Reboot Your Role in the New Year with These Seven Pieces of Inspiration
For hospitality professionals, the start of the New Year is an excellent time to identify opportunities to create role-based growth objectives. Even if you don’t make “New Year Resolutions”, welcome the occasion to identify your potential, form a plan and make a new start. Set some goals to fill your job with energy in 2017.
Begin by choosing reasonable targets. Not only are you more likely to achieve them, but you’ll more quickly enjoy the feeling of success. Examine those parts of your career over which you have control and focus on goals that will improve your experience in those areas.
For those of you who work closely with hotel systems such as PMS, POS and Spa Management – we have some specific suggestions to help you reboot:
1. Perform an Audit of What You Do – Take some personal quiet time to review your role and what you do every day. Where do you want to grow? What training would help you perform better in your role? What software could make you more efficient? Taking a thorough look at where you are and where you want to be provides perspective. Writing down your observations and drafting a plan is the first step to growth. Similar to the benefits of performing a regular software audit for your PMS, a self-audit helps to identify places in which small changes can make a big impact on your day-to-day life.
2. Enhance Your Skills and Add to Your Education – Learning should be a lifelong process. Continually adding to and refining your skillset ensures that you are prepared for a long and successful career. There are many different ways to increase your proficiencies and each and every one will provide a lot of benefits:
- Join us for complimentary webinars. SMS lists our upcoming schedule, as well as recorded versions on the Help Site
- Make plans to attend a relevant conference this year. We recommend the Host (HUG) and SpaSoft (SUG) Users Group conferences for a lot of training from SMS professionals and making connections with fellow Users — all for a very affordable cost
- Access on-line training, Springboard, at any time
- Plan for some customized on-site training that would offer huge benefits for your property
- Other ideas include improving your language talents with Duolingo or enhancing public speaking skills with your local Toastmasters chapter
3. Expand your Network – Create more interpersonal relationships and deeper career connections to experience greater satisfaction in your work. Networking also opens you up to more opportunities, events and resources to help you grow. The hospitality industry has some great organizations with regional and local chapters that offer highly relevant social and learning options. Look into HFTP and HSMAI to find the chapter in your area.
There are also opportunities available on-line through websites such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Join groups to listen, contribute to discussions and expand your online network. SMS offers an active forum on our Customer Community where users network and help each other throughout the year. We’re also a big fan of the networking opportunities from the Host Users Group. This organization is run by the users, for the users, and participation in the annual conference is a great way to expand your hospitality technology connections.
4. Fix What Bothers You – We generally all have some things in our daily jobs that just don’t work smoothly. Identify those pain points and pursue a solution. If there’s something in your PMS, POS or Spa system that is causing you challenges, we offer a few resources you can use to research possible solutions. The SMS HelpSite offers documentation, videos and online help resources. Talk with other software users on the Customer Community or check out the Knowledge and Answers listings. Connect with support and start your new year off right by taking care of that lingering issue.
5. Recognize Others – Praise and acknowledge the work of others – not just employees on your team but anyone whose work impresses you or helps you with your job. By raising up others, you will lift yourself, as well.
6. Get Started Today – With big objectives we anticipate that it will take time to achieve them. However, it’s the work that you do each day that will enable you to meet the goals that you set for 6-12 months in the future.
7. Don’t Give Up – Sometimes, the answer isn’t easy. Sometimes, your first try doesn’t succeed. Sometimes, what seems simple is actually quite complicated. Don’t give up immediately and don’t let a bad day or a bad email or a bad meeting get you off track. If you believe that your goal is possible, keep working at it.
Here at SMS we got inspired by reading the book Decide: Work Smarter, Reduce Your Stress and Lead Better. It’s a real-world discussion on how to cut through the complexities and excuses to achieve real gains to improve your life or your career. We’ve all committed to move toward gain for 2017 – what will you commit to achieving?