To minimise costs, a high proportion of hotel staff is fresh hospitality graduates, non-hospitality-based employees and interns. This, without a proper training procedure and the understaffing situation, really leaves the hotel insiders in a lot of impossible cases.
Both external and internal reasons are involved in this problem of Royal Plaza Montreux & Spa. When the high-position people do not have a hospitality background, even though they are totally among the top of their skills, they tend not to understand the clients’ points of view and needs from a five-star hotel. I have done whatever it takes, asking for advice from the department managers, collaborating with other departments to smoothen the procedures and always keeping a positive attitude to face guests’ requests and questions. “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” The outcome would be different in case the way the owner runs the hotel would change.
The professionalism has to be maintained at any time within the guests’ view. However, in the back of the house, the entire team calls itself “a dream” as we have one another’s back, we are always there for one another, and our contact is always available for any help, even from home. Being understaffed, it is partly understandable with the idea of minimising costs, however, reduces the effectiveness and services quality of the hotel to clients. If I were able to make decisions, I would strengthen the existing team first by training and introducing better procedures, rules and regulations before recruiting more new people, so that when they arrive, the whole system works with no confusion, not like from the situation I had to face at my own arrival to this hotel.
Moreover, democratic leadership should be considered and applied. I do agree that the decision should be made only by the authorised people. Nevertheless, the staff’ voices should also be listened to and taken into consideration carefully, since they are the ones who face the guests directly and they understand clearly what guests really want for their stay at the establishment. Because of the organism and different experiences, I still defend my perspective of the centralism of an organisation so that its growth and image is kept consistently.
To be more detailed, the management board prefers that the Front Office department does not do anything out of our strict responsibilities, even though many front officers were trained in other departments before. The bar next to the front desk is open, but due to understaffing, room service has to take care of the bar some of the time. Not to mention, room service has only one person a day, and their work is the two-floor distance from the bar/desk. That is decided by the management. In
case guests are waiting just for a coffee or to settle the bills, the team of Front Office which can be up to eight individuals at the time and having a lot of flexibility, we can only tell the guests to wait for room service to come, or being criticised by our wrong moves.
In conclusion, a significant and decent total change can be encouraged. Guests choose a five-star hotel primarily for its services at a reasonable price. Why keep a 4.5-star price for a 5-star name but not even-2-star services?
29.10.2018
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