3 Hoteliers on the New Technology They’ll Give Employees in 2016
Photo Credit: Some hotels plan to get ahead of trends with employee-facing technology they'll roll-out in 2016. Pictured here is a Yotel employee using one of the hotel's new biometric handprint scanners for tracking employee attendance and monitoring shifts. Yotel
Skift Take
Introducing technology on devices with household names helps with implementing change faster and more efficiently, and it continues the dominant trend of letting employees use the consumer tech they already know in their daily work lives.
The past year saw plenty of new technology hitting the hands of travelers — from keyless hotel entry to Apple Watch flight notifications — and many brands let their employees join in with this new gadget and mobile love.
United Airlines is the latest example--it gave 6,000 airport employees the iPhone 6 plus in an effort to empower employees on devices they've used for years. Thinking of employees as guests, in that they value continuity and using tools familiar to them, makes other strategies seem illogical at the dawn of 2016.
"Traditionally what has happened on the marketing side with the guest experience feels very disconnected from what happens on the employee engagement side," said Mohammad Gaber, Adobe's head of travel. Adobe works with Delta, Etihad, and a few large hotels on improving employee-facing technology. "We definitely see those two worlds merging because these employees are like customers. First and foremost that merger is a cultural transition in terms of
