Every reopening that has to reteach the basics is already too late

A few days before the end of a season, conversations with the team take on a different tone. We talk about inventories, holidays, contracts, departure dates and outstanding tasks, but beneath that agenda lies a question that is rarely asked with sufficient clarity: who will return next year? Some people ask openly, others wait for a sign, and many begin looking for alternatives before the hotel has decided what it wants to offer them. By the time we react, some of the talent we wanted to bring back has already organised their lives in another direction.

I have found that one of the most costly mistakes in seasonal hotel workforce management is treating every opening as a new recruitment process. We post vacancies, review applications, arrange interviews and design induction programmes, as though the hotel had not worked intensively with dozens or hundreds of professionals only a few months earlier. The season returns, demand already has dates and the building retains its inventory, yet the organisation behaves as though it has no employment history.

The problem goes far beyond filling roles. When a workforce disperses, the hotel loses service standards, trusted relationships, coordination habits, knowledge of the facilities and the ability to anticipate issues. It also loses small lessons that rarely appear in a procedure: which rooms require an additional check, how to organise a complex arrival, where breakfast bottlenecks occur, or which supplier responds when an out-of-hours emergency arises. That information seems minor until it is no longer available at seven o’clock on a Saturday morning with the hotel full.

Seasonality creates a difficult contradiction to resolve. The hotel needs flexibility because its activity fluctuates, but it also needs continuity to deliver a consistent experience. It cannot guarantee the return of the entire workforce, nor should it do so without assessing performance, business developments and future needs. At the same time, allowing every employment relationship to end without a decision about knowledge and re-engagement turns flexibility into organisational amnesia.

Over the years, I have reached a simple conviction: the next season must begin before the current one ends. I am not talking about promising contracts that cannot yet be confirmed, but about identifying critical capabilities, having honest conversations, recording return conditions and preparing differentiated re-onboarding. To do this, I propose a Seasonal Return Passport, a tool that makes it possible to decide which people the hotel should seek to bring back, what they need to update when they return, and what knowledge must remain at the hotel even if they do not come back.

Seasonal turnover destroys more capability than we account for

Hotel management usually records precisely how many people finish their contracts, but rarely calculates how much capability disappears with them. A departure is counted as a future vacancy. Yet two professionals with the same contractual grade may represent very different losses. One may have been there for only a few weeks, while the other knew the property’s exceptions, maintained strong relationships with several departments and could work independently during periods of greatest pressure.

This difference requires us to distinguish between headcount and operational capability. Headcount tells us how many people we have. Capability describes what the team can actually do, with what degree of autonomy, during which shifts, under what level of pressure and with what consistency. We may restore employee numbers before opening and still be far from recovering the capability we had at the end of the previous season.

When I assess the impact of staff turnover in a hotel, I try to observe at least five distinct losses:

• Loss of proven competence. A CV shows experience, but it does not reveal how a person works in that particular hotel. The organisation no longer has someone whose performance has already been observed in real situations, including difficult shifts, conflicts, handovers and guest incidents.
• Loss of judgement. Procedures cover what is frequent, while operations require exceptions to be interpreted. Knowing when to apply a rule flexibly, when to escalate an issue or how to protect both the guest and the business at the same time requires judgement that develops through experience.
• Loss of informal coordination. A significant part of service depends on relationships that do not appear on the organisation chart. Front Office knows whom to consult in Housekeeping, the Kitchen understands the pace of Restaurant Service, and Maintenance can distinguish which alert requires immediate intervention. When those relationships disappear, every interaction becomes a negotiation again.
• Loss of physical and operational memory. Hotels have peculiarities that can only be discovered by working in them. A door that needs more frequent checking, an area sensitive to noise or a storeroom whose layout makes replenishment difficult are all part of the building’s practical knowledge.
• Loss of trust. Trust reduces the need to check every step. When the team knows one another, people can ask for help, admit an error and coordinate more quickly. A newly formed workforce has to rebuild that confidence while already serving guests.

The cost of these losses is spread throughout the operation and, for that very reason, is easy to ignore. It appears in recruitment hours, repeated training, greater supervision, less flexible shifts, early mistakes, compensation payments, reduced productivity and management fatigue. It also affects the guest experience in hotels, because guests perceive an organisation that is still learning to work together even though they have paid the full rate.

I have always found it revealing that we naturally accept an internal learning curve that the guest does not see. Guests do not book a training stay. They do not distinguish whether the hotel opened three days ago or whether half the workforce has just joined. They expect breakfast to run smoothly, the room to be ready and their requests to be handled with the same competence they will find several weeks later.

That is why I believe reopening creates a re-onboarding debt. This debt represents the work required to return the team to a reliable level of autonomy, coordination and judgement. The more new people we have, the more procedures have changed and the less knowledge we have preserved, the greater the debt. The hotel may open commercially while continuing to pay for it through slowness, incidents and pressure on those who do remember how everything worked.

The first useful step is to calculate the real cost of the seasonal restart. There is no need to build a perfect financial model to begin. It is enough to group together five elements that normally appear separately:

• Recruitment and hiring. It is worth adding internal hours, external services, travel, assessments, administrative tasks and vacancies that remain open longer than expected.
• Onboarding and training. We must include both the hours of those learning and those teaching, as well as materials, uniforms, practical sessions, safety briefings and departmental training.
• Additional supervision. Managers and experienced professionals devote a significant part of their day to checking, correcting and answering questions. That time is no longer available for planning, improvement and other priorities.
• Opening errors. Rooms checked twice, incorrect orders, breakages, incorrectly processed charges, waiting times, complaints and compensation payments are all part of the cost of rebuilding capability.
• Lost commercial opportunity. A hotel that has not yet mastered its operation may restrict inventory, limit services, decline events or delay additional sales. Lack of readiness also reduces revenue.

This analysis complements an idea I have already defended: staff hours only acquire value when they are converted into service. During a reopening, many available hours cannot yet be fully transformed into hospitality because they are devoted to rebuilding knowledge and coordination. Labour costs may be budgeted, but effective capability takes longer to emerge.

Rehiring reduces part of that debt, although we should avoid a common oversimplification: a returning employee does not come back to exactly the same hotel. Schedules, food and beverage offerings, commercial policies, equipment, managers or guest expectations may have changed. Those who have worked with us before need less introduction, but they still need a structured update. Confusing familiarity with readiness also leads to errors.

Before trying to bring someone back, I usually ask myself three questions. The first is whether their performance justifies their return. The second is what specific capability the hotel would recover with that person. The third is whether the conditions that led to their departure or dissatisfaction have changed. Inviting someone back without reviewing the environment may speed up recruitment, but it can also reinstate a relationship that was already deteriorating.

Not all turnover is negative. Some departures create an opportunity to raise standards, correct behaviours or redesign roles that had lost their purpose. Continuity must not become an automatic defence of seniority. Preserving memory does not mean preserving bad habits, and a team that returns almost intact can repeat the same problems from the previous season with great efficiency.

To avoid this, I classify potential returnees according to a combination of performance, criticality and future development:

• Priority return. Professionals with strong performance who hold knowledge, relationships or skills that are difficult to replace. The hotel should speak with them before closing and build a realistic continuity proposal.
• Return with development. Valuable people who can take on broader versatility, responsibility or specialisation. Their return should include a specific learning pathway, not a vague promise of growth.
• Conditional return. Professionals whose performance was acceptable but who need to address specific areas. Transparency is preferable to inviting them back and discovering weeks later that both parties expected something different.
• Planned non-return. Cases in which the hotel decides not to continue the relationship. Even then, it is worth capturing useful knowledge, managing the departure respectfully and avoiding leaving the decision unresolved until the last moment.

This classification must be based on evidence and conversations, not personal affinities. Hotels risk considering indispensable the person who is always available to resolve emergencies, even when those emergencies partly arise from their own lack of organisation. The opposite also happens: discreet, consistent and less visible professionals may sustain a considerable part of the service without receiving the same recognition.

A useful indicator is the eligible return rate. I would not compare returnees with the entire departing workforce, because not everyone should return and not everyone can. The more informative ratio is the number of professionals who agree to return divided by those the hotel identified as desirable candidates. If we wanted to bring back forty people and only twelve return, we have a problem with the employment proposition, timing, communication or trust that deserves to be understood.

I would also measure the rate by department, role and manager. An overall average may conceal the fact that the Kitchen brings back most of its professionals while Front Office loses almost its entire team every year. That difference is not always explained by the labour market. It may be linked to schedules, organisation, supervisory style, accommodation, transport, shift allocation or expectations communicated during recruitment.

The retention of seasonal hotel talent depends on economic factors, but is rarely reduced to pay alone. Predictability has enormous value. Knowing approximately when a contract will begin, how long it will last, what hours will be offered and what prospects there are for continuity allows people to organise their lives. Prolonged uncertainty pushes the best professionals to accept less attractive but more concrete offers.

I have seen hotels lose good employees by waiting too long to confirm a date that was already quite likely. I have also seen teams return because of the quality of relationships, reliability around schedules and the respect received during the most pressured months. The return proposition consists of remuneration, but also of the credibility of one’s word. In an industry accustomed to selling trust to guests, we do not always apply the same principle to employees.

Housing and transport deserve specific consideration in seasonal destinations. A vacancy may be competitive in salary terms and still be unviable if the person cannot find accommodation within a reasonable distance. Presenting this issue as a lack of commitment from the candidate avoids recognising a real operational constraint. When access to the role depends on living temporarily at the destination, housing solutions form part of the hotel’s capacity planning.

Continuity also requires reviewing the quality of leadership in the hotel sector. A rehiring campaign will not compensate for arbitrary shifts, lack of support, broken promises or managers who use pressure as their usual method. Exit interviews often provide valuable information, although we must create conditions in which people can speak without fear. If the professionals we wanted to retain leave the same department every year, the most comfortable explanation is rarely the most useful one.

It is worth remembering that a seasonal workforce does not begin deciding whether to return when it receives an offer. That decision takes shape throughout the season. Every shift change, conversation with a manager, response to an incident and learning opportunity contributes to a perception of the hotel. Rehiring for the next season is, in reality, the accumulated result of the employee experience during the current one.

That is why financial planning must recognise continuity as an investment rather than a last-minute administrative activity. If budgeting people without budgeting service leaves us without a real measure of capacity, budgeting an opening without considering talent recovery forces us to fund the learning later through errors, overtime and fatigue.

The Seasonal Return Passport turns a departure into continuity

The Seasonal Return Passport is a short, up-to-date and useful record for preparing a person’s possible return. It is not intended to replace the personnel file, performance review or a human conversation. Nor should it become an indiscriminate collection of opinions. Its purpose is to preserve the professional information the hotel needs to make sound decisions and, if the person returns, to ensure they do not have to prove from scratch what they have already demonstrated.

I call it a passport because it accompanies a transition between two seasons. It describes verified capabilities, transferable knowledge, outstanding training, known return conditions and changes the person will need to absorb. Its value is not in accumulating data, but in reducing the distance between signing the contract and operational autonomy.

The document should be proportionate to the role and respectful of privacy. It does not need to record personal conversations, rumours or ambiguous assessments. Expressions such as “has a bad attitude” or “is a very nice person” add little and can lead to unfair decisions. It is better to describe observable facts: handles cash-up without supervision, needs to strengthen communication during incidents, or can train new joiners on the arrival procedure.

In my experience, a useful passport should contain at least the following components:

• Functions actually performed. The job title does not always reflect the work carried out. It is useful to record the tasks the person performed regularly, including responsibilities assumed during demand peaks or absences.
• Demonstrated competencies. These should include skills observed in practice, together with the level of autonomy achieved. It is not enough to state that someone knows Front Office; it is more useful to note that they can manage group arrivals, cash-ups, initial complaints or coordination with Housekeeping.
• Available versatility. In a seasonal operation, knowing where someone can contribute beyond their main role improves resilience. This versatility must be real, recognised and compatible with employment conditions, not authorisation to improvise permanent redeployments.
• Critical knowledge held. The passport identifies procedures, relationships, facilities or exceptions that the person knows particularly well. If that knowledge is concentrated, the hotel must transfer it before departure.
• Outstanding training. Some gaps may remain open at the end of the season. Recording them prevents repeated assessments and makes it possible to prepare specific reopening training.
• Decisions they can make. Re-onboarding will be faster if the hotel retains clarity about the autonomy already demonstrated. This information must be reviewed if the role, context or financial limits change. The logic is consistent with the need to define precisely how far each role can make decisions.
• Interest and return conditions. The document can record approximate availability, interest in returning, professional aspirations and known constraints the person has chosen to communicate. It does not constitute a contractual commitment, but it avoids beginning the conversation from scratch.
• Initial re-onboarding plan. It should indicate what updates the person needs, what training can be avoided, who will validate their autonomy and what objectives they will have during their first days.

The passport belongs to the hotel’s system, but it should be built with the person, not behind their back. I believe it is reasonable to review competencies, expectations and areas for improvement together before the season closes. That conversation makes it possible to correct perceptions, recognise contributions and clarify what would need to happen for both parties to want to repeat the relationship.

Transparency also avoids one of the least elegant rituals in seasonal Hospitality: saying goodbye with “we’ll call you” when nobody knows whether there is any real intention to do so. We cannot always confirm dates, but we can distinguish between priority interest, a conditional possibility and a relationship that is ending. Honest uncertainty is more respectful than an empty promise.

The continuity process can be organised through a timetable adapted to the length of each season:

1. Six to eight weeks before closing. Each department identifies critical roles, professionals whose return it considers a priority, concentrated capabilities and foreseeable needs for the next cycle. The aim is not yet to issue offers, but to build an initial continuity view.
2. Four to six weeks before closing. Individual conversations are held with selected people. Performance, interest, expectations, possible dates, development needs and obstacles to returning are reviewed.
3. During the final weeks of operation. Passports are completed, competencies are validated and knowledge the hotel cannot afford to lose is transferred. This work must be integrated into operations and not left for the afternoon after the farewell party, when memory tends to compete with other entirely understandable interests.
4. Immediately after closing. The hotel consolidates its return map, records reasons for non-continuity and maintains clear communication about next steps. It also reviews which roles or processes need redesigning before hiring again.
5. Three to four months before reopening. Demand forecasts, service structure, dates and budget are updated. Priority candidates receive information before mass recruitment absorbs all attention.
6. Six to eight weeks before opening. Appointments are formalised, accommodation or travel needs are addressed and each person is assigned a re-onboarding pathway based on their prior experience.
7. During the weeks before opening. The team practises real situations, reviews changes and rebuilds coordination. The technical opening should take place only after a minimum level of capability has been regained, not before.

This sequence connects with the need to carry out a season close that genuinely prepares the next opening. However, the Return Passport focuses specifically on people and prevents their experience from becoming scattered across generic reviews, messages, spreadsheets and individual memories.

The tool also makes it possible to build a seasonal continuity map. Instead of asking only how many people are missing, the hotel can see which competencies it retains, which are at risk and where it will need more time to regain autonomy. Two departments with five vacancies may be in opposite situations if one retains its main trainers while the other loses everyone who knew the operation.

Reopening training should respond to that map. I still encounter hotels that gather the entire team for hours to explain exactly the same things, even though some attendees have worked five seasons and others have never worked in Hospitality. That apparent equality wastes time and tells professionals that their previous experience has no value.

I prefer to work with differentiated onboarding pathways:

• New joiners. They need to understand the culture, product, safety, standards, facilities, tools and fundamentals of the role. Their programme should provide sufficient context and guided practice.
• Professionals returning to the same role. They require an update on changes, a review of critical points and rapid validation of autonomy. Repeating all initial training adds little unless standards have deteriorated.
• Professionals returning with greater responsibility. They need a specific transition towards coordination, decision-making and people management. Being excellent in operations does not automatically make someone a good manager.
• People changing departments. They retain hotel knowledge, but must learn a different operation. Their pathway can make use of what they already know without minimising the complexity of the new role.
• Seasonal trainers. Some returning professionals can help integrate the team, provided they receive time, criteria and recognition. Turning the most competent employee into an informal trainer without relieving them of any tasks usually ends up penalising precisely the person who contributes the most.

Differentiation reduces unproductive hours, but its greatest advantage is pedagogical. Training ceases to be a pre-opening formality and becomes an investment aimed at closing specific gaps. It also improves motivation, because it recognises accumulated knowledge and demonstrates the possibility of development between seasons.

The Return Passport should not depend on a sophisticated tool. It can begin with a simple format, provided there is an owner, shared criteria, controlled access and regular review. The main risk is not using a modest spreadsheet, but storing information that nobody updates or that only its creator understands.

Human Resources can steward the process, but operational managers must validate competencies. Likewise, no assessment should depend solely on a single manager. The involvement of more than one perspective reduces favouritism and helps distinguish between individual performance and problems arising from departmental organisation.

Information should not remain in messaging groups or private conversations either. When critical knowledge lives on one person’s phone, the hotel does not truly own it. Operational memory needs a defined place, responsibility for updating it and criteria for what is worth retaining.

An important tension emerges here. Documenting too much can bureaucratise the relationship, while documenting too little returns the hotel to dependence on individual memory. My criterion is to record only what will change a future decision: hire, train, assign, authorise, transfer knowledge or redesign a process. If a piece of information does not help make a decision or protect the person or the hotel, it probably does not need to be in the passport.

We must also prevent the system from turning certain people into permanent heroes. If the passport reveals that one employee knows every cash-up procedure, that one technician knows how to restart an installation, or that only one receptionist understands a certain type of booking, the aim is not to secure their return indefinitely. The priority is to reduce that concentration through cross-training, documentation and distributed autonomy.

A well-prepared hotel appreciates the return of its best professionals, but is not paralysed if one of them decides not to come back. That is the difference between valuing talent and depending dangerously on it. As I have already noted when analysing the difference between a well-managed organisation and one sustained by people who solve everything, individual knowledge must progressively become collective capability.

The monitoring dashboard does not need dozens of indicators. I would recommend beginning with a limited set that allows seasons, departments and roles to be compared:

I would not use these indicators to compare departments superficially. A lower return rate may be linked to the local market, contract duration or the specialisation required. Figures should open questions, not create culprits. Their function is to show where strategic hotel planning needs to intervene.

It is also worth listening to the reasons for non-return without trying to argue against them. Some people will not return for family, educational or geographical reasons over which the hotel has little influence. Others will point to schedules, housing, pay, exhaustion or lack of development. Management must distinguish between unavoidable constraints and problems it can actually correct.

A particularly useful practice is to compare the return proposition offered with the proposition actually experienced during the previous season. If we promise learning but pressure prevented training; if we talk about predictable schedules but shifts changed constantly; or if we offer continuity but contact people at the last minute, the problem is not in the recruitment campaign. It is in credibility.

Continuity can be strengthened with economic measures such as return incentives, housing support or paid training, although every initiative requires careful design. A bonus paid only at the end may retain attendance without generating commitment. Poorly distributed housing assistance can create grievances. The reward must accompany a coherent employment proposition, not attempt to buy silence about organisational problems.

Hotel profitability benefits when the workforce regains capability sooner, but the objective should not be reduced to saving on training. Some training will remain essential. The real return comes from spending less time repeating the basics and more time improving service, versatility, safety, sales and incident resolution.

For a hotel that wants to begin without creating an oversized project, I would propose a thirty-day implementation:

• First week. Review the last two seasons, identify departments with the lowest return rates and locate roles where critical knowledge is concentrated. There is no need to wait for perfect data; payrolls, schedules, interviews and managers will provide a sufficient initial picture.
• Second week. Design a short version of the passport covering competencies, autonomy, versatility, critical knowledge, outstanding training and interest in returning. The format should be possible to complete in a reasonable conversation.
• Third week. Test it in a single department with high seasonality. Compare the manager’s view, that of the professionals and the information available in Human Resources.
• Fourth week. Refine the criteria, define owners, establish the timetable and decide which indicators will be reviewed. Only then would I extend the model to the rest of the hotel.

If I had to choose just one action for this season, I would not start by buying a tool or drafting an extensive manual. I would bring together every departmental manager and ask them to identify which people they would like to bring back, what capability we would lose if they did not return and what knowledge should be transferred before their departure. The answers would quickly reveal where the greatest vulnerability lies.

My advice is to speak with people before the calendar speaks for you. Explain what you know, acknowledge what you still cannot confirm and ask what they would need in order to consider returning. Then record commitments and meet communication deadlines, even when the news is that there is still no final decision. Seasonal trust is built through continuity and precision, not through enthusiastic messages sent only a few weeks before opening.

The next season should not inherit only the building, inventory and bookings. It should also receive the judgement, relationships and learning that made the previous one possible. When we enable someone to return without forcing them to start from zero, we recover far more than a contract. We recover capability, reduce uncertainty and bring the hotel closer to a more consistent, human and profitable form of Hospitality.