Sheraton Hotels - Risks and Rewards (Thinking Like a Small Hotel… Flattening the Curve)
As far back as January 1988 I joined the Pacfic Rim Consulting Group in Sydney to re-think the operating structure for multiple Sheraton properties across Australia to determine a more rational model for operations considering the rapidly rising costs of labour in Australia at the time.
We learned three key lessons from the exercise that we are currently using to develop organistion structures for our newest brand in 2023 the Orient & Occident Company and Visama Hospitality Group.
Re-write the organization chart to put several key department heads under one leadership.
Reward those leaders as Senior Executives with better terms and wider responsibility up to and including a share of profits.
Re-train and have only two operating departments – Rooms & F&B for smaller hotels using technology and AI to fill the gaps.
Essentially at the time we proposed to reduce the leadership of each hotel in the Sheraton group from well over 20 managers per property to a range of 4 – 6 senior leaders complimented by good shift supervisors – the flattening of that curve is still going on today.
It also allowed Sheraton to build up their Sales teams and thus impact bottom line performance of their Australia based hotels during the early 90’s. In the rapidly changing and diverse global online booking engines we have added extra-power in the form of Revenue Management Teams, Digital Marketing & Social Media Teams. Revenue Management with Machine learning at its evolving core is allowing hotel operators to more accurately read markets and prosper.
In summary we found that in thinking like a Small Hotel – the emphasis builds for greater guest / employee contact and an improvement in the level of the hospitality experience however headwinds of over-control are impacting ability of management to connect with guests. Thinking like a small hotel advocated 50% of a hotel manager’s time to be spent in direct contact with their teams and their guests.
