Hoteliers can depend on technology to minimise operational risk, reduce staff burnout, maximise retention, and maintain customer satisfaction with advanced automation.  

Hoteliers are turning to automation to offset the labour crisis, emphasising reducing labour costs and workloads for staff. Automation can be applied to tasks such as check-in/check-out, room cleaning, scheduling, and task management to streamline operations and ensure sufficient staffing. By automating task management, hoteliers can assign tasks to staff based on their skill set, enabling them to focus on providing high-quality guest experiences. This helps to maintain high-performance standards and eliminate any uncertainty related to task management.  

Uncertainty in the accommodation industry is becoming the norm when operating and managing a hotel. The labour crisis, compounded by the global recession, has a significant knock-on effect on hoteliers navigating some of the most uncertain times in recent history. The hotel industry is seeing a higher staff turnover rate than any other industry, meaning an increase in wages to retain staff and higher costs for hoteliers to absorb. The challenges that lie ahead are not the end of the industry but instead provide an opportunity to re-evaluate and manage the best possible outcomes with new technology in the industry.  

The shortage of experienced, quality staff and shift towards on-the-go training has proved to be a detriment to the industry's growth and raises questions around maintaining guest satisfaction, which can hugely impact the success of any business. Hotels need to leverage data-driven solutions to optimise their operations while maximising performance, and automation is now essential to keep properties running smoothly. To ensure success, hoteliers must find the right balance between reducing the cost of a smaller, more expensive workforce and ensuring that service quality and response times are maintained to meet ever increasing guest expectations.  

Automation can redefine your internal and external experiences.   

Automation is redefining staff and guest experiences in hotels in various ways and is a new prerequisite to creating an efficient operation with happy staff and guests. Automated check-in/check-out processes, for example, allow hotel guests to bypass the front desk, reducing wait times and providing a more streamlined experience. This technology is current but is significantly underutilised in the industry, and a missed opportunity to alleviate the front desk staff in peak periods plus overall. Automated systems can also track guest preferences, allowing the hotel staff to provide more personalised services and experiences without many human resources. Hoteliers can tap into powerful technology that will also deliver a knowledgeable database of all your guests' needs and should be a direct link to communicating with guests.  

The beauty of automation in hotels is that it benefits the internal team by giving them the tools to positively affect the overall guest experience. It's a win, win situation. Staff can save time, and guests are happy. 

Smartphone technology can also improve the hotel experience for both staff and guests. Hotels can integrate with innovative technology to streamline check-in and check-out processes, allowing guests to book and manage their stay from their smartphones. Additionally, this helps staff who can easily access guest information, such as reservations, room availability and special requests, from any device. This lets employees improve the guest experience by responding quickly to requests and inquiries.  

Ultimately, automation is making it easier for hotels to provide a seamless, personalised experience for their guests whilst improving the overall workload and demands expected from staff. Technology like this will support staff retention and lower the churn rate.  

Task management that supports staff and retention  

Hoteliers are finding that by introducing automated task management tools into daily operations, they can better equip their staff with the resources they need to keep operations running smoothly. This allows them to take the uncertainty out of task management, ensuring that tasks are assigned relatively, completed efficiently, and that quality of service remains high. For example, control can work with housekeeping staff to manage when a room is complete, record maintenance issues, and can even help calculate the costs associated with laundering sheets and replenishing inventory. Finding the right technology that makes delegating tasks easy whilst managing the financial outgoings needs to be robust and incorporate multiple levels allows you to accurately and responsively work with the needs of your staff and property. Automation can streamline operations, such as ordering supplies, tracking inventory, and managing housekeeping staff from one centralised system that connects your management team in one place on any device. That's what a brilliant PMS should do.    

With the right technology, management can reduce the mundane and repetitive task of assigning work and keeping track of what needs to be done, by whom, and when it is completed. Additionally, this gives managers more time to focus on creating team morale and building culture instead of being inundated with time-consuming processes.  

With the right tools, hotels can continue to offer superior customer service while controlling labour costs.  

The balancing act of managing wages in uncertain times   

The labour crisis in the hotel management industry results from a combination of factors, including the need to significantly reduce personnel due to the lag effect of the pandemic and the rising cost of living. This has increased labour disputes between hotel management and their staff, demanding better wages and benefits. The balancing act of supporting your staff and managing your financial outgoings as a hotelier has never been more challenging and requires an effective strategy to ensure the scales are equal and favourable to all involved. 

With the new efficiencies that come with automating tasks, hotels can focus on recruiting staff that make a difference in guest experiences and team culture, reducing the stress on all staff and creating a happier team. Hotel managers can align staff wages with their responsibilities and direct impact on the guest experience to help improve the hotel's bottom line and identify the associated duties for each staff member. Putting staff in the right place and effectively delegating responsibilities will inevitably improve staff retention and shift the focus back to delivering positive guest experiences.   

The support of technology helps hoteliers to be protected against uncertainty in the industry and pivot to the demands of both staff and guests. Through the power of new technology and automation, hoteliers can create a concrete foundation for their operations, grow guest expectations and be prepared for any challenge. No matter what the industry serves up next, hoteliers can be ready with the right technology.