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Hotel Transitions - The First 48 Hours

11/30/2014

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A hotel is a complex enterprise with hundreds of employees, thousands of processes, and  a million moving parts. Transitioning such a detailed entity from owner to owner or brand to brand is something that needs to happen all at once -’at the stroke of midnight’, or whenever the bankers and brokers have decided. As the General Manager your job is to quickly get your arms around it all, have an acute helicopter view and to move it all forward with great rapidity towards a pre-determined pro forma destination.

Like a crime scene the best window of reality is the first 48 hours. The clues you discover are invaluable, those precious first impressions are often right and leave an indelible mark. Burned out light bulbs, room service trays in the hallways, outdated promo pieces in the elevator tell you a whole lot about different departments but more so of the overall morale of the property. You also get to see who are the everyday heros who shine through even in the midst of dynamic change.  You have to be aware that many of the staff feel abandoned by the outgoing flag. They have worn this corporate identity and wowed many customers in the name of the ‘brand’. Now some of them feel like foster children being sent back to the orphanage. Your job is to give them a fair sense of purpose and security so that they can focus on the job at hand and deliver the hospitality promise to your guests.

In a few short days the staff have an invisible GPS tag on you, a boss radar. They know you are coming before you turn a corner and suddenly what you see is a show for the boss. All the reason more to take advantage of those first few days.  Be on the loading dock at 5:00 am and find out who is dropping what produce on your dock and who if anyone on your side is checking it in. Then check with the night auditor to find out what happened after midnight,  then a coffee in the employee cafe with the incoming morning team to see who starts their day with a smile, and whose kid is sick.

Remember it is a two way arrangement, as you are judging the staff they are judging you. You will be remembered for your modesty, your manners, or your arrogance, long remembered will be your commitments of those first few days.

davidmalcolmgibbons@gmail.com

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Five Things Owners Should Be Aware of in a Transition!

11/18/2014

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I have been involved in numerous transitions, from flag to flag, owner to owner sometimes both. Regardless of differing rules of engagement there are some issues that hold true across most if not all deals. For all of the confidentiality surrounding a transition, human nature is human nature, word leaks out and:

  1. All of the damage is done long before transition day!
Months into the transition when you are wondering what happened to some key accounts or why a big group did not repeat, you look back and realize that the run up to the transition was at the height of RFP season. Guess what wasn’t renewed on your behalf. How many thumb drives went home with copies of all of your sales files?

2.  Talent is precious.
Sometimes the talent is gone faster than you realize. Either the outgoing management has moved them quickly or they are a superstar and have taken the opportunity to find a new and better position. This is where your reputation as an employer comes into play. You can not reach across the divide, you are embargoed from talking with them. Your actions are what resonates in the marketplace. Talent wants to work for a ‘true employer of choice’! Be careful that months after the transition you are not the ‘farm team’ for the marketplace. As fast as you are re-building the competition is having a field day recruiting at your expense. It is imperative to get on board and quickly and sincerely win the hearts and minds of the employees.

3. Mediocrity is toxic.

Contracts often allow you to terminate some managers at transition but at a severance price. Do your diligence, it is often cheaper to be rid of mediocrity than find  months later that they are populating your new asset. Mystery shop the property well in advance. Take note of the smiling clerk as well as the sour faced hostess. Take a look at Tripadvisor, they often have the names of good and bad employees. Be careful mediocrity is infectious and eventually fatal.

4. Its all about distribution.

The day after the transition do you have a perfectly functioning website? Can anyone find it? Are all the booking channels wide open? Did you invest enough in internet marketing for this transition? If your IT and Distribution team do not win this one you will lose real dollars and a lot of bragging rights. What can you offer a guest who is loyal to the property but now there is a new recognition program? If you lost the guest history to the old brand then stand with the doorman for a few days and meet your regulars. The best keeper of guest history is your staff not a database.

5. Did the seller understand bricks and mortar or just 'branding?
Deferred Maintenance. Did the outgoing owner or manager defer crucial maintenance for the prior 12 or 18 months trying to chase a cap rate? Did the property team understand the nuts and bolts of the building or just the attributes of the brand. Was the engineering team a brand on-the-job career path or were they dedicated facilities managers with intimate knowledge of how your building works.  A broken boiler or HVAC meltdown knows no brand and takes no prisoners!

Transitions are becoming a way of life. They are all different, some more difficult than others but all require a tremendous amount of pre-planning and the ability to quickly deal with the unexpected and most of all to understand human nature!



davidmalcolmgibbons@gmail.com
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GROOMING STANDARDS!

11/8/2014

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    David Gibbons is a hospitality industry expert

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