The Modern Hotelier #49: Helping Hotels Prepare for any Employment Gaps and Reduce Onboarding Time | with Brian Monette
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Brian Monette: [00:00:00] we will continue to see a future of higher turnover in hotels. It's certain of that. So our underlying goal is how do we help hotels function better in a future that will have higher turnover.
David Millili: Welcome to The Modern Hotelier. I'm your host, David Millili.
Steve Carran: I'm your co host Steve Carran.
Jon Bumhoffer: And I'm the producer, Jon Bumhoffer.
[00:01:00] 
David Millili: Steve, who do we have on the program today?
Steve Carran: Yeah, David, today we have Brian Monette. Brian is a tenured executive and is currently the CEO of Transition Path. Transition Path has been helping organizations capture and catalog their internal knowledge, preparing them for a time of transition or uncertainty. Welcome to the show, Brian.
Brian Monette: Hi Steve, thanks for having me.
David Millili: Welcome. So Brian, we're going to go through three areas. We're going to ask you some lightning round type questions, get to know you a little bit better, talk about your career, and then get into the [00:02:00] industry. Sound good?
Brian Monette: Sounds terrific.
David Millili: All right. So what was the worst job you ever had?
Brian Monette: Uh, the worst job, actually I think it'd have to be as a dishwasher was the first job and probably the worst one I've ever had, but I've actually had a pretty interesting career, lots of challenges over the years.
David Millili: Are you a morning or a night person?
Brian Monette: Uh, I'm a morning person.
David Millili: If you had to delete all the apps on your phone, except for three, what three apps would you keep?
Brian Monette: that's a good question. I try not to, to hit my phone that early in the day. So, I'd love to be able to replace my email with something else. but, fitness apps, uh, seem to be the ones, and there's a couple podcasts I really enjoy listening to in the morning. just to sort of listen to what other people have to say about interesting things that are, are trending that perhaps I'm not aware of.
David Millili: All right, good. What's the emoji you use the most?
Brian Monette: Actually, I don't use any, I think I'm 58, I'm in the uh, I'm in the age bracket, I'm learning about [00:03:00] things,
David Millili: All right, no problem. What's your favorite song?
Brian Monette: I got lots, I'm listening to a lot of Van Morrison lately because I haven't seen him, 
David Millili: All right, cool. So what's your favorite restaurant?
Brian Monette: uh, it's Riviera, it's a restaurant in Ottawa, Canada actually, it's, uh, I'm familiar with the chef, he's a friend of mine. And, uh, it's a tough restaurant to get into. There's another one I really like, it's called Pearl and Set, which is another very, very difficult one to get into. It's phenomenal.
David Millili: So if you had your own talk show, who would your first guest be and they can be alive or dead?
Brian Monette: Alive or Dead. I would like... Oh, this is amazing. I would like to interview... I'm trying to be creative here, but, I don't know how you caught me. There's just so many people I'd like to interview. Even some of the people, like the people that we work with, I think are just remarkable, but, uh, because it doesn't have to be somebody famous.
I'm more interested in, interviewing people that have sort of figured things out kind of the hard way.[00:04:00] 
David Millili: All right, so If you had a time machine and you could go into the future or back to the past, which way are you going and what year are you going to?
Brian Monette: so my grandfather, I'll tell you, was 100 years old when he died. He was born in 1889, and, uh, he would tell me stories that when he was a young boy, he would read about Billy the Kid. that's my grandfather, so just to give you a sense for how much has happened since he passed away.
You know, two world wars, uh, aviation, electricity, the computer, all happened during his tenure. But I'm absolutely a forward thinker, so I'd kind of like to go into the 2040s. Because I
You know, they're close enough, but far enough away. That's really what I'd be interested in doing.
Steve Carran: Very cool. Well, that was great. Now we're going to learn about your background a little bit more, what makes you tick. So, you grew up in Toronto. Is that right?
Brian Monette: Yes, I did. Yeah, I went, uh, I grew up in Toronto but worked a lot in the U. S. in my early careers. Uh, I, I sort of grew up in the finance background. That's what I was most interested [00:05:00] in. Actually, I think at the very beginning when I was in university, I only went into the finance. Part of life because, I was trying to, impress my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, because I figured, uh, I figured if I picked the most difficult pathway that, that I, that would impress her.
And in fact, in the early days, you know, working in finance was, was a grind. so I vowed that I would eventually get out of finance, but I learned a lot of great skills in finance.
Steve Carran: That's awesome. And it worked. You married her. So that's great. So, up in Toronto shape you into who you are today?
Brian Monette: well, I think Canada's very multinational, for sure. I think that, uh, you know, in downtown Toronto, there's a street called the Danforth, and as you drive east to west along the Danforth, you go through just about every single major international hub, and so I think that's one aspect, and even in my early career, I traveled for a company called PBG globally.
I went to all sorts of different countries, only to find that it was often [00:06:00] expats that were Canadians, and it was an American company, working in those countries, I think because there's a lot of tolerance, I think, back then for Canadians being familiar with working in multi multicultural areas.
David Millili: And so you've been in Toronto quite a few years. You went to school there. You went to Ryerson University, which is now Toronto Metropolitan University. So what have you seen change over the years in Toronto and any recommendations, local recommendations in Toronto for listeners?
Brian Monette: Yeah, Toronto is a remarkable city, to be honest with you. It has a tough winter, no doubt about it, but, through global warming, I think that's uh, we're seeing some, uh, some changes. I would say Toronto, from a developmental standpoint, is probably about 10 or 15 years behind New York.
We're really chasing New York. We always have been. We've been able to attract, you know, remarkable talent and there's an, obviously, there's just an incredible track record of musicians that are all, you know, from the area that I grew up, you know, Drake, uh, grew up and went to school, same junior school that I went to.
The [00:07:00] Weekend, so there's, Justin Debers, a local Canadian, so I'm not musically inclined, unfortunately, not one bit, but I think it's, it's really that multicultural thing about Toronto that's, uh, seems to set us apart.
David Millili: it's my favorite city for HITEC, which is a big, you know, hospitality trade show. It's been there twice, and it's, it's my favorite city that I've attended a HITEC over, you know, 20 something years.
Brian Monette: Well, it's interesting, you know, uh, Geoffrey Hinton, the founder of artificial intelligence, uh, worked for a large part of his career at University of Toronto.
Steve Carran: now we'll get into your career a little bit. So, after you graduated, you know, what type of jobs did you, were your first jobs out of college?
Brian Monette: Yeah, so my very first job, I worked for Ken Thompson. Ken Thompson was a newspaper publisher and
probably... Probably at the time he was the richest Canadian and my job in finance was to acquire newspapers. I was a an acquisition specialist. I would travel throughout the United States in every small town in America and I would propose buying newspapers.
[00:08:00] from families that had developed newspapers, over, often, centuries so our goal was really to create a, a multi global, media company and in fact, uh, Thomson purchased Thomson Reuters. That was the, the exit, uh, the natural transition from newspapers into data through Reuters, which is owned by the Thomson Corporation.
David Millili: So you were a manager for Nestel Canada, Dell, Agility, Recovery Solutions. And then you joined, uh, MDG Computers in 2005. How did all your experience help you with that role as president?
Brian Monette: Well, you know, I spent a lot of time in NNA. So when I was at Nestle, I ran quite a number of large scale acquisitions. as a, that was really my job. In fact, in Canada, if you've, if you come to Canada and you have Nestle ice cream, that was the company that I led to create acquisitions of dairies and a hostile takeover of a large dairy in Canada.
And so I would say the most interesting part of working for Nestle was um, um, uh, I [00:09:00] had to, build a company and develop the financial justification for the company. And then handed off to someone who had to run it with all of the guesses that I made to justify buying it in the first place. So sometimes, at Nasty I would get phone calls from the leadership team asking me what I was thinking about when I made some of these decisions.
was great. But you know what? When I left I Nestle, which I was in the food industry and finance. I went to Dell Computer and I was at Dell during the good days. Uh, it's a remarkable company, and I worked both in finance and then I evolved into the head of marketing for Dell before I retired.
I actually retired from Dell. A bit of a dot com benefactor, only then to work for another company, MDG Computers and a couple of others that sort of pulled me out of retirement. I was in my thirties, so it was a 
little too early for me to retire. 
David Millili: In 2012, you started Transition Path. Why did you start Transition Path? And tell us a little bit more about the [00:10:00] company.
Brian Monette: So I started Transition Path, because, during that time I was actually running a technology company and our goal was to acquire Hewlett Packard's largest single customer. And, uh, we were able to do that in less than a year. And at the time I'll remember, the government of Canada was the client, by the way.
And I remember after winning that business and taking the number one position, I was walking, leaving the office one day and I looked down the hallway and I could see this pile of paper on the ground. And so I went, you know, being a good president, I went and I picked it up and, and it was a 15 million purchase order from from the client, the customer that we won.
And um, it was a remarkable achievement to be honest, because we were a very small Canadian tech company. But we had a low cost structure. We really understood our costs and so we could deliver real value. But what happened shortly after [00:11:00] was Hewlett Packard came in and recruited all of my top talent away from me. And so what I learned very shortly that was that what I thought my people were doing wasn't actually what they were doing at all. And so I developed these methods using a new technology. to understand what people do in their job, and to do it in a manner that was a low impact on them, but we could quickly codify and get a sense for what is it that Steve does in his job, and as a manager, can I determine, does that match what I need Steve to do?
And that's, that was the beginning of Transition Path. I was forced into it because HP came and took all my people.
Steve Carran: Well, that's awesome. So, Transition Path, you know, you focused originally in the aerospace industry and since then have also moved into the hospitality space as well. What caused you to come into the hospitality space and kind of how do those two industries correlate?
Brian Monette: so the beginning actually, before we got into the aviation piece was we, I actually reached out to Harvard, Dr. [00:12:00] Dorothy Leonard. as a small Canadian company, we needed I was looking for an endorsement from Harvard because I thought it would help us enter in the United States.
And what happened was, Harvard was working closely with GE and, uh, through that, GE acquired Harvard's knowledge transfer business, which Transition Path was bolted onto the front of. And so through that, that engagement, we got access into General Electric and we started doing broad scopes with General, one of our tools, with GE globally.
And through that, we entered into aviation and nuclear power, which those two industries that have the most significant consequential risk. Bad things happen when you lose knowledge in nuclear power plants, as well as aircraft and aviation. And so through those industries, we honed our skills.
We really developed tools that function well, and our entry into the hotel industry is both an ability for us to see a tremendous opportunity [00:13:00] because of just the sheer number of hotels, but also transition, which is what our job is, to transition knowledge, is fundamental to the benefit of those people that work in the hotel industry.
You know, if you join a hotel, your goal is to eventually get a job working in Hawaii, right? So, in order for hotels to keep people, they need to create successful pathways for them. But in order for hotels to be successful, they need to make certain that when they move Steve from that job, that all of a sudden things, bad things happen because we're moving him into a new job, but, suffering from a decline in performance just because Steve leaves.
That's really the nut of it, really, if we can get into the industries, we can really help them. But from a macroeconomic perspective, what we learned in aviation is that, and airports, which we're also involved in, is that when airports don't function well, it has a profound negative impact on the cities that, rely on traffic and people [00:14:00] traveling to the cities from other parts of the world.
Steve Carran: Sure. There you go. Hand in hand. Very nice. Very nice. So, this is what I'm really excited to talk about. We're going to talk about kind of how Transition Path is helping folks in the hospitality industry. And, you know, one of the main issues in kind of the hotel space right now is, you know, turnover, labor shortages, things like that.
You know, through the broad scope that Employees are going through at Transition Path, how does that reduce onboarding time and employment gaps? And just kind of make that transition a little easier.
Brian Monette: Yeah, so a broad scope is an interview process using some technology that's managed by Transition Path and, An individual that's a trained analyst from Transition Path.
It's a real time discussion with a visual element where experts, articulate what it is that they do, the order in which they do it, as well as the condition of the work that they're responsible for. It's real time. It creates a visual [00:15:00] document as well as a very large set of data that's behind it. It represents what you believe to be your role.
And it allows people to see visually, and quite frankly, the complexity of the work that they do.
And by the way, you don't need to prepare for it. It's real time, deep data. And what we gather often is the most accurate information with respect to that particular job.
Steve Carran: got it. So how is that, how are those interviews at broad scope, how is that really reducing the onboarding time and kind of maybe those transitionary periods where one employee leaves and, you know, you're onboarding another, another employee. Right.
Brian Monette: Yeah, so an example with a hotel, a site engineer, engineers and site engineers are a very sought after job because of the professional credentials they have. And every hospital, condominium, building that surrounds your hotels also require the same skill. And so with an aging population here in the United States and most of Europe, what's happening is, is that those.
seasoned [00:16:00] engineers are retiring and we're trying to bring in new ones. And so if in the example, was a person that had actually been in that hotel for a very long time, 26 years. And so over that time period, he understood a lot of the, the details, the design challenges, you know, the folding machines that don't work, the rooms that, you know, that need to be repaired, the cooling tower on the roof.
He had all this tacit knowledge that was not well documented. But it was part of what he knows is what allows the hospital or the hotel to function every day. And so, by codifying that and delivering this document to the hotel manager, now the manager understood, well, what's the implications? of this individual moving, and what do I need to do now to make certain that I take advantage of the time we have with this individual to transfer that knowledge to the successor.
And more and more, I think the difficulties that hotels are facing is that they don't necessarily have an [00:17:00] overlap between the successor. And so they have a gap. And so all of a sudden we see managers are being dragged into engineering where that's not what we pay managers to do.
Steve Carran: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we saw during the during COVID, I mean, GMs were cleaning rooms for housekeepers and things like that, just because there was such a shortage of housekeepers. So this is really cool. Awesome. Thank you.
Brian Monette: Yeah, and so what we do now is that we'll give that broad scope, to the successor.
And so now we're being clear about what is it that we want that person to do, the order and the sequence of work that needs to be done. And even we have a process called the hundred day plan, which is linked into the broad scope that says, these are the things that are going to be the most important work to be done in the first hundred days.
One aspect in hotels that's the most difficult is the seasonal changes. We go from winter to fall, that's when we are having to essentially strike up systems that haven't been working for a number of months and that's often where we realize [00:18:00] that some of the maintenance hasn't been done properly over the years or, you know, a lot of hotels are struggling financially to come up with the capital necessary.
So they're very careful about where they spend their capital and so these broad scopes and the details in them help to justify where. It's important for us to do this type of maintenance work, and when you lose those people that understand that, that sequence and cadence of work, you end up running into situations where you have equipment reliability problems.
David Millili: As a former GM of a couple hotels in New York City, I always felt the most pain when I lost a manager. So line employees, everyone was important to me, but if I lost a manager that was difficult because then I had to pick up their duties. So my question is, is there, what are you, what are you looking at that really helps track a manager's effectiveness and helps with that transition and maybe some of the retention pieces of it too?
Brian Monette: Fantastic question. So, so the, the thing that we know is that when we look at, hotel managers, We already [00:19:00] know the ones that are particularly qualified, because we can look at the results of their hotels. So when we do a BroadScope on a manager who's running a very successful hotel, there's patterns that we can see that we get, we gather those patterns in the BroadScope And so we can help the brand understand what is it that we want in an ideal manager. And what aspects that we want to see that we want to replicate. And we can also identify those patterns to share those with those managers that are medium and below. And improving the average is where the money is. By the way, it's not in getting rid of someone who's a low performer.
It's showing that person a way to improve. And if we can benchmark that on the high performers, which we already know. Which, we can see those patterns in broadscopes, so that would be the, something really important. The other piece is that we often will do a broadscope on all of the direct reports of a manager, so that a manager can, his first meeting can be, let's say David, you know, I was the manager, I would look at your [00:20:00] broadscope, the first thing I would say is, hey David, I've had a chance to look at your broadscope, reminds me of the important work that you do.
And it's really, I'm really glad that you're with us and, uh, I have a much more, detailed appreciation for the important work that you do. When we teach managers on how to use a broad scope, it helps us drive engagement, engaged employees. When we can validate them and validate their opinions, they want to stay with us.
We can demonstrate that we're good leaders and if we can do that effectively, that helps us reduce. The Unwanted Turnover that just happens when we're perhaps not as careful in managing our people that we should be.
David Millili: So, this one might be from left field, but do you look at any, correlation from guest data or guest surveys tied into the 
employee? 
Brian Monette: Absolutely. Yeah. You know, one of the things that we do through the broad scope, it's unvarnished. So, so people are not asked to prepare in advance for lots of different [00:21:00] reasons. But what we found is, is that when you get the unvarnished, that's the truth. What we don't want is, well, what is it that David wants me to say?
Because that doesn't really apply to us, right? So, so our independence of our processes, they don't really know who Transition Path is other than we're introduced as a subject matter expert. But... Through that relationship we have with your employee, we get at the unvarnished. We really want to say this is what that individual believes to be their role.
And so that's really the starting point. And so some aspects of what we want to use to measure the performance, they could be our missions and values or other metrics within what we believe to be good metrics that result in a high performance ratios with respect to guest experience. What we often find is, is that those elements of the guest experience that we want to improve.
They don't come out in the broad scope themselves and so broad scope helps us remind our employees of the importance of these attributes and we actually encourage them to go back and think about their [00:22:00] role to introduce those, elements that we know will drive improved performance and improved guest experience.
So it's, it's getting at where you are today, whether you like it or not, that's where you are. And if you're not seeing those attributes that we know.
Steve Carran: And are these broad scopes only for managers, GMs, or any type of management or is it for everybody in the hotel?
Brian Monette: Well, obviously for us, we want them for everybody.
 Often, we won't invest in people that are in roles, perhaps, that aren't managers, and we think that there's an opportunity to really invest. Like, we did some recent ones at a hotel, whereby we were doing broad scopes on the entire front staff, didn't matter what their role was.
And, it was amazing what we found with Bell Hubs, and it was amazing what we found with the night accounting clerk, and because they know how to do their job. What we're looking for are the patterns that we know produce better outcomes. And so you know, there's three things that people [00:23:00] say when they go through a broad scope.
Number one is, I'm proud of what I do. Number two is, I probably couldn't have done it on my own. And number three is, I wish someone gave me this when I started. And that's really about, you asked David earlier, a question about productivity and getting people in successful swim lanes. Well, when we're really clear about what success looks like, that actually is a direct driver of retention.
Because people can see how they can get into the successful swim lane, you know, earn a fair wage, see opportunities for development, get training, and see a career. And it often happens when we're really clear about what is it we want people to do to be successful in their job.
David Millili: Yeah, that's great. And I think it's, you know, having run hotels and trying to build cultures, you know, reason why I asked about the surveys was because, you know, a lot of times you have front of the house workers and their managers never see how they're interacting with the guest or how they really are.
So if you're an assistant front office manager, you're behind that wall. And that, those front desk agents are dealing with [00:24:00] the guests, the bellhops dealing with the guests. And so I had worked on a project for a student retention company. They were, they work with universities and they wanted to get into hospitality.
And that's where I was saying, can we start to look at surveys? Can we take the property management system data and say, okay, this guest said their room wasn't clean on their survey. Let's find out who cleaned that room and start seeing what are the problems as there's consistency that, you know, this housekeeper always, you know, is negative and they were looking at even elements from outside of the hotel, how far their commute was, things of that nature.
so it's, it's, it's, it's very impactful and it's, it's very timely for the industry because it really needs it.
Brian Monette: Yeah, and it's, uh, the other thing I would say, I would just add to that, because I hear I'm nodding, because you're actually giving me some ideas there, David, around, even around some of our discussions with our clients. But there's also an element that, the BroadScope is designed to be applied [00:25:00] globally.
We have, and we can see patterns in foreign countries, in China as an example, or other parts of Europe, where we can see similar patterns. But there is local knowledge, and so we have to always be careful that we don't want to just apply a standard, let's say, that we think works in the U. S., but doesn't really work in Europe.
And so the, the BroadScope has gathered the, the knowledge and information and insights related to that particular physical location, and that's really the most important part because we want to be able to adopt global standards, but also realize that there is patterns, local traditions that, that may not necessarily always apply.
So we, have to coexist, in those two. Otherwise, it will look like we're trying to apply methods that are just foreign to those, hotels in other countries. We do know, for example, that we've done BroadScopes in Dubai for hotels, for American branded hotels. and we can compare those, especially when we're looking at high [00:26:00] performers in the U.S and Dubai and looking for the patterns. And some of those patterns, by the way, there's definitely opportunities to cross pollinate those types of, approaches to improving guest experience.
Steve Carran: And kind of through this, you're, you almost said it like you're, And you're seeing the best practices of what hoteliers are doing, so it's almost like those people that are running those broad scopes, you're comparing it to best practices of some of the best hotels in the world. So, you know, it's almost like you're a consulting company, like just 
using those best practices almost.
Brian Monette: you know, it's really interesting. We're obviously, we're very, conscientious of the power of the information and confidentiality of it. You know, I would say most of the real, ultimate benefit that we bring to our clients is that they get to see this unvarnished information. I always used to tease some of our clients where, the CEO walks out of his office, walks down the hall and stops an employee and says, [00:27:00] And I always tease the CEOs, I'll say to her, what do you think that that person is thinking in their mind when the CEO stops and asks them a question?
The number one thing is that what does he or she want me to say? And how fast can I say it to make them go away? Right? So, what we're after is really that unvarnished. Where are you today? Because. If you don't know where you are, it's really difficult to figure out where you want to be. We're all good at saying, well, we want to be here, but we don't know where we are.
The change agenda it just introduces profound, what we call, executional
risk. And so that's something that we really want to focus on. Do you know where you are today? And if you do, what's the sequence you want to make changes to get to that ideal future state?
Steve Carran: Absolutely, absolutely. So this is all really exciting stuff, but kind of what is next for transition path and what's, what's, what's ahead here?
Brian Monette: Yeah, we have a lot of interesting things happening and for the most part what we're really focusing on [00:28:00] is to develop a scalable solution that can benefit the entire hotel industry. We're there now. We're very, very confident we've been able to do it, but it also introduces a cost structure that hotels can afford.
you know, while it's, you know, we're seeing some remarkable numbers, the aircraft yesterday and two days ago, Boeing and Airbus and Rolls Royce and GE Aviation had some profound, commitments to buying more aircraft, which we know, more aircraft means more hotels, right? It's that's simple. It's a direct correlation.
So, but at the same time, when those industries are making large forward purchases, they need to be able to control costs. And so, that's an element for us. We want to make certain we deliver real value to hotels. We want to have a cost declining solution that ensures that every broad scope that we do delivers real value to the hotel.
and so we're there from that perspective. I see in the future, obviously artificial intelligence [00:29:00] is really important. so that's, we're tying directly into that, because we, we gather a massive amounts of data, through that data, now we need to feed that into artificial intelligence engines that are beyond just the propensity for someone to book your hotel.
It's really about the underlying how the hotels work. And so, the more data we gather there, the more we can aim our attention on cost reductions. guest safety, lots of different.
The other thing I'll just mention to you is that we will continue to see a future of higher turnover in hotels. It's certain of that. So our underlying goal is how do we help hotels function better in a future that will have higher turnover.
David Millili: Now do you feel, you know, in my head I'm thinking of people that you should be talking to but are there any types of hotels that you think you work better with or is there kind of a [00:30:00] category that makes more sense or is it, is it much broader?
Brian Monette: It's pretty broad. You know, when we, when I founded the company, my core was I had four tests. The first is, is what we do, can, is it demonstratively better than anything out there? Another, second one was, is it profitable? You know, you want to be profitable. third is, is the potential large enough?
So, by that what I mean to answer your question is, What we deliver has to apply to any hotel anywhere in the world, and it does. And then the last, by the way, is can we attract industry individuals to come and work with us? And so often, the people that come to work for us are actually retired executives, retired people from the hotel industry.
Because they understand, just like you said earlier, David, You know, you've run hotels and you know exactly what happens when we lose that person. Where's the data? Where is the information that helps me be confident that the successor can come on board, get into [00:31:00] the role, be in that successful swim lane, to prevent that manager from being drawn into...
these are not directly related guest experience, or what matters in those scenes of the day. so the idea is that to answer your question, whatever we do, generally has to apply. If it's, you know, just picking Mira Hotel, but if Mira Hotel wants broad scope, they want to be able to know that the broad scope that we do in Dubai is the same that we do in, in Austin, Texas.
Yet the content is different and I can understand why it's different.
Steve Carran: Well, this has been great. That was the last question from our end. our producer, Jon, has been listening in this whole time. So, I'm gonna kick it over to Jon here for, for one final 
question. 
Jon Bumhoffer: You mentioned that like, transition is going to continue
to, or our turnover is going to continue, continue to decrease, increase, and there's a lot of reasons for that. but is there any evidence, and sorry if you've already answered this question, but is there any evidence to support that what you guys do helps retention?
Brian Monette: yeah. By the way, thanks. It's a great [00:32:00] question. so this is just some anecdotal things that we learned, but for new people to come into a role, they have three tests. So the first test is does my manager care about me? And the second test is does my manager demonstrate excellence? And the third is, does this job serve me? So if you can't, if you fail any one of those, there are so many opportunities in the labor market today. That we'll give younger employees the need or the interest to actually pursue a job elsewhere. so when we can, look at a BroadScope and say this is the job that we have and it is something that we can attract people to come in and, we can define, describe, characterize the job so that it attracts talent because we have a very clear understanding of what the job is.
You know, we're not running situations where we're attracting jobs, people come and they find that that's really not the job that they wanted, because they'll just pivot. So yes, the answer is that when we align those [00:33:00] three. With a manager who looks at a BroadScope we're much more likely to attract the better talent, retain them, and also introduce a consistent way in which we manage performance through
people.
Jon Bumhoffer: Yeah, because that shows that you're investing in that person, like that new person, there's an immediate investment that they see and they feel. Yeah, makes sense. 
Brian Monette: Absolutely. And if we can acknowledge them for what they believe to be issues, you know, there's a lot of technical aspects of this, but I'll tell you one aspect, which is, we have this flagging methodology, which helps An individual in the role of signing a flag to bring attention to specific aspects of their role.
One of those flags is yellow, which is a caution. It's something that the individual believes to be something the manager should be aware of. But there's a blue flag, which is an opportunity to, for them to identify different ways in which they can do work. and in fact included in that is the opportunity to discontinue work.
If you want to drive a productivity improvement across your staff, the easiest way to drive a productivity improvement is to stop [00:34:00] doing work. Especially if that work isn't aligned to guest satisfaction. So when you look at those things, we can drive some significant improvements. So now we can reattribute time for things that are perhaps more aligned to those things that we want to do.
And sometimes these things that we want to do in hotels is not just around our, you know, mission values. It's actually, I have an urgent, immediate issue that's affecting my hotel that I need to reassign resources to that doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to hire someone. it's an important step of our process to go about doing that. 
David Millili: Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier. This is the part, Brian, where we'd like you to let us know how can people get in touch with you, get in touch with Transition Path. This is your time to plug away. 
Brian Monette: so the best way is through our website, which is transition path. com, or you can reach out to me by way of email. I'm not sure if that'll be added later. And we have a whole team that's, uh, [00:35:00] that's prepared to get involved. We do, pilot programs, by the way, and it's the best way for us to, for hotels to try our solutions at a low cost.
We provide subsidies, by the way, because the best way to take advantage of Transition Path is to actually see the data from your own people. And so if we reduce the cost, make it fully turnkey, typically we do 
engagements that start in three or four days, depending upon the urgency of the client. 
David Millili: Well, again, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier. We look forward to being with you again soon. Thanks, Brian.
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