Rooms Division Operation Plan Essay Example for Free

Rooms Division Operation Plan Essay The rooms division comprises the front office, reservations, bell service, concierge, housekeeping, laundry including health and recreation. (NZQA 2005) Since the resort operates as a full-fledged 4-star category, the reservations, bell service and concierge are made separate sections from the front office and the laundry is made separate from the housekeeping. As a resort, the rooms division extends its scope to the facilities of surfing, spa, swimming pool, maintenance and gardens which are specialized functions are under the Health and Recreation department. The next 12-month operation strategies for the Rooms Division will aim to overcome the weaknesses as determined in the SWOT analysis which are lack of conference facilities and meeting rooms, high employee turn-over, shortfalls in planned maintenance activities and will focus on full blast redesigning and refurbishment, upgrading the service quality, augmenting market research, enhancing service capacity and upgrading management competencies. Refurbishment Any service company, particularly hotels and resorts will always have to consider sufficiency of infrastructure and facilities. The quality of service will always rely on these factors. (Gray 1992) Refurbishment will be necessary to achieve the resort’s major strategies especially in the expansion of conference rooms and meeting rooms. The refurbishment program for the rooms division includes expansion of the ballroom which now becomes a grand ballroom that is breakable into 4 mini ballrooms to accommodate 100 to 150 persons per ballroom, additional 8 function rooms that can accommodate 50 persons and 10 meeting rooms with a capacity of 20 persons. This will encourage local markets to book more parties, meetings and conferences and the resort will be able to accommodate to as much as 600 persons in one sitting at the same time be flexible enough to accommodate small groups. Because of this major move of the resort, some guestrooms will have to be refurbished which are those to be included in the packaging of the conferences and meetings. The 214 guestroom are in resort motifs and there will have to be at least 40 guestrooms that will be redesigned to match the conference package of the resort. It is expected that the conference and meetings engagement will generate the intended occupancy rate increase of 15% in the next year and the targeted increase in sales from the New Zealand and Asian markets. Aside from these more amenities will be supplied to the guestrooms as add-ons to increase occupancy rates particularly during off peak seasons along with refurbishments undergone in for the conference halls and meeting rooms. There will be two (2) business centers to be set up beside the ballroom areas to facilitate easy access to communication and printing requirements of the guests that are booked for the conferences and meetings. These business centers will be equipped with the latest IT facilities and state of the art communication systems that will answer to all types of needs of customers at all levels. These facilities are also expected to contribute to the income generated by the resort. Service Quality Since the resort saturate efforts to increase occupancy rates through massive promotional campaigns to be led by the resort Marketing Department. The rooms division will have its share of strategies and complementary efforts to upgrade the quality of service provided by the rooms division, particularly in the front desk, concierge, bell service and health and recreation departments which are the front liners of the resort. All staff at the front line would be required to learn Japanese Nippongo, Chinese Mandarin and Italian which are the most common language barriers as determined in the previous years. Aside from those, the staff had to improve their English communication skills. All staff of the division will have to undergo re-training and series of seminars on improving service quality. Butlers will be hired to provide special service to the guests at the VVIP suites. Flowers, chocolates, fruit baskets, beach bags, bathing suits and rubber sandals will be provided for the guests as promotional amenities. The image of the resort will depend on the excellent quality of service that the rooms division staff will provide the guests, as they enter the resort and reach the comforts of their rooms. (Branson 1998) Correspondingly, as a move to control the movement of customers, particularly those who will attend meetings, functions and parties, a separate route will be allocated for them, to protect the in-house guests from losing their privacy particularly those staying at the pool area. It is important to consider always, the privacy and comfort of the guests in the resort. This is what customers look for in hotels and resorts and that they are willing to pay much for that. (Gray 1992) Entrance to the pool area will therefore be limited to in-house guests although other restaurant and party patrons may be allowed discretely. Market Research  While there is a Marketing Department that specially focuses on finding the clients and developing strategies to attract guests and bookings (Gray 1992), the Rooms Division provides its counterpart move to market research. The early operations stage of the hotel will need the support of all the staff especially the expertise of the key people, like the Front Office Manager, the Executive Housekeeper and the different managers of the other departments in the rooms division to help determine the hotel’s target customers, their profile and their needs as well as determine how the rooms division services can satisfy them. The division will hold a strategic planning session to give inputs to market research. Here, the staff will give their expert ideas as to who the targeted clients are, where to find them, how the hotel can get them to book and most especially, how the hotel can satisfy them when they finally try the hotel services. The integrated inputs will be submitted to the Marketing Department for integration to the marketing plan. (Lane 1998) Production Development A major weakness identified in the plan is the deficiencies in providing maintenance services especially in the guestrooms. Guest complaints received in the previous year mostly were pointing to unserviceable facilities like the hot and cold water, busted bulbs, defective appliances, and even clogged bathtubs. In any service company, maintenance is as important as the other services provided. (Branson 1998) The division’s response to solve the problem would be to develop a maintenance preventive system that will require regular monitoring of facilities and assure that all is working well. Additional employees will be hired in the housekeeping department, those who already possess technical skills in maintenance and engineering so that housekeeping department can immediately solve minor technical problems without waiting for the engineering team to respond. Management Competencies The resort has been affected by fast employee turn-over and this will be answered by package incentives programmed by the Human Resource Department. Aside from the capability building programs being conducted for the staff skills upgrading including teambuilding and values development, the rooms division will institutionalize a regular learning session among management, which includes supervisors, assistant managers, managers and the division manager to improve the management competencies and benchmark on best practices. Food and Beverage Operation Plan The Food and Beverage Division comprises the FB Service and FB Production departments. FB Service will cover all restaurants, bars and the banquet; FB Production will cover the cold and hot kitchens, pastry and stewarding. Each of these departments is most critical and will contribute significantly to the total make-over of the resort. . The next 12-month operation strategies will aim to overcome the weaknesses as determined in the SWOT analysis which are lack of conference facilities and meeting rooms, high employee turn-over and the resignation of the Head Chef, shortfalls in planned maintenance activities and will focus on full blast refurbishment, upgrading the service quality, augmenting market research, enhancing service capacity and upgrading management competencies. Refurbishment In determining the courses of action to take, it is the SWOT that provides information on the focal concerns. (Branson 2002) Major problems identified in the SWOT were the lack of conference and meeting function areas. Management has decided to answer these needs and provide additional function areas. The focus of the Food and Beverage division on the refurbishment will be on the additional kitchen and storage facilities including kitchen fixtures, tools and equipment that will be put up specifically for the banquet areas. This will cater to the clients of the ballroom, conferences and meetings. The setting up of the banquet kitchen and storage beside the ballroom area will facilitate smooth and speedy transport of food for the specific banquet clients. The kitchen and storage must be able to provide food for at most 1,200 persons, which is the maximum capacity of the ballroom, conference rooms and meeting rooms all together. The expansion of the banquet will encourage local markets to book more parties, meetings and conferences and the resort will be able to accommodate big groups at the same time be flexible enough to accommodate small groups. Likewise for the food and beverage service, additional facilities, glassware, chinaware and silverware and other service tools and equipment will have to be procured for this purpose. Market Research The contribution of the food and beverage division to the over-all marketing strategy is the detailed identification of the targeted clients and how the resort will be able to satisfy them. (Cousins 2002) The general strategy of the resort for the next year is to improve food and beverage revenues through expansion of banquet services. The division will organize a special team of chefs and other banquet experts to study the preferred tastes of the target clients for the banquet and develop special menus that will appeal to prospective engagers. Series of food tasting sessions will be done and this will be coordinated with the resort PR department to invite media personalities and other influential people to promote the food and the service styles that are in store for the new resort image. Surveys may also be conducted to prospective companies and target groups to get their preferences in terms of service, food and the price. The team of FB leaders will have to find ways of developing menus that have lower cost so corresponding, lower prices will be offered to customers. This strategy intends to attract a wider margin of the market including those who would prefer practically priced menus and food and beverage package. Service Quality One of the possible causes of the fast turn-over of employees is the inability to cope with the demands of their jobs. Hotel work is not easy especially for those hired without skills. Employee involvement is very important in every move that the food and beverage division will undertake. (Gray 1992) The division will augment the activities conducted by the Human Resource department through coaching, mentoring and job rotation. This move will prepare next-in-line subordinates as alternates. The division will establish safety nets to protect the operation from being affected by employee absences or resignations. FB Managers and Chefs will work closely with the Human Resource Department to get the best and skilled people. Kitchen staff, particularly Chefs and other key positions like the Maitre-d’Hotel, Ice/Butter Carvers (Cousins 2002), will require special qualifications and ample experience. All staff will be trained on the company standard of values and service including the health aspect of food handling, aside from the specific skills training they will undergo. Simulation exercises and food and beverage tasting will have to be conducted to perfect the quality of food and beverages that will be served to guests. Special effort will have to be made to source for the Head Chef who will have to be provided special package incentives. Precautionary efforts will have to be made to retain hard to find skilled employees, which will be of utmost concern, not only by the Human Resource Department but also the FB Manager who oversees the work of the Head Chef and down the line chefs. Special commitment will have to be made by the Head Chef to be hired, whose role is very crucial to the success of the resort business. Production Development The expansion of the division particularly in the additional function areas will need complementing augmentation in terms of resort warm bodies and systems to equally make the service satisfying to the customers. The division will be expecting customers who are not â€Å"in house guests† for the parties, conferences and other meeting, therefore extra caution will have to be made by the staff, especially in billing guests to avoid losses for the restaurants. Procurement of supplies is critical in the production aspect. (Gray 1992) The key officers from the FB will have to be involved in the procurement as well as the design of the different kitchens and outlets. Their expertise will be needed for the sourcing and selection. All items to be procured will have to suit the standards set by the resort and the varying motifs of the FB outlets particularly the banquet functions. The resort will have will have to scan resources within reach and establish suppliers of hard to find facilities, supplies and ingredients. New technology on order taking and billing will be installed in all the food and beverage outlets. This is an on-line system that will centralize the billing and order taking to the computer which directly will generate summaries in the cashier. This computerization intends to systematize the process and prevent errors in the manual communication of orders and computation of bills. It is noted that this problem has caused stress to many staff in the restaurants, specifically for the waiters and order takers who made significant errors in orders and billings. The computerization intends to minimize these problems. Enhanced Management Competencies The rate of turn-over is highest among the chefs for the past years. Chefs have varying expertise that is crucial to the resort and hard to find. The resort will have to create special package of incentives for the chefs to assure that they are satisfied with the jobs. Chefs as well as the other supervisors and managers of the food and beverage division are relied on in terms of their expertise as well as their management capabilities. Many of the supervisors and managers have technical skills but lack the necessary management competencies. (Cousins et. al. 2002) Stephen Covey emphasized in his â€Å"Seven Habits of Highly Effective People† his seventh habit, which is most important is the â€Å"sharpening of the saw†, which means, every person no matter how effective and efficient will need to improve himself continuously to stay relevant. The food and beverage division will coordinate with the Human Resource department to prepare and package capability programs for the division management staff particularly on people handling, time management and stress management. They will also have series of IT enhancement particularly in Microsoft Office programs so that they will be able to cope up with the computer-based reporting systems being installed in the resort. These moves hope to improve the relations within the division and improve employee relations.