The hospitality industry is an umbrella term for three related industries. They are the hotel industry, the food and beverage industry, and the travel and tourism industry. While each facet of these industries has elements that make it unique, crossover elements do exist. As such, an effective hotel manager might actually make an effective restaurant manager (for example). Regardless, the key to success in any of these industries lies in effective management. If you’re a hospitality manager trying to up your game, consider implementing some the following tips to make yourself a better manager.
1. Relevant Education and Experience
The hospitality industry counts as one of the few industries where you can move up into key management positions without a college degree. In fact, most restaurant managers actually come from the ranks of current employees, according to Restaurant.org.
However, managers who get a degree or who take hospitality courses are better able to adjust to the varying demands of the job. These managers must not only know something about cooking or guest reservations, they must also know something about accounting, basic repairs, or even dishwashing or laundry. Training and education in all aspects of hospitality management helps them acquire these skills.
2. Hire the Right People
Experts remind hospitality managers that it’s not the physical location of business but their staff that is the restaurant or hotel’s most important asset. You can’t see everything or do everything that needs to get done. That’s why you have a good staff.
3. Hold Everyone to the Same Standard
This one is related to the tip above. Most managers have their favorites. It may not be avoidable. However, the successful manager holds everyone to the same standards, according to Matt Heller of Performance Optimist Consulting. Don’t hold your favorites to lower standards and your least favorites to higher standards. However, this goes both ways. Don’t hold your best people to higher standards to show that you aren’t playing favorites, for example. It’s a good way to burn out your best employees and lose your impact as a leader.
4. Get a Mentor in the Business
A mentor can help you steer clear of the business’s biggest pitfalls. This industry professional can also help you make connections in the industry that can be vital to the success of your business and your career.
5. Strengthen Your Organizational Skills
A hospitality manager is responsible for a lot: Hospitality managers must keep track of disparate business elements like uniforms, reservations, staffing, and scheduling. The only way to keep up with everything is by developing good organizational skills, according to HCareers.com. If you don’t have these skills, take time to learn them.
6. Delegate. Delegate. Delegate.
Part of keeping your team and yourself on track is knowing how and when to delegate. No one manager can do everything. If you’ve hired the right people, then you should know after a very short period of time to whom you can delegate what responsibility.
7. Set the Right Pace for Change
When things are going wrong – and sometimes, even when they’re going right – it can be tempting to institute a lot of changes all at once. However, this is a mistake for a number of reasons. First, people need time to truly develop new habits. If you load too many changes on your staff all at once, they’ll never be able to remember them all, let alone implement them. Slowly changing introducing new elements to your business also allows you to observe what changes are working and what aren’t. If you change too many elements at once, you may not know which change caused which improvement.
8. Keep Track of Your Cash
Approximately 30% of all cafes and restaurants fail the first year. This is in large part due to cash flow problems. Make sure you manage your cash well enough to keep the lights on or you won’t have a business.
9. Brush Up On Your Communication Skills
The ability to communicate well counts as one of the biggest demands placed on the people who work in the hospitality industries. Miscommunication not only causes issues with guests but also among employees. These miscommunications often force you to slow down long enough to put out the fires they cause. Prevent at least some of the fires by learning to communicate effectively.
10. Reward Good Work and Behavior
People who do good work should be rewarded with at minimum public praise but also occasionally with other types of incentives, like movie tickets or dinner coupons. This keeps the work environment positive and keeps toxic work environments at bay. Nothing erodes the success of your team, like a toxic work environment. Nothing will lose you, good employees, faster, either.
