CHAPTER 3: SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVING FRONT OFFICE EMPLOYEES WORK
1. The solution to complete the salary, bonus and welfare policy
The salary rating based on position and the increasing of salary depends on the appraisal of the end every year. It is not clear and sometimes unfair. Because of the employees with same position will have salary nearly the same, the percentages of increasing every year are small. This leads to the salary of staffs who work 10 years – 20 years just higher a little bit in the comparison with the newcomers. While longtime employees must train the new staffs, and they are loyalty with the hotel so that salary of them should higher the salary of newcomers clearly. Some newcomers (below 1 year) could not get high efficiency because they do not have experiences, they are just graduated from the university…They need to train a lot from longtime staffs and
supervisors/manager. However, the salary of them is high nearly the same with loyalty staffs. This is a popular example for unfair salary rating of the staff position.
So that, hotel should have the policy to increasing salary every year or twice per year with a reasonable way. The score evaluating should be reviewed monthly and if who has the excellent score, their salary should be higher.
In addition to the current basic salary policies, hotel should have more subsidy for staff such as:
+ Extra pay for associate who work overtime (in case managers request they stay late to work). Because receptionists and cashiers usually work late in the busy days or high season, they should get more benefits for those contributions.
+ In the hospitality industry, the customer service is especially important. Hotel can encourage staffs having the best customer services by prizes. For example: if staff has the compliment from guest (guest mentions the name of staff) in TripAdvisor, Booking.com, Expedia, Agoda, Fan Page Facebook of hotel, or the written letter from guests…hotel should give them some gifts; voucher; compliment letter from GM or Associate of the Month, Associate of the Quarter, Associate of the Year based on performance of the associate and compliment from the guests also…
+ Reward for activities launched by the hotel such as: the Photo contest, the Video contest, 8/3 activities: cooking contest, amazing race…, 20/10 activities, decoration notice board contest, recycling contest…
+ Gift voucher (supermarket voucher), hamper… for special occasion such as year- end party, public holiday (30/4; 1/5; 2/9; Hung King’s Day…).
In addition, hotel needs to reform the allowance for uniforms, lunches and extras grant work-trip allowances to suit more practical conditions, because now some allowances are being calculated generally, which is not fair and not appropriate to the level life and inflation, price increase. For example: hotel provides 1 pair of shoes for each staff per year. It is not suitable for all of staffs, especially Front Office because some staffs of this department such as bell boy, residence club, guest service…have go and move almost the working time. And they are the face of hotel, always meet guests so that 1 pair of shoes per year is not enough for them. In this case, hotel should have some special policies for Front Office employees.
Last but not least, female staffs of Front Office always make – up during working time as hotel standard. It is cost not small. Hotel should consider subsidizing for the fees of make-up, socks…for female employees of Front Office.
4. Training and development:
In order to deliver a high service quality that directly affects customer satisfaction there must be budget for training and development. A detailed analysis of which skills need to be trained to deliver outstanding quality can help the organization to turn happy guests into loyal guests.
The professional skills to serve guests are especially important, especially New World Saigon Hotel is a five-star international hotel. Almost guests stay in the hotel are high class and high demand so that the skills, the knowledge of staffs and the way to serve guests, the way to handle guest’s complaint…always focusing on. Therefore, human resources department usually organize the training classes, but most lessons are theory. For example: the training focuses on some regular topic such as How to check – in a guest, how to check – out a guest, how to exchange money, how to escort guest to the room, how to check room for the VIP, but the method training is just reviewing the theory instead of skills training. Managers or Supervisors should request staffs play roles to do check – in/check – out procedure, 1 staff makes a complaint and another staff handle those complaints…During the training time, receptionists or guest services can go to the rooms to see the facilities/check room instead of just take a look in the photos …
Besides, ensuring all associates could do the same way, strictly follow up the LQA (Leading Quality Assurance) and LSOP (Local Standard Operation).
Training on job:
Training on job is not a new training method, many hotels has applied this method. It means the training process during the working time. And the trainers are the supervisors and managers of the associates. While staffs do their job, for example: do the checking – in, checking – out process, exchange money, handle complaints, explain the features of the guest room or facilities, serve the drink to guests on Residence Club Lounge…. supervisors and managers should observe and record the mistakes in the process. Then, the supervisory will explain why they need to improve
and the way how to do. Ask staffs observe carefully and re – practice until they could do perfectly. The advantage of this method is detecting of deficiencies in the staff's professional skills and correct them right away. However, this method requires supervisors and managers must clearly know the process and well-trained in skills.
Cross – training:
New training methods are continuously designed to adapt to the ever-changing environment in hospitality industry. One of the methods is called cross-training, in which employees are trained to work in more than one department.
In literature, cross-training is shown to be highly beneficial in hotel industry because it is an effective solution to seasonality, demand variability, and labor shortage. It increases share knowledge and transparency in all departments, which subsequently leads to better service quality and productivity. Multi-skilled employees who have received cross-training are considered great assets to service organizations. On the other hand, cross-training is not for every employee because some people prefer to work sorely in their fields of expertise, and it is costly to cross-train all staffs.
Therefore, the question of how many employees and who are chosen to cross-train should be revised care-fully by hotel managers.
The hotel can organize a cross-training for Reception staff at the Residence Club Lounge and the Residence club staffs could cross – training at Front Desk also.
Managers acknowledged the importance of multi-skilled employees, and they are willing to develop a cross-department working environment. Cross-training is more preferred in Front office department; and not all employees chose to work at other departments.
Task Force:
New World Saigon Hotel is managed by Rosewood Hotel Group - a large corporation with a network of 5 – star hotel all over the world. In ASEAN countries, this group also manages many hotels. That is an advantage for the associates working at the hotel when applying task force at another hotel especially in the framework of ASEAN countries. Task force allows hotels, hotel ownership and hotel management companies to take the time to find the perfect permanent person for the open role while fulfilling the ongoing roles responsibilities and revenue generation.
For example: FO employees can task force at sister hotels such as Hoiana Hotel &
Suites (located at Hoi An) or New World Phu Quoc hotel, even New World Minila Philippines, New World Hong Kong, New World Pentaling Jaya Hotel …
5. Other solutions:
- Offer a flexible work schedule: While a popular demand is a flexible work schedule, working online or working with flexible schedule attract lots of people, especially during the period time Covid – 19. Giving employees options will help hotel to receive more job applicants and also to help engage the current staff while helping hotel to reduce turnover, too.
- Give rewards for efficient behavior: Traditionally, bonuses are offered as a perk for higher-level positions as a reward for hitting certain goals. However, this perk can be expanded to hourly workers. Offer rewards to employees for meeting certain expectations—such as three months of perfect attendance—to help engage the current workforce. This will help to improve hotel’s employee retention rate—or a number of employees who stay at their job—as well as improving recruitment efforts.
- Build A Team: Being a team member makes hotel staff feel encouraged and build
solid relations. Teamwork creates a better understanding of the complexities and challenges, helps them recognize the value of the division of labor and become better communicators.
- Provide a Learning Environment: Life-long learning is the new universal
concept. Expanding skills will encourage hotel’s staff to embrace challenges and step outside their comfort zone. We can make them learn end-of-day procedures, administrative back-end tasks, new payment systems and technologies.
- Spot check: Training manager should have the schedule to spot check staffs of
Front Office including concierge, airport representative, residence club, guest services, lobby greater…For example: the managers spot check receptionist to check – in or check – out, managers role play as guests, receptionists do the check in/ check out process, bell boys take luggage for guests, the lobby greeter escort guests to the room, reservationists make bookings… Through this procedure, managers could
evaluate the ability of receptionist, bellboy, reservationist…Giving them the experiences, strong points, weak points and which once need improving…After that, spot check team continues to check servers at the Residence Club such as taking the order, introduce the menu, promotion, and the way to serve food/drink to guests…All the report of spot check team will send to department heads to evaluate and follow up to training their staffs.
- Organize the contests every month: Human resources department should organize
the contests for every month including “Hotel knowledge contest” (knowledge including all of things that staffs need to learn by heart, for example: the promotion of F&B outlet, the opening hours of all outlet, restaurant, the price of all type of rooms, the massage packages, the ticket for members of swimming pool, fitness center, health club, the history of hotel, the general information of hotel, the facility of each type of room….); “LQA contest” (LQA means Leading Quality Assurance)
… Through these contests, associates can learn more and more, get experiences from other colleagues.
- Make the motivation survey: human resources or Front Office manager could
make a survey one time per half year to get the comments from staffs. Even if back of house should have the “comments box” or “suggestion box” that employees can give the suggestions and desire.
- Organize the programs to collect the ideas of staffs: Monthly associate with
Front Office manager, Meeting with GM, GM dialog, even meeting with manager every day to help the management can understand difficulties that employees meet. Then, management will give solutions right away to solve the issues inside department. If the problems were solved smoothly, staffs will be motivated and work by their heart.
- Increasing the total of employees at Front Office: Currently the tasks of Front Offices staffs are more and more. For example, staffs of Residence Club has to work as Receptionist, they also work as server at the Club lounge, and do a job of bartender to make the cocktail for guests… besides sometimes receptionists must to escort guests to the room, show the room for guests, send email to confirm reservation for guests, handle money as a cashier… In general, the job descriptions of Front Office employees are extremely hard, they have to work
many things from start the shift to close the shift… Therefore, management could consider recruiting and increase the number of staffs for this department to avoid the situation lack of employees lead to staffs stressful and high pressure.
CONCLUSION
The Front Office department is especially important in the hotel and catering sector.
This area is the first contact between customers in this industry and the organization and it marks the last point of contact. The attitude displayed by employees at the Front Office department in any organization is crucial as it determines the overall organizational overview.
Therefore, customers will develop attitudes on the organizations in the service industry based on their experiences at the front office. The motivation of employees working at the front office is thus an important factor in the organization.
A number of issues in the motivation of employees in the front office at New World Saigon Hotel has been identified. Some of the factors stated to inhibit positive motivation of employees in the industry include remuneration, workload, and monotony of work.
To ensure that front office employees of New World Saigon Hotel are motivated, a number of recommendations should be adopted. One is that these organizations should invest in the training of their employees on the performance at their workplace and adapt them in their operations. The organizations should also consider increasing the number of employees at the front office, since the workload per employee appears to be currently very large.
Employment of more employees will also contribute to the reduction of the number of hours that each employee should work in a week. However, the most important factor is that the managers in these hotels should consider improving remuneration of their front office employees. This move will increase their performance at the workplace and result in better motivation, hence better organizational performance.
REFERENCES
1. Ricardo C.S. Siu, Economic principles for the hospitality industry, Routledge, 2020.
2. Roy A. Cook, Tourism: the business of hospitality and travel, Pearson Education Limited, 2014.
3. Tom Powers, Introduction to the hospitality industry, John Wiley, 1995.
4. Pham Hung Cuong, Determinants of work motivation for the management staff in the State-owned enterprises, Bulacan State University, 2011.
5. Dennis L. Foster, VIP: an introd. to hospitality, MacMillan/McGraw-Hill, 1992.
6. Roy C. Wood, Organizational behaviour for hospitality management, Butterworth- Heinemann, 1994.
7. Roy C. Wood, Hotel Accommodation Management, Routledge, 2018.
8. Nguyễn Văn Mạnh, Hoàng Thị Lan Hương, Giáo trình quản trị kinh doanh khách sạn, Đại học Kinh Tế Quốc Dân, 2013.