I want to make a quick comparison between two things – guests and employees – and put them into a marketing context for a moment if for no other reason than to get us asking a few questions.

The thing is, we put a lot of marketing effort into getting guests interested in coming to our resort.

As we do, we face headwinds around the perception in the media of skiing as a sport that’s expensive, dangerous, too hard, etc., but despite the headwinds we’ve done a great job of elevating stories and moments that help folks overcome these sorts of ideas.

Likewise, we also a bit of marketing effort into getting employees interested in working at our resort.

As we do, we face headwinds around the perception in the media of ski jobs being lots of work for little pay, or not enough work to get by, or not enough pay to afford rent, or decent pay but terrible housing, etc. There are pretty stiff hurdles at times, but the question I keep asking is this:

Are we doing enough? Do the positives in our HR-related marketing outweigh the negatives these potential employees are hearing from friends and media outlets? Is it time to put more effort into marketing to future employees?

I have been very guilty many times of being asked to help market a job opening and my first thought being, “I don’t have time for that, I’ve got 100 other things to do,” so I totally get the knee jerk reaction to this. But I also want to highlight the same realization I’ve come to many times: these don’t have to be different things.

For example, I think of the coolest employee perks that could absolutely be used to attract seasonal employees is what Alta does with their end-of-season Alta Ski Area Employee Appreciation Day.

https://twitter.com/AltaSkiArea/status/1650637348319928321

The logistics of this may be tough to justify for some resorts if it’s just for employees as teams ramp up for summer, so consider an alternative version that goes down in Jackson Hole where 100-day passholders also get to come out and join the fun.

One of the great traditions around here: employee ski day. Guests with 100 days also get an invite. pic.twitter.com/k4EE8w08Y1

— Lift Blog (@liftblog) April 10, 2023

This bonus day both gives employees a cool, unique perk while also encouraging passholders to do something that will almost guarantee the likelihood of them renewing. In other words, this extra day drives valuable behavior for both the marketing team and the HR department.

Mission ridge blended the two as well with their video series called The Ridge where they blended the stories of employees with stories of the mountain in a way that could inspire both sides of this coin.

Again, my goal today is just to get the wheels turning.

Maybe you’re already doing some great employee-focused marketing, maybe not. Maybe you have hiring challenges, maybe you don’t. But as we move through this shoulder season through summer and then turn our focus toward another winter season, this might be a topic worth chewing on.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.