We understand, as a leader in the hospitality industry, you’ve already got a lot on your plate without having to learn or keep track of the tools your staff are utilizing. But engaging with your employees and taking the time to understand what they’re using to do their jobs-and how they’re using it-is important, not only for technology adoption, but for accountability, productivity and more.

A study by the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration found that, of the numerous best practices discussed for successfully adopting new technologies, “gaining support of senior management was repeatedly mentioned as an essential first step.” Most people immediately assume they’ll have to hire trainers and spend large chunks of money on training for software they’ve already invested in. But you don’t necessarily have to hire external trainers to increase technological understanding at your hotel or properties.

In fact, becoming or designating someone to champion new technology can replace the need for training and benefit your organization in the long term, since it can go hand in hand with encouraging train-the-trainer mentalities within your organization. Adam Benjamin of HireVue writes that one of the main problems in technology adoption is that end-users often aren’t able or aren’t willing to learn and adopt new tactics or practices to make emerging technologies successful, and one of the best remedies to this can be developing and designating internal champions.

But it all starts with management.

Before you can establish technology champions or internal trainers, leadership must take an active role and look at end-user solutions personally. It can take a little bit of time investment up front, but there are many reasons that it’s worth the time to ensure you get the most out of your hospitality technology. Here are four top reasons why you should take the time to understand the software your team is using and ensure that they do too:

Encourage Better Adoption

As we mentioned above, if you don’t involve leadership in your technology rollout, it’s simply not as likely to stick.

Katie Higgins of VTS notes that “much of the value of the investment in a new technology is dependent on a successful implementation and the organization fully embracing the platform.” When a company doesn’t fully endorse a solution, they often destroy the value, and the result is poor adoption. Implementation really starts from the top.

Endorsement by management and leadership goes a long way toward encouraging full adoption by staff. Plus, when company leaders take the time to learn the tools their staff are using, they can better understand what’s working for their organization and what’s not. This helps ensure that everyone gets the most out of solutions the organization is already paying for and opens the door for management to become technology champions. They can even help to train or nominate other internal champions at their property or properties to increase overall adoption across the organization.

Unlock Management Solutions

Many hospitality solutions provide specific value not only to staff, but to management and leadership as well. For example, Quore allows management to communicate directly with staff via memos and messages through our applications and gain better visibility into what’s going on around the hotel with logbooks for documentation, attendance, asset tracking and data insights. These tools and insights increase overall clarity across departments and help management make decisions about the future based on records and analysis.

Data insights into your property or portfolio become especially valuable for analyzing efficiency and ensuring higher guest satisfaction scores. And if you’re not taking the time to understand the solutions your staff is using, you might be missing out on all the value it could provide you and your hotel.

Increase Accountability

Along with data insights, top hospitality solutions often help management and leadership to get better clarity into staff activity and increase employee accountability. First, taking the time to understand the software that your team is utilizing helps you make sure that they’re using the tools correctly and documenting activities appropriately which, on top of increasing accountability, also ensures brand standards and quality assurance needs are met.

Many top hospitality solutions come with accountability features specifically for management and leadership. Tools like ours not only document necessary operations and maintenance for brand standards compliance, but also help you keep track of attendance.

You can record vacation days, sick days, time off and more and know who’s available and who’s not-no matter where you are.

Better Understand Your Team

Not only does an understanding of the technology your team is using help you to increase accountability and get better insight into how staff is accomplishing their work-it also just makes you more approachable. Approachability is consistently recognized as a trait of top leaders, so it’s important to pay attention to things that you can do to make sure your staff feels like you’re open to them.

Taking the time to familiarize yourself with the tools your team uses shows them you care about what they’re doing. When staff feels like you’ve taken the time to gain an understanding of their day to day, it shows that you really value the importance of their role. And increased approachability ultimately opens the door for better communication in the future-on and off the technological platform!

Smarter Tech, Happier Team

It might seem like an unnecessary thing to add to your list of to do’s, but with all the value it can add to you, your hotel and your team, we promise it’s worth it.

One of the easiest ways to learn the tools that your team is using is to simply observe how they’re using it in person. Next time you’re walking around your hotel, block off some time to ask staff questions about the tools their using or ask to shadow them as they complete daily tasks. This helps you gain first-hand knowledge of the solutions being employed at your hotel.

Another great way to get started understanding a new solution is to dig into the tool’s knowledge base or support site and browse their educational content. Quore has a great educational outlet for customers available via Quore Learn when you log in to your Quore account! You can also call your Hotel Success Specialist anytime-our team is always happy to help with walkthroughs on everything from hotel setup to how to submit a work order.

When helping hotels rollout our product, we recommend designating someone in leadership as a Quore Champion, someone who can help to implement training and lead the charge in exemplifying proper usage! We find that it really helps with long-term adoption and value.

Whatever you choose to do, taking a little extra time to dive in to the solutions utilized by your teams can go a long way toward bringing your property into the future of hospitality.

You can find more industry tips and information at our blog. And head over to our website if you’d like to learn more about what Quore can do for your hotel!