The hospitality industry is currently facing a major challenge with staff shortages. Hotels in Australia and the United States are already struggling to recruit, and such difficulties are spreading to Europe as the continent reopens after a winter of lockdowns.
Operations managers need to ensure they are running effective teams, despite working with leaner numbers in the workforce and essentially work smarter, not harder. Teams need to be working efficiently so that they are doing more with less during these challenging times. For those who are already working in the industry, boosting productivity should be one of the key priorities to help offset the challenges of hiring new talent.
Innovative technology in operations, automation and outsourcing can now enable hotels to do much more with less, relieving overstretched teams and increasing profits. In this blog we want to outline our top three tips to help boost your team’s productivity.
Throw away your pen and paper
Too many hotels still use pen and paper to manage their housekeeping. Time is wasted going backwards and forwards checking rooms, communicating with colleagues, and recording everything manually. And of course, mistakes can easily be made through this manual process, costing more time and money.
Operations technology makes this process much more efficient and manageable even when staff levels are back to normal. For example, Optii Housekeeping uses intelligent AI to track and optimize room attendant routes, centralize operations for full visibility and improve team performance, and much more. It is about working smarter not harder, getting more out of staff without piling on the pressure.
Streamline tasks with automation
The best way to improve productivity is of course automation. Machines cannot replace the human touch in housekeeping or turn a room over, but there is a lot they can do to help boost productivity and provide a helping hand for your team.
Implementing technology to help communicate and assign jobs is crucial when operating with a lean team. With Optii Service you can auto-assign jobs, guest requests and cut internal phone calls and Optii Chat allows for real time communications that automatically reach all the right members of the team. It can even automatically translate messages into colleagues’ own language. Labor optimization helps to improve productivity by 25% and reduces manual communication by up to 60% so is a no brainer when it comes to operating in this new normal. Optii Housekeeping also provides consistency of brand standards during these times of change, it enables interval cleans and repurposes supervisors so they can feel empowered to complete self-inspections.
Invest in the right solution for your business
Each hospitality business, whether a boutique or chain of hotels has their own set of requirements for daily operations. We have spoken before about the metrics which can be useful for most operations managers to monitor but when it comes to investing in a technology solution it is essential to make sure it suits the needs of your teams and guests.
Hotel operations have changed since 2020 and operations managers are playing catch up to get their teams prepared and trained in the new protocols whilst ensuring they are providing the best guest experience.
At Optii we take great pride in ensuring the success of your team and we know that the real questions come days, even weeks after implementation. Just like Amazon and WhatsApp we use intuitive UI to help create the best user experience. Through our Success Coaching we are committed to ongoing coaching that generates lasting results and our team is available 24/7 for support, something which is critical when training new team members and new protocols.
We hope these tips can be of use to your business, and if you’re interested in Optii’s products, book a free demo today.
