SOPs for Hospitality & Hotel Industry

Inconsistencies in Housekeeping Operations. Housekeeping is a continuous activity in hotels. Various activities included here are making beds, cleaning rooms, clearing dustbins, sending linens for laundry, vacuuming, floor cleaning, etc. To ensure consistency and quality in housekeeping activities, hotels need robust operations management. Sometimes even the reputed hotels fail to live up to the standards expected of them. And sometimes remote motels and guest houses are impressive with their housekeeping efforts. The differences arise in the management of the housekeeping operations. When the housekeeping operations and activities are not planned and defined in formats that can be easily followed and monitored, hotels fail to sustain the right physical environment whether it is in the rooms, lobbies, swimming pools, restaurants, spas or clubs. The consequences are similar without strict monitoring and adherence to the established operational protocols.

Quality Control in the Kitchen and F&B Department. When customers are charged more for the food and beverages in hotels, they expect a superlative experience. The more stars you add to the hotel, the higher will be the tariff and the higher will be the customers’ expectations. They expect the food to be of high quality, prepared with the best quality inputs by expert chefs under uncompromisingly clean and hygienic conditions and served with utmost professionalism. Maintaining such quality standards is not possible in an undefined and disorganized working environment. For example, if normal salt is used in preparing a food item whereas the requirement was that of rock salt, the taste of the food will surely take a beating. Customers who have the taste buds for that food item will catch the anomaly. It was only about a pinch of salt but that is capable of differentiating your business from your competitors. Whether it is salt or a beer mug, the inventory management should be capable of ensuring that required inputs and materials are always available.

Inconsistencies in Delivering value-added Services. Value-added or extra services offered by hotels should not be treated as separate from the routine operations. Inability to deliver these services after advertising in bold letters amounts to as much customer dissatisfaction as it is for failure to deliver any basic service. For instance, if a hotel offers free Wi-Fi to its guests but the connectivity is unreliable, it will definitely lead to customer discontent. Identifying network issues should not be left to the moments of customers complaining about it. There should be a working mechanism to monitor and report the consistency of the internet service provided by the ISP.

Slow Complaints Resolutions. In the first place, hotels must ensure that the need for customers having to raise a complaint does not arise. And even if complaints come in, these must be resolved as early as possible. Addressing complaints can be left to informal management or there can be a formal, defined roadmap towards resolving them. When there is no defined way to address complaints, managers and employees will use their judgement and discretion to find solutions. Despite their best intentions, the ad-hoc solutions found by them need not necessarily be the best way to address customer complaints. Such informal solutions may add to operational costs, lead to compromise with safety and security standards, etc.

Weak Interdepartmental Coordination. Like any other business enterprise, hotels too are reliant on interdepartmental synchronization. But it does not happen on its own. The operational framework has to be designed that way. When the operating linkages between the departments are not defined and mapped as proper functional guidelines, it creates the scope for mistakes, ambiguity, fraud, etc. For example, if the room AC is not working and the customer informs the reception or the housekeeping assistant, it becomes the duty of the person who was informed about the problem to bring it to the notice of the maintenance department. In the absence of a defined interdepartmental working plan, the services will be affected and there would be avoidance of accountability and responsibilities.

Low Productivity of Employees. The performance and productivity of employees depend not only on their skills and expertise but also on the operational framework in which they work. Employees perform better when they have a clear sight of what they are supposed to be doing and the results expected in each activity. When the business processes and operations are not defined to serve as guides in the level of implementation, the activities carried out by employees are likely to be more prone to errors than if these were defined and mapped. The management body will mistakenly attribute lower performance and productivity as an HR failure whereas the problem area was with operations management.