Managing the disconnect between operations & HR
I see it all the time: undertrained staff, hotels running on minimal staffing, and the financial toll of high employee turnover chipping away at profits. Having worked in various roles within hotels for years, I've come to believe that many service deficiencies in established hotels stem from a lack of alignment between operations managers and the HR department.
What are the issues?
Having experienced both sides of the spectrum at Soho House, I noticed a stark shift in dynamics when transitioning from operations manager to HR director. While casual conversations and post-work gatherings were commonplace among operations managers, the tables turned when I assumed the role of HR director. Suddenly, requesting simple paperwork from managers for an employee injury became an arduous task. Instead of support, I faced pressure to expedite hiring, rectify payroll errors, and track down missing employees. The support dwindled, communication faltered, expectations soared, and for the first time in my three-year tenure as a manager, I found myself torn between maintaining friendships and fulfilling job responsibilities.
What's the reason for the disconnect?
While managers all work for the same hotel, their skills, expertise, and day-to-day responsibilities are so varied that priorities are often unaligned. Operations managers work obscene hours and shifts, deal with customers, employees, suppliers, complaints and criticisms, and have to worry constantly about meeting budget goals. Simply put, they don't have the time, nor the care, to give HR the support needed to execute all the vital, though admittedly tedious, tasks required to keep a hotel running, and in compliance.
What are the potential consequences?
Without a cohesive partnership between operations and HR managers, the following risks loom:
Recruitment failing to meet operational demands
Inadequate employee training
Errors in payroll and benefits administration
Neglect of employee performance evaluations
Unresolved employee grievances
Decline in employee satisfaction
Exposure to compliance breaches
Increased turnover
Escalating payroll expenses
Understaffing
Compromised guest experience
HR training for non-HR managers as a solution
Although time-consuming and challenging to schedule, providing operations managers with HR training yielded remarkable outcomes. In my tenure as HR director, managers gained a profound understanding of HR's role, leading to significant achievements:
Hiring became an art
Training became normal practice
Everyone received effective and timely performance appraisals
Payroll lacked errors
Grievances were less common
Employee and manager satisfaction went up
Turnover decreased
The guest experience was enhanced.
But above all, we went from a hotel at risk of becoming unionized by employee choice in July 2005 before I became HR director, to being the only hotel in history to ever defeat NY's largest hotel union in an employee vote one year later in September 2006. This historical defeat against Local 6 didn't only save our hotel from operational nightmares under a union setting, it paved the way for independent boutique hotels in New York to maintain the autonomy needed to operate under their own management guidelines. I can only hope they've heeded my advice and made efforts to train their managers in HR principles too, because the benefits are priceless.
