A Hotel Manager and Successful Change

While every Hotel Manager tries to make changes, not all Hotel Managers utilize “Change Management”.

Change Management is the process of ensuring that the change actually works because it has the intended effect and Hotel employees effectively adopt the new way of working.

Of the increasing number of Hotel Managers utilizing Change Management, fewer still properly gather data on the process to see if it is going as intended.

Perhaps the easiest way to think about measuring Change Management is to view your employees as internal Hotel Guests. It helps to think of employees as Hotel Guests. Hotel Guest experience teams evaluate the customer journey before, during, and after the experience of a product or service.

Similarly, Hotel Change Management teams must assess the employee journey before, during, and after the implementation of a change in their Hotel.

As with everything, Hotel Change Management teams must start with defining?Why?you are wanting to make this change in the Hotel. Many Hotel changes fail before they begin. Why? Often, because no reason has been provided for the change that needs to be made.

No matter how good a Hotel Manager or Leader and no matter how good the new process, system, or platform may be, you need a clearly defined purpose.

Perhaps there are two major reasons why you need to establish the “Why” of any Hotel change prior to it beginning. Firstly, give Employees A Reason to Care. Receiving a paycheck is not enough incentive for people to care about a change. Establish a specific vision.

Secondly, set a Goal so you can Track Your Progress. If you want to know if you’ve reached your target, you first need to set a target so you know what you are aiming for. It’s impossible to know if you’ve successfully implemented “Change X” unless you know exactly what that means.

What will the Hotel look like after Change X is in place? How will your current processes have changed? What will workflows look like after things have changed?

It’s easy to say, “We want Hotel’ sales to go up”. Every Hotel wants that.

Rather, you shouldn’t implement Change X solely because you want sales to go up. That is likely to make employees feel less valued and even more overworked. Instead, you should implement Change X because it will increase efficiency. It may do this by reducing unnecessary workload and creating a more effective workflow.

How to Measure the Success of Change Management at the Organizational Level. Not all changes are Hotel-wide. However, the biggest, most difficult and impactful ones usually are.

What does success look like? The first criteria to determine if a change is successful is to check if?all?employees are following the new rule or using the new system. The important reminder is that all Hoteliers, regardless of department or title are following the new rule.

Who will tell you if they’re happy or unhappy with the change? A survey is an easy way to get vital questions out to everyone at the same time.

Good metrics for measuring change include speed of work, adherence to a timeline and Return on Investment. Does it allow more autonomy, simplify manual decisions, or maximize efficiency so profits are more likely to increase? Perhaps it improves the customer experience and/or increases customer retention?

Your Hotel employees. All of them. Listen to them. It is vital for you to gather feedback from your employees and make real, tangible changes based on the results.