It is very easy to get comfortable in your work environment and begin to “miss” things you probably would have caught just a few weeks ago. As in anything, the more you are subject to something, the less you pay attention to things. Suddenly, you are walking by a piece of trash on the floor or fail to notice a few smudges on a public space window.
This rings true in every department throughout the hotel. Banquet managers miss stains on the carpet in the same way housekeeping managers miss a mold spot in the bathroom. Managers basically see the same thing day in and day out, so these little things start to blend in with everything else… then the appearance of the property beings to slide.
Going Outside of the Department Will Help
One of the easiest ways to fix this problem is by getting a fresh set of eyes outside the department to do an inspection. The best time to do this is after you have done your travel path and made your notations about things that need to be addressed. Compare your notes to someone from a different department that has done the same tour to see what you have missed.
Now, I know what you are saying… I am not going to give a manager from another department the opportunity to bash my department. I understand, believe me, I have been in those shoes. The way to make this work is for it to be reciprocal.
For instance, when I first started in the hotel industry, I worked as a banquet manager for Hilton. I became friends with the housekeeping manager, who was also fairly new to the property. After about a month, we were both having lunch one day and discussing how we had both been ripped by our respective bosses over some, at least what we considered to be, minor cleanliness issues in our respective departments.
It wasn’t so much that we got in trouble, it was the fact that we both missed things we had both seen prior and knew needed to be addressed. The problem for both of us was that we had seen the same issue so many times, but hadn’t had the time, at least that was our excuse, to address the issue. So, as we did our property tours again and again, THAT problem failed to get documented because we KNEW it was there.
So, you know where this is going… eventually, we simply forget about these smaller issues and failed to get our respective staff to address the issue. Then, when the bosses did their property tour, the dreaded call to the boss’ office came.
The way we fixed this was to every week tour each other’s department on the first day of our work week. So, on Tuesday morning, I would not only do my own property tour but also do a travel path through housekeeping as well as inspect a couple of rooms that were hanging. Then, we would both exchange our travel path sheets and without fail, we both founds things in each other’s department that we had not seen on our own.
Doing this not only helped us as department heads, but also helped in the relationship between departments. My staff came to know him much better as did his staff with me. Without realizing it, we were starting to create a working relationship with another department that benefitted both of us. When one was overly busy, we would lend a hand or help address the issues for the other manager with our own staff. We were actually looking out for each other rather than just trying to cover our own butt. More importantly, our staff members started looking out for each other.
The key to this whole relationship, though, was in creating an atmosphere of cooperation rather than “tattling.” We kept the reports amongst ourselves and our staff did the same. When someone spotted something, it was not about getting someone in trouble, it was about fixing the problem so the operation looked and ran better. We not only pointed out the issue but also offered to help fix the issue if possible.
Fresh eyes… they will do wonders for any hotel operation.
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Photo By diego_cervo