Intra Company Interview Downfalls

                    This focuses on what happens often when an applicant is brought in for an interview as the primary, and then what happens when the decision is made to not go with the candidate.

                    The property uses the same management company, so this would have been intra-company. After a few phone interviews they flew him out to Boston. This was for a stated Director of Front Office position. The interview goes well. Even after phone calls and tracking, no call or word for two weeks.

When the call comes through they offer him a Supervisor position. One step back from the position he currently held!! A few weeks later the same position pops up again on their career boards.

•                     If you don't like someone for the position, tell them why. I realize from an H.R. standpoint, that may be tricky. Direct them toward what they need to do to achieve that position at the least. This was intra company! You want to maintain this person as an excellent possibility!

                    Look what just happened. You flew him out for a meet and greet. Then he waits 2 weeks only to receive a lower position offer? The credibility of that property, and the management company itself just took a huge dive. Not just with him, but anyone else he speaks to.

   
How much demonstrable talent and background do you think exists out there especially when they are masters of your specific brand??

                 
                    Whereas before he was a staunch ally of a particular brand, now he is exploring other options. You just lost a terrific, well educated, well referenced mover. Companies that do not recognize value especially ones that already exist within their management sphere, lose them. Until properties realize this, they will continue to blow money on turnaround and continue to drive excellence elsewhere.

Staff Meetings: Successful? Needed?

                    At one of my previous properties we had a staff meeting. During the meeting, one of the associates had her head on her hand. She was completely bored and disinterested. It didn't occur to me until much later, that the meeting itself was that boring and completely unnecessary. We got nothing accomplished that couldn't have been handled differently, and without 2 hours!

• Ask yourself if you really need a staff meeting. Maybe you just need a better challenge identification and resolution plan.
• If your department closes at a certain time, than it is much easier to have everyone together. With a set and adhered to minutes and format, a staff meeting may work very well with that model. 
• Positions like the front office, which never close pose a serious logistical challenge. Why not use your pre shift lineups? Is this information both shifts need to have? Do these items pertain to all or a specific shifts? There should be an ongoing challenge/solution board where everyone can add their input and within a certain timeframe, is solved.

• A front office meeting is created, set, cancelled, and rescheduled.
• Herein lies the problem. If you don't have the information enough to schedule a date and stick to it, you're in trouble. Get a consensus first. Don't waste paper reprinting posts for the office. The more you change the date makes the date and the event itself seem unimportant.

• Schedule the meeting on a day that the most people are already working on.
• Staff meetings should be a desirable thing. You don't want your 12 hour a day teammates having to come in for 2 hours on their day off. They won't be happy to be there.
• ASK.  On occasion you will find someone that doesn't mind because they have to be in the area anyway.

• Allow people to park on site.
• This is ridiculous when it doesn't happen. Why not show more contempt for your staff by making them park in a lot, or battle downtown traffic just to pay 10-20 dollars to park to come to your meeting. This is just stupid, and plain mean.

• Assign proper coverage.
• A GIANT morale killer: After the meeting and on shift, they have to go back and correct everything from the last 2 hours, and field complaints that nothing ran properly. Schedule proper, trained coverage during the meeting.

• Have food and beverage and do it right. Don't have your assistant pick up a pizza last minute.
• You ask people to come in on their day off. And besides that, your team is the reason you are there. Make it nice! This is an easy way to show appreciation. Have lunch set up. It doesn't have to be crazy. Nothing too filling. Some nice finger foods, hye rollers and whatnot. Why not use it as a chance to debut some of the restaurants new dishes? This is the worst with properties that have large food and beverage establishments. You go to a staff meeting and "oh look, a cookie" NO. Your people bust their butts and put up with a lot. The least you can do is feed them well.

• Keep it closed door.
• Remember the staff member that almost dozed off? This was during a point when the G.M. came in and launched into a 30 minute story about something completely irrelevant.
• People are already there on their day off. Be relevant, have the meeting, and get everyone on their way. Part of protecting morale is remembering people have a life outside of work.

• Remember why you are there.
• A staff meeting is not a giant question/answer session. The purpose of a staff meeting is not to figure things out. That is a brainstorming session. You are there to speak to the staff about new changes, procedures etcetera. A few questions can be taken, but prompt your staff to see you with specific questions for one on one sessions. This is so you know the information is communicated properly and with complete understanding, to the individual.
• You should have an ongoing challenges and problem solving forum with the staff where ideas and solutions are constantly being investigated and put into place within a certain time frame. A staff meeting is too difficult to arrange just to nail down specific issues.

Walking guests the proper way. Emergency!

                    If you find yourself in a situation where you need to walk someone pretty quick, here are some helpful tips.

• If you have an operator or a spare staff member, and it's not busy, ask them to do a call around.
• Try to find the best property for their walk rate closest to the rate the guest paid you, closest to your property.
• Make sure you are closed out with all ota's, booking engines and internal systems. Anything that sells rooms for you. Make sure everything is set to zero unless you want to play the wash game!!
• Try to do this the earliest you can.

• If you know ahead of time
• Look for single travelers. It's much easier.
•  A personal reach out to the guest will be warranted. Managers, don't make your agent handle it!

• One nights are the best. There are some upsides.
• Hopefully you got them a nice room equal to yours and close to things.
• They wont have to move.
• There are ample ways to salvage the situation. The degree and style with which you respond will be varied.

• For the Future.
• Download HotelTonight on your phone. Even though you may have a call around list, you can't call everyone. It'll tell you who has rooms left that night.
• Implement a cell phone number prompt in your operator script, online booking engine, OTA listings, etc. This is to insure moving forward we have that information and can place calls directly if needed.