There are many teams – and individuals within those teams – that keep a hotel running smoothly from day to day. The foundation of their collective success begins with effective scheduling by leadership to ensure all key duties are completed. Inefficiencies or staff shortages due to scheduling gaps can significantly impact a hotel’s ability to accomplish tasks and ensure a pleasant guest experience. Poor scheduling also often impacts the employee experience and can cause burnout among understaffed teams working overtime to pick up the slack.
Considerations when Creating a Staff Schedule
Most scheduling is handled on the departmental level, but it’s important that team leaders learn to balance the needs of the team (and organization) with the needs of individual contributors (employees). When it comes to business needs, much of that can be determined via proper demand forecasting. At some point, all hotels experience unexpected slow periods as well as upticks in business they hadn’t prepared for. However, much of the demand in the lodging industry is cyclical and can be somewhat predicted using historical data. Because of this, it’s critical for managers to accurately record this data daily and bring a strategic eye when it comes to utilizing it to ensure the team is fully staffed at all times.
Along with demand, leaders must fully understand each individual’s needs in terms of scheduling and ensure alignment with those anytime someone new comes on board. Sometimes, employee availability changes over time. Managers who check in regularly with each team member (through 1-1s) can stay current on their capacity to perform their role and use that to schedule accordingly.
The Need for Flexibility & Dynamic Leadership
Hotel staff schedules should be created and communicated to the team at least a few weeks in advance. However, keeping a dynamic leadership approach means managers can adjust schedules if needed to account for unexpected changes in demand or staff availability.
Keeping an open line of communication with team members means discovering these changes more quickly. The loss of even one person on a shift can significantly impact the workload and success of the rest of the team. So, having extra time to sort out solutions is key.
Cross-Training Employees Increases their Capacity to Contribute
Cross-training hotel staff is beneficial for many reasons, but one of the biggest is the increase in their capacity to serve the team (or different teams) when needed. When an individual can fill one of many roles, it’s easier to build effective schedules than when an organization’s employees are only trained in one area or position. Cross-training offers the added benefit of empowering employee growth – something that is critical for retaining strong team members.
It’s important to build cross-training opportunities into normal operations – versus waiting until a role unexpectedly needs to be filled. A short-staffed shift isn’t the place for leaders to have to train employees on new responsibilities. Taking a proactive approach to doing so ensures when the time comes – those individuals are already prepared to step in.
Manual Scheduling vs. Software Supported Efforts
In years past, schedules were often drawn up via pen and paper. While few hotels still utilize this approach, most rely on either digital schedules in spreadsheet form or utilize HR or hotel management software. Spreadsheet scheduling can be effective with close attention to detail – especially for those hotels with smaller technology budgets. However, technological advancements have made scheduling software more affordable than in years past and the norm among hotel operators for several reasons.
Software applications greatly reduce the inevitable human error during the scheduling process through built-in tools to catch things like duplicate entries and overlapping shifts. These applications also house all relevant employee information – making it easy to reach out to individuals in times of scheduling needs or questions.
As technology advances, so do the automation capabilities of HR software. More and more tasks can be automated via established triggers and historical data analysis. Scheduling is becoming a more hands-off effort for hotel managers, and it will be interesting to see how this continues to evolve over the next several years.
Current Hotel Management Opportunities in the Extended Stay Industry
Scheduling is just one responsibility of those in leadership positions within the hotel industry. Other responsibilities like employee training, budgeting, and inventory management round out these management roles. Does all of that sound appealing? Then a role in hotel management might be in your career trajectory. Often, the most qualified management candidates are those with prior experience as an individual contributor in a hotel setting as well as some exposure to the administrative tasks mentioned above.
Our jobs database is full of team and organizational leadership positions at our nearly 50 extended stay locations across the country. Additionally, entry-level and flexible positions exist for those just looking to enter the industry and/or explore a new career path. All job seekers – no matter their experience level – can search and apply for roles easily with the confidence of knowing the Westmont Hospitality Group continues to be the employer of choice in the extended stay industry. With a commitment to employee empowerment and relevant training opportunities to propel career growth, there is no better choice for those looking to grow. We encourage interested job seekers to check out our current opportunities and reach out to our HR department with any questions.