Workflow Sample: Episode 568: Business Improvement in Hotel Operation (Part 1)

Operation: Hotel works, Various of Them

The trend of "Productivity revolution" is going to immerse also Hotel industry...

Eventually, "division of labor" should be considered as at its limit anymore. It is no longer an era where a worker would be good with doing one job, such as "housekeeping", "welcoming / seeing off", "dinner support / breakfast support" "blog writing" "sales aggregation", etc. Workers have to obtain "multi skills" for some extent.

In Convenience store industry, which is the same 24 hours operation, it is true that even a part-timer does jobs like "cashier", "inventory", housekeeping", etc.

Challenge: Fixation of Housekeeping Time

Consulting to BPM expert, we decided that all the full time employees to acquire "skill in guest room housekeeping".

Certainly, housekeeping work has been totally left to part-timers. And I've been thinking that their work environment was somewhat problematic, such as "work time is limited only after 10 o'clock which is check-out time and until check-in which starts 15 o'clock", and "There is few chance to advances to full-time employees even if got skill up". Beside, there may be nothing to do for full-time employees during these hours.

If it were possible to do housekeeping work in the order from "checked out room", it could be covered only by full-time employees...

[Housekeeping flow]

Solution: Visualization of Work waiting to be Undertaken

It is not unusual cases where "multi-skilled workers" corresponding multiple operations, such as, in the automotive industry or in retailing.

However, standing on the side of the workers who undertake tasks, they cannot undertake any task even in idle time, unless they are aware of "what task currently exists".

In this workflow, employees who are registered as "underwriting candidates for housekeeping task" (multi-skilled) can confirm "any room where checkout is completed (which they can start cleaning up)" on a smartphone or tablet at any time, and they can "undertake" the task voluntarily.

This means"single skilled employee" who was cooking only, for example, will become a "multi-skilled worker" who are also in charge of housekeeping task. (Multitask Operation)

Discussion: Visualization of Workflow, Visualization of Task Occurrence

Multitask operations is unavoidable in enhancing labor productivity.

Suppose if you try to cut off part-time workers and promote "24 hours operation by full time employees" such as;

Early shift (8 hours shift, 7 hours work)
Late shift (8 hours shift, 7 hours work)
Night shift (13 hours shift, 12 hours work, deemed as 2 days attendance)

you should make it possible that value added tasks to be undertaken even during "idle time" which tends to occur in the daytime and midnight. (Visualization of in-progress Issues)

Consequently, the number of employees who understand the whole service in the hotel business will increase, and it will be able to respond smoothly to situations such as unexpected absence and occurrence of quitting jobs.

Or, you may also be able to share information such as "Mr. Jackson staying at room #502 whom I made feeling uncomfortable while housekeeping. Please give him some consideration when seeing off".

[Housekeeping flow:"1. Report checked out" screen]