Assignment Task: Technology impacts hospitality supervision
Supervisors use the same basic procedures to develop a labour schedule in a computerized system as they would use in a manual system. First, desired productivity standards must be established. For example, a housekeeping manager might select 30 minutes as the time it should take a housekeeper to clean a room. Then the manager or supervisor must consider the factors (demand drivers) that affect staffing requirements. Examples include of guests per room, and the types of rooms. Exhibit 5.12 provided examples of the productivity/performance standards and demand drivers for three hotel depart.
With the desired productivity standards in place and the demand drivers selected, it takes a simple mouse click for supervisors to generate the staffing requirements for their departments. Scheduling software also lets supervisors assign employees to specific work schedules based on their preferences, seniority, union contract, wage costs and proficiency. This employee-centered scheduling approach might improve morale, reduce turnover and create maximum flexibility when allocating a hotel's greatest resource -its people.
Answer these questions from this paragraph
Question 1: Briefly summarizes the key points made in the short reading what considerations need to be entered? Briefly discuss two benefits of automated scheduling.
Question 2: Since the supervisor's world is never perfect and while automated scheduling certainly saves time, discuss why the supervisor still needs to carefully manage to schedule. Briefly discuss two variables that an automated system cannot plan for?