New Year’s Resolutions for Hoteliers

When you are a Hotelier it’s pretty hard to separate your personal life from your Hotel. Especially if you are a boutique hotel owner which means, you will probably not have a large management team to take care of everything and thus you are much more involved in your hotel’s daily operation. This could apply to any Business Owner though, even outside Hospitality. But in Hospitality it is a bit more vivid. Probably because Hotels are open 24-7 and they resemble a lot to a living being with character, needs and daily troubles. They are places where you can find the maximum interaction between people and the building.

For all the above reasons and many more, Hoteliers certainly include their Hotel(s) in the New Year’s Resolutions. They can have aspirations for renovations or expansions or new services and products, or new partnerships or new/more resources and certainly higher sales and revenue. It is not usual to include resolutions that have to do with the improvement of your company culture or your processes or the recurring problems in your organization.

They may seem tiny, innocent challenges that maybe somebody else (Your Hotel Manager) can solve, because this is his/her job. And I would agree with you if we are talking for a large organization, with a complete organizational chart and totally clear roles and responsibilities and if you have mostly the role of investor and not operational involvement. But if you don’t, then you are part of the problem and the solution at the same time.

Those tiny, innocent challenges are bigger than you think. Those tiny challenges are the gravels in your shoes. You have to take them off in order to run. Those tiny challenges are part of your hotel’s self-awareness and past trauma. You have to face them and deal with them, in order that you move forward stronger and healthier. It can be harder to detect them and much more time consuming and it could also be painful but it is certainly worth. Your growth starts from inside and there is a huge potential for your hotel, once you clear up all your obstacles and gravels in your shoes.

Therefore, for 2023 try to include in your resolutions some of the below:

·??????To review all your processes one by one and clarify what you do, when you do them, why you do them, who is in charge, what is the outcome of that process and what is the impact, what are the resources you need. Find delays in your processes and eliminate them where possible. Find complexity and repetitive actions with no reason and make them lean – simple and easy for your people to understand and execute.

·??????To give solutions to recurring problems. Ask your team what they are facing again and again and it hasn’t been solved for months or years and give an end to it.

·??????To review and optimize your cost centers in your systems. Do they give you quick and clear results in order that you make easier and wiser decisions? Or they seem more like a bucket and you or your team needs days to further research multiple excels, in order to find out what is going on?

·??????To create SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-based) goals for all your departments or team members where possible. This will give your team autonomy, confidence and accountability. And you will have time to breath and take care of other strategic parts of your organization, instead of having everyone asking your permission for every single thing.

·??????To define and communicate to your team your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). How do you measure success in your organization? What are the indicators you search in order to make sure that the goals were achieved. And where – in which part of your system (PMS, BI, RMS etc.) – you ?are looking for in order to extract these indicators. It may be combinable sources but you should know. And your team should know as well.

·??????To find out why people are leaving from your organization and give them reasons to stay. Especially, when the problem is detected in a specific department. It could be a toxic manager, it could be lack of resources, it could be shortage of staff and thus excess workload, it could be a matter of compensation and benefits, it could be a combination or other factors but you should find them and break that unhealthy cycle.

·??????To create your company values if you haven’t done already and make sure you communicate them with your team. In addition, make sure your team applies them in daily operation – but first of all make sure you apply them and be their best example.

·??????To have your storages tidied up. It is unimaginable what somebody can find in hotel storages. Guests’ forgotten items, old equipment that no longer is used, aged furniture, decoration items and machines and the list could be longer. Why are you keeping all these things? Sell them or give them away to charity organizations or your employees if they want them.

All I want to say is that there is a huge potential in the power that comes from within your organization. A healthy culture, clear goals, lean processes and efficient amount of information and communication are extremely powerful tools to grow and thrive. And you already have them somewhere inside your organization. All you need to do is to find them and make them work best for you!