“Wait, No Access to the P&L?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

You want to increase the profit margin at your hotel.?You want to hold your General Manager accountable and provide a bonus plan when they hit certain metrics. But you DON” T want them to have access to the financial statements?”

This was a conversation I had with a hotel owner the other day.?

He wanted to grow his portfolio and felt like he had a great manager that could take his hotels to new heights.?

But, he didn’t want them to give them access to the numbers.

I believe that to hold your team accountable they need to know where they stand.?For better or for worse they need to know where they are at and the financial statements provide that information.

Now, this owner did open up that he was afraid of opening up his control and being taken advantage of.?So, what it really came down to was a trust issue. He didn’t fully trust his team to make the best operational decisions and that was the obstacle we needed to talk through.?He wanted to support his GM but also wanted to tie the GM”s hand around his back as they weren’t sure of the details in how they were performing each month.?This put owner and GM in a hostile position.

So, I suggested that they only receive access to the Profit & Loss Statement. This is common practice as owners don’t necessarily want their GM’s to see balance sheet activity. The owner agreed and put a few metrics he wanted the GM to take note of when making operational decisions.

Do you know what happened?

Revenue Increased.?Expenses stayed constant.?The hotel made some incredible strides toward a healthier bottom line.?The GM was even happier because now they knew exactly what was needed and there, they stood in order to hit their goals and budget.?The GM also got a nice bonus for turning the hotel around.?And it all started with just a little access to the hotel’s numbers.

If you are not giving your hotel leaders and department heads access to at least their department’s numbers, you are leaving a lot of money on the table.??