Management of rooms division reflective portfolio

It is therefore of great importance to study and fully understand the dynamics of the management of rooms division to be able to offer services that attract customers and create value for the hotel. This reflective portfolio will discuss the lessons learned and knowledge acquired from week one to seven in the following areas of management of rooms division; front office management, housekeeping, effective communication, night audit, safety and security, facilities management and labour cost and staffing. Topic 1: Front Office Management The lectures on the first topic covering front office management shed a lot of light regarding the significance of front office to the hotel’s profitability and business sustainability. For instance, it was articulated that the front office serves as both the link among all departments of the hotel and is also the face of the hotel.

According to separate research, I gathered that the hospitality industry is essentially a service industry whose competitive advantage is derived from the impression that the services offered leave on the customers (Faisal, 2018). Lastly, the departure phase is exclusively the function of the front office and it involves taking feedback and recommendations from customers (Ali, 2016). Essentially, the lectures and further research helped me understand the weight I would give to the front office section as a manager given its revenue generation functions. As part of understanding duties as the manager of rooms division, I got to learn the significance of quality management of the front of office. The lectures and further inquiries helped me understand the link between guest satisfaction and employee satisfaction.

During the lectures, I got to learn that employees are actually customers and the difference from traduitiobnal customers is that employees are internal customers while guest are eternal customers. The front office is also responsible for coordinating financial reporting since the night auditor cannot operate without the input from the front office. In addition to the supervisory role that the front office plays, the marketing functions and diplomatic relations with other stakeholders as well prediction of business patterns are all functions of the front office. The bottom line therefore is that the rooms’ division management must give weight to front office in terms of labour and resources since it the front office that is responsible for the coordination of budget control and productivity, security, facility management and sustainability, health and safety as well as quality assurance (Faisal, 2018).

Topic 2: Executive Housekeeping From the lectures and personal experience, I gather that whereas the front office is the face of the hotel as covered in lecture topic one, housekeeping serves as the heart of the hotel. This is observably true because the actual stay experience in the guest cycle is dependent on the housekeeping department. This therefore brings in the concept of employee empowerment and internal customer satisfaction covered in topic one. Further, the lecture shed some significant light on the significance of technology in the management of rooms division. It was made quite apparent that implementation of technology in housekeeping has the potential of offering customized services to specific rooms in a more efficient fashion that avoids the inefficiencies that come with paper work.

In conjunction with what was covered in lecture one, I gathered that the housekeeping software harmonized with the rooms’ management system has the potential of eliminating delays and making the process of resource allocation more efficient (Devrim, Yilmaz, 2017). I therefore learned that to be an efficient functioning executive housekeeper, innovation through technological integration into housekeeping combined with employee empowerment brings quality to housekeeping thereby earning the hotel at hand competitive advantage through both internal and external customer satisfaction (Devrim, Yilmaz, 2017). For personal consumption, this explains the check-in procedure that some people might find unnecessary. What I found significantly interesting is the concept of outsourcing housekeeping services. Whereas the lecture provided reasons for and reasons against, my own impression is that hotels should have housekeeping staff to handle all the housekeeping services.

However, during the peak seasons where there is a high turnover of rooms, it is justifiable for the hotel to outsource housekeeping. Lastly, the topic covered the concept of sustainability of the hotel industry. Unlike before, it became clear to me that professional communication involves more than just receiving phone calls and sending emails. The lectures covered the art of professional email writing and it was quite interesting seeing how my email writing was marred by numerous errors and misconceptions. For instance, I gathered that professional email writing requires conciseness and simplicity in vocabulary. The simplicity of vocabulary made sense considering that the goal is to communicate not to show mastery of language (Scerri, Jenkins, Lovell, 2017). Body language was also covered and this proved quite relevant to the front office and housekeeping departments.

Listening ism also essential for the staff members of the rooms division considering the fact that guests often makes verbal or phone requests which they expect to be fulfilled. The quality of services offered by the front office and the housekeeping departments in part require the staff members to have good listening skills to improve on customer stay experience and overall satisfaction. As a rooms division manager, in addition to having effective communication skills, it is important that the manager trains the staff on effective communication as well (Ashton, 2018). The lectures further revisited the central that the front office plays in interdepartmental communication. In this, got to appreciate the link that interdepartmental communication plays in ensuring high quality services as well as efficiency in marketing and the sales department.

On the other side, operating assets include the daily supplies involved in the daily provision of services and whose expenses are incurred on a daily basis. Their budgeting is covered under the operating expenses budget (Patiar, 2016). Labour cost and staffing is a component of the operating expense budget (Prayag, Hosany, 2015). As the lectures indicated, the operating expenses budget is comprised of labour cost and controllable costs. Essentially therefore, to maximise on profits, management of the rooms division must optimise on labour costs and manage the other daily costs of doing business. It was established that the hospitality industry is regulated by the Federal Laws and that labour costs under employer and employee relations are governed by the enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA), which contains terms that an employer must fulfil and adhere to.

The last term of the EBA contains the labour cost requirements and sets a relative minimum wage making it quite essential for a hotel to work out other labour control measures that do not entail below average payment of the employees. The lecture to this effect covered some of the key ways of controlling labour costs and some of the controls included an optimal use of casual and part time labour, application and utilisation of labour only when necessary, adoption of a realistic employee motivation scheme and the avoidance of high employee turnover since new labour is expensive (Prayag, Hosany, 2015). Topic 5: Safety and Security The workshop and lecture on safety and security was quite instrumental as it highlighted the difference between safety and security.

The two are quite fundamental to the global tourism and hospitality in that they determine the trust that customers put on a facility and a region as a whole. Apparently, it is the front office that guests contact incise of any safety and security incidence and the front office serves as a link between the guest and the security department. This brings in the role of the security department in ensuring the safety and security of both staff and guests. The department is tasked with developing policies that mitigate upon emergencies and insecurity incidences. The design of the amenities, the staircase layout, lighting and bathroom flooring should be factored in while assessing security and safety of the hotel. Whereas security and safety is a function of the security department, the entire organization has a duty to ensure the overall safety of the internal and external stakeholders (Gnanapala, 2015).

Topic 6: Facilities Management Facility management refers to the maintenance of the grounds and buildings upon which hotels lay. As covered in the lecture, the objectives of facilities management include the maintenance of competitiveness with other hotels, ensure that there is return on investment for owners and contribute to profitability of the hotel. The competitive advantage as stated earlier is a function of customer satisfaction. It is only through satisfied guests that the hotel can earn good ratings and referrals and build and uphold its reputation (Javed, Cheema, 2017). Customer satisfaction on the other hand is subject to the quality of services offered and the state of the facilities including rooms. From the discussions, two types of maintenance were highlighted. These are reactive and preventive.

From a personal opinion, the risk assessment covered in topic 5 should be used to conduct regular preventive maintenance. This is reactive maintenance does not shield a hotel from losses that come with damages or poor facility state. On the other hand preventive maintenance ensures that the hotel stays at its best state and attracts guests thereby staying competitive. This explains why as I learned during the lecture, the night auditor must be a highly versatile individual. If asked earlier, I would simply say that the functions of the night auditor is to reconcile transactions of the rooms division. However, it dawned on me that the night auditor is responsible for the front office at night, communication, in house guest activity and review the departmental transactions for the day.

Financial tracking is very fundamental as it helps the hotel in evaluating the effectiveness of its marketing and sales strategies, verify the integrity of guest accounts as well as review the daily financial earnings (Manoharan, Singal, 2019). As explained in the topic, the night audit uses End of Day Sequence for the purposes of closing and balancing daily financial activities. The concept of no-shows justifies overbooking and the occupancy management policy. It is part of the night auditor’s responsibility to analyse the guaranteed reservations and workout the potential of no-shows based on the non-confirmed reservations and advice on the capacity of overbooking to provide cushion against losses that may be incurred from no-shows. While doing so, the night auditor applies the arithmetic potential for stay-ins, walk-ins and early departures.

The occupancy management formula therefore factors in all the boking aspects and in the event that the overbooking policy backfires, in an incident where every guest that makes a reservation shows up, the hotel must revoke the relocation clause where the affected guest is relocated to a hotel within 5 miles radius (Rahat, Kabir, 2018). However, there are scenarios where all hotels within the locality are fully booked. Given the knowledge gathered, I can comfortably say that I have more than just a clue as to how to manage the rooms division in a manner that creates value for shareholders while giving customers value for their money. References Ali, F. Hotel website quality, perceived flow, customer satisfaction and purchase intention.  Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, 7(2), 213-228.

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