The article highlights a major concern across hotels: employee engagement is at an all-time low, with many workers reporting a lack of trust in leadership and a disconnect with their employers. According to industry experts, this trust gap — particularly between rank‑and‑file staff and first‑line leaders — is one of the biggest challenges facing hotels’ commercial teams.
To overcome this, hotel companies must invest in leadership and culture — treating talent as a “market to be cultivated.” Success, the article argues, will depend on those firms that not only hire for skill but also win, develop, and retain employees by building strong relationships, engaging environments, and meaningful career paths.
At the same time, AI is identified as a powerful enabler: it can help with training, employee development, and skill‑building, giving staff tools to learn and upskill faster. Hospitality‑industry leaders argue that combining human‑centric leadership with AI‑driven talent management may offer the best path to building resilient, agile commercial teams.
