Advances in back-of-house technology are revolutionising hotel management by streamlining processes and improving efficiencies, which can ultimately lead to an improved guest experience.
This has been brought about by the move to cloud software, along with SaaS-based pricing and very cost-effective smart phones. This means that each team member can now have all the information and tools that they need to carry out their role in the palm of their hand.
Solutions such as Workflow Management (guest requests, maintenance requests and housekeeping), along with Employee Communication and Engagement and Intelligent Purchasing and Accounts Payable, can streamline hotel operations. At the same time, they play a pivotal role in reducing the time spent on repetitive tasks, freeing up hotel staff to focus on more personalised guest interactions.
Let’s take a closer look at the three areas mentioned and how back-of-house technologies can help improve on both efficiency and guest and team experience:
Workflow management
Housekeeping solutions can help increase staff productivity, reduce labour costs, and improve the guest experience. When interfaced with a Property Management System (PMS), the system can generate workflow schedules which staff can access via their smartphone, eliminating paperwork. By allowing staff to see their next job, check on room statuses and log when they start and finish the cleaning of a room, a room’s cleaning progress can be viewed in real-time. Supervisors are also automatically alerted once rooms are cleaned and need to be inspected. These solutions can also include checklists and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), which can be graphical. This can be extremely helpful for new staff, allowing them to quickly and easily see what the room presentation should look like, ensuring consistent standards and a better guest experience.
Team Communication and Engagement
Effective communication and engagement amongst associates is essential in providing top-notch guest experiences. A cloud-based internal communications platform for sharing information and providing secure business messaging is now a must have.
It’s critical that the solution can reach every employee, not only managers with a company email address. All too often, the team that works in housekeeping or food and beverage doesn’t have access to digital information and is forced to reply on a noticeboard or something similar.
With the right solution, all team members can get real-time company notifications and send instant messages to teammates on the go via a mobile device. It’s also important that only the relevant people receive the right messages. I have seen cases where many team members “switch off” as they are constantly getting information that is not relevant to them. Security is also imperative and General Managers need control over users to ensure sensitive information is not shared with team members who are no longer working at the hotel.
Intelligent Purchasing and Accounts Payable
Financial processes in hospitality can become very complex, involving management of multiple locations on top of multiple suppliers and departments as well as manual approval processes. As a result, a lot of time is spent on reporting, reconciling supplier statements and other end-of-month tasks. A cloud-based solution that automates purchasing and accounts payable can solve these problems as it automates procurement processes from purchase order creation to inventory and supplier management.
By streamlining operations, improving staff collaboration and employee engagement, hotels can harness the power of technology to create a seamless guest journey.