5 Ways to Manage your Hotel Staff | GraceSoft

Technology has become a valuable asset to operations and human resources teams everywhere. In fact, 88 percent of organizations surveyed said they plan to spend the same or more on HR tech. One of the greatest benefits of the various tools and apps now available is the ability to streamline otherwise tedious and inefficient processes. Here are a few ways to do exactly that with your business.

1. Online Portal for Onboarding

Onboarding is a long and tedious process for everyone involved, from hours of paperwork to reading, learning and attempting to take it all in. Technology, specifically an online portal that automates onboarding steps, makes this less time consuming and more manageable, both for HR staff and the new employees.

“These platforms are ... helping to assure managers and HR alike that new hires are hitting all the necessary benchmarks, while providing a much more consistent onboarding experience—especially for teams working in remote locations. It also helps to increase transparency, while streamlining communication between managers and new employees,” suggests Keith Ferrazzi of Harvard Business Review.

You can build a proprietary platform or use a product already available on the market. You may even be able to use one of the tools you already pay for and upgrade for access to similar onboarding features.

2. Easy Access Scheduling

Scheduling in a hotel can be a headache—especially for teams that work in multiple places. The restaurant, for example, may have employees that handle serving duties, in-house catering and on-site events. Not only is it a pain for the scheduler, but it can be challenging for employees to have their schedule on hand at all times.

Streamline this process with an online scheduling tool, most of which also come with a mobile app that employees can use to pull up their schedule at any time. Some extra features that will further streamline the process include:

• Ability to switch shifts within the app so employees don’t have to ask the scheduler to coordinate that or change the schedule. You may even be able to customize settings so any shift changes have to be approved. The scheduler would then get a notification asking to give the “yes” or “no.”

• Ability to request time off through the app. Instead of keeping track of an old notebook, your scheduler can simply login to the platform wherever he or she is and see who needs what time off and when.

• ADP, Quickbooks and other software integration options allow you to automatically see labor costs, overtime and other important data that affects the bottom line and is otherwise a pain to track manually or within a separate tool.

3. Real-Time Tracking for Drivers and Vehicles

Managing drivers on the road, like caterers or shuttle drivers, can be a challenge, much less knowing when each vehicle needs servicing and other regular maintenance and updates. Drivers and maintenance employees can keep track of this manually, sending in reports every day or each week, but GPS tracking technology will make it easier for everyone:

“A car tracking device gives you important data updates so you can always keep tabs on your personal or work vehicles,” explain experts at The Home Security Super Store. They continue, “In addition to location information, a GPS tracking device for your car also provides vehicle information related to maintenance and repairs. If you have a car tracking device in your fleet vehicles, you will know if a check engine light comes on, if you need to replace a battery or if repairs are needed.”

Install these on all hotel-owned vehicles so the department lead can easily login to the main account and see what each vehicle needs. This makes it easier to plan maintenance and scheduling time so you’ll never be down a vehicle at the last minute.

4. Document and Paperwork Management

The days of cutting down an entire tree to hire one employee are slowly fading away. With technology, you can manage everything online from W9’s to contracts. The key is to find or build a platform that you can both deploy and store all documents, allowing you to track the process from end-to-end. For example, with one new employee, you can send the paperwork that needs to be completed and then check the dashboard for updates on whether that paperwork has been submitted or not.

Some of the most popular HR software platforms have this built into their product, so if you like the program you’re using now, inquire about upgrading. There are a wide variety of platforms that solely facilitate document tracking, which can also be used company-wide. If you want to implement this streamlined process organizationally, that may be a good option as well.

5. Modern Employee Feedback

Employee feedback has always been important, and it seems to be growing in value for companies with each year. The 2017 Global Human Capital Trends report found that nearly 89 percent of executives rated employee experience as very important, with 22 percent of companies sending quarterly employee surveys and 79 percent doing it annually.

Technology makes the process of gathering and analyzing this feedback much easier. There are two types of tech tools to turn to for these processes, according to the report:

• Engagement and feedback apps: For surveying employees and analyzing results.
• Employee service platforms: Making it easier to provide general or project-specific feedback.

Start Doing More in Less Time

There are many ways to streamline staff management with technology, from soliciting and analyzing feedback to making scheduling easier on both staff and management. Use the tools you have, or invest in new platforms, to save time and money across your entire business.