In an industry where talent is tight and turnover is brutal, one bad manager can cost you serious money and time. And if your whole hospitality hiring system is broken, you’re bound to be stuck in a never-ending cycle of recruitment mistakes:

More than great food or cutting-edge tech, a resilient hospitality management team is your competitive edge. If you’re struggling to find the right leaders, here are the hiring mistakes you might be making—and how to avoid them.

Mistake #1: You Start Recruiting When It’s Urgent

We’ve all seen it happen. A key manager gives two weeks’ notice, and suddenly the company is in full-blown crisis mode—posting desperate job listings, calling former employees, and praying someone decent walks through the door. Your remaining leaders start drowning in work.

With 47% of frontline managers already experiencing burnout, there’s no room for more stress if you want to hold onto your current team. Plus, when you hire in panic mode, you make compromises—and those compromises walk through your door every day as underqualified managers who don’t deliver value or even manage to push your good employees out the door.

The Fix: Building a talent pipeline by engaging with a hospitality management recruitment firm before hiring gets urgent is the best way to get proactive with your talent strategy. A recruiting partner who understands your future needs, culture, and turnover trends can help you anticipate hiring challenges, properly grow their network, and quickly secure experienced managers when you’re ready to hire.

Mistake #2: You’re Hyper-Focused on Operational Proficiency

The traditional hospitality hiring approach relies heavily on technical competencies: Can they manage inventory? Do they understand cost controls? Can they find the right areas to leverage AI technology for ROI?

Operational expertise still matters, but navigating uncertainty in the hospitality sector—from tariffs to changing consumer expectations—requires the ability to adapt to unknowns. According to Gartner, 49% of managers agree their responsibilities are getting more complex. Soft skills that drive agility are proving incredibly valuable for performance.

The Fix: Stop hiring solely for technical skills and start hiring for adaptability, emotional resilience, and transformational leadership. The best managers don’t just execute tasks—they build a culture and systems that make execution possible in dynamic markets.

Mistake #3: Your Salaries Aren’t Part of a Holistic Strategy

Let’s be brutally honest: Hospitality, despite the fact that it’s a high-stress environment, has a reputation for underpaying talent. It’s why the Great Resignation was particularly tough for restaurants, hotels, and similar establishments.

A competitive salary can attract more applicants—our Management Salary and Trends report can help you implement this if you haven’t already—but compensation alone isn’t a recruitment strategy. Your biggest competitors are likely offering similar base pay, which leaves you competing on factors you might not have considered such as:

• Schedule predictability
• Career advancement opportunities
• Company culture
• Leadership support

The Fix: Pair your competitive salaries with employer branding and cultural transformation initiatives that address the holistic values of today’s workforce. Unquantified benefits like guaranteed consecutive days off and transparent career paths could be your differentiators. With recruitment marketing that delivers a cohesive message about your organizational value, your business can stand out.

Mistake #4: You’re Promoting Without Upskilling

Hospitality establishments often follow familiar career paths. In restaurants, excellent servers get promoted to shift lead, then start taking on assistant and general manager roles. But as Gartner states, “Past performance in an IC (individual contributor) role is not a foolproof predictor of future performance as a manager.”

Career paths are great, but internal hiring programs shouldn’t simply elevate frontline employees. A University of Central Florida (UCF) study reports lack of leadership experience and formal training are key indicators of bad management, which is one of the top reasons why employees leave their employers. Companies cannot risk this turnover in hospitality, which faces the highest quit rates in the nation.

The Fix: If internal hiring is your goal, leadership development needs to be an ongoing investment in your organization. However, companies should never prioritize convenience over capability. Promote employees who prove to be excellent managers or expand your search externally.

Mistake #5: You’re Not Hiring with Culture in Mind

The UCF study revealed another crucial fact: Bad management hires tend to be “misfit” personalities.

Culture fit isn’t just about finding people who “get along” with your team. It’s about identifying individuals whose motivations, communication style, and work preferences align with your organizational values and operational reality.

The Fix: Develop a clear, honest cultural profile of your organization before your next hire. What truly drives success in your environment? What personality traits and work styles mesh well and thrive? Find your answers and then create assessment processes that screen for these traits.

Revitalize Your Hospitality Hiring Strategy

Ready to improve and accelerate your hospitality hiring? At Gecko Hospitality, we’re ready to develop a tailored search plan for your team.

We get to know your company culture and goals—including your compensation structure—then collaborate with you to develop high-impact job specs and a management recruitment marketing strategy. Our unmatched expertise ensures every placement is set up to last. Plus, our Gecko Guarantee, which allows you to request a replacement for up to a year, can give you even more confidence in your next hire.

Reach out to Gecko Hospitality to get connected with top-performing managers and executives.

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