5 Ways Tech Can Improve Staffing and Motivate Your Employees
Trying to hire for hundreds or even thousands of seasonal positions for your amusement park or water park during the “Great Resignation?”
As if that wasn’t enough, you will have to manage employees who are in or just out of high school with little to no work experience, and who sometimes have other priorities. Staffing is a constant source of headache for park managers in the amusement industry.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Technologies such as amusement management platforms, workforce optimization software, RFID wearables, and mobile apps already exist today to alleviate your staffing stress.
Here are five ways technology can reduce the number of staff needed in your amusement park or water park, help you better manage employees, and motivate them to stay longer or return next season.
Reduce the Number of Staff Required to Run an Effective Business
Mobile Ordering & Self-Serve Kiosks
More and more guests are accustomed to the convenience that the self-serve model at fast food restaurants and grocery stores offers. When you implement mobile ordering and/or kiosks for food and beverage, you can eliminate much of the front-line staff that would be punching in the same information anyway.
Digital Ticketing & Season Pass
Another purchase that can be obviously made online is tickets; that’s not new. But what about being able to process a season pass without human intervention? Instead of buying a voucher online to be processed physically by staff later, guests can purchase AND have their season pass on their phone right away.
In fact, you can set up your park so that guests can purchase or book just about everything online, such as restaurants, cabanas, activities, shows, or merchandise on their phones, reducing the number of staff needed.
Image includes optional integration with Coretech Systems
Optimize the Number of Staff at Any Given Time, in Any Area of Your Park
Obviously, you need enough workers to make sure your park can accommodate the expected number of guests and run smoothly, but you don’t want idle staff either. Technology can help you find the perfect balance by using data.
Staffing Based on Real-Time and Historical Trends
Historical data can take into account the day of the week, holidays, and weather to forecast attendance more exactly so you won’t under-staff or over-staff. Real-time location data can tell you how busy each area of your park is so you can delegate bored staff from a quieter area to a busier area where their colleagues might be overwhelmed.
Maintenance Staffing Based on Usage
Technology can help you plan for maintenance more efficiently. Instead of maintenance scheduled according to time, it would make more sense to perform it according to usage, e.g., after a specified number of rides, thus avoiding unnecessary work or inadequate care of your facilities or equipment.
Automate—Because You Don’t Have Time to Supervise All Day
Technology can automatically keep you aware of staff conditions and control access because you don’t have time to manage every single staff member throughout the day and in shifts.
Real-time Performance Insights
In terms of performance, for example, you can see real-time attraction throughput and receive a notification if the number falls below a threshold. You can then try to find out why. Does the employee working at that ride need help? As well, a workforce automation software can tell you when and where certain stations are unmanned.
Access Control
With different levels of employees come different levels of responsibility. Technology can control the access different employees have in different areas, physically and virtually. For example, you can give only certain employees access to the equipment room but not others. Or, you can give employees access to data and dashboards relevant only to them.
Metrics-Backed Goal Setting
For better team alignment, you can show the goals and the metrics on an app or portal so that everyone knows what to work towards. You can even provide new types of information to staff so they can see the impact of their work, for example, season pass upsell metrics displayed in the staff areas to celebrate successes.
Improve Customer Service Consistency through Gamification
When you read online reviews, a common complaint about a park is bad customer service. Generally there tends to be a generational gap between management and the seasonal employees. How do you make work relatable to these digital natives and raise the quality of service?
By using an app and infusing gamification.
Technology can allow employees to earn rewards for great performance. For example, they can earn points for:
- showing up on time
- being flexible, like covering someone else’s shift on a short notice
- up- and cross-selling
- impressing guests with their service
- achieving dispatch metrics, order fulfillment metrics, etc.
Employees can redeem these points for prizes such as merchandise, food and beverage, vouchers, and more. It’s instant gratification; something that today’s digital-savvy generations are accustomed to.
Retain Good Staff & Reduce Turnover
It takes a lot of resources to find and train new staff (we see you nodding your head). A proven method of success is to train and retain performers. To do this, businesses must be digitally connected to today’s young workers. It’s what’s familiar and expected. The gamification example above demonstrates how you can improve employee engagement.
Technology can be a good aid for training. You can create an online portal of FAQs and best practices, daily customer service tips notifications, or perhaps even a private online channel for staff to record videos of what they do to help the park. Peer-to-peer videos are highly relatable and a great way to train and motivate employees.
Ready to Leverage Technology to Reduce Your Staffing Stress?
Any digital employee experience you design and implement must involve employees of all levels to see what’s useful to them and what motivates them. Vantage can customize your employee platform to reflect your venue’s look, feel, and preferences. It can be designed to be part of the culture—to feel like “home” for everyone using it.
Contact Vantage to find out how you can start leveraging technology to make staffing for your park easier.
