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A challenge specific to seasonal hospitality
While every hotel goes through periods of intense activity, seasonal establishments concentrate the bulk of their business into just a few months.
Teams are often made up of new hires, training time is limited, and expectations remain high. You have to quickly find the right rhythm while maintaining an impeccable level of service.
Under these conditions, managers have little time to support each employee. Some then struggle to keep up, lose motivation or confidence, with consequences that can quickly ripple across the entire team.
1. Give meaning to everyone’s work
When activity ramps up, employees can feel like they’re moving from one task to the next without really seeing the impact of their work. They spend their days chasing time and service after service, without necessarily enjoying what they do.
Engaging briefings, regular reminders of the hotel’s goals and the progress made toward them, or sharing positive guest feedback are far more effective than they might seem at keeping teams interested and involved. Understanding the purpose of your work and feeling part of something, as in a sports team, is often the best way to get the most out of your teams.
2. Recognise everyday successes
Recognition remains one of the most powerful motivational levers, and during peak season managers often tend to focus their attention on the problems that need solving.
For many seasonal employees, the hotel is too large a structure to truly feel attached to. Their team and their manager, on the other hand, are often among the people they spend the most time with over several months.
A sincere thank-you after a tough service, a last-minute cover shift, or simply acknowledging a job well done can have an enormous impact on motivation. These small gestures show that each person’s efforts are seen and appreciated.
Conversely, when only problems are pointed out, it becomes difficult to keep teams engaged through to the end of the season.
3. Encourage smooth communication between departments
This is a thorny subject, because it crystallises a large part of the problems found in hospitality.
Many tensions arise when information flows poorly between departments. And nothing is more demotivating than doing and undoing work without understanding why, or finding out after the fact that information was wrong or incomplete.
Effective communication helps avoid misunderstandings, errors and the frustrations that follow. The faster and more clearly information is accessible, the more efficient and calm teams become.
The manager’s role is essential here. They are the one who receives information, interprets it and passes it on to their team. If the information is wrong, misunderstood or relayed too late, several people may end up working for nothing. Beyond the wasted time, this creates frustration and the feeling that the efforts made were pointless.
4. Prevent burnout
Even iron-clad motivation cannot last if fatigue becomes excessive.
Seasonal work is intense, and days off must be respected. Employees also need to enjoy the region, see their friends and switch off from work in order to keep going over several months.
An employee who finds a good balance between their professional and personal life will be more relaxed, more committed and more pleasant with both colleagues and guests.
Understanding your teams and taking care of them is one of the best ways to create genuine cohesion and maintain a strong team spirit right up to the end of the season.
5. Strengthen team spirit
The most demanding periods are often the ones that create the most close-knit teams.
Creating moments to connect outside of work, both at the start of and during the season, allows employees to get to know one another and build real bonds.
The receptionist is no longer simply the person who gives the breakfast count for the next morning, but Pierre, who was on my volleyball team at the start of the season.
These moments foster mutual support, trust and better communication between teams. It is often this rapport that guests notice without even realising it: smoother, more natural service, and staff moving together in the same direction.
Conclusion
In seasonal hospitality, team motivation is not merely a management factor: it is a genuine performance factor.
Managers who manage to keep their teams engaged throughout the season are generally those who deliver the best guest experience and reach their goals in the best possible conditions.
A fulfilled, recognised employee will naturally give their best and will often carry their colleagues along in the same momentum. In the same way, demotivation spreads just as quickly.
It is a virtuous circle, fragile, but essential to a season running smoothly. Knowing how to unite, listen to and value your teams remains one of the keys to keeping a group cohesive, efficient and high-performing until the very last day.
The My Sharing System team