Hospitality Ventures Management Group (HVMG) Announces Initial Results of Talent Acquisition Center of Excellence (TACOE) Initiative

• Team Created to Combat the Labor Challenges

Hospitality Ventures Management Group (HVMG), an Atlanta-based, private hotel management and investment company, announced the initial results of its Talent Acquisition Center of Excellence (TACOE), a new strategic initiative designed to source property level talent and support as well as accelerate the hiring process for its hotels. This centralized effort also was created in part to take some of the recruiting and on-boarding processes off HVMG general managers, given all they are having to manage and navigate now and for the foreseeable future.

“Our managers are experts in operations and running departments, not necessarily in recruiting, so our Talent Acquisition Specialist has made a huge impact and really complimented our success.”

“The Talent Acquisition Center of Excellence has taken a tremendous amount of stress off the teams at individual hotels and added value for our owners,” said Sue Sanders, HVMG EVP & CHRO. “The initial results from the 120-day beta program already have exceeded expectations, expeditiously sourcing and filling more than 400 hourly openings. This number will grow as more HVMG hotels are on boarded into the program. We have not only directly sourced qualified applicants through many different channels, but we have also reduced the time it takes to review job applications which has sped up the overall hiring process. By September 2021, we were above 80% of our pre-pandemic staffing levels.”

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Realizing that already overworked general managers were having issues meeting labor demands, HVMG brought together a specialized team of Talent Acquisition Specialists (TAS) to focus solely on staffing hotels. Led by Director of Talent Excellence Sunny Larkin-Woody, the five-person team also includes Tabitha Claus, Emma Corona, Maya Jones and Julia Haushalter.

The new team accomplishes four main goals: freeing up scarce property level resources; simplifying and streamlining the hiring process; sourcing and recruiting new talent more efficiently; and providing a competitive, differentiating advantage to HVMG.

Parallel to hiring and training the four Talent Acquisition Specialists and launching TACOE across the portfolio, the initial results of the first 120 days of the program include:

• 7.5 Days – The average cycle time from when an application is posted to when the position is hired
• 31.9 Days – The average cycle time from when a requisition is completed to when the position is hired
• 404 positions filled
• 1,490 candidates presented to hiring managers
• 1,920 in-depth TAS interviews conducted
• 4,299 applications reviewed

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“What really matters is what the general managers think about how TACOE is helping their sourcing situation,” continued Sanders.

“When we took over the Homewood Suites in Mobile, we had virtually no room attendants and also were shorthanded at the front desk, so we didn’t have the staff to manage the business we had,” said Michelle Davis, lead general manager, HVMG’s Alabama portfolio. “As a result, other managers and I were cleaning up to 30 rooms per day, which meant I didn’t have time to do much recruiting. Without TACOE, we would still be in the same position. I spent hours going through all of the job sites and both scheduling and conducting interviews. Centralizing this process gave me back significant time every day. Equally, if not more importantly, we’ve been able to fill multiple positions that would otherwise remain empty.”

At the Marriott Greensboro-High Point Airport, General Manager Jim Ceh faced similar circumstances. “We’ve filled between 15 and 17 positions using TACOE since we started participating in July,” he noted. “Our managers are experts in operations and running departments, not necessarily in recruiting, so our Talent Acquisition Specialist has made a huge impact and really complimented our success.”

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