Suburban Hotel Chain

Case Study 1 - HADM 4800, Fall Semester 2012

Situation:

You are a May 2012 graduate and have just been hired as an entry-level manager with a suburban hotel chain. Your property has 250 rooms, three meeting rooms (capacity of 50 per room which the ability to combine two meeting rooms) and a small casual coffee bar with limited grab-n-go, premade breakfast, lunch and snack items.

Your position is PM Front Desk Manager. The General Manager is over three other properties outside I-285 and spends approximately 2 days per week at your property. You report to the AM Front Desk Manager who also serves as the Assistant General Manager. At night, it is you and two to three Desk Agents. You are also over the night staff of two PBX employees, one guest service (bell attendant) employee who can also work the desk as needed. Reservations are handled by the front desk but most are handled online or through a central reservation location in another state.

When you were hired, the General Manager outlined three goals that you will primarily be evaluated on in six months and thereafter annually:

1) Get the guest satisfaction index to at least 8.5 for the check-in experience. Most check-ins occur on your shift since the check-in time is 3:00 PM. The guest satisfaction index currently is 7.9 which is comparable to a C grade.

2) The percentage of guests refuting charges or asking that items be "comped" or their charges adjusted because of dissatisfaction has been higher than the other properties in this chain. The goal is to reduce refuted charges by 10%.

3) There has been turnover at the front desk particularly on the night shift. The goal is to stabilize the front desk staff, particularly on the 3:00 PM – 11:30 PM shift. Specifically, the GM wants to retain the existing staff (who she personally hired and thinks have very good potential). The average tenure of the staff is 6 months although one of the employees has been there for over a year.

In college, you worked as a front desk agent so you know the technical skills. You are not overly impressed with the condition of the hotel from visiting it on three separate occasions, but with the job market still shaky, you accepted the position. It was a salaried position, starting at $40,000 and you saw growth with the chain which has larger and nicer properties in other parts of Atlanta and outside of Atlanta as well.

You are now on the job 3 months. You have worked numerous shifts with each employee and you regularly hold pre-shift and departmental meetings to keep everyone informed of hotel and departmental information. Overall, you are enjoying your position because of the opportunity to build your managerial skills. There are concerns, however. For the first couple of weeks, you could not pinpoint the dynamics of the department and the overall hotel operation specifically. After three months, this is what you have surmised:

1) The hotel is in disrepair particularly in the guest rooms. There are problems with properly cooling the rooms so complaints are frequent about hot rooms. These, of course, go directly to the front desk. There is one engineer who is shared with a nearby property in the chain. The engineer responds and does what he can but he has told you repeatedly that the problem is major and a new system is needed to remedy the constant complaints. You only wonder what the heating system will be like when winter and cold weather approaches. There are also sound issues that will be hard to correct because the property is near a major interstate.

2) There are cleanliness issues. While the lobby is very presentable, the guest floors are dingy and unclean. The lobby is cleaned by a hotel employee who does a very good job. While there is an onsite housekeeping manager, the employees are outsourced and provided by an agency. Guest complaints are frequent about the bathrooms not being clean, trash found under the beds, dust in the rooms and spotted, soiled carpet (another capital expense that is needed for the hotel in replacing carpet throughout.) While you have had a few conversations with the housekeeping manager about the guest complaints, she is absolutely unresponsive. The employees, she maintains, are the best that can be hired for the wages offered and that, with the overall aging condition of the building, they do the best they can do. You realize new soft goods are needed, carpet, bedspreads, linen and terry are needed, but the complaints are also directly targeted at poor cleaning (dust, bathroom scum, etc.).

3) You get absolutely no direction from your immediate supervisor, the AM Front Office Manager/Assistant General Manager. While you had expected that he would spend some time on the PM shift at the desk or, at least, meet with you on a regular basis, this has not happened. There is a weekly staff meeting with you, the AM Front Office Manager, the GM, Housekeeping Manager and Lobby Bar Manager but that is the extent of your interaction. You have offered to come in early and meet with him but he always says he is too busy because he has to do work for the GM, run errands for her and do things for the other properties.

4) Regarding the