HR Trends and Tech Transforming the Hospitality Industry
Part of a series | 2025 HR Trends Series
HR leaders in hotels, resorts, restaurants, and food service chains must continually track industry trends and utilize emerging technologies—especially artificial intelligence (AI)—to stay ahead in the competitive hospitality landscape.
High turnover, rising labor costs and changing compliance laws are forcing HR leaders to rethink hiring, retention and workforce management strategies in the hospitality industry. Hospitality brands often struggle to staff up for peak seasons, manage dispersed teams and fill frontline roles quickly. To stay ahead, HR leaders in hotels, resorts, restaurants and food service chains must stay informed on industry trends and leverage emerging technologies — particularly AI.
AI use cases in talent acquisition and management
By integrating AI into the hospitality industry, employers can improve efficiency, reduce costs and create a more agile, responsive workforce. This shift allows them to focus on strategic initiatives rather than manual administrative tasks. Generative AI is transforming how HR and talent interact, offering extensive use cases across the industry.
AI-powered hiring tools can streamline recruitment by automating tasks such as application screening, interview scheduling and workforce forecasting. For example, businesses can use chatbots to screen applicants, significantly reducing hiring time. Additionally, AI tools can improve candidate matching by analyzing resumes and work histories to identify the best-fit candidates, ensuring stronger alignment between talent and roles.
Once candidates are hired, AI can personalize onboarding programs to help new employees quickly adapt to company standards and guest service expectations. AI-driven learning platforms can tailor training materials to each employee's role, providing customized skill development for waitstaff, chefs and front desk associates.
AI can also enhance talent management by predicting staffing needs based on historical data, helping businesses prevent labor shortages during peak hours. AI-powered scheduling tools, for instance, can anticipate demand spikes and adjust staff schedules accordingly, helping to ensure optimal workforce levels without over- or understaffing.
However, while AI offers significant advantages, employers must carefully manage its impact on employer-candidate interactions. Human oversight is essential to maintain personal connections, prevent mis-hires and ensure AI does not entirely replace human judgment in screening and hiring decisions. Striking the right balance between automation and human involvement is key to fostering a positive candidate experience.
The employee experience and well-being
The employee experience should be an ongoing business priority to increase holistic well-being and improve talent management outcomes.
"We must maintain our human touch as we optimize hiring with generative AI. Candidates deserve personalized experiences and to feel good about working for an organization, regardless of whether they accept a job offer," says Chris Mullen, vice president of workplace insights and transformation, .
In fact, employees who feel cared for by their employer are 80 percent more likely to feel engaged at work. They're also 83 percent more likely to be loyal and 84 percent more likely to be productive at work, according to MetLife's 22nd Annual U.S. Employee Benefit Trends Study 2024.
To make the business case for a positive employee experience less overwhelming, employers have started by asking a simple question: "What is important to my employees?" However, they quickly discover that each employee values different things. The key to enhancing the employee experience across an organization is personalization.
Personalization can take many forms, such as:
- Assigning tasks based on an employee's unique skills and strengths
- Sending company announcements from employees' human leaders instead of an automated bot
- Scheduling frequent one-on-one meetings between employees and their direct managers
Additionally, how employees are personally recognized and appreciated by their managers plays a crucial role in making them feel valued and cared for.
Skill-based hiring fosters employee success
Skills have become a key indicator of employee success, especially as digital hospitality and restaurant automation reshape the industry. A recent Forbes article notes that workers now need new skills in tech-driven service and operations to stay competitive.
A skills-based approach to talent shifts the focus from traditional qualifications — such as degrees and industry experience — to the actual skills candidates bring. This approach allows training and development managers to identify the best match for a role based on a person's strengths and abilities, regardless of how they acquired those skills. For example, a restaurant implementing self-service kiosks may value employees who quickly learn new technology and assist customers with digital ordering, rather than focusing solely on past food service experience. By emphasizing skills over credentials, businesses can build a more adaptable and capable workforce.
Moreover, not only does skills-based hiring align with the evolving needs of the workplace, where adaptability, problem-solving and collaboration are increasingly valued, but it's also proving to be more effective for organizations. In fact, most companies (90 percent) using a skills-based hiring method report that it reduces their mis-hires, and 94 percent agree that skills-based hiring is more predictive of on-the-job success than resumes, according to TestGorrilla's The State of Skills-Based Hiring 2024.
Managing geographically dispersed talent
As talent becomes more geographically dispersed, HR teams in hotels, restaurants and resorts must navigate the complexities of multi-location hiring, remote corporate teams and gig-based labor pools. Cross-border hiring and compliance add another layer of difficulty, requiring employers to adhere to the regulations of each employee's jurisdiction.
Beyond managing multi-location payroll or global payroll, payroll administrators must navigate many challenges, including:
- Overtime violations
- Fair workweek and predictive scheduling laws
- Break and meal violations
- Unauthorized "off-the-clock" work
Regulations for these issues can vary significantly between states and countries. To address these complexities, compliance managers need visibility into their remote workforce, which can be streamlined with automated time and attendance solutions. They should also equip managers with the skills to lead remote teams while expanding talent pools. Partnering with legal counsel or investing in a platform that tracks and alerts leaders to changing regulations is essential. Additionally, businesses should carefully evaluate both the opportunities and challenges of remote work when planning for growth.
This approach helps hospitality businesses stay compliant, competitive and adaptable in an evolving workforce landscape. AI technologies can further support these efforts by breaking down geographical barriers and delivering consistent, impactful training regardless of location.
Maintaining compliance in an AI world
As AI hiring tools become more common in hospitality businesses, HR leaders must ensure compliance with anti-discrimination laws, bias audits and data privacy regulations.
Strategies for staying compliant while leveraging AI in hiring and workforce management should include conducting bias audits on AI-based hiring tools to ensure they do not disproportionately disadvantage certain groups. Organizations can achieve this by partnering with third-party auditors to assess AI hiring models for potential biases related to gender, race or age and to ensure alignment with Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) guidelines.
Moreover, employers should prioritize transparency in AI-driven decision-making. As a recent Forbes article indicates, emerging laws may require businesses to disclose when they use AI in hiring and provide candidates with insights into how the system evaluates them. To support compliance efforts, some organizations include AI hiring disclosures in job postings, explaining how AI matches candidates to roles.
Employers should also be mindful that AI hiring tools collect and analyze vast amounts of personal data, making compliance with data privacy regulations — such as GDPR (Europe) and CCPA (California) — essential. To meet current and future regulatory requirements, employers can proactively implement data retention policies, encrypt applicant data and collaborate with AI vendors to ensure their systems align with legal expectations. Additionally, partnering with legal teams and vendors can help organizations stay updated on evolving AI-related laws.
As AI continues to shape hiring practices, businesses that audit AI-based technologies for bias, maintain transparency and prioritize human oversight will be better positioned to mitigate legal risks and ensure fair, effective hiring. This is especially important for guest-facing roles where interpersonal skills are key. To balance AI efficiency with fairness, HR leaders can implement safeguards such as human review of AI-screened candidates and combine AI-powered assessments with in-person interviews. By embracing these strategies, employers can harness the benefits of AI while ensuring a hiring process that is both compliant and equitable.
