number of users that have started or finished a course or topic. This way the management of an organisation has an overview of the knowledge level of employees.

4. Personalised Learning Processes

For employees to be trained efficiently, learning processes should be personalised. Every person learns and retains information at a different pace. This cannot be achieved with traditional offline training methods as this would require every single employee to receive training individually, which is highly inefficient in every aspect. It would cost a fortune to the organisation.

Many modern eLearning platforms work with AI to personalise the learning processes of their users by gathering and analysing user data to understand an individual’s learning behaviour and optimise the learning experience. It is essential that the learning material is matching with the learner’s capability and that knowledge retention occurs right on time.

5. Time-efficient Training

It is not only the training itself but also the time it takes from employees that costs money. People working in hospitality are on their feet all day. It is highly inefficient to have staff sit behind a desk during work hours to study when it’s possible to learn on the go. According to an article written by Lola Nazarova, approximately two-thirds of training costs are spent on travel expenses. The time spent away from the job to travel to on-site training negatively impacts productivity and revenue.

eLearning is scalable and allows organisations to train more employees in less time. It also allows for flexible learning on the go, and it can be done even on breaks or outside work hours. This makes learning more manageable and effective, rather than being exposed to an overwhelming amount of information in a short amount of time.

Other Benefits of eLearning

1. Increased Knowledge Retention & Performance

Bryant, Delilah states in ‘’Calculating the Return on Investment (ROI) of Corporate eLearning’’ that well-executed eLearning is not only faster than classroom training, but people also remember more of what they have learned for longer periods of time and they can use this knowledge to improve their job performance by 15-25% over traditional training methods.

2. Information That is Always Accessible

Another benefit is the accessibility of information on eLearning platforms. Sometimes learning material may need to be referenced or reviewed. Online learning materials can be accessed at any time, especially if the platform or application can run on a mobile phone (mLearning).

3. Increased Compliance and Flexible Learning

Lastly, the flexibility eLearning offers improves employee morale. It gives people the freedom to fit learning courses into their schedule however they like, as long as this is done within the time frame set by the management. It also provides a more comfortable learning environment where fear of failure is not present. It encourages learning from mistakes instead of being afraid to make them. In a study in the article released by Baycrest Center for Geriatric Care in the journal Memory, findings show that people remember information better by initially making mistakes or errors.