By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com)
Back in March or April 2020 when the shelter-at-home orders
abruptly disconnected most of us from our office commutes and camaraderie with
our fellow hoteliers, regrouping online for videoconference meetings made sense
as a triage remedy for any feelings of loneliness and despair. With remote work
now firmly cemented into the next normal of operations, it’s critical that we
recognize the gross inefficiencies of this communication medium then come up
with some alternatives.
Primarily, most of these videoconferences are a waste of
time. But this should not come as a shock for the hospitality world. In truth,
long before the advent of daily or weekly discussions via Zoom, Skype, Google
Meets or Microsoft Teams, many managers were already hampered from getting any real
work done because their days would see them bouncing from hourlong meeting to
hourlong meeting, with only enough time in between for a light nosh or a bit of
inbox clearing.
Perhaps nowhere is this problem more evident than at the
executive level in a hotel organization where GMs or more senior officers just
give guidance to a myriad of different operations. A consequence of this is
that such long-term projects – the ones that require deep thought and the ones
that will ultimately move the needle for the hotel – get neglected and delayed.
The principle at the core of this is what’s called ‘flow’,
where you need a dedicated and uninterrupted period of time to crank out those
lengthy outlines or peruse documents from colleagues. When you are bombarded by
meetings at regular intervals throughout the day, it’s not like you can just
jump back into these projects that require a certain degree of monkish focus.
Compounding that, videoconferencing requires you to look at a screen, so you
end up using more mental energy during these meetings than during a voice-only
call.
The final result of too many meetings and the proliferation
of full-team videoconferences is that a hotel’s managers become stressed out
because they won’t have time to do their actual jobs. Then after you factor in
how these gatherings can impede the formation and implementation of larger
initiatives, the guest experience suffers.
Looking at how to correct this growing pain of the
post-pandemic hospitality world, I offer five suggestions, some of which may
involve the deployment of additional software layers in order to heighten team
productivity as well as accountability.
- Temporal
alignment. Sometimes your team, working remotely or on
property, may need a bit of a morale boost to start their day. Yet for
many, our mental energy levels peak in the morning, especially after a
couple coffees, and it would often be a shame to waste this time on
something as perfunctory as a morning standup or an executive committee
conference. You decide when to schedule your meetings but keep the daily
cycle in mind and try to stick to a recurrent routine to limit the
discombobulation of having managers bounce between videoconferences
throughout the workweek.
- Use
management software. This should be a no brainer by now, but
you need a robust tracking system for all back-of-house tasks to organize
communications in today’s remote work conditions. This not only applies to
matters related to guest service, but such applications can also be
utilized for long-term and large-scale projects that involve multiple
departments.
- Stick
to the agenda. Your meetings should be swift and to the
point; they aren’t the time for longwinded speeches or reciting the
company motto. Formulate an agenda at least 24 hours in advance so
everyone has a moment to review it and mentally prepare, making sure to
post it to an online bulletin board or internal project management app for
easy access.
- Record
minutes. Traditionally done with a dedicated notetaker, there
are now a few apps that can transcribe what’s said for you. Either way,
the point of minutes to keep your team honest insofar as next steps and
deadlines for those follow-up activities. Although it would be ideal for
someone to take the initiative, the more likely outcome is that if you
don’t assign a specific person with a specific goal date, nothing will get
done.
- From
dialogue to duologue. Any logophile will already know the
latter word, but for everyone else it implies one-on-one breakout meetings
to brainstorm ideas and hone necessary actions. Oftentimes, the meetings
that involve more than three managers end up silencing the small voices or
opinions from those who are too afraid to bring them up in a large group.
Use your management software and your videoconferencing apps to set aside
time for individual managers to regroup intimately, as often these
duologues are more productive.
About Larry Mogelsonsky
Larry Mogelonsky
One of the world’s most published writers in hospitality, Larry Mogelonsky
is the principal of Hotel
Mogel Consulting Limited, a Toronto-based consulting practice. His
experience encompasses hotel properties around the world, both branded and
independent, and ranging from luxury and boutique to select-service. Larry is
also on several boards for companies focused on hotel technology. His work
includes five books “Are You an Ostrich or a Llama?” (2012), “Llamas Rule”
(2013), “Hotel Llama” (2015), “The Llama is Inn” (2017) and “The Hotel Mogel”
(2018). You can reach Larry at larry@hotelmogel.com to discuss hotel business
challenges or to book speaking engagements.
Media Contact:
Larry
Mogelonsky
Email: larry@hotelmogel.com
Website: http://hotelmogel.com/
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