Case Studies Atlas Hotels Takes a Data-Driven Approach to Increase Retention, Engagement, and Guest Satisfaction

The Challenge

Atlas Hotels is a large hotel franchise group that operates 59 hotels across the UK. The hospitality industry is known for having above-average turnover, which means that Atlas Hotels manages a high-volume recruitment process in order to fill vacancies across every location. 

Sarah Brocklebank, the HR Director at Atlas Hotels, wanted to reduce the administrative burden on the hotel managers so that they don’t have to spend endless hours shortlisting candidates. Her goal was to move away from relying on CVs to make recruitment decisions, noting that, “certainly in hospitality, we don’t think that a good CV is a determinant for success on the job.” 

Most of the jobs that Atlas Hotels routinely hires for are entry-level roles, such as team member or housekeeping roles. For leadership roles Atlas Hotels follows a philosophy called “growing our own,” where they strive to fill 80% of their promotional opportunities internally, including team leaders and managers. 

Selecting the right people for the job came down to a simple question: “What is the best way for us to help managers shortlist quickly, effectively identify the quality, and get the right people for Atlas?”

The Solution

Before working with Criteria, Atlas Hotels was working with another assessment vendor. In switching to Criteria, they specifically wanted assessments that aligned better with their roles, and that provided a faster, more candidate-friendly assessment experience. Two of the assessments they ended up selecting were Criteria’s GAME and EPP.

• The GAME (General Aptitude Mobile Evaluation) is a game-based assessment of cognitive aptitude that measures basic job-readiness and trainability in just 5 minutes.
• The EPP (Employee Personality Profile) is a general personality inventory that measures 12 job-related personality traits that are predictive of job success in a wide range of roles. For each particular job within the company, Atlas Hotels assigned a different job match based on the personality profiles of those most likely to succeed in each type of role, from client and customer service to housekeeping and finance.

Atlas Hotels wanted to take a data-driven approach to measure the initial assumption that use of the assessments would quickly help hiring managers identify high quality employees. Having used the assessments to hire new employees for over a year, they enlisted Criteria’s help to conduct a validation study based on a sample of 374 employees. The goal of the study was to quantify the relationship between Criteria’s assessments and Atlas Hotels’ business outcomes.

The Results

The validation study showed a strong relationship between the assessments and many of the job performance metrics that Atlas Hotels prioritizes, including employee tenure, employee engagement, and customer satisfaction. Let’s take a deeper look at each metric:

Higher Retention, Lower Turnover

Based on the study, employees who have met the score ranges for both of the assessments stay 38 days longer on average than those who did not meet the score ranges. In other words, they stayed on the job 18% longer.

Higher Employee Engagement

Atlas Hotels measures employee engagement through an employee NPS (eNPS). Through the study, they found that employee engagement is strongly correlated (r=0.23) with the Assertiveness trait on the EPP, and also very strongly correlated (r=0.76) with the Attention to Detail percentile on the GAME assessment. These traits are associated with success in roles in the hospitality industry.

They also found that employees who were more engaged were more likely to stay longer – the eNPS score was very highly correlated with longer tenure (r=0.72). Therefore, employees who met the score ranges for both assessments were more likely to be engaged.

Better Customer Satisfaction

One of the most important metrics for Atlas Hotels is Guest Love, a measure of customer satisfaction. The study demonstrated that there is a strong correlation (r=0.37) between employee engagement and guest satisfaction at each location. In other words, locations with higher engagement are more likely to meet their Guest Love targets.

Moreover, the study found that there is a strong correlation between Guest Love and the employees’ scores on the Conscientiousness trait on the EPP. Locations with higher Guest Love scores are more likely to have employees that are conscientious, which is a trait associated with being diligent and responsible.

Put together, the study demonstrated how the use of the assessments as an initial filter within the application process, led Atlas Hotels to  hire talented employees who ultimately drive improvements across the company.

Beyond the results from the validation study, Atlas Hotels has experienced many other improvements to its operations since using the assessments, including boosts in hiring efficiency, higher candidate completion rates, and better outcomes for the hotels across the board.

A More Efficient Process

With volume recruitment, Atlas Hotels needed a way to prioritize high-potential candidates quickly. With Criteria, they were able to set up a highly efficiency process that helps managers pinpoint the right talent, faster. This process takes advantage of a highly efficient integration with Atlas Hotels’ ATS of choice, enabling the company to view everything in one place.

The process goes as follows: a manager reaches out to HR each time a new vacancy opens up in their hotel. HR puts out a job advert on multiple sites. Once a candidate applies, the candidate automatically gets a notification through the ATS with an invitation to take the Criteria assessments. After a candidate completes the assessments, the ATS will automatically update to say that the candidate has completed the assessments and indicate if the candidate has met the score ranges that Atlas Hotels has set.

According to Sarah, this integration has been “absolutely amazing and critical for us” because it shrinks the shortlisting time to zero while “seeing a massive increase in quality of those candidates that you’re inviting to interview as well.” The team has also found that the candidates are less likely to ghost the interview because they have already committed to taking and passing the assessments prior to the interview. All in all, the new process saves them a significant amount of time, while also dramatically raising the quality of the candidates being invited to interview.

A Candidate-Friendly Experience

One of the things that the team at Atlas Hotels likes about Criteria’s assessments is that they are quicker for candidates to complete, making for a more positive candidate experience. This has translated into higher test completion rates, with a greater percentage of candidates completing the assessments. The assessments also feel more aligned with the competencies and outputs that Atlas Hotels is looking for within hospitality.

In addition, Atlas Hotels takes advantage of the Workplace Insights report, a complimentary candidate-facing report that candidates can receive after taking a personality assessment. This report provides personalized insights into a candidate’s work styles and preferences, giving applicants an additional incentive to complete their assessments and boosting their overall experience.

Better Outcomes for the Hotels

Thanks to the validation study, Atlas Hotels was able to prove that the use of assessments at an early stage of the recruitment process helps hiring managers quickly select quality candidates. These employees, once hired, are helping to drive powerful outcomes across the hotels.

Through this data-driven study, Atlas Hotels’ HR team has been able to demonstrate that an evidence-based approach to hiring can lead to very powerful business outcomes for their hotels. The benefits extend from day-to-day time savings to long-term impacts on the bottom line. Looking into the future, the HR team aims to increase adoption of the assessments to empower each hotel branch to achieve greater success.