Sometimes life is good. 

After a 3 hour pre-conference workshop I conducted at the Colorado State SHRM conference this summer I was invited to present my Employee Hold’em seminar in Vail at the Vail Cascade Resort & Spa (a Destination Hotel).  Even better, one company that got an invitation to participate in the Vail seminar wasn’t able to attend, so with some help from my friends at Frontier Airlines, I was able to arrange a side trip to Snowmass Village where I’m presenting this morning to 40 employees of the Silvertree Hotel.

First the bad news…  Not much snow (if any), so the ski season up here has been nearly non-existent.  With the ski season starting at Thanksgiving, there are lots of hopeful businesses that rely on lots of hopeful skiers to drive their business results.  Hope springs eternal…

This area of Colorado is an interesting one from an employment standpoint.  Way more jobs than people to fill them.  Housing and living expenses in the resort towns make it difficult to find employees “locally”.  Jobs that require a strong sense of customer commitment and care, and a workforce that has strength in the employee-employer relationship.

Even tougher for folks in “ski-country”, employees that work in the industries most common up here have an extremely high voluntary turnover and separation rate.  For example:

• 76% - Accommodation & Food Services
• 76% - Leisure & Hospitality
• 55% - Retail Trade

Sounds more fun than a fast ride down a snowy hill!  Now remember, “separations” are those people that quit as well as those people you fire.  Let’s look at just the “quit” rate of these employees:

• 56% - Accommodation & Food Services
• 52% - Leisure & Hospitality
• 35% - Retail Trade

In a business that requires positive interactions between guests and staff in order to secure a high level of customer satisfaction and retention, this area certainly is the “Rocky Mountains”.

And you thought you had it tough.