The new St. Regis Longboat Key Resort is looking for at least 50. How do they go about it?
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: June 12, 2024
Host: The 168-room St. Regis Longboat Key Resort is slated to open this summer. The luxury resort is the biggest development on the barrier island in half a century, and it’s the only St. Regis property in the entire United States to open this year. But the Florida hotel industry is facing serious understaffing. So what is the company doing to hire the low-income bracket workers that tend those beds, clean bathrooms, fix leaky toilet flushes, wash dishes, and wait tables?
St. Regis Longboat Key
Johannes Werner: They have steered the $330 million construction of the resort through pandemic, supply chain breakdowns, and cost explosion. But now the management of the St. Regis Longboat Key is facing the next challenge: Amid an epic staffing shortage, find more than 400 workers willing to turn the beach resort into a well-oiled and welcoming operation.
Hotel hiring is a steep uphill struggle. According to a May survey of 456 hotels in the United States by the American Hotel & Lodging Association, 76% of hotels are understaffed and 13% “severely understaffed”. That’s actually an improvement from immediately after the pandemic. But the most critical need remains housekeeping workers.
That, according to the industry group, is prompting hospitality companies to “significantly increase wages, expand benefits, and offer more scheduling flexibility”. But even that only goes so far. Although 86% of hotels have raised wages over the last six months, nearly 80% say they’re still unable to fill open positions.
That is even more a challenge in Sarasota, where exploding living costs force low-paid maids, waiters, kitchen helpers, maintenance workers and drivers to increasingly long-distance commutes from places such as Port Charlotte, Ruskin or Arcadia. The lack of public transportation and affordable childcare in Sarasota does not make this any easier – for both workers and employers.
Amid all this, the St. Regis held a job fair today at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall in downtown Sarasota. We were there to find out how the company is responding to these challenges.
An hour into the event this morning, some 50 dressed-up job candidates were lining up in the lobby for one-on-one interviews. Most of them had already pre-applied online, Lorna Kirwan, director of sales and marketing for the resort, told us. She said the plan was to hire 270 hourly workers today, including some 50 housekeeping workers. She added that “we hire for attitude, not experience”, and that the St. Regis is willing to train on the job.
We talked to Winfred van Workum, the Dutchman who has been General Manager for the emerging resort for a year now.
Winfred van Workum
When asked about starting wages for housekeeping staff, van Workum begins to talk about flexible work hours.
Winfred van Workum: Yeah, we’re flexible now. We’re hiring full time and part time positions. In this market, we’re also looking at some alternative scheduling options for some people. So instead of maybe doing five eight-hour shifts, we might do four 10-hour shifts that, for instance, will help with commuting and things like that. We are looking at all kinds of possibilities to be the best employer, you know. And I think we’ve been really fortunate. We do a lot of market research on rates, as a new hotel. We are positioning us on the top of the market when it comes to hourly rates. We do that for several reasons. Of course, we want to have the best employees. We also know that we are demanding some of the best, so we want to make sure that the conversation reflects that. We’ve been very, very fortunate in this market with housekeeping staffing right now. Coming in as the general manager, I’ve been on this project for a year.
JW: St. Regis belongs to Marriott International, which – according to a press release announcing the job fair in Sarasota – offers “competitive benefits”. Van Workum:
WvV: We offer medical insurance, dental, 401K, we do an employee stock purchasing program. And it’s just, most people know, it’s just a company that, you know, we have people work 50 years for us and never leave, and the kids work for us. And we’re really, really focused on employee retention.
JW: The lack of affordable housing in Sarasota is the biggest challenge, forcing low-wage workers into long and expensive commutes. St. Regis is working with a rent-a-car company to provide a vehicle several employees can share to self-drive. In other cases, they reimburse transportation expenses.
WvV: It’s a little bit newer to this market. We are concerned about it, but I think we are working on a few alternatives. So rideshare is an option that we’re looking at a lot. We’re working, for instance, with Enterprise on rideshare options, where we can even provide transportation, and several employees will commute together, and we’ll help with the cost of the car. Or it could be a situation where we help with funding the commute. And you know, several people can commute together. We find certain roles and positions that some people tend to be in the same community, living in the same community, maybe the same church, or something like that, so they very easily can commute together.
JW: The county transit agency, Breeze, is offering spotty bus service to Longboat Key. But the hotel manager has only good words for the agency, and particularly Breeze’s on-demand service.
WvV: We’re working, of course, with Breeze, with Breeze on Demand. I think the program on Longboat Key is working out well and will be a great factor for us. The responsiveness, collaboration with Breeze has been honestly, better than anything I’ve experienced before. I was extremely impressed.
JW: Van Workum later added that St. Regis is planning to work with the City of Sarasota on workforce housing that could accommodate employees.
Another big challenge for workers is the lack of affordable childcare. As Sarasota County commissioners last week decided to stop funding a major childcare provider, what is St. Regis doing to address this problem? Van Workum said he would not comment on local politics. He pointed to parental leave policies as a benefit for working parents.
It seems the St. Regis is on track to fill its ranks with enough housekeepers. But most other hotel operators aren’t. And that’s why the industry is pushing to bring in workers from abroad. The American Hotel & Lodging Association is lobbying Congress and the Department for Homeland Security to issue more H2B visas for temporary workers from abroad. The association is also lobbying to pass a bill that would authorize asylum seekers to work while their application is pending.
Reporting from Sarasota for WSLR News, this is Johannes Werner.
WSLR News aims to keep the local community informed with our 1/2 hour local news show, quarterly newspaper and social media feeds. The local news broadcast airs on Wednesdays and Fridays at 6pm.