Rooms Division Supervisory Functions, Cost Control, And Safety Measures In Hotels

Undertake and critically reflect upon the rooms division supervisory functions.
Evaluate the principles of cost control and the necessary resources for rooms division.

Critically reflect upon safety and security measures practiced in rooms division of hotels, including risk assessment and external threats.

What is your outcome and how can you summarise your learning in relation to this outcome?

Rooms Division Supervisory Functions

Hospitality can be defined as the relationship process between the guest and the host. Hospitality industry refers to organizations and companies such as hotels, motels, restaurants and others that provide accommodation, foods, drinks and other comforts for people staying away from home (Tyagi & Zagade, 2015). Hospitality industries depend on the guest or tourists arriving from other countries and thus expect good customer service in return of their money. Various products and services are provided by the hospitality industry. The physical or tangible products include rooms, food and drinks that have fixed price and are sold to guest in return of their money.

However, hospitality industry does not only depend on the products and the services provided by the hotels and restaurants, but also on the quality of the services offered by them.  This quality of services in turn depends on the skills and knowledge of the staff members and the services delivered by them. The daily operation of a hotel is the key factor that determines the success and failure of its services (Andrews, 2013).

This report examines the learning outcomes of the rooms division supervisory functions, principles of cost control, natural resources of rooms division and safety security measures practiced in rooms division of hotels, along with risk assessment and external threats.

The rooms division section of a hotel is concerned with the Executive Housekeeping and Front Office department. The manager has to manage the general operations such as, Reception, Concierge, Reservations and so on. The rooms division supervisory functions include some responsibilities such as training and motivating of the staffs to achieve the desired outcome (Bustamam, Teng & Abdullah 2014).

The learning outcomes are related to the concerns coupled with the training. These trainings are helpful for an organization to gain some benefits like increasing the productivity of the employees, enhancing their satisfaction, decreasing turnover cost and promoting teamwork. The supervisory functions maintain a connection between the management and the workers; and the training is very essential for that. The results of training enable the workers to understand the work culture and behavior of the organization and standard of service. The developmental training can be given in different ways such as on the job training, formal conferences and seminars. Different types of training are given for different purposes and that helps to gain the best knowledge of the job (Freedman & Kosová, 2014).

Part of the management job is to motivate the employees. Motivations direct the supervisor to design an effective working environment, which complies with the needs of the employees. The top three requirements of the employees are good salary, job security and growth opportunity from the employer (Overstreet-Wadiche & Wadiche, 2014). To the author, the job security and career growth are most important. These are beneficial for understanding the future opportunities and uncertainties of the industry. Moreover, the supervisor must give complement for a good work done, and ask about the requirements in the workplace, this action helps to motivate the employees to increase their productivity.

Principles of Cost Control and Necessary Resources

This managerial position requires a high degree of dedication and efficient leadership quality. The manager must be able to handle the employees tactfully and efficiently to get their best. The employees also must cooperate with each other and with the supervisor to avoid any type of disregard. The supervisory functions include a major responsibility to make the new employee feel at home on the first day of its job. If he can ensure a warm and happy atmosphere on the first day of work for an employee, he would feel good and have a general good perspective about the company. He would also feel motivated to work better and make a good impression of himself.

Cost is a determining factor for any industry. Hence, cost control is one of the important functions for any business. In hotel management, the budgeting and decision making process incur the maximum cost. It is essential for the manager to evaluate the fixed and variable costs, cost minimization, break even analysis and pricing decisions using the forecasting method. The cost structure of rooms divisions are as follows (Robinson et al. 2014):

Average Daily Rate (ADR) is a calculation that states the average guest room income per occupied room in a given time period. It is calculated by dividing the total room revenue by the number rooms sold.

Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR) is a kind of calculation that combines both occupancy and ADR in one metric.

Costs per Occupied Room (COPR) refers to all the cost associated with making a room ready for guests, such as linens, cleaning cost, guest amenities and others (Torres, Fu & Lehto, 2014).

The principles are as follows: providing clear and consistent performance goals; providing knowledge and tool for successful jobs; understanding and evaluating the true costs; excellence in job; reducing organizational complexity; commitment to the knowledge based and idea based involvement; taking proper decisions as those impact the organizational cost.

The learning outcome of the principles of cost control includes the knowledge and skills on various types of cost in the business. The outcomes can be explained in the following way. Identifying the necessary criteria for making up various claims for various actions and designing every certificate for the claims; preparing graphs and charts for forecasted earnings and payments and identifying the patterns of budget; describing the purpose and benefits of planning techniques as well as selecting the proper technique for a planning project; defining work breakdown structure; preparing bar chart using manual and computer models; and preparing a report list of breakdown items and related costs from the bar chart and cost estimate (Rao & Sahu, 2013).

The major resources of rooms division is front desk and housekeeping. Sometimes security and maintenance are included in this department. The learning outcome of the training on room divisions resources help the employees to know about the activities of the front desk and housekeeping department. The employees learn to create plans for maximizing average daily rate and percentage of occupancy, handling customer suggestions and complaint, handling the front desk, room services, housekeeping duties during the guest cycle (Pesonen, 2015).

Safety and Security Measures Practiced in Hotels, Including Risk Assessment and External Threats

Risk assessment followed by appropriate changes and improvements helps in maintaining the brand and image of the hotel. It is the basic requirement of a Business Continuity Plan and helps in assessing various security scenarios such as theft, burglary, terrorist attack, natural disasters, accidents and others. Lack of proper education and trained security guards also result in safety issues and increase the risk factor (Wood, 2015). Escape and emergency plans are indispensable for safety management and operation of a hotel. It is the duty of the hotel management to ensure that employees and guests are not exposed to hazards in the workplace. Risks vary from low to high depending on the country and the construction of the hotel. Extra alert and security measures must be enforced especially during the night time.

Follow-up annual risk assessment provides assurance of high-level security in the business. Risk assessment helps in preventing fire incidents, injury and death due to accidents and protects the assets of the hotel and properties of the guests. The employees also learn to use first aids and other equipments to be able to help in case of any accident or emergency (Wood, 2015).

The author finds out in the training programmes of risk assessment and external threats, that one of the major issues is burglary by employees and lack of security door locks.  An employee can turn into a thief from dissatisfaction in work place, not getting desired wage, lack of trust between employees and management, dishonest nature and employee turnover. The most common stolen items are leftover food, toiletries, towels, bed sheets or liquor. Although these are not much valuable items, still this would cost the organization and create a bad reputation (Andrews, 2013). Another major problem is the lack of secured door lock. Many high rated hotels keep a small locker in the room for the guests to keep their valuables in that while they are out. But smaller low cost hotels cannot afford to keep that. It possesses a risk for the guest as housekeeping staffs enter the rooms for cleaning and it is possible that one of them steal a valuable thing. Hence, providing a good door lock and hiring honest employees are essential in this business. They should also know how to handle any lost and found case, that is, what to do with an item found and what to do when a claim comes (Yaduma et al., 2015).

Conclusion:

Thus, it can be concluded by saying that both front office department and housekeeping department are inter-related and dependent on each other. Rooms occupy the main concern of both the departments. Checkout rooms must be returned as quickly as possible and thus there should be continuous exchange of information on room status between the two departments. In addition to this, maintenance, renovation and repairs must be scheduled during periods of low-occupancy. Moreover, it is the duty of housekeeping department to report to front office regarding any unusual guest behavior that may result in bad publicity and loss of revenue for the hotel.

References:

Andrews, S. (2013). Hotel front office: A training manual. Tata McGraw-Hill Education.

Andrews, S. (2013). Hotel Housekeeping: A Training Manual. Tata McGraw-Hill Education.

Bustamam, F. L., Teng, S. S., & Abdullah, F. Z. (2014). Reward management and job satisfaction among frontline employees in hotel industry in Malaysia. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 144, 392-402.

Chapter 3. Accommodation | Introduction to Tourism and Hospitality in BC. (2017). Opentextbc.ca. Retrieved 28 March 2017, from https://opentextbc.ca/introtourism/chapter/chapter-3-accommodation/

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Overstreet-Wadiche, L., & Wadiche, J. I. (2014). Good housekeeping. Neuron, 81(4), 715-717.

Pesonen, J. (2015). Internal Housekeeping Versus Outsourced Housekeeping.

Rao, P. S., & Sahu, P. C. (2013). Impact of service quality on customer satisfaction in hotel industry. IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 18(5), 39-44.

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Torres, E. N., Fu, X., & Lehto, X. (2014). Examining key drivers of customer delight in a hotel experience: A cross-cultural perspective. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 36, 255-262.

Tyagi, H., & Zagade, S. (2015). Outsourcing: A study on Benefits to Housekeeping Department in Hotels.

Wood, R. C. (Ed.). (2015). Hospitality Management: A Brief Introduction. Sage.

Yaduma, N., Williams, A., Lockwood, A., & Park, S. (2015). Performance, labour flexibility and migrant workers in hotels: An establishment and departmental level analysis. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 50, 94-104.