A hotel director of human resources hires and onboards for a property that never closes, from room attendants and cooks to lifeguards and night auditors. They keep pay, leave and safety practices legal, and they coach managers before anyone is written up or let go.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
The Director of Human Resources staffs a hotel that never closes. You'll recruit and onboard for every department, keep employment practices legal, run benefits, leave and workers' compensation, handle investigations and discipline, and teach managers to schedule and pay people correctly. Seasonal peaks and large groups make hiring a year-round job.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Plan hiring for each department from the staffing guide and seasonal forecast, and fill positions before peak periods.
Run onboarding: offer letters, I-9 verification, background checks where your policy requires, and first-week training.
Keep the handbook, required postings and practices current with federal, state and local employment law.
Investigate complaints of harassment, discrimination or misconduct, and document the outcome.
Manage benefits enrollment, leave requests and workers' compensation claims, including return-to-work plans.
Train managers on interviewing, discipline, documentation and wage-and-hour rules for tipped and hourly staff.
Run the safety committee and track injury trends in housekeeping, laundry, kitchen and engineering.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Screen applicants and set interviews for open positions.
Meet employees with questions about pay, benefits, schedules or problems at work.
Review new injury reports and file claims within [your carrier's] deadline.
Coach managers on attendance, write-ups and terminations before they act.
Check new hires, rate changes and separations before payroll closes.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Time to fill open positions: [your target].
Early turnover of new hires: [your target].
Employee turnover by department: [your target].
Workplace injury rate: [your target].
Employee engagement survey score: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[5+] years in human resources, with [2+] years leading HR for a hotel, resort or other round-the-clock operation.
Working knowledge of federal and [your state's] wage-and-hour, leave and tip credit rules.
Has run workplace investigations and written up the findings.
Uses [your HR and payroll system] for hiring, onboarding and employee records.
Bachelor's degree in human resources or business, or equivalent experience.
6. Preferred Experience
SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP or PHR certification.
Experience with a union contract, if your hotel is unionized.
Has run hiring for a hotel opening or a seasonal ramp-up.
Bilingual in English and [a language many of your employees speak].
7. Physical Requirements
Office work at a computer, plus walking every department and shift to meet staff where they work.
Stand for long periods at job fairs and new-hire orientations.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Weekday office hours, with some early, late or weekend visits so every shift can reach HR.
Handles confidential employee, medical and payroll records.
Local travel to job fairs, schools and workforce agencies.
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new director of human resources gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
Need help filling this role? HireBus posts the ad, Iris interviews every applicant by phone before you do, and you decide who to hire. Start hiring now
Hotel HR hires lifeguards, line cooks, night auditors and banquet servers for every shift. The rules change by job, by the worker's age and by state.
A short peak season may mean visa workers
A resort with a short busy season can fill part of it with H-2B workers, who come from abroad for temporary jobs outside farming. The Department of Labor must certify the need before the employer files with USCIS. The law allows 66,000 of these visas per fiscal year, half for jobs that start in each half of the year. By September 4, 2026, USCIS had received enough petitions to use up the first-half numbers for fiscal 2027. Source: USCIS: H-2B temporary non-agricultural workers.
Injury records go to OSHA online
Traveler accommodation, which takes in hotels and resorts, is on OSHA's list of industries that file injury records online. A hotel that employed 100 or more people at any point last year, part-time and seasonal staff included, sends in its Form 300 log and 301 reports by March 2, along with the 300A summary. Logging each case as it happens beats rebuilding a year of records in February. Source: OSHA: 29 CFR 1904.41, electronic submission of injury and illness records.
Guests can be the harassers
Room attendants, servers and bartenders work close to guests all shift. EEOC rules say an employer may answer for a guest who sexually harasses its staff if its managers were aware of it, or should have been, and failed to act quickly and properly. HR gives staff a simple way to report a guest and makes sure managers act the same day. Source: 29 CFR 1604.11: Sexual harassment (Cornell LII).
Some states require panic buttons and training
In Washington, hotels must hand a panic button to every housekeeper, room service attendant or security guard who works alone. They must also train managers and those workers on harassment and on responding to an alert. The employer documents the training and keeps records of the buttons' purchase and use, ready for the state on request. HR usually owns that paperwork. Not every state has a rule like this, so check yours. Source: Washington RCW 49.60.515: Panic buttons, harassment policy and training.
Teens work the pool and the kitchen
Federal rules let a 15-year-old with an American Red Cross or similar lifeguard certificate guard a pool or water park, but a lake or ocean beach needs guards of at least 16. Staff aged 14 and 15 can stay until 9 p.m. only in summer, from June 1 until Labor Day, and 18 hours at most in a school week. Power meat slicers are off limits under 18, cleaning included. Where state law is stricter, it wins. Source: U.S. DOL Fact Sheet #43: Child labor provisions for nonagricultural occupations.
How much hotel directors of human resources make
The closest BLS group for hotel directors of human resources is human resources managers. Human resources managers who work for hotels, resorts, and motels earned a median of $122,980 a year ($59.13 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s below the $149,280 median for human resources managers in all industries. About 2,410 of the 220,660 human resources managers in that survey work for hotels and resorts.
Salaried. When there is a bonus, it often sits in the same yearly plan as the other department heads: the hotel's results, plus HR goals such as having the peak-season roster hired and trained on time.
Hotels and resorts
$122,980$122,980 median Middle half $94,960–$158,300 10th–90th $77,670–$195,170
All industries
$149,280$149,280 median Middle half $111,110–$199,290 10th–90th $88,200–$267,810
$50k$100k$150k$200k$250k$300k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Hotels and resorts
$77,670
$94,960
$122,980
$158,300
$195,170
All industries
$88,200
$111,110
$149,280
$199,290
$267,810
BLS groups hotels, resorts and motels as traveler accommodation. Post a real range for your market in the ad.
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Has led HR for a hotel, resort or other operation that runs around the clock
Catches a wrong tip credit, overtime rate or leave rule before payroll runs
Runs a fair investigation and writes findings that hold up later
Hires in volume without lowering the bar for lifeguards, security or drivers
Talks plainly with a room attendant, a chef and an owner on the same day
Teach these on the job
Your staffing guide and seasonal hiring calendar
Your union contract, if you have one
Your brand's or management company's HR policies
Your workers' compensation carrier's claim steps
Which jobs your policies tie to a lifeguard certificate or alcohol server training
Hourly hiring at a hotel often runs through an app built for it, such as Harri. It feeds a payroll and HR platform like UKG, ADP or Paycom, and the time clocks department heads use. Ask candidates how applicants apply and finish new-hire forms on a phone, since many do it all there.
Hotel director of human resources interview questions
They have their own page: 6 questions that test this job, what strong and weak answers sound like, and a work exercise to run with your finalists.
Hiring and turnover follow the season, so judge this June against last June, not against May.
Time to fill open positions
Track it by department and by season, since a cook hired in May and one hired in August are different problems. Note how many seasonal jobs were still open on the pool's opening weekend.
Early turnover of new hires
New hires who leave before their first review, divided by everyone hired in the same period. Compare by hiring source and by manager to find where poor matches start.
Employee turnover by department
Separations divided by average headcount for each department over the past twelve months. Report quits and firings on separate lines, and leave out seasonal jobs that ended when planned.
Workplace injury rate
Recordable cases on the OSHA 300 log against hours worked, using OSHA's incidence rate formula. Review it each month by department with the safety committee.
Employee engagement survey score
Translate the survey into the languages your staff read and give hourly staff paid time to take it on shift. Report results by department and shift, then tell staff what you changed.
Career path
HR coordinatorRuns applicant flow, orientation days and new-hire paperwork.
HR managerHandles employee relations and hiring at one hotel.
Director of Human ResourcesLeads HR, safety and benefits for the whole property.
Area or regional HR directorSets policy and takes the hard cases for several hotels.
Can a resort hire international students for the summer?
Yes, through the State Department's J-1 Summer Work Travel program, by working with a designated sponsor that vets the job. Participants are full-time students at colleges abroad, and the program lasts up to four months. Sponsors can't place them in jobs worked mostly between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., or in jobs driving vehicles that need a license, so night audit and valet parking are out.
How much does a hotel director of human resources make?
Human resources managers who work for hotels, resorts, and motels earned a median of $122,980 a year ($59.13 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $94,960 and $158,300 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and bonus terms.
Can a hotel require servers to share tips with cooks and dishwashers?
Federal law allows it only when the hotel claims no tip credit, and every worker sharing the pool gets the full federal minimum wage in direct pay before tips. With a tip credit, only staff in jobs that are regularly tipped can share, such as servers, bussers, bellhops and service bartenders. Managers and supervisors are barred from any share of it. State law may add limits, so HR should read it before writing the policy.
How can HR reach staff who work nights and weekends?
Hold office hours one early morning and one late evening each week, and walk the overnight shift now and then. Post how to reach HR in the break room and the laundry, in the languages your staff read. A text line helps with quick questions, but a complaint about a manager deserves a face-to-face meeting.
Does a hotel HR director need SHRM or PHR certification?
The template lists SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP or PHR as preferred, so treat it as a plus rather than a gate. A candidate who has taken hotel HR through a seasonal ramp-up, a union contract or an opening may help you more than one with a new credential and no hotel time.
